I am a Global Warming Sceptic.  I Believe it is happening but not necessarily for the reasons the media and politicians would have us believe.

I guess our climate is changing, and we are experiencing freak weather, but is this not quite simply a natural cyclical progression of the world.  Through time there have been ice ages and warm spells, rivers normally wet froze and rivers normally wet dried up, sea level changed, and vegetation migrated to and fro, and all this without the internal combustion engine or aerosol sprays.  Big business just wants to sell us their ‘ecological’ product – which is in no way ecological.

Tell me honestly what is ecological about ‘energy saving lightbulbs‘?  They do not last any longer than conventional incandescent lightbulbs, indeed they last a shorter time.  Here in Italy a low energy lightbulb costs anything from €5 to €12.  Now that is not cheap, so when last in the UK to see my partner I filled my 10kg luggage allowance with among other things low energy lightbulbs.  Three have already failed.  Tell me please why is it that I have a lightbulb in one of my bedside lamps that I removed from a house I bought in the 1980’s in Scotland, the bulb has travelled round that country and is now here in Italy and it works, bright as the day it was made.  Have you ever looked at an ‘environmentally friendly’ lighbulb.  Boy oh boy is it complicated, where do all those parts come from and what ever is in the base?  To the simpleton in me it looks far more scary than a convertional lightbulb.  Someone is making money putting this rubbish in the bulb, and we are paying for it.  The ploiticos claim these bulbs use less energy, but how much additional energy does it take to make?   Bring back the incandescent lighbulb, cost 80cents, manufactured locally and when it does finally give in, is less environmentally damaging to dispose of.

Yes we must act responsibly, irresposibility is not good, and I include in irresponsible acts, largescale housing on floodplains, destruction of rainforest, and needless polution, often perpetrated by large multi-national corporations and senseless acts such as flying prawns fished in Scotland to be peeled in Thailand and then flown back to Scotland for consumption.  and what really annoys me is that 80% of the energy consumed by a car in its lifetime is used in its manufacture, surely an arguement for classic cars, yet no we are lured into trashing our existing cars and buying new with ‘government sponsored scrappage schemes’

As a race, we need to re-learn the skills of caring and consideration which we seem all to much have replaced with greed and gain.

To me global warming is inevitable, we as a human race may be contributing to it but not on the scale the politicos and big business would have us believe. Here at Bellaugello gay guest house in Umbria we have restored the house using products that are as bio friendly as building will permit.  Many of materials used have been manufactured locally and I recycle like mad.  Unlike a house restoration in the UK which professed 100% ecological pretentsions.  The stone for rebuild of the ruined the house had to be transported from a quarry in Wales, it wa acceptable to use concrete as long as it was not seen in the end result, and the ‘environmentally friendly eco-sustainable’ roofing material, reed thatch came all the way from Romania, yeah real ecological!  I don’t claim to be an eco-freek however I would like to think I am eco-aware.

And all this because last night there was a southerly wind that blew into a storm. One of the problems of having a house on a southerly sunny aspect, is when the wind comes from the south we get it all, and yesterday evening it was like being in the slipstream of a jet fighter, everything but everything was racing to escape.  We have electric cables below the house and every so often a blue flash would light up the sky and  the power went down in the house, the satelite dish spun round like a whorling dervish, for once Sky programming was entertaining.

As I went to bed it started to rain. This morning I awoke to torrential rain and the sight of the road sitting in the garden.  We installed a rainwater grille at the main entrance to Bellaugello gay bed and breakfast here in Umbria, – the road to the house slopes gently down toward the gate, but clearly it is not big enough, the water cascaded over the grille and decided to wash the road surface, and re-locate a large pile of sand into the garden.

Global warming, huh I don’t know all I do know is that I now have to wheelbarow loads of sand back uphill, one happy consequence, it beats going to the Gym!

I’ll leave this rant with one last observation.  When walking in Glasgow with my three dogs I assidiously picked up the dog ‘mess’ by means of plastic mini-sacks kindly given out free of charge by Glasgow City Council.  Yes I too hate stepping in dog dirt.  Picking the dirt up – Admirable, but no.  What is the sense of collecting an organic product and putting it in an non-degradable receptacle which is then either left hanging in trees – (can somebody please explain that strange phenomenon?) or whisked  off to the landfill or incinerator?  Who profits?  The bag manufacturers, landfill site and incinerator site operators, and they are not me and you, they are big business.