And while you’re at it, could you please build an anti-missile system in your garden? Then regulate the banks, replace the water mains, tax the very rich and use the proceeds to rebuild our schools. Well, come on people: what are you waiting for?
I exaggerate, but this isn’t very far from the approach taken by the government’s Prepare campaign. Crucial functions, way beyond the scope of individual action, are dumped on our doorsteps while those in power fail to act. As a result, our national resilience is arguably lower than at any time since the second world war.
At the Labour conference last week, Andy Burnham promised “a Britain where people feel the country has got their back again”. To make good on that pledge, he will have to change almost everything. It’s not that the advice offered by Prepare – a government campaign designed to promote readiness for environmental emergencies – is irrational.
But when the state is absent or working against us, households and communities cannot fill the gap. The campaign tells us, for example, to conserve water during droughts by turning off the tap while brushing teeth, or taking a shower instead of a bath. Every citizen should do their duty.
But the government has at the same time declared datacentres “nationally significant infrastructure projects” that can be forced through the planning system, despite two startling facts. The first is that even Water UK – the body representing water companies, those paragons of environmental responsibility – has said there isn’t enough water to support the new datacentres. The second is that, as a freedom of information response reveals, the government has no idea what they are being used for.
You could be turning off your taps so the water can be used to nudify celebrities. Talking of droughts, the government’s National Risk Register seems seriously out of whack. It estimates the risk of a drought with a moderate impact occurring in the next five years at just 0.2-1%.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
