Vincent J. Curtis
14 Jan 2019
It is
disappointing for me to read of a report from my alma mater, the University of
Waterloo, that could be do dumb. According to the report, the study links
climate change with a failure on the part of Ontarians to take precautions
against flooding.
In the
first place, weather is not the same thing as climate, and flooding is not a
kind of weather, as indicated in the report. Second, satellite
measurements indicate no increase in average global temperatures since 1998,
and so a four-fold increase in flood damage since 2007 cannot be co-related
with climate change. Correlating dramatic increases in insurance
claims since 2007 with climate change is fallacious.
What
about municipalities issuing building permits on known flood plains for the
revenue? Was that thought of? What about aging, inadequate and failing
municipal sewer systems? In 1984, West 18th Street
experience flooding because the combined sewer system installed in the early
1950s was inadequate to cope with the run-off from new construction south of
Limeridge Road.
Flooding
occurred in the east end as a result of the construction of the Red Hill
Expressway, not climate change.
The last
major flood to occur in the Waterloo region was in 1974, when the Grand River
flooded parts of Cambridge.
It is
altogether too easy to invoke climate change to justify anything, and in this
case probably lets poor municipal planning off the hook. It also misses
the point that homeowners do have a strategy for coping with flooding – taking
out insurance against it.
Dumb!
-30-
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