Warming?

Against a background that north-eastern USA and Canada have again been hit by a severe snow storm and South Korea is suffering from an unaccustomed wave of bitterly cold weather, we here are also being warned of yet another cold snap.

Is it surprising? I mean, it’s winter after all. So. faced with fair warning that snow flurries may descend upon us today, we in Casa MacDonald will muffle up when we go out later on.

The question is: Where is this global warming that is going to cut our fuel bills then?
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A Question

I suppose I cannot avoid mentioning it. The cold and snow, that is.

In our part of Essex, we were hit hard by the snow which fell to a depth I can’t recall before. For the first time ever, I had to clear paths through the snow in the back garden to allow our two small dogs to get out of the house rather than have to tunnel through the white stuff. Four times I had to do this.

Like others around the country, our local council only salt and grit the major roads and so it is always a struggle to get out of our road and those leading to the main roads. The result is that we feel somewhat marooned as you see no-one about for days on end. As more folk get adventurous and start driving, the snow on the road becomes compacted and turns to ice. As, indeed, happened this week. If we had the equipment, we could actually skate along our road at this moment. I don’t complain about this, we just accept it as something which happens ever year.

Like most other people, we have put up with the bad weather with stoicism. What else can we do? The central heating has been on twenty-four hours a day all week, but that is the price, literally, we have had to pay to keep warm. The weather experts tell us that we have to face at least another week of cold weather and we are prepared for this.

What I want to know is: If we are in the grips of global warming, why is it so bloody cold?
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More Excuses?

A study by the University of Southampton and Network Rail, forecasts that wet winters and hot summers will become more common over the next fifty years as a result of global warming and that the UK rail network is at risk from this.

One hopes that railway managers and the government will take note of the report and act accordingly. On the other hand, will these sort of events just give some railway operators more excuses to explain why our trains are late?

We’ve had the leaves (and cows) on the track excuse, overhead power lines down due to high winds as well as the wrong type of snow complaint, but global warming?

Groan!
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Get A Life!

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We’ve had the Bishop who tells us that some Christmas carols contain nonsense, that we should be embarrassed singing them and that we’ve made something akin to fairy tales from the Christmas story. We’ve had the council who replaced their annual Christmas fir tree with a much more expensive artificial one that has since been vandalised. We’ve had other councils who have elected not to put up street decorations on the spurious grounds of health and safety.

Now we’ve heard from an outfit funded by the government - that means you and me! - who tell us not to eat our traditional Christmas puddings because the ingredients they use up damage the environment. They seriously expect us to eat more sprouts, cheese and cobnuts.

These people should get get a life and leave our Christmases alone!
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Please - Go Underwater!

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The Maldives Cabinet are shortly to hold a meeting underwater to highlight the threat of global warming, a publicity stunt that will, hopefully, encourage world leaders to reduce carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.

We in Britain face the next nine months or so to much party politicking in the run-up to the next election. Wouldn’t it be great if our politicians could spend the next nine months underwater and out of earshot and press headlines?
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