Fair-weather Weathermen
So, the weather, having for a long while decided to be late spring in temperature, has once again made a u-turn and decided to be early winter again. It gets very frustrating, particularly because you never know what to wear (Me, moaning about clothes? I’ve been spending too much time with my fiancee!). Shorts and T-Shirt or Jeans and Jumper? Apparently even the weather forecast is constantly changing. However, what is inevitable is that in whatever weather the doom-mongers will come out and start proclaiming predictable global warming prophecies over us.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to dismiss global warming and the large concern over our future because of it, but isn’t it strange that the effects of global warming seem so immediate when you analyse the weather in detail? In my experience most of the weather we’ve ever had, good or bad is usually the result of global warming. All Britons will remember that it was blamed for the floods of last year, but it was also blamed for the drought the year before that. If we have hot summers, like the highest recorded temperature in 2003 then that’s global warming. If the summers are unusually cold, like the one last year, then that’s also global warming. So wet or dry, hot or cold, it seems to me that global warming is always the scape-goat whenever we have weather that is not “normal” enough. What is normal though? Is there any weather which will make people happy?
It’s not just weather news that’s affected by global warming claims. Jellyfish coming to our shores: must be global warming. The Bee dying out? Must be global warming. It’s like accusing a thief of vandalism: though there may be a connection because both are bad, it’s just not a logical assumption to make without evidence. In honesty, I’m waiting for the government to blame their failure to fund renewable energy on global warming. At the moment, Global Warming just seems to be a vogue buzz-word lazily used to explain all unknown phenomena in the world.
Thought-life hasn’t always been like this though. I remember reading a book in my first term called The Go-Between (it’s good if you’re thinking about reading it) and I remember being surprised at how the attitudes to weather in the novel contrast with our own. It’s given that the main character of the novel, Leo, is fantasising when he thinks about The Golden Age in relation to heat, and mercury is a prominent symbol in the book, but it was still refreshing to see a hot summer presented as glorious rather than alongside all the worries of our world. Hartley’s book was written in the 50s, whilst it was set at the turn of the twentieth century and both times are pre-global warming. There is a sense of enjoying the moment in hot weather rather in past society that I looked at with envy and sadness when considering my own.
It feels like our society has become so obsessed with managing everything and full of insecurity at it’s own vulnerability in the future that we are forgetting to value every moment we have, which is special. Global warming is real and we need to save energy and be green, but we need to stop trying to worry about things that are beyond our immediate control and learn how to live again. Besides, judging by a human propensity I’ve seen for most to leave things to finish until late and the human competitive streak which will cause political leaders to protect their own interests and economy rather than see the bigger picture, I think it’s safe to say that we’re pretty doomed. So why not enjoy the earth while it’s still hospitable? For not valuing and living each second to the full we are here is, for me, far worse than dying young.
