Extreme

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Today's Sunday Scribbling prompt is Extreme, some thing I know a lot about right now!
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As extreme weather goes, the extreme weather in the UK in the past few months has been extremely extreme!

We were warned that the climate was changing. We got a collective slap on the wrist for flying in planes, using old cars and striking a match. We were told that it was out fault the world was heating up. As a result sea levels would rise, and in the near future the shape of the UK would change as the oceans marched landward. In the future the only way to visit some of our favourite seaside resorts would be by submarine – a fuel efficient submarine that is.

And why would the sea rise? It seems that the polar ice sheets and the icebergs will melt creating more sea water. I had a theory but apparently it doesn’t hold up. Consider this. An iceberg sits nine tenths below the surface of the sea, and ice has more volume than the water it produces when it melts. Surely, if it melts it simply fills up the hole left in the water when it melted! Same with the ice sheets. But what do I know?! I do know however that the sea has been rising at 1.8 mm each year for the last 100 years or so, and that’s not changed despite Wikipedia’s claim to the contrary.

Where were we? Oh yes. We were told that we would experience a slow but sure rise in air temperatures, year on year on year. Soon our (new) beaches would be lined by coconut palms, and rabbits would be replaced by hippopotamuses (or is that hyppopotamusi?)

Last summer was a write off. Apart from on a few odd days, the idea of having a barbeque in the garden was joke. Summer simply didn’t happen. And before we knew it, it was winter. What ever happened to the long hot summers of my childhood?

In recent weeks we have been in the grip of the coldest spell for over thirty years. The country has been brought to a standstill by snow, the amount of which hasn’t been seen for decades. Trains and planes stopped (yippee, less emmitions!) We are about to run out of salt with which to treat the roads. There are claims that within weeks we will run out of gas with which to heat our homes. One newspaper today predicted 60,000 deaths due to the big freeze.

Right now I bet you are tut-tutting at me and telling yourself ‘he doesn’t understand’. On the other hand you may be nodding in agreement with my suggestion that the experts aren’t making an aweful lot sense! Some people think that the whole global warming thing is a deliberate attempt at changing the way we live in order to suit big business and politics. Who knows?

I love a good conspiracy theory. Did man land on the moon? I have my doubts. Did the Titanic sink? Almost certainly not, more likely it was its sister ship the Olympic which was the subject of a failed insurance claim at the time. Did you know that Elvis faked his own death and the plays supposedly written by Shakespeare where actually the work of Francis Bacon?

I admit that I’ve written all of the above with my tongue stuck firmly in my cheek! Is global warming a fact? Probably. Is the extreme weather the result of global warming.? Just possibly. I simply don’t know, but I need to be convinced.