Climate change barometer and some questions

I do not know much about climate change, except that it is happening. I know that it is happening because I have my own barometer and that is my longjohns.

When I got to Joburg some 10 years ago I started wearing my longjohns on 1 May and took them off on 1 October (no NOT the same pair). As the years went by, the longjohn period grew longer and longer and with the exception of just a couple of days, I pretty much wore them this whole past year.

As a matter of fact, these days I have taken to wearing two pairs. I may be getting slightly older but I am in good health and 46 is really not that old ... it must be getting colder ...

So climate change is a happening reality, but what causes it?

I have trouble believing that it is man-made carbon emissions alone. I am all for cleaner fuels and cleaner living and consuming less resources, but is the opposite really the cause of climate change?

Many, if not most scientists seem to agree with me. The problem is that we do not have enough data to work with .... only about 150 years worth (if that) out of many billions of years. Earlier forecast models indicated that Joburg would get dryer due to climate change, but instead we stand the risk of drowning in the damn streets. More proof that nobody knows what is really happening.

My father also predicted that wet summers are followed by mild winters, but if the past week is anything to go by we are all going to freeze to death. That is because South African houses are designed to be cool during our long hot summers ... before climate change. Not even my father knows what is going on.

So climate change hysterics know as much or as little as the rest of us and I smell the beginnings of an hysteria-fuelled fundraising industry. There is nothing that the media love so much as predicting a looming catastrophe.

Meanwhile I support recycling and all green activities whole-heartedly ... I just wonder what the hell is going on and why damn George did not get me the damn heater he said he would ... I freezing my ass off as yet another soggy day draws to a close. I am eyeing my spare longjohns and wonder whether I should put on another pair ... or two.

About the heater ... I ordered a fan heater thinking it would use less electricity as I was lead to believe all my life, but George (he is a fridge guy and knows about stuff like that) disabused me of my world-saving notions. He told me that they all use the same amount of electricity. He went on and on about kilowatt hours but I did not really listen. I was busy recycling a glass of wine.

But the biggest question I have now is why George stopped me from buying a heater on Saturday and then forgot the cheap one for which he had a contact? The climate change inside my humble abode is really extreme ... I am wearing all clothes and I'm sitting under my duvet. Why George, ... why?

And welcome to Nicky Smith.