Nickbat, whilst I enjoy a laugh as much as the next man, I'm beginning to think you really believe all this climate change scepticism :-? :-?
you'll be buying a house in a flood plain next - should be alright what with the Thames Barrier........hang on a second how much did that cost and we don't even need it!!!!! this is outrageous!!!
The Barrier was built due because the South East is slowly sinking while the North is rising...all due to isostatic rebound. Additionally, there have been in the past, occasional storm surges caused by deep cyclones tracking (unpredictably) across the Netherlands, sometimes concurrent with spring tides, hence the tragedy at Sea Palling on 31 January 1953.
You really don't know much about this subject, do you?

it was built to cope with continuing and projected sea level rises to the middle of this century but whatever works for you, if sea levels were falling and therefore damaging storm surges were less frequent the barrier wouldn't have been commissioned. 8-)
theres no arguing with you is there? they built the Thames Barrier because the south of Britain is sinking?
you know the rate its sinking at? you're worried about 1 or 2mm a year but not rising sea levels - where do you get this stuff?
"Britain is still recovering from a legacy of the last ice age, when huge sheets of ice weighed heavily on Scotland and the north of England, forcing them down into the sea. Even though the ice is long gone, those regions are still springing back up out of the sea, a process known as "isostatic rebound". But what's good news for the north is bad news for the south. Like a see-saw, as the north rises up, the south is slowly sinking."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2003/jun/12/science.research2"In 1965 government plans were made to build a barrier following many flooding incidents in London’s history, the most recent and significant having been in 1953, when several dozen people were drowned and thousands of hectares of farmland were flooded with salt water in the area around the Thames estuary. "
http://uk.encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_781539517/thames_flood_barrier.html1965 pre-dated the global warming scare.
You REALLY don't know much, do you?
