There were a couple of rays of sunshine amongst the seething clouds of stupid, planetless bipeds.

Some members of the environment agency believe that in an era of global burning there should be a limit to further developments in flood plains, "Environment agency chief executive, ed gallagher called for a "stronger presumption" against planning authorities granting permission for developments in areas at risk from flooding. "We have already got two million homes in the flood plain, and a number of the homes that are planned to be built in the future are in flood plain and flood risk areas. "That really should not be allowed to happen if we are to expect the sort of weather that is occurring now," Mr Gallagher said." Environment agency spokesman archie robertson said, "That means a completely different approach to protecting ourselves from flood risk."

Shadow environment secretary archie norman, keen to make a few cheap political points, argued, "It is now clear that the huge amount of house building on the countryside carries with it a heavy price. It has been a contributory factor to the risk of flooding. John prescott’s determination to force an acceleration of house building on green fields can only make the problem worse. The time has come to stop building on our green fields and to concentrate on the major challenge of reviving our inner cities." However, the integrity of tories cannot be trusted - it is simply unimaginable that a tory government would adopt such a proposal rather than allowing a free market in the construction of new houses which would be demanded by the multi-national construction corporations contributing to tory party slush funds.

"Some 1.85m homes, 185,000 commercial properties and 5m people were now at risk from flooding in Britain, the report noted, and the risk was growing with pressure for more brown site building. The committee recommended that councils should only authorise flood plain development in exceptional circumstances, and that local plans should be revised to remove flood risk land from areas designated for development."

Vast stretches of the country’s flood plains have already been built on, "Environment Agency chief executive, ed gallagher (said) "We have already got two million homes in the flood plain." This is equivalent to one fifth of the population, "Up to 5m people live in flood risk areas in England where there are 1.8m properties valued at over £200bn," said Geoff Spence, the (environment) agency's director of water management."; "One in 10 people in the u.k. live on flood plains. Nearly 400,000 homes were built on flood plains in the last 20 years. An estimated 28,000 of those in the last three years."; "The Environment Agency (EA), which claims it is £100m million a year underfunded, says that there are 1.8m homes and 135,000 commercial premises in Britain built on flood plains. These are worth £35 billion and were built mainly in the Seventies and Eighties."

Prior to the autumn 2000 floods there were plans for further massive developments of flood plains, "The number of planning applications to build on flood plains has tripled over the last four years nationally." It has been suggested, "As many as 342,000 new homes could be at risk of flooding by 2021 if development trends continue, the Environment Agency warned the Government today."; "Of the four million new homes likely to be built by 2016, it is estimated that a quarter are zoned for flood plains."

After the floods, the government made it clear it has no intention of stopping de-velopments on flood plains, "But a new planning policy guidance note from the Department of the Environment, likely to be issued within four months, will not ban flood plain development outright. Housebuilders have successfully argued that this would force up the price of land in risk-free areas at a time when the housing market has been rocketing for four years. In addition, pressure for new homes is intense, particularly in the flood-risk area of the South East."

The environment agency is still giving the go-ahead for so-called developments in flood plains. There are, after all, areas which are in flood plains and there are areas which are really in flood plains. The former are areas which can be protected by flood prevention measures whilst the latter are areas which would be too costly to protect. Thus, the environment agency has recently given the go-ahead for a housing scheme on the flood plain in south oxfordshire, "Objections from the Environment agency and oxfordshire county council were withdrawn recently after banner (construction company) agreed to fund flood prevention .. measures .."

After the fright caused by the autumn 2000 floods there have been a spate of proposals for flood construction projects to combat future floods. Their sole concern seems to be to push flood waters as fast as possible downstream onto neighbour urban areas. John prescott, one of the few environmentally literate members in blair’s eco-nazi government, wanted more flood defence systems - although, unfortunately, it is still not clear whether these would be natural or artificial. On 6th november he gave an extra money for new schemes, "Mr Prescott said the latest floods had been a "wake-up call" and he called for a "complete reassessment" over the issue of flood defences. The deputy prime minister, who runs the department for the environment, transport and the regions, announced on saturday that the government would be making available an extra £51m for flood defences."

