Holding back the flood.

Flooding in England, monstrous snow storms in America, overbearing baking heat in Australia and that's just in the last few months. I don't think anyone can deny (although some may try) that our climate is changing. The climate has always been fluctuating, never static, history recounts frost-fairs held on the Thames 200 years ago when the ice was thick enough to support printing presses, elephants and didn't melt under day long bonfires but then was warm enough for thin muslin empire line dresses in Jane Austen's time (think back to Pride and Prejudice) and don't forget the Romans had vineyards across the country as did many abbeys in the middle ages. You don't need the backing of mountains of data to accept these as truths or to understand that our climate is fickle, subject to many influences some of which we understand, some we've just discovered and others which are, as yet, totally beyond our ken. Climate change is constant but I question what proportion of that change is down to man's activities. As climatology is a relatively new science with only a very small dataset, in comparison with the scope of global climate in geological time, any predictions and forecasts no matter how complex the programme are only estimates based on what we know - which is relatively little. Thus, until time passes and can be proven with ever larger datasets, any conclusions reached must be understood to hold a large degree of error, however, this is not always the case, many are taken as absolute fact as if set in stone only to be disproved not many years later. In the sixties we were heading to a new ice age, in the late eighties it was a dust bowl and gardeners were told to plant gravel gardens and desert plants, now Waterworld? Man has certainly added to and changed the gaseous environment but to what extent? Enough to cause the cataclysmic events of the past year? I don't believe so. Neither do I believe that man’s impact since he first set foot on the planet has had a major role in shaping the climate, environment - yes, individual ecosystems - definitely, local microclimate - possibly but not enough of a significant impact on global climate to have made sufficient difference to alter the course of our changing climate to a detectable degree.
What I do believe is that we've wasted decades trying to stop the inevitable by reducing carbon emissions, cutting methane, making energy efficiency measures compulsory to reduce emissions (energy efficiency is generally a good idea but we're approaching it from the wrong standpoint - and that's a whole different blog or should that be rant?) when what we should be doing is to prepare. Getting ready for longer, colder winters and longer, more severe wetter times (whenever) and drier periods too, instead of investing in emission reduction we should be using technology to ensure that our homes, work places and lives in general are fit to withstand more snow, more or less water, greater extremes in temperature. Working with the land instead of against it making use of centuries old techniques that have been proven to work with our predominantly man-made landscapes; with people helping them to understand why they should use the best methodologies possible instead of enforcing them through pointless decree; with business to encourage sensible long term solutions of redevelopment, of not building on flood plains, looking at use of permeable hard standing; with innovators to consider ways to deal with wide ranging temperature, water storage and flood prevention, not to mention ensuring longer term food sustainability.
So stop being Canute and be more of a Da Vinci, Newton, Einstein or even a Dyson!