Climate change is changing the climate as we take the weather with us ........
On Monday the 24th March in the year of our Lord 2020 Snods Edge lived up to it’’s name and became Snows Edge, more accurately Snow Central.
A very heavy snow fall came at about 7 00 am covering the ground with some 3 or 4 inches of snow.
Obviously in some parts of the world that would be just a mere smattering and life would carry on as normal, here however the traffic was paused, a silence fell, appointments were cancelled or rearranged and life was reorganised.
The debate about climate change continues.
Does one snowfall change the argument?
Do the storms that have caused flooding and misery indicate that climate change is now an accepted fact of our human existence and we must learn to adapt?
Wilder, wetter, stormier weather now seems to be the norm. Seasons have become unseasonal. Even the birds and the bees seem to be confused.
On the Wednesday after the snow fall the Vicarage Bees were flying in the warm sunshine that bathed their hives.
In the spinney the snowdrops were in full flower the yellow aconites reflecting on the white of the snowdrop petals.
The daffodils are raring to go too.
Certainly the seasons are in disarray as are the people. People who inhabit the streets. People whose lives are in the same degree of disarray as the weather.
A few weeks ago I took two of my grandchildren to lunch in the centre of Newcastle. Storm Ciara had blown in the wind was bitter, the sleety rain whipping the faces of pedestrians who were dashing between the shops and arcades for warmth and shelter from the weather.
I was waiting by the monument for my lunch companions when I noticed a man huddled in a cardboard shelter wrapped in a damp sleeping bag by the entrance to the Metro Station.
I fought with my conscience, but I was a flaneur, observing and commenting on the scene as it unfolded. A young couple stooped down to speak with the man, they offered a cigarette to share which he refused and so after a few moments in the biting cold they shook their heads and walked on, he lay there, after a short while an older couple came by and at first appeared to disagree, she wanted to offer help he didn’t, they started to walk away then the man reached into his pocket gave a coin to his wife who went back and handed it to the man.
Another few moments and the man was joined by three others. He then crawled out of his shelter handed over his tray of coins to an older woman who climbed into the sleeping bag and wrapped the cardboard around herself.
The young man then disappeared into the pub, presumably for sustenance and warmth.
After my pleasant lunch with grandchildren I returned home and wondered what more I might have done. The area was in my former parish and we offered hot food and a warm space for people alongside practical support, benefit advice, counselling and referral. But I left that parish in 1987 and could only reflect how far matters had deteriorated.
In cold wind and snow
A homeless man
Lay in a wet sleeping bag
Under a sign that read
‘M’ for mercy
His hat had maybe
Blown away and those
Who passed sifted pockets
With cold fingers
And the sign read ‘M’
Possibly for money
A sleeping bag on
A hard pavement
Offers little in the way
Of comfort, sore bones
A lonely way to spend time
Under a sign that read
‘M’ for misery
It seems for all our work and effort it is not just the weather that is worsening. Climate change is generally happening around us as we watch and nothing it seems can be done about that.
The climate of public opinion is also hardening, our political life is failing to respond to need, as is our immigration policy, our attitude to those relying on benefits, the disabled, children in poverty, families who are not coping.
As the weather changes so it seems does our particular form of what in a former life I would have called, social responsibility.
A very heavy snow fall came at about 7 00 am covering the ground with some 3 or 4 inches of snow.
Obviously in some parts of the world that would be just a mere smattering and life would carry on as normal, here however the traffic was paused, a silence fell, appointments were cancelled or rearranged and life was reorganised.
The debate about climate change continues.
Does one snowfall change the argument?
Do the storms that have caused flooding and misery indicate that climate change is now an accepted fact of our human existence and we must learn to adapt?
Wilder, wetter, stormier weather now seems to be the norm. Seasons have become unseasonal. Even the birds and the bees seem to be confused.
On the Wednesday after the snow fall the Vicarage Bees were flying in the warm sunshine that bathed their hives.
In the spinney the snowdrops were in full flower the yellow aconites reflecting on the white of the snowdrop petals.
The daffodils are raring to go too.
Certainly the seasons are in disarray as are the people. People who inhabit the streets. People whose lives are in the same degree of disarray as the weather.
A few weeks ago I took two of my grandchildren to lunch in the centre of Newcastle. Storm Ciara had blown in the wind was bitter, the sleety rain whipping the faces of pedestrians who were dashing between the shops and arcades for warmth and shelter from the weather.
I was waiting by the monument for my lunch companions when I noticed a man huddled in a cardboard shelter wrapped in a damp sleeping bag by the entrance to the Metro Station.
I fought with my conscience, but I was a flaneur, observing and commenting on the scene as it unfolded. A young couple stooped down to speak with the man, they offered a cigarette to share which he refused and so after a few moments in the biting cold they shook their heads and walked on, he lay there, after a short while an older couple came by and at first appeared to disagree, she wanted to offer help he didn’t, they started to walk away then the man reached into his pocket gave a coin to his wife who went back and handed it to the man.
Another few moments and the man was joined by three others. He then crawled out of his shelter handed over his tray of coins to an older woman who climbed into the sleeping bag and wrapped the cardboard around herself.
The young man then disappeared into the pub, presumably for sustenance and warmth.
After my pleasant lunch with grandchildren I returned home and wondered what more I might have done. The area was in my former parish and we offered hot food and a warm space for people alongside practical support, benefit advice, counselling and referral. But I left that parish in 1987 and could only reflect how far matters had deteriorated.
In cold wind and snow
A homeless man
Lay in a wet sleeping bag
Under a sign that read
‘M’ for mercy
His hat had maybe
Blown away and those
Who passed sifted pockets
With cold fingers
And the sign read ‘M’
Possibly for money
A sleeping bag on
A hard pavement
Offers little in the way
Of comfort, sore bones
A lonely way to spend time
Under a sign that read
‘M’ for misery
It seems for all our work and effort it is not just the weather that is worsening. Climate change is generally happening around us as we watch and nothing it seems can be done about that.
The climate of public opinion is also hardening, our political life is failing to respond to need, as is our immigration policy, our attitude to those relying on benefits, the disabled, children in poverty, families who are not coping.
As the weather changes so it seems does our particular form of what in a former life I would have called, social responsibility.
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