The damage that pharmers inflicted on the country’s life support system as a result of the floods was substantial enough but if there is going to be additional damage to the Earth as a result of the con-struction of new flood fortification schemes pharmers want to play their part in it. It has already been pointed out that the national drainage system is far more prevalent in rural, than in urban, areas and that pharmers have got urban dwellers to fork out vast sums of money to fund the creation of desert pharmlands. Since the autumn 2000 floods exposed pharmers’ unnatural practices, the pharming industry has been desperate for further flood construction projects to prevent further floods from pouring off pharmers’ land so that the public won’t be able to blame them for future floods.

After the autumn 2000 floods, pharmers growing subsidies near coastal areas started to realize they needed major flood construction projects to prevent seas from inundating their land and snuffing out their subsidies. However, the government decided years ago that it was going to allow large areas of pharmland to be flooded rather than build sea fortification systems so it is going to require a lot of hard wining and dining by the land-owning, pharming aristocracy to change the government’s mind.

Rather than demanding the abandonment of pharmland for the sake of Reforestation, some environmentalists seem intent on feeding pharmers’ addictions to state subsidies, one of the biggest causes of the floods, suggesting that pharmers should be given massive state subsidies for small scale flood defence projects. Boardman’s criticisms of pharmers’ responsibilities for local flooding have been highlighted above but his recommendations are limited to a variety of measures which would mitigate the flooding caused by prairie pharming, "He called for the government subsidies to be targeted at specific problem areas and more schemes and grant money to help communities, and farmers. The farmers would then be able to construct small dams using special payments. "There are many places in the southern Netherlands, Belgium and northern France, with histories of property damage by runoff, where radical approaches involving co-operation between local communities and farmers and EU funding have started to make progress in providing protection", Mr Spence said."

Boardman also believes another way of combating floods would be to designate some agricultural land as flood overspill. However, rather than suggesting that the land should be allowed to Reforest itself, he argues pharmers should be allowed to use the areas for grazing in the intervals between floods, "Some experts believe 'strategic flooding', where farmland is allowed to flood while resources are concentrated on protecting housing and industry, is one way forward." So, rather than the Earth combating floods, and global burning, through natural Reforestation, boardman wants to allow pharmers to continue wrecking the Earth and then compensate them when floods occur.

At the end of january 2001, the government announced a second lot of funds for flood con-struction projects - mainly to the pharming industry. This is ostensibly to compensate them for the damage they suffered as a result of the floods but in reality the money is to persuade pharmers to adopt new flood construction policies to stop them from causing further floods, "Flood defences will get an extra £11.6 million following the autumn deluge, it was revealed yesterday. Countryside minister elliot morley announced the cash injection when he visited one of the worst hit areas, selby in east yorkshire." After all, it’s getting more and more difficult for politicians to cover up the environmental damage being caused by these Earth-wrecking morons.

It is more than likely that the pharmer-induced autumn 2000 floods are going to become just another excuse for loading pharmers with even more welfare benefit payments so that they can continue using their tax-free tractors running on tax-free fuel to boost global burning. Prior to the autumn floods, many pharmers weren’t interested in global burning. Most denied it; some believed there was nothing that could be done about climate change. As a result of the floods, however, they have started to take the issue more seriously because they have realized there is the possibility of using it to obtain yet more subsidies e.g. flood construction projects. Given that nobody in society would dream of blaming pharmers for being the primary cause of global burning and floods, (just as nobody in society would dream of blaming them for spreading bse) there would be few political obstacles to policies providing pharmers with yet more subsidies for flood construction projects - especially when the house of lords continues to be packed with large landowners and pharmers. Anyway, the maffia works in almost total secrecy - over the last three decades there has been no public debate about the maffia’s expenditures on drainage schemes for pharmers, so the same tactic is likely to be used for the latest round of flood construction projects. The maffia seems to believe that if pharmers want flood construction projects then this is a matter solely for debate between itself and the pharmers - the public has no right to intrude on the provision of yet more pharming subsidies.

The measures proposed for making the country flood-proof are going to be wide ranging and the costs would be prolific.

Some civil engineers and water managers are calling for the flood-proofing of homes and roads, ensuring that .. "britain's homes are watertight and its transport system trouble-free during future floods ..."

