Infrastructure

Three stories of failing infrastructure in the UK this week. The dam at Whaley Bridge lost a chunk of its run-off apron and there were fears of it bursting; there was a serious power cut across London and parts of the South East of England yesterday (not Guildford though!) and today part of the West Coast Main rail line between England and Scotland was underwater.

I think there are a couple of things going on here - one is that we're seeing the effects of climate change impacting us more and more. We won't suddenly go to a shrunken coastline and 50 degree C summers, we'll get there gradually with local flooding and a few more roasting days each year - these will be interspersed with other weird weather that we're not used to, it's a complex system that is changing and that means it's going to behave more and more unpredictably, our old models are partly broken.

The other thing is that our travel, power and water infrastructure is mostly at least 100 years old and while under public ownership it was fairly well-maintained, in private hands, short-term profits come first. This is going to creep up on us in the same way that climate change is creeping - and then suddenly we'll have no electricity for a week and the dominoes will start falling. We desperately need a different way of organising our economy and society.

Sweet dreams.