Category: Weather and climate

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CUMULUS CLOUDS

Super day – blue skies with cumulus humilus gradually being depleted as the afternoon warms up. Temperature t-shirt weather – just nice to sit in garden. Montbretia and begonia adding an orange tinge, a few bees, hover flies and wasps around. A buzzard wheels across the sky – is it hunting or just enjoying the power of flight? I have huddles in flower, mints also in flower, I have left some stinging nettles, but still no sign of butterflies. The sun is out, bit of a breeze but not enough to deter a couple of damsel flies. I am pleased to see that the herbs in flower are attracting different types of bee and hoverfly.

Similarly the birds are missing from the feeders – this may well be because I stoped filling them up for a while as the pigeons and jackdaws where cleaning them out in minutes. It may also be because other sources are blooming – blackberries (especially those by Lee’s house) are blooming.

I need to sort the raspberries out – or at least weed out the nettles and ivy! Maybe even mow the path through the herbs in the front garden!. Thinking about propagating some mints – eau de cologne has long runners already. Maybe start with 3in. pots in greenhouse? Make sure I have labels!

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COVID AUGUST

As we have seethe government is on holiday and has left a big ‘DO NOT DISTURB’ notice in Whitehall. However the covid virus seems to be on the rise again. Figures in Scotland have risen from 799 on 2 August to 3190 on Sunday, which coincides with the schools going back there. Deaths per day across the country have risen to their highest since 18 March, and hospitalisations are nearing the 1000 per day mark. Well below figures in the Spring but still too high.

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WEATHER

I guess this has been a crap summer for those on holiday. I am reasonably happy as the garden has not needed a great deal of watering! A dry spell for the next week or so may not live unto the Daily Star headlines of a heat wave though, as the air is moving down from the north. To be honest this is the summer I remembered from childhood, showers, sunny periods, nothing spectacular!

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WEATHER

I guess the weather may put people off a staycation next year. I am quite happy with the weather this year, plenty of rain for the garden and enough sun to ripen the tomatoes. Not great for sitting around outside though!

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TIME FOR ACTION

Dear PM, stop trying to sound like a super hero and actually come up with policies. I do not want to hear about the sums of money being spent (it is possible corrupt again anyway). No I want to hear about how many charging points are being put in, how much is being given to householders to replace gas boilers, how many onshore wind farms are being built, how many public buildings are being fitted with solar panels (and no exemptions for the H~ouse of `Windsor!). In other words targets that are verifiable and real, not sums of money that can disappear in someones trouser pocket. Great graphics

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CLIMATE CHANGE – ITS THE RICH WOT CAUSE IT!

It is obvious but needs stating again and again. The wealthiest 10% contribute 36-45% of emissions. The poorest 10% contribute 3-5%. The top 1% account for 50% emissions from aviation (this makes an easy target for aviation to hit targets – although the mega rich might not like the train, or a sweaty coach!).

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ALARMISM

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is accused of alarmism. I should hope that alarm is what it has generated. The latest heat re old is a report of 48.8C from Italy. Fires in California, Algeria, Greece maybe partially due to poor management over the last 100 years (possibly a result of population growth in these areas), but they. have been exacerbated by the record high temperatures.

Another, contradictory comment is one about the increase in eco-refugees. Millions of people have been displaced due to climate change, and this is likely to increase exponentially over the next decades regardless of COP26. Sea level rising is a process that takes years to initiate and years to reverse (if possible?). The warming of the oceans has taken place and water will this expand. This combined with the melting of ice on Antarcticas and Greenland will raise sea level over the next century. Pacific Islands and parts of the Maldives amongst others will be gradually swamped. Plans are already being made for a new Thames Barrier, managed retreat is a reality of coastline management in many parts of the UK (and the Netherlands). Signs of stress are appearing in coral reefs which at present protect coastlines from erosion by storms.

And the decline in insects in Europe is marked. I am not sure if this is related to climate change but something is affecting the ecosystem. My garden should be a butterfly paradise with lots of different insect friendly plants in flower. Apart from a few bees, small white butterflies and occasional visits from other species it is fairly lifeless. My trip down the motorway did not result in an insect graveyard on the front as it would have done 30 years ago.

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CODE RED

IPCC scientists have warned of “unprecedented ” changes to the Earth’s climate. No room for manoeuvre, inevitable, unprecedented and irreversible were words also used.

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CLIMATE CHANGE

Firstly some basic economics. This country is wealthy enough for everyone to have a good basic standard of living. So Rishi Sunak and the daily Telegraph can stop the whinge about the cost of climate measures now. Redistribute the wealth of this country more fairly and job done. The Daily Star is being even more ridiculous than normal in complaining that our summer is not the hottest so far, by showing a picture of rain – durhh they are different.

Excellent explanation of changes likely in our weather on the radio today. We will still have hot and cold spells, wet and dry spells, windy and snowy spells, but when they occur they are likely to be more extreme. Hence the horrendous fires in Greece, Turkey, and the ongoing Dixie fire which has consumed 676sq.m so far – an area bigger than Pembrokeshire in California. The floods in Germany and China, Drought in North Korea. And we have had our little floods too, not so little for those who have had to suffer them London and elsewhere.

And then there is sea level rise – like all future predictions there are unknowns – maybe there will be more snow thus countering ice melt? But general figures are for about a metre in the next 30 years. If only it was that simple – add one metre to the waves topping sea defences on stormy days at present and we have catastrophes in the making.

I guess there are 3 types of attitudes to climate change. 1. We need to act now, even if it costs. 2. We need to act but …, my car, … my holiday, …. mememe. and 3. I do not believe in climate changeling caused by humans, and certainly not me – I would like to be rich enough to provide a home on the outlying islands of Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Kiribati or the Maldives, but then deny them wifi! (I would rescue them in the end – maybe).

Trump has said that the fires are down to forest management – and is not wrong for once. However his 4 years in office did nothing to change this, and a century in the making, it seems that climate change may have played a good part.

Erdogan in Turkey is getting uppity about criticisms regarding the fires. Well bozo, maybe handing out tea bags was not such a bright idea! But what is it with you overinflated cocks that you cannot see a crisis, acknowledge any failings and then do something positive rather than arresting critics!