FLOODING in urban areas. How easy it is to mistake cause and effects.

Every day we see effects and every day look for an easy scapegoat.

We see heart attacks from partially blocked arteries and find plaque build-ups in arteries as the cause.

We see flooding and used to see incorrect materials blocking the drains.

But this newly-discovered man-made climate change has become the reason and carbon emissions the cause when the real culprit is drain abuse.

Packing too many houses onto an existing drainage system is one way to ensure flooding, but even worse is putting flushable wet wipes into a drainage system never designed to take them.

One can even fit a £600 macerator designed to shred materials to flush into the drains only to find the motor burns out on wet wipes.

Try and check the historic rain fall records from the 1850s for Bournemouth and of course you find none.

The nearest is Southampton when the wettest years were in the mid-1800.

But they are not in the lee of the Purbeck hills which when dry on the south west side can pour water on the north east side with the wet spin off falling beyond Salisbury.

The moral is we can see an effect and tie it into an easy get-out clause.

Man-made climate change and sudden floods in Bournemouth or Christchurch areas as the effect? I don’t think so.

Try looking in the cupboard at home for the cause.

DOUGLAS MILLS

Fraser Road, Poole

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