Could global warming be exaggerated?
By Reina Free
The year ended and started unusually mild, almost too good to be true: the grass so green and already so high; tulips and daffodils coming up; lots of daisies; pussy willow in fluffy grey-white cardigans; catkins in gold-yellow long dresses. Could there already be an air of spring about? Not really. Suddenly the rain came, like a monsoon, rushing down the fields, the lanes, like a fast-flowing river overfilling the ditches. After that an almighty storm, bashing against roofs, hedgerows, trees, howling around the house, roaring across the field.
Then during the dark of night the snow, bringing in a strange light as if it was almost early dawn, eerie but quite magical. Sadly it did not last long, hung about the hilltop hedgerows ‘waiting for more’ as the old country saying goes. It was not to be.
For next came blue skies, the daffodils in bud, birds singing, badgers digging in the verges, hares running after one another. I even saw two woodcocks, which thrilled my heart as I had never seen them before. The robin rehearsing his song of endearment. Spring on the way? Maybe not yet. For I saw a flock of well over 200 mistle thrushes tut-tut-tut in the field. Cold weather, frost and snow on the way? We have to wait and see.
So what about global warming and climate change – is the world under threat? Yes, but there are far more serious dangers of our own making. We all know them: the newspapers bring them to our attention every day. What I do believe is this: God knows very well what is happening in the world and yes, is in complete and total control.
I have no answer to all the whys and wherefores. I also believe in every-day ordinary common sense, meaning for instance carefulness with all the things of nature. For years mankind has been robbing and exploiting the world, abusing, taking out, without putting back. It needs a real turning round and putting back, and maybe then the damage already done can be stopped and repaired, for the sake of future generations.