Comment Archive:
Saturday 10th February 2007
Reader's Submission: A Poem For Tony Blair
The F Word
Press the flesh, flash the smile
Take the floor for a while.
Show your flair, play the flirt
Share our fears, feel our hurt
Floating voters flock to try
A fairly straight kind of guy
Falling for your tall stories
Fed up with failing Tories.
Fly about, flashing smiles
Lots of frequent flyer miles.
Far flung places, flags unfurled
Forty five minutes to save the world
Use brute force, fight foreign wars
Foreign wars that are not yours
Get cannon fodder to fight them for you
So favoured friends will adore you.
Press the flesh, flash the smile
Fill the coffers for a while.
Funds for ermine, fleece the wealthy
Coffers full, finances healthy.
Fake the facts, lay false trails
Forge the files, fix emails
Fox us all with firm actions
On fags and smacking and fluffy distractions.
Face the facts, not a skill
Feel the force, frustrate the Bill
Pants on fire, feel the heat
Hope to fall on your feet.
Fall flat on your face though last to know
Fair weather friends turn to foe.
Even fervent fans' hopes are dashed
Their frequent flyer's finally crashed.
Yet unphased by this loss of face
Forge on at a furious pace.
Dodge the flak, act all tough
So much left to do. You've done enough.
Press the flesh, flash the smile
Falter on for a while
Fail to hear the message, tone deaf
IT ENDS IN OFF AND STARTS WITH F.
Submitted by Sue P from Epsom in Surrey. Thanks Sue!
Friday 2nd February 2007
Now Is The Winter Of Our Discontent - Update
Just a day after I published "Now Is The Winter Of Our Discontent" (see below) a number of newpapers, TV news channels and internet news sites ran the following story...
"Dire warnings of rising seas, scorching heatwaves and devastating droughts have been issued in a major report on global warming."
"A United Nations group of more than 2,500 experts said mankind was "likely" to be be blamed for causing irreversible damage to the planet."
"The world's top climate scientists said that global warming was man-made, spurring calls for urgent government action to counter fears of severe and irreversible damage from rising temperatures."
"The U.N. panel, the most authoritative group on warming grouping 2,500 scientists from more than 130 nations, predicted more droughts, heatwaves, rains, and a slow gain in sea levels that could last for more than 1,000 years."
"The report predicts a "best estimate" that temperatures would rise by between 1.8 and 4.0 Celsius (3.2 and 7.8 Fahrenheit) in the 21st century, within a likely range from 1.1 to 6.4 Celsius."
"Experts have warned the UK is increasingly in danger of flood disasters similar to the devastation in New Orleans caused by Hurricane Katrina."
"And the phenomenon will also have a significant impact on the UK's water supply over the next 30 to 100 years, with a significant increase in severe single season droughts."
The above excerpts were taken from uk.yahoo.com
Thursday 1st February 2007
Now Is The Winter Of Our Discontent
A mere hundred years ago the UK population to a man would have given a cast-iron guarantee that this country would get snow during the winter. And not just the pathetic two hour flurries that disappear under their own wetness within 10 minutes of the sun coming out that we get these days either. I’m talking proper snow. Weeks of it. Lying thick and unmoving, several feet deep for weeks and weeks and weeks. The country whited out. People snowed into their own homes. Children building proper snowmen and riding sledges down hills. Sheep lying lost for days until the farmers dig them out. People skating on frozen lakes and rivers, etc. The traditional chocolate box scene come to life in other words.
And that was the norm.
So what the hell has happened? Because that certainly isn’t the norm anymore. The last time we had decent snow in this country was - by my humble reckoning - around 1986. Twenty odd years ago! But even that was fairly mild compared to the winters that had gone before. 1981 / 1982 was the severest that I have a personal memory of - snow that lay about for a month with more coming every few days. I can remember staggering to school through snow drifts that reached over the top of my wellies and the sheer joy of finishing school two hours early and having the school closed for days at a time due to the severe weather. People literally had to dig themselves out of their own drives and gardens in order to get out to the shops.
