Hi Everyone
As I approach middle age I sometimes have to remind myself and others that I actually used to be young. This week I was watching a film when a young man was shown running across a remote beach which prompted me to remember that I used to be able to do that. The good news is that I would still probably be able to walk unaided across that beach unless I was so slow that the tide came in and washed me away. When I was young I lived in a city that had almost sixty coal mines, a large steel works, a number of iron foundries, and nearly 600 coal fired pottery bottle kilns in the year that I started to work, down from just over 2000 in the 1930s. Add to that the fact that nearly every house had a coal fire and you can see why that for at least fifty weeks in the year the city was covered by a pall of smoke. Now that vision of Dante's inferno did not last for weeks, months, years, or decades but literary for centuries as we built our industrial wealth. Finally, in the early 1970s, the clean air act became law and we had a smoke free city. Sadly that is not the end of the story but just the beginning. This week in Egypt, fifty years later, the world leaders are meeting yet again to make promises many of them will be unable or unwilling to keep. The United Nations chief told the two thousand delegates "We are on a highway to climate hell, with our foot still on the accelerator, co-operate or perish". The gathering is called COP26, the Twenty Sixth Climate Change Conference of the Parties. For twenty six years the countries of the world have gathered to hear yet another stark warning. The problem is many countries across the world want the same industrial wealth that we enjoyed all those years ago and still want to use fossil fuels to achieve it. Alternative energy sources and advanced technology are moving things forward but as nobody agrees with anybody about anything anymore and action seems to take forever to implement, it seems to me that it is all too little too late. Let us hope for future generations that every one of those two thousand delegates will listen and act without the need to repeat another stark warning at COP27 next year.
When I worked for the bricklayer of dubious ability and the joiner who could not say the word funeral, they would organise an informal drinks party at a local pub at Christmas. They would invite the staff, workers, and a few influential clients or possible clients. Now, the favoured drink of many is gin which comes in so many different flavours it is almost impossible in one lifetime to try them all. Back then in the early 1960s gin drinkers had mostly only two to choose from - Booths and Gordons. It was the favourite drink of the joiner who could not say the word funeral. During the course of the party he made less and less sense and became more and more befuddled to the point when he turned to probably the most important guest at the party, the chief surveyor to the local County Council and said "Can you tell the difference between Gooths and Bordons Bill?". For my part, we have half a bottle of Gordon's gin on a shelf somewhere that has not been touched for at least twenty five years so you are very welcome to finish it for us as long as you bring your own tonic and ice.
I realise that this is probably the biggest load of Rubbish I have ever written as I know absolutely nothing about farming. What I do know however was that as a child at the Fruit, Vegetable, Flower, Game and Lolly shop almost everything we sold was produced here in the UK, and most of it locally apart from tomatoes from the Canary Islands, apples and oranges from South Africa and some flowers from the Netherlands. In the 1960s I seem to remember that we considered ourselves to be almost self sufficient in food production. Now we rely on food from all over the world. I know that in parts of our country we have high food production but as we drive around this part of the country, it seems to me that we pass a lot of empty fields. Now I know that it may be that the field is being rested and that we need to preserve the quality of our soil but as part of our battle against climate change, I think we really will have to place a greater emphasis on producing much more of our own food.
Just a Thought :
I want you to act as if your house is on fire, because it is. Greta Thunberg
Men argue, nature acts.
They say that gin can damage your short term memory. If that is the case just imagine what gin can do.
Brian
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