MALVERN climate change activists from Extinction Rebellion have gathered in Worcester and Upton-upon-Severn to highlight the role of climate change in recent flooding.
Dressed as government workers at a desk doing ‘business as usual’ whilst knee deep in flood water, they held signs such as ‘Extreme weather is already here. Government needs to act now’ and ‘This is what climate chaos looks like. Fossil fuels must end.’
“There is a direct link between fossil fuel emissions and increasingly extreme weather events here in Worcestershire,” said retired ecologist Dr Johnny Birks.
“It’s a myth to think that climate change is something far off and that we can delay action – the crisis has already started.”
The crisis being referred to is the very recent floods caused by heavy rainfall across the region, as well as a spike in floods and their severity since the turn of the century.
Suzanne Savage, operations director at an organic farm on the River Teme, agrees that flooding is getting worse.
“We’ve always had flooding around here, but people don’t seem to realise that it’s happening much more frequently.
“The rate of extreme flooding in Worcester is now 6.5 times higher than last century,” she said.
Mrs Savage says the climate crisis will have an increasing impact on farming and food supply in the UK.
“Our weather used to be much more predictable, and that relative stability has allowed us to grow food reliably.
“This is no longer the case – we are now lurching between extremely dry and extremely wet weather every year, which will only get worse as the climate crisis deepens.
“This emergency is very real. Farmers are losing record numbers of crops and we’re concerned about how we will continue to feed people in this uncertain future.”
Dr Birks added: “the government report on managing the Severn River Basin is clear that floods are already deeper and more frequent, damaging homes, crops and livelihoods.
“We already spend billions of pounds on flood defences, but they are becoming obsolete as climate change brings record flood levels. Between 1865 to 2000, there were 5 floods over 5 metres at Diglis, and since 2000 there have been 9.”
