George Monbiot is right to warn us about the use of soil and carbon credits as part of “the war against reality” everywhere (Trump’s science-denying fanatics are bad enough. Yet even our climate ‘solutions’ are now the stuff of total delusion, 21 November). He omits, though, the other element essential for life on Earth: water.
Perhaps he has not heard of the latest Cambridge invention: “water credits”. These have been dreamed up by a “water scarcity group” to address the problem that East Anglia, the region chosen by the government for the greatest growth, is the driest in the country. While new reservoirs are proposed, and pipelines to bring water from as far afield as Wales, it is recognised that it will be years before these are functioning. Meanwhile, large-scale proposals for new hotels, retail, offices, and homes for the thousands of people who will come to work in them, sail through the planning system regardless.
Ofwat, the Environment Agency (EA) and Defra have raised serious concerns about Cambridge Water’s ability to meet this greatly increased demand and have written to it, highlighting concerns including flaws in data, leakage and harm caused to our chalk streams by overabstraction. It states unambiguously: “Your current performance is a risk to the environment and security of supply”.
The EA has already objected to major developments in this area because of the water scarcity, which means there is no way that they can be sustainable. But thanks to water credits, these rational objections can now be overruled, and the government, together with powerful interest groups, can continue to pursue the god of economic growth unhindered by logic or material facts.
It is indeed a “bubble of delusion”, and Monbiot is right: “You can send your legions to war with reality, but eventually we all lose.”
Jean Glasberg
Councillor, Cambridge city council
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