It aint `arf hot, Mum!

Lets talk about global warming and secheresse (drought) as everybody in rural France is doing when they can tear themselves away from the troubles of Dominique Strauss-Kahn. If you have never heard of him you`re lucky, go back to your hermitage. It seems that global temperatures have risen over the last twenty years or so, not a lot,  a couple of degrees. We could live quite happily with that but it seems to be melting the polar ice-caps which has raised sea level by an inch or two. Informed scientific opinion (more realistically described as a wild-arsed guess) suggests that this could continue and get worse and you might need your wellies if you live at current water-level.
  The opinion is that we wicked humans have brought this catastrophy on ourselves by burning `fossil fuel` oil ,coal and gas. It would be better if we reduced these to a much lower level  Politicians jumped on the band wagon,of course, it`s what they do best. Lets TAX petrol and electricity, was their knee-jerk reaction then folks won`t use so much(and we`ll get some more tax without getting diselected. But there, people would persist in using their cars so not much came of this. To object to this is like goosing a feminist!
  In fact I can give you a word of comfort, of a sort. It doesn`t MATTER whether we are causing global warming. America, who are by far the heaviest users of fuel have consistently refused to cut their consumption and it would be naive to hope that the Chinese will obligingly renounce the use of cars now they are getting more affluent. Would you give up YOUR car to help the climate? I don`t think so. If humans are causing the problem they wont change till it`s too late.
  In fact there is a school of thought that suggests that humans are irrelevant. The world has been tropical much longer  than temperate according to the fossil record without any help from us. ``Geologically speaking we are living the end of the last ice age and moving towards warmer temperatures. We can adapt to a warmer world by moving north or south to areas which are becoming more habitable  Greenland may be able to be colonised for example. England will have to grow grapes not corn and France can cultivate coco-nuts! Seriously, though, we can adapt and the human race is in no danger.
   Think how much more serious a problem would be posed if a global cooling was the problem! then indeed we would be in trouble. Again the fossil record suggests there have been times when the ice caps met at the Equator and most life on Earth was starved out. A bit of warming we can easily cope with. Take some ice with it!

                 Bye for now! Going to take a cold shower!