AND SO THIS IS GLOBAL WARMING?

It was just a few short weeks ago that the world conference about climate change and global warming took place in Copenhagen. Sometimes, things happen that reveal something about the character of the planet which seems to have an eye for teaching its inhabitants lessons as well as a penchant for irony.

As I write, we are currently into the longest and coldest winter weather we have experienced for decades; temperatures hover around zero and for much of the time they fall well below; snowfall is predicted to get even heavier overnight, leading to the inevitable travel disruption tomorrow and for days to come, as the forecast is anything but cheerful. We in the UK could be heading for the harshest winter for almost half a century and, of course, half a century ago no-one had even thought of the notion of climate change or predicted global warming.

Now, the Copenhagen conference was, in the end, a failure of seismic proportions in that it produced virtually nothing apart from some weasel words, some strident intentions and some sheepish departures. And I am beginning to suspect that the planet witnessed all that and decided that it could no longer stand idly by whilst the leaders of homo sapiens - the current tenants - simply confirmed their ineffectiveness. The planet`s response seems to have been to remind us of the power it has to look after itself and to ebb and flow as it always has of its own accord without any help or hinderance from us. Hence we are stuck in snowdrifts and our minds have wandered from the myth of global warming or at least that tiny bit of climate change for which mankind might be responsible.

I see they are remaking `Edge of Darkness.` I wonder whether the updated version will have the black flowers blooming on the hill and the reaffirmation that, after all, we live on a self-regulating planet. If the zealots have their way, somehow I doubt it.