As a kid of course such weather is great - you simply have no concept of the deadlier ramifications of such extreme weather. Old people may have been freezing to death in their own homes but all I can recall is our science teacher organizing the whole school into two separate armies for the mother of all snowball fights. Marvellous.
Today though that just doesn’t happen. Snow for my boy is something that occurs very briefly for an hour or two – or a day at the very most - and then melts away just as fast. It looks pretty and that’s all. It’s not around long enough for a more tactile enjoyment to take place. It disappears to quickly too interact with it.
Now I realize I am only speaking locally. This is the weather report from Leamington Spa not the Met Office. Maybe where you are things are different and winters are just the same as they’ve always been. It would be nice to know if that was the case because, honestly, the weather has got me really worried these days. Things are not right. And I suspect that if the truth were known they’re not right where you are either.
People here might be moaning about the current "cold snap" but the temperature is a mere 4 degrees! That’s nothing! This is weather more suitable for November or March - not January or February. It isn’t truly cold – only cold by comparison with the really mild temperatures that have clogged up the arteries of December and January for the last few years. Somehow we have bypassed the true trough of winter. Its lowest register (or highest depending on how you look at it) has been lost. It no longer has the power it once had. It’s been curtailed. It’s a shadow of its former self.
Anybody who still doubts that global warming is occurring (yes, that means you George W Bush) must need their head examining. Or in the case of people like Mr Bush their bank accounts examining to see which oil companies are currently buttering their toast sunny side up with lashings of marmalade and honey thrown in for good measure too. You can run but you can’t hide, America. The weather is becoming more and more messed up and it will play havoc with you too.
You want more proof? Whole towns in Siberia – built upon the permafrost and stable for decades and decades - are now melting and collapsing. Teams of workmen are having to run themselves ragged dashing all over the city shoring up the resulting cavities with cement to prevent the buildings from collapsing. Scientists are actually witnessing huge swathes of the permafrost melting before their very eyes. Elsewhere in Europe ski resorts are having to close down as they don’t have enough snow. Even here, in Warwickshire, Warwick Castle had to import snow from elsewhere in order to keep their festive snow slide running as the snow they’d originally brought in had melted during the mild weather – in the middle of winter!
Yet still the Bush administration is unwilling to do anything about it. I understand why of course. America is built upon the motor industry. If they accept that Global Warming is a major problem then they’ll have to react. They’ll have to do something to try and reverse it. Inevitably that will mean reviewing the world’s dependency on fossil fuel based technologies, finding cleaner, more ecologically sound alternatives. That will mean the car industry and the plane industries will go tits up. They’ll become prohibitively more and more expensive and then eventually disappear. That will mean huge changes for all of us and life in the UK will certainly never be the same again. But think what it’ll mean for huge countries like America. Personal travel curtailed. Industry curtailed. The global capacity to effect changes in other countries curtailed. Political power curtailed. Complete global re-organization. Maybe even breakdown. New world order big time.
No wonder they’re burying their heads in the sand. But the sad truth is all this will happen anyway unless alternatives to oil can be found. There aren’t reserves left to see us into the next century. Something’s got to give soon. It might take thirty years but it WILL happen.
The trouble is, in terms of global warming, thirty years might be too damned late to do anything. The damage will be irreversible by that point. We could all be utilizing electric planes and wind driven cars and it won’t make a blind bit of difference. The weather patterns will convolute out of all control. The ice caps will melt. Changing sea levels will bring devastation to millions. The ecosystem will stumble and flail about trying desperately to re-stabilize itself. Entire species, both flora and fauna, could be wiped out. The effect on the food chain could be catastrophic.
And that will effect us in ways we can’t even dream about at present... a world pushed beyond our worst nightmares. The whole planet out of control. We have to take action NOW... not wait until an oil drought forces our hand.
One more prophecy: future generations will look back at our period in history and curse us for our complacency, our stupidity and our greed. The Bush’s and the Blair’s will be spoken of with derision. It’ll be known as the New Dark Ages.
But it’s not too late to avert that, guys. Come on! You keep telling us how you want an opportunity to save the world... well finally here’s a real chance to do it!
Related links:-
Kyoto Chaos
Hot Potato
Ultraviolet
Campaign Against Climate Change
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