We had a couple of millimetres of rain last week, but that soon evaporated in the heat. The last decent downpour was on 27 June. There is a hosepipe ban, but one cannot complain, reservoirs are low, rivers low. Farmers are suffering, their crops have awful yields, some they have given up on. It’s no good looking to Europe, the weather has been as bad or even worse there. Prices are rising with the heat.
This is climate change biting. The prediction is more hot and dry summers with a vengeance.
The vengeance is deserved. We have been using fossil fuels as if there is no tomorrow. Instead of flying to Spain and Greece where it’s 40 degrees, many holidaymakers are heading north to Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland. Flying there, and hiring cars when they embark. As if a holiday makes burning oil OK.
Our garden is a symbol of climate change. The extreme dryness, plants suffering in the heat. With the hosepipe ban it is difficult watering everywhere with watering cans. We have given up on the wildflower bed, and cut it back to the ground, so it doesn’t look so bad. We leave the cut plants on the ground, as pale as straw, so the seeds will do for next year.
So how do we control climate change? Start with the negatives. Less flying, less driving, less meat or dairy, or leather goods. I feel the denial coming as I write these words. Not only must we curtail our holidays but we must forgo our Sunday roast!
We should have solar panels on all our roofs, insulate our homes to the highest degree, eschew gas if we can and get a heat pump. Easily said, but you need to be well off to do all this, or get grants. Governments only listen if we make a noise.
There’s lots of confusion around plastic, most of which is made from oil. Some are good and some are bad. The single use ones are bad, but you can’t have anything electrical without plastic insulation. That’s phones, computers, TVs, fans, lighting. As I write this, I am using my computer, I have a light on, I am listening to music on the radio. Plastic insulation is in all of them. Drainpipes and gutters are plastic, rigid PVC. They will last decades. It’s the single use cups and plastic bags, and all that packaging that we have to replace.
We must get much better at reusing and recycling. I have so much plastic junk I don’t know what to do with. Chemists brought us this stuff. Chemists must explore ways out. Plastic can be made from seaweed, and be used for packaging. It will dissolve in water or compost. I am annoyed by the plastic window in envelopes. You have to tear it out to recycle the paper. There’s a use for seaweed plastic. Or don’t have envelopes with windows at all. That’s simpler.
So much to do, it appears impossible. No wonder many say we are doomed, so what the heck, I’ll go for broke. Or they say, climate change is natural. It’s not us at all. Enjoy the heat, farmers should grow grapes instead of vegetables.
What’s the fuss?
I look at a wilting hebe in the garden. It is like the canary in the coal mine, one of the first to suffer in a drought. Leaves are falling early. Come mid September likely our barrels will begin to refill, the hosepipe ban will be rescinded, when we don’t need it, of course. And we’ll stagger into next year, and into ever hotter and dryer summers.
In Copenhagen in 2009, on the march at COP15, we chanted:
Keep the coal in the hole
Keep the oil in the soil
Now we add:
Keep the jets in the nets
Or abandon all bets