Our climte is changing and though many good efforts are being made to slow down the effects of change, we shouldn’t ignore the fact that change is inevitable and we should also be adapting to the changing environment.
Much attention has been placed on the Earthquake disaster recovery scenario (Orion) this week which saw various UK emergency services put to the test in cooperation with a number of european counterparts.
Criticism has been aimed sqaurely at the choice of scenario, with many claiming that the UK will never experience an earthquake that would reach 8 on the richter scale.
Perhaps this scenario is particularly unlikely, but it gave those participating the circumstances within which they could test their responses to the most extreme situations: people trapped under rubble, vehicles stuck in various precarious and dangerous positions, mass fatalities etc. which could also be caused by bomb explosions or even severe storms and flooding which are even more likely.
Flooding, heat waves and droughts are set to become more intense as the years roll on and our current building designs, sea defences and transport infrastructure are constructed to withstand only a certain level of weather ‘attack’.
In a recent article on FT.com regarding this subject writer Fiona Harvey cites the following:
“Last year the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, an international body for the engineering industry, found that much of the infrastructure wealthy countries take for granted would be at risk from the effects of global warming: water and sewage systems, the electricity network and all forms of transport.”
So I firmly believe that it was the right choice to pick an extreme scenrio to test our UK response teams, that included major destruction of buildings and transport infrastructure in the UK. Let’s just hope that such a devestating disaster does not happen before we adapt our infrastructure to meet the climate change threat.
