Always Look On The Bright Side

[poliphilo]

I love heavy rain. Yesterday we had bouts of it. There was one just before Ailz and I set out on foot for the health centre and another just after we arrived back home. Good timing, eh?

Of course I'd rather watch from shelter. Under cover of the Rashomon gate for instance....

Down in Cornwall heavy rain- perhaps the same belt of it that hit us later- caused a flash flood that swept away the heart of the village of Boscastle. Amateur video footage showed cars being swept down stream and out to sea. At the last reckoning no-one appears to have been killed.

It seems like our weather in Britain is getting more and more extreme.

I don't altogether understand the panic over climate change.  The way I see it, it's going to happen whether we humans help things along or not.  During the lifetime of our species there have been any number of switches. There was the Ice Age of course. And before the Ice Age our corner of Northern Europe enjoyed a climate in which giraffes and hippopotami flourished.

Maybe I'm being naive, but I think we underestimate our ability to cope...

P.S. The spell checker has problems with the word "Boscastle".  It suggests that I may have meant to type "bookstall" or "bisexual".

Comments

[kaysho.livejournal.com]

Any species that can't cope is quickly gone from the Earth, so the mere fact that we're here shows that we can cope. It's more a question of quality of life. If I had the option to live in a place and time where every ten years a hurricane caused $10 million in damage, or a place and time where every two years a hurricane caused $50 million in damage, I'd prefer the former. But I could cope with the latter.

Your spell checker reminds me of a man I used to work for twelve years ago. His name was Jim Schnös, and of course no spell checker had any idea what to do with Schnös. The suggestion the spell checker always gave was "schmooze", which honestly suited the man perfectly. :)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Exactly. We can survive in most conditions- we can even live (after a fashion) in Antarctica. I guess the fear is that civilisation might not survive an extreme change in the climate; no more internet, no more LJ- now that would be a test of our moral fibre....