Welcoming a Gray and Wet Morning!
 

This morning the sky was covered with clouds in various grades of grey, Sun was nowhere to be seen, the air felt cold and wet. This made me happy not only me but most of the people in Britain felt so. This joyous welcome of a grey, wet, and cold morning is completely different to what usually happens here. This sort of weather is tolerated but never gets a happy reception.

 Stonehenge in Wiltshire is one of many green, grassy landscapes dried out by the extreme hot weather this summer. Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters, 1

But this year almost all the previous records for high temperature were broken and there was no rain for weeks on end. People celebrated and enjoyed the sunny and warm weather for a few weeks and then it felt like a curse. The usual abundant greenery turned yellow, and brown, parks and woods lost a lot of plants, many wildfires erupted in various parts of the country. The railway tracks and roads deteriorated due to ferocious Sun causing chaos for travellers and hauliers. A few people died due to direct effects of the hot weather.

This was a real taste of global warming felt by everyone in this country. Of course, the scientists and environmentalists have been warning about it for more than two decades. The main reason for this warming seems to be consumption of fossil fuels for our ever-increasing energy needs. The tragedy is no country wants to reduce their energy consumption and reduce their economic growth which in turn reduces   living standard and increases political instability.

So, the only way the countries can help to reduce the global warming rate is by significantly increasing renewable energy production to reduce and replace the need for fossil fuels. The problem is that the transition needs a lot of investment in research, development, and implementation. Whereas there is no such extra cost in using the fossil fuel. So only relatively rich countries can afford to do this at any meaningful rate.

The richest and most powerful country, USA, which should have taken the lead has a President who summarily dismisses any suggestions of global warming and looming environmental disaster. He does not see any need for reducing carbon footprint and his policies are discouraging and unfavourable to other countries which actively wish to cut their fossil fuel consumption.

It leaves all the effort on conscientious individuals and various NGOs. Realistically they can make but only small impact on global scene.

 I have reduced my driving to a bare minimum and am trying to take public transport as much as possible. We also have cutdown our electricity and gas wastage significantly though the recent steep rise in energy cost has more to do with that!

But hey, a little is much better than nothing.

 

¹ https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/aug/02/july-set-to-be-driest-on-record-for-england-and-wales-after-relentless-heatwaves#img-5