We have had a wonderfully hot summer in New Zealand, since Christmas. Yes, I realise it has hurt many who depend on the rainfall to keep drought conditions at bay, but it could have been worse if we didn’t have the last two wet months of 2012; I think a lot have forgotten that.
The media have had a field day with our long, hot summer, again offering doom and gloom and prophecies of the negative effects of the planet warming. The earliest mention of global warming I have come across is from a newspaper published the year I was born, 1959, which was found in the wall cavity of an old bungalow I was renovating with my husband in 2004. It talked then of the dire consequences we were to experience then, that are yet to take place to the full extent they predicted half a century ago. Continue reading “Global Scaremongering”
Well I wrote this exact title at the end of October in 2011 after we had been in a severe drought in Samoa for three months! The comparison to the last few months in New Zealand is quite different. I know it hasn’t affected us city folk as much as the poor farmers and their animals. But I am fairly certain that even in the drought conditions we faced in NZ they would still have managed a shower (but, maybe not a bath) most days!
It is all relative – what we get used to, we miss when it is suddenly taken from us. I was certainly used to a hot shower every morning when I went to Samoa, but on arrival, was really happy with the luke warm to cool water from the cold tap, as we needed showers to cool us off at least three times a day. But, when I had NO water coming from the taps – in the middle of the drought, that WAS different!
It was a twice-weekly trip down the road to a friendly neighbour who allowed us to fill our 4 drums with water to keep us going. Then – back home to fill them into a solar shower before we could have a shower – once a day (twice if we were really lucky)! That would have been okay for just the two of us, but we had four visiting helpers on the farm, who also needed a shower! They were young, and took the opportunity to go downtown to Aggie Grays’ to have a swim and meet some of the local/visiting girls during their stay in Samoa!
And don’t even think about a flushing toilet! We were back to digging another hole in the ground, only weeks after we finally go our toilet working! So, when our climate varies from the normal, spare a thought for those whose “normal” is not as good as what we have on a bad day!
Don’t get me started on Global Warming – that will be in the next post!
