The Socialist 11 July 2018

Act now to get the Tories out

Tories in crisis - Act now to get them out!

600 more retail jobs on the line: workers must not pay for the bosses' high street crunch!

Britain bakes as water pipelines leak

Minister's benefits lie: sack the Tories - and scrap universal credit

Them & Us

Hit the streets against Trump and capitalism

US: "We've had to build a huge culture of resistance"

NSSN conference 2018: Mood for fighting action and coordination

Big victory for Wigan NHS strike against privatisation

Campaign in full flow to squeeze out every last Yes vote in pay ballot

Hackney traffic wardens strike for better pay and protection at work

Summer of discontent on the cards in Huddersfield bin workers' dispute

Tyneside shopfitting plant lays off 61 workers

Unite conference sees union go in a fighting, socialist direction

Pressure building on councillors to stop fire service cuts

Tram workers strike against 'derisory' pay offer

Stop the FLA - No to racism

Women's Lives Matter launched in Leeds to fight domestic violence service cuts

Service users and families protest learning disability service cuts

NHS Leeds: Campaigners halt outsourcing... for now

Yes to NHS - No to PFI!

Tories fractured... election possibility... give us the resources!

Issue 1000 drive shows sales potential

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Britain bakes as water pipelines leak: profit holding back climate solutions

(Click to enlarge)

Simon Carter, East London Socialist Party

June was the driest month on record in south east and central southern England, while Scotland recorded its highest ever temperature of 33.2C in Motherwell. The winters of 2016 and 2017, and the thunderstorms in May of this year, witnessed serious flooding in Britain.

All these extreme weather events are consistent with the effects of global warming producing climate change.

But as we know, international agreement by capitalist leaders to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions fuelling global warming is woefully inadequate.

Even the UN's much-lauded Paris Agreement - which Trump rescinded the US's signature to - has no effective sanctions for those signatory countries who fail to meet their insufficient targets.

Investment

Equally inadequate is capitalism's investment in measures to manage global warming and climate change, such as flood defence and water conservation.

As the Socialist pointed out in January 2016, the Tory government had cut flood defence spending by 8% - around £540 million since 2011. Mismanagement of land by agribusiness had also contributed to environmental vulnerability.

Likewise, in May 2018, the Socialist referenced the Environment Agency which concluded that serious leaks, rising domestic use, and massive consumption by an unsustainable energy sector mean much of England could see water shortages in the coming decades.

We also pointed to the profit-gorged private water suppliers which had failed to invest sufficiently to stop leaking pipes wasting billions of litres of water every day. 20% of piped water leaks out before it reaches our homes, and extracting too much water is drying up our river ecosystems.

Instead of fixing these problems the privatised water companies tell overcharged households to reduce water consumption - as if we're to blame for the problem. And the toothless regulator, Ofwat, has given water companies in southern England leak reduction targets that allow more leakage than existing levels!

Bringing these companies back in to public ownership - under the democratic control of workers and users, as part of overall socialist planning of the economy - is the only way to provide sufficient resources to invest in sustainable water sources and replace the crumbling infrastructure.

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Tories in crisis - Act now to get them out!