"Years of under-investment and short-term profiteering by the big housebuilders, rail companies and local councils have left Britain unable to deal with extreme weather. And we will have to play a massive game of catch-up if flood defences are to be sufficiently robust.

• Roads may have to be dug up to fit drainage suction pumps which should have been installed when they were first built.

• Tens of millions of pounds will have be spent shoring up electricity pylons and overhead electrical rail cables.

• A major redesign of housebuilding methods could cost up to £150 million per year, adding thousands to the price of a new home.

• Additional safety measures for tall buildings will also be introduced, adding to the rent burden of UK businesses."

"Mr Spence .. said he would like to see the development of "porous cities", where pavements soak in water, drains run into tanks and water is prevented from immediately running into rivers."

It has been estimated that providing flood con-struction, and waterproofing, systems to keep nature out of the entire country would cost billions, "To ensure Britain's homes are watertight and its transport system trouble-free during future floods will cost billions of pounds, leading civil engineers and water managers are warning."; "The government estimates global warming could mean spending an extra £12bn on flood defences in the next 50 years, but has only committed an extra £30m. Yesterday the environment agency said: "We argued for an extra £100m. There has been under-investment in the past.""

On the 14th october, it was reported the insurance industry was claiming the property damage caused by the october floods were devastating .. "insurance firms braced themselves for £4 billion worth of claims following the worst flooding in 30 years. It is britain’s biggest freak weather bill and four times the cost of the 1987 hurricane. Yesterday waters which devastated homes and businesses across the south east were subsiding. But there was more flooding in kent and flood alerts went out in the midlands. They include the rivers wreake, soar, trent, blythe, avon and severn. Jeffrey salmon, of salmon assessors, said, "This looks as if it is going to be britain’s costliest natural disaster. The flooding is likely to cost insurers more than £2 billion. However, the actual cost could top £4 billion when you include those who are not insured ..."

At the time, it was believed the november floods would impose huge costs on the insurance industry.

On the 3rd november it was estimated that .. "3,000 properties have been swamped .. " On the 7th november "Across England and Wales more than 3,600 properties have been flooded, including at least 1,000 in York, which has seen its worst floods since 1625." On the 19th november the estimate was 6,000 homes.

After the first day of the floods it was predicted, "The storms could end costing insurance companies £2.5 billion." This would have been greater than the 1987 storm i.e. another billion dollar insurance catastrophe. On the 10th november a more modest estimate was, "An estimated £500 million damage has been caused."

By the end of december the figure for the number of properties damaged was even higher .. "this autumn's floods, when 6,500 homes were swamped ..."

"Councils in Britain's worst hit flood region united in rebellion yesterday against an emergency levy which threatens to add £7 per house to local council tax each year. Authorities controlled by all three parties joined the revolt in Yorkshire, where the regional flood defence committee refused to back the environment agency's request for an extra £10.8m to strengthen battered river defences."; "EA managers also warned that council tax is likely to rise to pay for the cost of fighting floods. Last week councillors in Yorkshire were asked to add £6 a head for each council tax payer in the county - a rise of 59% in the flood defence levy. The EA has asked for a rise of 15% in Sussex; 42% in Northumberland; 16% in the southwest and similar increases across much of the country including Kent, the Midlands and north Wales. An increase of 28.5% has also been agreed in Somerset. Geoff Mance, the EA's national director of water management, said: "We raise about £250m a year for fighting floods. Next year we will need about £60m extra.""

The industry’s response to the autumn floods was to move closer to refusing insurance cover for areas vulnerable to flooding. Given the labour government’s besottment with the landowning, rural elite, it was not politically feasible for the insurance industry to formally adopt such a policy, "This weekend two of the country’s leading insurers announced that hundreds of thousands of householders who had suffered floods would be blacklisted and denied cover. Axa insurance and legal & general said that it was up to the government to look after homeowners in such "uninsurable areas"." But, at some point in time, the insurance industry is going to have to withdraw insurance cover in areas vulnerable to flooding because it is becoming increasingly difficult to afford to insure people who freely choose to live in such places.

