What unseasonably mild weather we are having. Perhaps there is something in this climate change malarkey, but I’m not really convinced despite the fact that David Attenborough (who is God in human form) says there is.
The weather all over the place seems to be peculiar. Only a couple of weeks ago, the alpine countries were complaining of a lack of snow. Now, some parts of Austria have had five metres of snow in one week, more than they would normally expect in a whole season. Villages are cut off and there is a real danger of avalanche. Loads of foreign skiers are marooned and can’t get home (shame, poor rich bastards).
Meanwhile, some parts of Europe are really warm for January and all the spring plants have started to blossom already. One cold snap now and the blossom will die, along with it all next season’s fruit as nothing will have matured enough.
Personally, I’d quite like to live in 30 degrees of sunshine all the time. I love wandering around in swimsuit and sarong (quite a sight, I can tell you) and being able to go out until one or two in the morning in short sleeved tops and not be cold, or have to worry about whether it is going to rain tonight. But I do understand that not everyone is like that, and we do need the full range of climates to feed the planet and preserve some of the animals and beautiful places on it.
Yes, I’m sure that all the pollution we chuck out into the atmosphere doesn’t do it any good. All the cars, factories and so on must have an impact and change the gaseous mix up we all breathe. But I do get irritated when people lecture me for using my patio heater for one hour on perhaps two evenings a year (the rest of the time in this damp country it’s too cold to sit outside even with the heater on) or on burning my garden waste (if I take it to the tip, I’m using petrol, so which is worse?) or the various other things that the climate change lobby gets excited about.
The trouble with our approach to this is the same as with our approach to health and safety which I blogged about yesterday. We take it too far and get anal about it. Yes, we can all make a small difference but the main difference can be made by tackling the big polluters – industry being the main one. It’s the old 80/20 rule – tackle the 20% of contributors that make 80% of the impact first and leave the little man alone until later.
Instead, here in good old Blighty, we get lectured in the press and by the government about what we are doing wrong instead of, for instance, tackling the supermarkets about the amount of packaging they manufacture and use. The other day I unwrapped my supermarket shop to put it all away and was left with two carrier bags full of packaging – ludicrous.
So maybe I am contributing to our planet warming up and leaving a legacy of poor air and dry parched earth for my children’s generation to deal with, but I doubt that I’m the deciding factor in the future of mankind.
Now I must go and wrap things up in plastic, bump up the heating and light a bonfire because its going to be cold tonight and we can’t have that now, can we?
Yes, same old argument about dealing with the big polluters before tackling the minor issues exists here too. China and the US are the biggest culprits (with Alberta not helping with its oilsands either). The technology exists to reduce emissions to lower levels, but most big countries and organizations can't be arsed to use it. I'm not totally convinced global warming exists, as there are many reasons for climate changes, both natural and man-made. My main concern is in the using up of our planet's natural resources. It is funny you should mention product packaging as that is another rant of mine. Oversized cereal boxes, plastic wrapping and the like cause more apoplexy in the Palmer household than almost anything else.
ReplyDeleteOne thing is for sure, our climate is behaving oddly. Our normal weather at this time of year is snow and sub-zero temperatures, instead we have sunshine and plus 5!