Snap and Scribble

A lot of the land in eastern Essex, and in Suffolk and Norfolk, is below sea level. This is most easterly part of England to the north of the Thames estuary, on the edge of the North Sea. It is mostly marshland that has been reclaimed from the sea at various points over the last couple of thousand years.

This reclaimed marshland is protected from flooding by a vast network of seawalls and drainage ditches – which allow rainwater to run off at low tide. And these seawalls have to be constantly maintained, because the tides and currents of the river on the other side are constantly working to erode them. But, recently, the British government has been trying to get out of its obligation to look after these sea defences and let large areas of land flood.

They capitalise on the fact that a large proportion of the population seem to be in some sort of eco frenzy these days and drag out the excuse of global warming. I think their argument goes something like “sea levels are going to rise in the future because of global warming, so lets just get it over with and flood this land ourselves, before nature does it for us”. Which, of course, makes absolutely no sense at all.

All the government cares about, of course, is saving the maintenance costs – so they can give the money to their rich mates, as a form of “dole for the obscenely wealthy”. But, of course, they’re enthusiastically supported by a bunch of “greenie” academics pushing their own ideological bandwagons.

There have been constant attacks on coastal communities in the south east over the last few years, and the latest one is unfolding at the moment. Some shadowy organisation called “Natural England” has come up with a proposal to flood a vast area of the Norfolk Broads – a reclaimed coastal zone, a hundred kilometers or so to the north of where i grew up. They want to sacrifice thousands of acres of farmland and six villages, along with some beautiful lakes and wetlands, to their “environment” god.

Natural England, it seems, advises the government on these matters. By the look of it, it’s a government body masquerading as a non-government body. The board’s appointed by the secretary of state and consists of the usual rent-a-crowd of knights, professors and assorted academics – some of whom, no doubt, have been given their cushy jobs as a reward for “services rendered”, or to get them out of other jobs where they were causing problems of some sort.

These academic types are constantly pushing for low lying areas of the coast around here to be given back to the sea for “environmental” reasons. They claim it’s a good thing for wildlife – which, no doubt, it would be – for some animals, but not for others. But there’s more than wildlife involved here. The south east of England is one of the most densely populated parts of the planet. The area around where i grew up gets more and more crowded every year. Land on this little island is extremely valuable – and these clowns want to get rid of some of it!

Britain produces considerably less food than it consumes, and is almost totally dependent on imports to survive. And these lunatics want to destroy some of the small amount of remnant farmland – and make us even more dependent on imported food!

I suppose they think it’s better for the “environment” for land here to be surrendered to the sea – and for our food to be produced on land that was rainforest last year and will be desert next year. But that’s somewhere else, so who cares? And, of course, the food’s got to be shipped halfway round the planet before we can eat it – and that’s hardly good for the environment, either.

Another important consideration , of course, is that humans are part of the environment too. People have to live on this crappy little island, and it’s crowded and unpleasant enough, without adding to the problems by getting rid of vast areas of wild and open marshland – in a part of England where open space is getting rarer and rarer.

Natural England and the government want to destroy vast areas of beautiful open country, like the part of Essex where i grew up – and where my ancestors worked on the land for hundreds of years – all in the name of “nature”. But how about they lead the way – by bulldozing their posh houses, planting trees where they used to be, and moving into a high rise block of flats on a council estate?

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