The brutish eco-nazis’ response to the floods is not to admit they were wrong in denying climate change but to demand the implementation of more and more flood construction schemes. These schemes will boost global burning and enhance flooding. Strangely none of the eco-nazis behind these schemes shows the slightest interest in carrying out a ‘Carbonomics’ analysis to measure the impact of these schemes on the Earth’s life support system. Those unsavoury days in the early 1990s when european legislation required politicians to carry out environmental impact statements are now long gone - lost in the hysterical nastiness of rabid, right-wing, anti-europeanism - a suitable companion to their anti-cfc, anti-dope, anti-bse, anti-global burning stance.

The latest suggestion for preventing future floods, which has widespread support amongst motorists, is for river bypasses. Apparently, there are already some in existence. In this country, many villages and towns have grown quietly over the millenia alongside rivers - experience telling them how close buildings could be to the rivers without facing constant inundation. Suddenly, after centuries in existence, they find themselves vulnerable to flooding. The plans being discussed to counter future flooding do not include abandoning these urban areas, and allowing the Earth to regulate the floods in its own highly efficient ways. On the contrary, they involve moving the rivers (sic) or digging massive channels to divert some of the water, around the towns and villages. The construction of river bypasses will, of course, release more greenhouse gases and further damage the Earth’s life support system. It may also require the construction of new roads causing a further boost to global burning.

Brayan taylor has recognized that flood construction projects pass floods onto people living further downstream. He realizes that a crucial part of the problem of preventing floods is to keep the water upstream and then release it slowly over the following weeks to prevent surges of water creating floods. He believes this role could be played by strategically placed, concrete structures - many of which would probably involve a degree of deforestation, "We must learn to control our rivers, as others have done in many parts of the world. Flood control means dealing with excess water upstream, in the upper and lower headwaters, not in building more dykes and flood walls around urban areas. In recent years, we have come to realise that walling the lower reaches of our rivers is counter-productive as it speeds the flow making for more destructive floods where there is any weakness. In past times, control involved using controlled floods in the form of water meadows which were fed by sluices. We should use this system to take the power from the swollen river and divert it to flatter land where much of it can soak away to the depleted aquifers. What is needed are more weirs, low dams and sluices in the upper reaches of our rivers." This motorized, meat headed, cement lined, commentator fails to recognize that regulating floods use to be the traditional role played by Forests.

The construction of flood con-struction systems to save pharmers’ land will require huge subsidies. These projects will cause even more damage to the Earth’s life sustaining processes which will boost both global burning and future flooding, thereby requiring more subsidies. Pharmers spread the bse and bse-cjd epidemics around britain and the european continent and, for their troubles, received truly gigantic subsidies. Having been given huge subsidies for installing drainage systems on their land, which have been causing floods, they are now demanding subsidies for modifications to these drainage systems. If these trends continue, then soon it will be easier just to give pharmers money whenever rain falls on their land. Pharmers are geophysiological ignoramuses who claim they are the only people who know anything about the environment and that they, and they alone, are guardians of the deserts they call ‘the countryside’. It is not surprising that pharmers, the primary cause of floods and global burning, seek more subsidies for con-struction projects because this will exacerbate flooding and global burning, enabling them to make further demands for even more subsidies. But it is surprising that greens, who should know better, support them up to the hilt. Sometimes the suspicion arises that pharmers are not accidentally causing global burning by burning down Forests, allowing soils to erode, grazing slave Animals, installing water drainage systems, and constructing flood defence projects. Could it be they are highly intelligent people who long ago realized that pharming is no longer about growing crops, nor even pharming subsidies from the government, but destabilizing the climate in order to force society to provide them with increasing subsidies? No, that can’t be right. Pharmers are just gross ignoramuses who constantly damage the Earth but are lucky enough to be admired by a society which is willing to give them whatever subsidies they need to guarantee the production of cadavers - no matter how disease ridden the corpses might be and how much it might destabilize the climate. The sheer profusion and lavishness of the subsidies being given to pharmers represents not so much a gravy train as a tidal slurry.

