TV Programs I Watched This Evening

An other quiet day on the buses. This is to be expected in the middle of January and with the weather through out the UK being so bad recently doubly so.

One thing the bad weather has given us if the potential for serious pollution 35 miles along the coast. The ship Napoli with 2334 containers and a few thousand tonnes of oil got into trouble on Thursday last week and was beached a couple of days ago at Beer Head, which is to the North East of Torquay. The idea was that the containers and the oil could be removed, the ship repaired and sail away. No one told the weather that plan. Strong winds and high seas have damaged the ship even more and many of the containers and a few hundred tonnes of oil are now floating round Lyme Bay. Tomorrow the wind is 12 mph and from the east which means there is a possibility that some of the pollution could end up in our very own Torbay. We put our trust in the Environment Agency and the Salvage crews who are working to contain the damage this ship could cause.

The other TV program I watched with interest was presented by Sir David Attenborough (the man who has been everywhere) and it was about the predicted effects of the changes in the weather that we have been noticing for the last 25 years but done nothing about. First he explain what we could expect the weather to be like in 2020 even if we did everything possible to reduce the amount of Greenhouse Gases entering the atmosphere. Nothing catastrophic. We weren't all going to died of heat, just the elderly and the very young would be most at risk. As I will, hopefully come into one of those categories by 2020 I was very interested. Summer heat waves would occur every year and people living in Spain would make plans to come and live in England when they retire. Temperatures would stay over 30C for much of July and August. Winters would be milder but wetter and flooding would be common on low lying land. Sewers would be unable to cope with the extra rain and our streets would be awash with stuff we though we had seen the last of when we flushed the loo.

Then he moved on the predictions for 2050 and I lost a personal interest in the matter though I continued to be fascinated by the rising sea levels and lack of imported goods from countries that were now (2050) under water. And this I think in the biggest problem with Global Warming. Tony Blair and George Bush will not be leading their respective Nations in two years never mind 43 years so why should they make themselves unpopular with the public by banning the car. Hilary Clinton will be gone as President by 2016 so she isn't going to make herself unelectable by promising to shut down every airline in the US the moment she is elected. And who do I know that will be alive in 2080 when the really serious stuff starts to happen, like London and the east coast being only visible at low tide and wars start braking out as starving billions from the Third World look for some where to live that isn't either under 10 metres of water or turned into a desert.

Back in 1954 in Junior 3 we were doing geography. The teacher was pointing to all the red bits on the map and explaining that they were part of the British Empire. Except for Hong Kong, which were had on a long term lease from China. Which expired in 1997. I put my hand up and asked what would happen to all the people who lived there in 1997. The teacher laughed and said 1997 was a long time away. I again put my hand up and said that children my age would be 54 in 1997 and again asked what would happen to them. I spent the rest of the lesson standing in the corridor. (Don't ask teacher questions she carn't answer).

Someone born today, 21 Jan 2007 will be 73 in 2080, a child born to them when they are 30 will be 43 in 2080 and their grand child born when they are 60 will be 13. What will they say about us? It will not be nice. But will we care?

Here endth the lesson.