Environment Secretary Angela Eagle has advised the public to stock up on supplies in anticipation of extreme weather conditions. The Met Office has predicted an exceptional El Nino event, where sea temperatures in the tropical eastern Pacific rise 0.5C above the long-term average, which is expected to surpass 3C in the upcoming months. This event is described as “the largest since the 19th century.”
The El Nino phenomenon increases the likelihood of drought in the tropics, southern Africa, and northeastern Australia, while northwestern Europe, including the UK, is expected to face wetter and stormier weather during the coming autumn and early winter, according to the forecaster.
Seriously
Eagle highlighted the need for the UK population to brace for a heightened risk of national weather emergencies. In a statement to The Guardian, she said, “We’re about to experience probably the largest El Nino that has ever been seen, and that will lead to drier summers, wetter winters, with more extreme storms in this country. It will do a lot more damage in Asia with flooding, and therefore I think that we need to take it seriously.”
Astonishing
She emphasized the importance of having a small stockpile of food to sustain oneself until emergency services can respond, adding, “So some of it is that kind of preparation for just being a bit more resilient.”
Professor Bill McGuire, professor emeritus of geophysical hazards at University College London, commented last month that forecasts from the Met Office and other scientific bodies “suggest that the world is in for one hell of a ride.” He noted, “The astonishing and unprecedented amount of heat building across the eastern Pacific Ocean is all but certain to make this the most powerful El Nino in living memory – possibly even the biggest in several centuries.”
Survive
George Monbiot, a leading environmental journalist, critiqued Eagle’s remarks in The Guardian, suggesting she may not fully comprehend the severity of the situation or is downplaying it. He argued, “Certainly, those of us who have the money and capacity to store food should do so: after all, no one else has our backs. But the idea that such individuated solutions would be any use in the face of a societal catastrophe is neoliberal nonsense. As always, it is the poor and excluded, with neither the cash nor the space to lay down significant supplies, who will be hit first and worst. Social breakdown would happen in days. The UK government, then, is being serious about neither the measures required to prevent climate catastrophe nor the measures required to survive it.”
This Author
Rob Freeman is a reporter with the Press Association. Additional reporting by Brendan Montague, editor of The Ecologist.
