Tell it to George

One of the big bits of news in Gordon Brown's first full press conference today was surely his repeated invocation of climate change as the likely culprit in the floods e.g.

Obviously like every advanced industrial country we are coming to terms with some of the issues surrounding climate change. It is pretty clear that some of the 19th century structures for dealing with infrastructure and where they were sited, that is something that we are going to have to review. That will be part of the review that Hilary Benn has authorised. Equally at the same time we are going to have to look at drainage, surface water as well as river water, and what we are going to be able to do in the future in relation to that.

It's a sign of changed times that the kind of attribution that was once seen as the province only of environmental loonies has gone mainstream. It's what happens when the loonies keep turning out to be right.