According to an old English legend, it it rains on St.Swithun’s day (July 15th) it will rain continuously for the next forty days and forty nights. Well, it did rain this year, and the news is now full of frightening pictures of much of prosperous middle England suffering the worst flooding ever recorded.

While it would be convenient to be able to blame this on a tenth century bishop, the real cause is likely to be a lot closer to home. How many of the unfortunate flood victims, or their neighbours, have been in the habit of taking several low-cost airline flights ever year to nip over to the holiday home in Tuscany? or taking advantage of the weak dollar to scoot across the Atlantic and take the kids round Disneyland? how many run the kids to school every day in a family Toyota the size of a minibus? how many have complained about the chilly summer, but just bought an extra patio heater or two to compensate?

On the weekend that brought the Cut the Carbon march to Edinburgh, it is no bad thing to remember that this is a global issue. Having watched flood waters inch towards our house some years back, I have great sympathy for those in Middle England who are suffering now. However, they are far better placed to cope than many in the world for whom the effects of climate change are a life and death matter. And whereas the lifestyle in Middle England (and beyond) is helping cause climate change, those in the front line - for example the inhabitants of the Sundarbans in Bangladesh - are liable to lose all, without having enjoyed a single EasyJet flight.

The rain it raineth on the just
and also on the unjust fella
but chiefly on the just because
the unjust steals the just’s umbrella

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 22nd, 2007 at 8:50 pm and is filed under Greenery. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.