Weather

I rather foolishly thought about being in Britain and being subjected to torrential rain and widespread flooding wasn't so bad as being hit by hurricanes or unbelievable droughts that have hit parts of the African continent. My neighbour and I spoke briefly yesterday morning about the virtues of living in a first floor flat and how this years flooding of our road was a little more hairy than before. Oh how we laughed.

Then I saw the pictures and film footage of flooding in parts of the country. People have lost their lives. People starving, and people believe it or not are thirsty. All that water and not a drop to drink.

One thing I will say to those Chavvy kids with their Pitbulls letting them crap on pavements and peoples lawns. That'll teach you to think twice about doing that again. Think about every time you've seen a dog, cat, fox, squirrel or person, piss or shit on the pavement or shop enterance or lawn and then think about the fact that the stuff never goes away. Then think about having to wade in knee height water.......hopefully without any cuts or grazes.

The entire public transport system grinds to a halt, people stranded for days in areas they would rather not be without warmth, food or water. Property destroyed. We seem so protected from natural disasters that affect other parts of the world. Its only when it comes/floats to our doorstep that we finally understand what other people have felt.

Is the recent flooding a consequence of mankind? You betcha!

Sometimes...

...I really do think that I've woken up one morning and a whole day passes by where everyone is either weird, stupid, or just dis-jointed, mentally. Yesterday was one of those days. Not only is climate change destroying earth as we know it but it is driving people insane. Terrorism is constantly at the forefront of most media. The UK in its efforts to try to replace the Trident missile system are having a hard time convincing people that it is a good thing in this age of uncertaintly. What are they talking about? Are the rogue states of the world poised to detonate nuclear weapons upon us? Does the government know something we do not? Or should I say that the government would like us to think that and will be all to happy to fan those flames of paranoia. Last nights vote to agree a plan to have a replacement system, was reluctantly agreed. What next? A demonstration of how vitally important it is to have a nuclear deterent? Another terrorist atttack should do the trick. It is a little hard not to be cynical. Hey I'm sure it was great to get rid of Saddam and his cronies for the sake of democracy and freedom. But what were those initial reasons? Al-Qaeda? WMD's? Oil? More over these kind of things breed more paranoia and the conspiracy theorists are having a field day. You see, there something for everyone!

On a serious note about climate change and other worldly looming disasters, where has the fun gone out of life. I mean, really. Where have the fun times gone? Is this a privelage that only children have now? The doom mongers will have you know about what could happen to the planet in a mere 43 years. It looks bad. Really bad. They say that if we don't reduce carbon output that disasterous consequences are at our door step. A friend of mine mentioned last night that big carbon dioxide emitters like China, India and the US are causing a lot of damage. China and India are still considered developing nations and have huge populations to support. The US.....well the US is just plain greedy and ignorant. I read about two of the largest US car manufacturers complaining that a four percent increase in fuel efficiency is far too expensive a target to meet! At what cost? What have they been doing all this time while european and japanese car manufacturers have been producing fuel efficient vehicles for quite some time. At a time where people are more aware of global issues more than ever, isn't it time we had some influence over greedy nations and greedy companies? My love of driving is something of the past. I hope that with what I do to help reduce global warming will keep my conscience a little more clear than those that do absolutely nothing.

Odd

Scientist back Nuclear Burial Plan - The headlines I woke up to this morning. Admittedly in the science section of the BBC news website. So what's the first thing anyone could possibly imagine? A funeral with a difference? Just imagine the neon signs above an undertakers shop. Special discounts for over 80's. What about a buy one get one free? Feel like earth or cremation just don't kick it? Prefer a nice warm glow in death? Steady on...

Burying nuclear waste. What a brilliantly stupid idea. So what if nuclear war did happen and that those burial sites were targetted? The impact of a nuclear weapon is bad enough but then to have one unearth more radioactive waste? Oh dear.

Okay. Being attacked by a nuclear weapon is a remote possibility. What about rising water tables? Global warming suggests sea levels rising. If this is the case then surely at some point the so called tunnels in which these things will be stored will flood. So unless they hope to contain these nuclear canisters in plastic or aluminium (or as the americans would say aluminum...odd), free from rust....