The autumn 2000 floods provided another tiny piece of evidence about the threat posed by global burning but they were proof of the devastation of the country’s life support system. And yet this did not stop the labour government from implementing a range of policies that would increase global burning and exacerbate Photosynthetic devastation. Even though blair took time off from the high life with corporate high-rollers to visit flood victims and insisted something needed to be done to combat climate change, he then went ahead with the most appalling number of eco-nazis projects. In the middle of the country’s worst floods seen in centuries blair capitulated to motorists over petrol prices; to the road construction industry over new roads; to the landowning pharming elite over the Animal slavery industry, and to the house construction industry over new houses. This is quite the most remarkable coincidence of events in recent brutish history. What makes this worse is that it was three year into blair’s government before he finally decided to mention the environment and announced a piddling grant for a few recycling schemes, "Mr blair told of his shame that england and wales recycle only 9% of their paper, glass and cans while holland manages to recycle 45% and america 32%. He kick started his crusade by promising £50 million of lottery cash to provide kerbside waste recycling for 700,000 homes." Worse still is that blair had promised not merely reduction of 12.5% in Carbon emissions under the non-existent kyoto agreement but an additional reduction of 20%, "The government's other commitment is domestic, not international, and was part of the manifesto on which the Labour party successfully campaigned in the 1997 general election. It promises to reduce emissions of the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide (CO2), by 20% from their 1990 levels by 2010. The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has told Parliament this promise is "not negotiable". Friends of the Earth has called the commitment "the single most important green promise in Labour's manifesto."" No wonder it’s said that blair is like wilson but without the backbone. If the government’s response to every geophysiological disaster is an acceleration in the policies for the devastation of the country’s Photosynthetic capacity then there is only going to be one eventuality.

In the middle of the floods the labour government capitulated to motorists and reduced the price of petrol which will increase Carbon emissions

In the middle of the floods the labour government capitulated even further to the road construction industry and announced another massive number of new roads which would further devastate the country’s Photosynthetic capacity and make the country even more prone to flooding.

In the middle of the floods the labour government capitulated to the countryside alliance and published a rural green paper aiming to improve life in rural areas - all of which would further devastate the country’s Photosynthetic capacity, make the country even more prone to flooding and boost global burning.

Despite the floods, despite the intense negotiations at the hague to salvage the complete and utter farce of reducing Carbon emissions, the prescott decided to proceed with his ‘pick a number and build’ policy for house construction. Even the house of commons’ agricultural committee condemned such devastation, "The Mps' criticism came in a report calling for urgent government action to slow the rate of house building and agricultural development on flood plains to counter the risk of floods such as this autumn's, when 6,500 homes were swamped and the nation suffered the most extreme floods since records began in 1766. The report is particularly timely since it comes three days after the deputy prime minister, John Prescott, gave the go-ahead for 39,000 homes a year to be built in the south-east, despite the environment agency warning the risk of flooding would rise if they were built on flood plains."

When the tories were in power they decided that the planning process should be guided by the principle that there should be a presumption in favour of development. Although it is believed that the labour government changed this policy, the new policy is virtually no different. It has recently been reported that "Britain's environmental credentials were yesterday ripped to shreds by the European commission, which accused the government of sacrificing endangered species to the demands of developers. In a damning statement the commission said it was taking legal action against the UK in the European court of justice because the government paid scant attention to environmentally important areas when granting planning permission, and did far too little to save the often fragile habitats of endangered species. The commission cited damage to breeding and resting sites used by otters, great crested newts and all species of bat. Under the European Union's habitats directive, the most important piece of wildlife legislation agreed by EU member states, the government is allowed to grant exceptions to protection if it believes "there are imperative reasons and an overriding case to do so". However, the commission stated that the government was hardly bothering to enforce the directive, and granting exceptions to almost anyone who asked. It said: "Licences seem to be issued as a formality after development consent for a construction or infrastructure project has already been given, and do not appear to involve a careful weighting of the arguments for and against allowing damage to occur." Tony Juniper, of Friends of the Earth, said "The government has only got itself to blame because it has taken a minimalist approach to conservation. It has ignored the spirit and the legal intent of the directive. They have not taken species protection seriously or given over sufficient areas for protection. We and other green organisations have repeatedly complained to the commission, which has at last acted. We are very pleased.""