Global Warming ? Or Just Global Moaning

Something that has for a long time bugged me is a recent trend for everyone to blame a nice warm sunny week as an effect of global warming. During any hot summer or warmer than average winter, news and newspapers produce sensationalist reports about how we are destroying our planet and how with the increasing temperatures and melting glaciers causing rising water levels, parts of the UK will be under water in 10 years. I don't deny that there is an issue, and a critical one too, but reliable sources report that average temperature changes within the lifetime of these people is still less than 1 degree. So I'm not convinced a warmer than average spell is nothing more than the normal cycle of weather variations that have occurred throughout the existence of our planet.

This subject came to my attention again during the last few weeks as China was experiencing a warmer than average winter and Chinese journalists were following the same path as their European counterparts harping on about global warming being the cause. Well I for one was quite happy because at the time I was in Dongbei, the North East and coldest part of China, which during my visit was no colder than around -15 degrees Celsius; usually they would expect temperatures of 10-15 degrees Celsius lower than this. So, was this an effect of Global Warming?

Well after a relatively warm January, last week, the Dongbei region received some severely bad weather, in Haerbin, the capital of Heilongjiang province, temperatures dropped by 25 degrees, In Shenyang, capital of Jilin province, snow fall brought the city, its transport, its schools, its people, everything, to a halt. In Dalian I saw tv footage of cars completely buried in snow, blizzards, strong winds blowing people off their feet and then carrying them along the icy ground (quite amusing to watch actually), unable to stop themselves until they hit something. The regions worst snowfall in over 50 years it was reported. These are places I visited in February, I was lucky to got out of the area just in time. So, what are the views of these reporters now, was this a side-effect of Global Warming ? They've gone quiet.

Finishing on a positive, rather than cynical note, the response of the Chinese to the heavy snowfall was, for example in Shenyang, to employ ten thousand people for the day, give them a shovel and clear the roads. In a day everything was reported as back to normal again. I had previously seen this in action in Haerbin; when I arrived, the streets were busy with people clearing up the previous day/night's snow into neat large piles out of the way of traffic and pedestrians so life could go on as normal quite quickly. Amazing what you can do with a large and willing population.