Here's another suggestion. Thousands of years from now and predictably civilisation ends and we all end up eating each other as there is nothing left to each. Climate change has stuffed the planet of resources. The weather is far too extreme to live on the surface. So what do we do? We dig to live underground. Super. As all records of where the nuclear waste has been buried and forgotten, people are unaware that these strange canisters are not some wonderful ancient artifact or a time capsule but something that will most likely prevent them from having babies. End of humankind. In the UK anyway.

Climate Change

As some of you know, I believe in saving the planet and I do what ever I can to help renew and reuse resources. I like to reuse plastic bags instead of getting new ones from the shop. I recycle newspapers and magasines and glass bottles and jars religiously. I even on occasions reuse toilet paper.

The popularity vote at the moment as the pace gathers momentum for changing our policies on global warming is for MP's to vocalise there concerns about the environment and what their initiatives are towards changing current policy. Now that I've just re-read that, it sounds like a load of old bull.

What irritates me is that politicians are trying to steer this issue for political gain. Here's another suggestion then. Like the United Nations, I believe there should be a global influencial body setup tasked with effecting anti-global warming initiatives. Decisions to decrease CO2 emissions should be made regardless of a countries economic status. The USA are major culprits as most of their economy seems to depend on oil. Without that the USA would collapse. The smarter people would say that perhaps as the richest nation on the planet, they could invest or take the lead in developing profitable alternative, greener sources of energy. Without sounding like there is a conspiracy behind it all, but what if cold fusion has already been invented. How could someone charge for something that is free? Surely the expense of harnessing this energy would be so negligable that putting resource in developing other great things like ending poverty and increasing education amongst the poor would be the way to go. Take away the cost of something means making a saving. Make a saving, spend it on something else.

Whatever happened to "Africa Aid". The richest countries cancelling out debt for some of the poorest African countries and providing financial aid to bring stability and harmony to the people. Politically driven and therefore a flop.

Scientists are best equipped to realise to the world the consequences of what is to become of our beloved planet and it is for the people as a whole to help counter act global warming. From the literature I have read so far, we have already started walking down that one way road to serious climate change, the question is now, what can we do to slow the effects? There is talk of harnessing nuclear power to provide us with a clean source of energy. I think it may be the only way to go. People whose belief lies in old fashioned idea's of nuclear energy being dangerous have every right to be but have they ever considered just how many years ago Chenobyl exploded. The kind of technology available now is much more sophisticated and reliable. What about terrorist attacks? We all live in a world where terrorism dominates our every lives (thank you Tony Blair and George W. Bush), with this consideration in mind, I would like to think that the builders of the next generation of nuclear power plants would take this into account.

All of the problems we currently face as human beings are closely interlinked. Poverty, education, regional conflicts, starvation, natural disasters, man-made disasters, political struggle, crime. All of these issues have a root cause. The circumstances in which we live in. If we could focus on a common objective then perhaps some of these other issues become lesser ones.

I don't pretend to know about what goes on in the world but I do think that the matters that I have mentioned above won't matter one little bit once our planet becomes our tomb.

Global Warming

When I was younger. In fact back in 1986 I seemed to remember asking myself why there was less and less snow fall every year. Iwas twelve back then. I knew something was afoot back then.

To the present day and now I ask myself another question. I woke up this morning and as usual checked the weather forecast but not to see weather it was raining or not. But how warm it would be. I know a silly thing to say, perhaps. We are at the tail end of November and enjoying extremely mild weather for this time of the year. Its about fourteen degrees celsius in London at the moment and I suspect maybe a degree higher. December is likely to mainly fall to around about seven to nine degrees and not much less. Whats more is that where traditionally one would say that winter usuallt set in around about late October, it now really kicks off at about late January. Some of the coldest temperatures we normally experience is around about at that time and persists until mid-March. Are we now seeing a seasonal shift where in a few hundred years time our summers are more likely to fall in October/November? It seems that way. I heard of a rather scary thought the other day about the magnetic poles swapping over in a short space in time. Is the seasonal change a sign of the poles about to change. It all happens relatively quickly over a period of a couple of hundred years. This could effect everything from timing devices, navigational systems, electronics, and more importantly, we'd turn into Australians!! Does that mean that we would inherit the all the Ashes wins too?