For the past few days the wind round here has been blowing rather strongly and that, together with watching a few TV programmes has got me wondering.
It seems that the past couple of years or so have been far windier than I have ever known. Older trees in the garden are growing straight up but younger trees that have only been planted around five years ago are all growing on a slant.
I watched a bit of a programme on TV last night called "Waterworld" which was about life on the inland waterways. It showed pictures of icebreakers on the canals in the early part of the last century trying to break the ice which could be up to two foot thick. Nowadays it rarely gets more than a couple of inches. It just shows how the climate is changing.
Television coverage of the Tsunami disaster showed pictures of the areas involved, many of which are only inches above sea level.
Browsing around today I have found sites which suggest that global temperatures will rise by 2 to 6 degrees fahrenheit by the year 2010 with sea level rising by upto 37 inches.
These changes will affect life in a big way. Agriculture will be affected in a big way. Wildlife will be affected, particularly birds that breed in the spring. Tourism will be affected, particularly places like the Maldives which will vanish below the waves.
Thinking back to the weather we had in my childhood it has changed considerably. Snow a couple of feet deep was common but we rarely get more than a couple of inches these days. We never had winds like we have today.
Apparantly we can blame a lot on the dinosaurs which ate a lot of vegetation and were constantly farting and giving off methane gas which was the start of global warming. Where will it all end and will civilisation eventually kill itself off.