This on the face of it looks like something Alex Jones would say but here me out here.
This all became possible thanks to the creation of the Environment Agency in 1997 and subsequently the adoption of the European Water Framework Directive in 2000. Because of this Directive the authorities now no longer have a perceived duty to prevent flooding. Instead the emphasis is now primarily on an obligation to achieve “good ecological status” for our rivers. Their definition for this statement is “as close as possible to undisturbed natural conditions” or “unmodified waters.”
Therefore, rivers dredged or embanked to prevent flooding cannot by definition ever satisfy the terms of the directive. In order to comply with the EU directive, we are obligated to stop dredging, embanking and allow rivers to re-connect with their floodplains. Therefore, any dredging that has occurred is technically not legal. This does not mean that dredging of course no longer happens. It means that it is far less frequent than it was prior to said directive.
Flooding is a natural phenomenon that will always happen; however, it is entirely fair to say that the directive could potentially have had an impact when we see how frequent towns end up under water and main roads end up closed for several weeks every year.
In order to prove that the directive is causal we will need evidence to prove that flood events have occurred due to a lack of dredging taking place after the directive came into effect.
In 2013-14 the rivers Parrett and Tone both broke their banks leaving large areas of Saltmoor and Northmoor literally underwater. People were evacuated and the major A road A361 was closed for 10 weeks. A report was released which confirmed that dredging would have significantly reduced the number of houses submerged underwater. Had the rivers been dredged according to the report 90% of the homes wouldn’t have been underwater. The agency used a computer model to replicate the impact of the flooding to get said results.
Every year similar situations are occurring all over the United Kingdom costing the tax payer billions when preventative measures (dredging) would cost significantly less.
Whilst following the EU directive to allow rivers to re-connect with their floodplains the government is also granting consent to build new houses on the very same floodplains/land the directive wishes to flood, all over the country. What would be the purpose of this madness, why would the government approve houses on land they want to flood? Incompetence maybe. Maybe however they willingly setup this situation so that they can blame Climate Change. People will be forced to take seriously a literal example of towns underwater annually over an argument.
The state essentially is a small group of people with a monopoly on the use of force. Laws are essentially opinions with guns. If I want you to do something you can of course refuse and nothing will happen. However if the government tell you to do something that is another matter. You will be forced at gun point.
I will expand on this in future blog posts. But once you understand that the state, the government is just a small group of people with opinions who’s only tool is force you realise why issues like this occur. People who want to control other people with guns typically won’t be the best of us shall we say.
When you use force to achieve a goal usually the opposite desired effect occurs.
Reasoning from first principles 