The Thames Barrier: climate change, shipping and the transition to a new envirotechnical regime

The process that led the British government to build the Thames Barrier resembled the trajectory of many infrastructural projects in post-war Britain. A generally accepted need generated proposals, counterproposals and the concomitant weakening of vested interests, until under growing public pressure the government decided to push enabling legislation through the Parliament. This decision departed from this norm, however, because the government did not seek to improve living standards or economic effectiveness, but to counter the existential threat nature posed to London, as intimated by the devastating tidal flood of 1953.¹ As this chapter will show, by the 1950s the government