Page 23 - Simply Veg Issue 3 2019

Climate Change
Kelvin Mason FNVS
The July edition of Simply Vegetables does not receive as many contributions as the other editions as these have all the show results and photographs of the excellent produce grown by members. This means I can indulge in one of my regular rants and thought this is an ideal opportunity to mention climate change.
weather extremes including more and stronger gales which causes more damage; more and longer droughts leading to more forest fires which cause massive amounts
of damage to both property and the environment. In other parts of the world they are suffering more cyclones, tornadoes and hurricanes again that causes major damaged often in undeveloped countries which cause famines and other problems.
The climate change science is now well proven, despite the sceptics like Trump and sooner or later he is going to have to admit it is happening.
It is now getting urgent that the human race takes some actions, we cannot leave it to any other species! So what can we do?
I will stick as a whole to what we can do in the garden and leave others to give options in general.
Tree Planting
After the oceans and possible the soil, trees are the biggest stores of carbon on earth. We need to plant more trees (as well as
This has become very topical recently (April/May) with the protests and girl from Sweden touring Europe and speaking
to our politicians. This has resulted in some of these politicians taking note
and mentioning the topic in the odd speach – possible all they will do! At the time of typing this article (between the local Council and EU elections) it could possibly be just to get our votes – am I cynical or just lack faith in them. I have to admit to losing all faith in our politicians
of all parties following the Brexit debacle. They appear to be happy to waste millions of pounds of tax payers hard earnt
money which could be well invested into horticulture; yet do nothing about climate change which is becoming a pressing problem. What we did to deserve the politicians we have I do not know.
If we are going to achieve any control of climate change, and we have to, it looks like it is going to be down to the people; the likes of you and me. It is important that we do something for our grandchildren’s sake. Most of the problems that will be created by climate change are likely to be a few years down the line, although possible not that far. We are already seeing some of the
Apple Red Lane
effects but not the major ones. I feel that climate change is that serious and important (hence this article) that we should all be doing something, so I have set out a few ideas below. There are many more in books, magazines and on various websites.
Probably I should briefly outline the problem although I am sure you are all aware of this. Over the years in fact centuries, we have continually added to the CO2 levels in the atmosphere and this has trapped heat
in the earth’s atmosphere and increased global temperatures. This has partly melted the polar ice caps and also some of the mountain ice caps and has raised sea and river levels as well as affected the general climate and weather patterns. This has
lead to drier summers, wetter winters and higher annual temperatures. Not only are
we getting wetter winters but when it rains we are getting heavier down pours which causes flooding, soil erosion and leaching
of nutrients out of the soil. There is also the possibility of changes to the gulf stream
that could result in cooler weather for the U.K, rather less appealing than the warmer temperatures!
Along with the wetter winters and drier summers we seem to be getting more
Cherry Wall Trained
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