Count Your Blessings.

[Maywalk]

We are SO very lucky here in the UK weatherwise although we moan about the rain when it comes.
I say this because I have just had these photos from a friend in Australia where the dust storms are
playing havoc. She has taken them from her window. [/b]





I have also had an e-mail from New Zealand tonight telling me that a warning has gone out about a tsunami
to hit their shores but not exactly where.

[Monika]

I really would hate to see that from my window, Maisie, and would be quite worried.

However, the future scenario for all countries to have more and more extreme weather culminating in the death of this wonderful planet we live on, becoming reality in less than a century's time, means that not for much longer will we (here in the UK) be able to avoid similar scenes to those your friend has experienced.

If we ignore this for much longer, there will be no way to reverse the damage caused by this plundering of nature's riches.

http://www.rainforestsos.org/

[caroljoyce]

I just can't imagine looking through my window at anything like that.
It must be terrifying!

[Maywalk]

Yes its worse than any London smog that I used to have to face Carol when I lved there many years ago.

[Rowan]

Just shows that all those who pooh pooh the idea of global warming and its danger are being very short sighted. We have to do what we can and keep trying to spread the message.

I remember fogs and smogs living in an industrial town but the scenes from Australia are truly frightening.

[Dragon Lady]

I don't think that sort of thing is anything new. I remember a dust storm (although not as severe as that) blew sand into the UK from the Sahara. I think it may have been the 60s or 70s.

[Maywalk]

Yes there was DL I can remember it well. We had not long had our car and she was covered in sand. It had to be swept off with a very soft brush before cleaning the car because of it scratching the paintwork.

I understand that sand storms are not uncommon in some areas of OZ. They have had them before.

[Lacemaker]

Yes we have, Maisie, but this one was the worst for 70 years and was followed by a milder one a few days later.

[Anya]

There is continuous scaremongering, with all sorts of hidden agendas and people often forget just how dreadful the climate used to be, in so many countries - including this one - before the Clean Air Act was passed, because of the pollution of ancient industries.

Just before the turn of the last century, newspapers were full of groans and howls, predicting that horse manure would reach first floor windows but the infernal combustion engine was already on the roads.

We are at a crossroad again and need to change our ways, that is all. As we have done many times before.

[Monika]

You have a lot more faith than I have, Anya!

All I see is greed, and big business wanting to make a quick buck and to Hell with the future - even if it means there won't be one!

Will man manage to turn this progressive destruction around before it is too late?

I daren't hold my breath - not when I read that vast areas of the world's oceans and many lakes are already dead as Dodos with nothing able to live in them, many of the world's creatures are gone forever and scientists are not being listened to when speaking of the destruction of the world's lungs, the rain forests.

Scaremongering or a wake-up call?

[Rowan]

Last wake up call. Time is short now.

[Anya]

Humanity has always gone to the brink, looked down into the abyss and then pulled back. Most recently with full scale nuclear war.

I am not being complacent, just saying that terrible events happened in the past, plagues, endless wars ... and we are still here. Our grandparents faced two world wars, dire epidemics, ultimate economic destruction, without a safety net of welfare and even a minimum of medical care. Life is easier today, for many people.

[Monika]

All I know, Anya, is that when people like David Attenborough tell me to get worried, I get worried, and when he says that if we don't do it right now, it's going to be too late, would it be wise to ignore him!

[Anya]

We need to change our ways, without a doubt but should also be aware how very difficult life was, for previous generations.

In one small town alone, 900 (nine hundred) young men were lost, in ONE day, on the Somme. Many people lost their parents and all their family, in one war and their children, in the next one. Multiply that, by every city, town and village, in this country and all over Europe.

Houses were cold, unemployment was frightful, epidemics killed more people than all the wars, put together.