Today was not the day to keep up with my challenge to walk every day in nature with my camera. The weather has not been playing fair.
Storm Babet rolled into Scotland yesterday causing far-reaching flooding and the sad loss of a life. Sadly, as the chaos has spread, two more people have died.
Many places across the country are cut off and some have been evacuated. Warnings not to travel were issued for large swathes of the country. As usual, many people ignored them. Some also ignored the road-closed signs, there to protect them from the rising flood levels.
Tomorrow, these conditions will continue, with red and amber alerts covering large areas of the UK. I'll be staying where I am, although I should have gone home today but was unable to do so. Staying with my daughter over the weekend is no hardship, however, and she gets extra help with the children from Grandma.
The town where I live, Worksop in Nottinghamshire, has suffered badly with flooding over the last few years. It has seriously affected businesses on the High Street, with many leaving and shop premises lying empty. Today is the third time the town centre has flooded in under five years. This compares to 5 flooding events in the previous 100 years.
It will be a few days before the full extent of the flooding is known, as water comes down from Chesterfield and off the surrounding high ground. Then the clean-up can begin and the costs counted yet again.
This year that cost will be measured in lives as well as money. It breaks my heart that this country now has laws which mean people who care about our environment, such as Greta Thunberg, can be arrested for trying to get their voices heard. Climate change is a global reality and we need positive action from nations such as ours, who are among the highest polluters, for our own sake and for the sake of poorer nations who have suffered far more than we have.
The storms sound scary. Here in the United States, people seem to think that storm warnings apply to everyone but themselves, so they put themselves in unnecessary risk. I am sorry to see that happening amongst your friends and neighbors.
It is sad that people get arrested for expressing their concern about the danger of climate change. The fear of arrest does make it hard to effect real change to protect the future of our planet.
So sorry this is happening in your area. I live on the prairies in western Canada. It might be considered boring but we have relatively few such storms. I am distress at how our planet and climate change is going. I'm not familiar with your new laws. Haven't heard much about Greta for quite awhile.