Re-Arranging The Deck Chairs on The Titanic?

The big floods in Cork in 2009 were a stark warning to the city that it is vulnerable to massive flooding if the wrong conditions prevailed. Cork is low-lying, close to the sea and at the head of a major river system situated along the Lee Valley. After 2009, plans were put in place to upgrade the city’s flood defences. Cork City Council and the Chamber of Commerce hitched the city’s future to a plan hatched by the Office of Public Work. Known as the “Walls Plan”, essentially it involves the construction of over 15 kms of flood defence walls, raised embankments and demountable walls along the Lee’s north and south channels. Under this plan these physical barriers would be further supported by a series of deep drainage chambers and pumping stations located at various places around the city. The Walls Plan will cost a fortune and is likely to do untold damage to the visual appeal of Cork’s old quay walls.

The OPW and Cork City Council engaged the services of ARUP, an engineering firm, to draw up a proposal for implementing the Walls Plan. ARUP’s first flood barrier report was produced in 2018 and was presented to the city and public for scrutiny in the Spring of last year (2019). ARUP promised that if implemented in full, their plan would protect Cork city from flooding for the next 200 years. However, within just a few short months, this guarantee was dropped. Last September ARUP revised their report, declaring that their one-meter high barrier wall system along the Lee would now protect the city of Cork for only 50 years.

The IPCC projections for world sea level increases (in metres). The next IPCC report is expected by 2023. Current projection based on the IPCC’s data seriously undermine the basis for the ARUP’s flood protection plan.

This was a massive climbdown. But it also begs the question: why the sudden and dramatic downgrade from 200 to just 50 years? The answer to this question is both interesting and alarming. ARUP, it turned out, had based their original 200-year guarantee on an outdated report from the IPCC. The IPCC stands for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC is a UN funded organisation that is responsible for gathering data on what is happening worldwide to the earth’s climate. It reports on temperatures rises, biodiversity, deforestation and carbon emissions. One of the areas that the IPCC also reports on is global sea levels.

In 2018, the IPCC issued a special report updating its predictions on sea level rises – resulting from climate crisis. This report noted “that global mean sea levels will most likely rise between 0.95 feet (0.29m) and 3.61 feet (1.1m) by the end of this century (2100).” It was as a result of this new data produced by the IPCC that ARUP changed their guarantee from 200 years to just 50 years protection.

However, it is widely believed that the the real situation is worse than that which the IPCC are currently reporting.

• The IPCC projections are generally regarded as conservative and do not include the full range of scenarios scientists think are now possible. In other words, even if we take a conservative look at what is happening (the IPCC’s view) things are likely to be a lot worse: sea level rises are likely to increase even more than what was suggested in the 2018 report.
• Other information also confirms a worsening global outlook. A new report published in the journal Advances In Atmospheric Sciences (see Guardian 13/1/20), points out that due to the build-up of greenhouse gases, the rate of increase in the temperature of the sea water is accelerating. Between 1987 to 2019 the temperature of the sea rose at a rate four and a half times faster than what was recorded during the years 1955 to 1986. This suggests there could be more extensive ice cap depletion in the years ahead which will lead inevitably to higher sea water levels.

Recent news reports also confirm that the past decade, 2010-2019, was the warmest on record, further suggesting that we are in for a new accelerated warming period – a fact which will again lead to greater icecap depletion and further sea level increases.

The IPCC is not due to formally report again until 2022. However, going by the recent trend, it is likely to return then with a much worse general scenario which is likely to wash away the entire basis for anyone supporting the costly and ugly Walls Plan. Unfortunately, the predicted rise in sea water levels also removes the arguments in favour of the lower harbour tidal barrier – supported by the Love The Lee campaign.

Where does this bad news leave us? The answer is that it leaves us in a situation where action must be taken. Radical Rebellion is about working for new alternative. We need to save this planet. But there is no way that we can implement the vital changes that are now needed unless we address the elephant in the room: capitalism. The ‘free market’ has been a disaster for this planet, leading to large scale irresponsible exploitation of almost every aspect of the earth’s resources alongside massive inequality. This cannot go on! Not only is it wrong, it is also unsustainable! There is no way forward without addressing the economic reality that production today is driven by the demands of the ‘One Percent’. We need to break the tyrannical insanity of the market and corporations. Working people must plan production for the needs of people, not profit, and in harmony with the environment. There is no other way! This question – of how we run this planet’s economy in a fair and sustainable way – must be addressed as part of the solution. We in Radical Rebellion intend to do this.