The weather here in the UK often dominates everything, from news, to health, to who is to blame. Things are bad; indeed, they are the worst they have been for as long as many people can remember and the weather is set to break all records.
A day doesn't go by without someone complaining about the weather, or bemoaning the loss of their home or treasured possessions. We can but feel sympathy for them and think we are fortunate that it is not we who are affected, but some other poor soul.
Someone is to blame for all this, though. It is a time-honoured phenomena to blame someone - usually politicians - for failing to protect us or our property. Firstly, it is the Environment Agency that is blamed; their failure to provide proper defences is..... indefensible! They stand accused of not dredging rivers, or creating flood barriers, sea defences and other things. Next, it is the Prime Minister's fault, for failing to spend enough public money, or not arriving in time to see the devastation as it happened. The local authorities and others are to blame, for allowing the building on flood plains; the building trade is responsible for building the houses and roads and other people are at fault, for digging up their front lawns, so they can park their cars. Our problems have even been blamed on same-sex marriage!
Everyone is focussed on getting "back to normal"; demanding to know when the severe weather is going to stop and when they can all resume their lives, their businesses, their holidays, their families, their weddings, new schools, churches, temples, roads, house building, to name but a few human activities, which we have all come to take for granted.
Scientists, politicians and children talk about "global warming" and "climate change", planning how to survive the next disaster and wondering what the future will be like. However, nobody seems to realise that the "wake up" call has been and gone. Everything that is happening now, was predicted at least forty years ago. We were advised that, if the tropical rainforests were destroyed, dire consequences would prevail. But those who said it were decried as "ecologists"; a dirty word back when I first read about what was happening to this planet.
However, nowhere in all this mess, has anyone talked about the real issues. It is all very well to criticise politicians for loose planning regulations. One can even criticise the fools who have allowed the building of towns and homes on the "great plains" of America, where tornados have been touching down for a lot longer than the human race has been living there. Yet it still boils down to the same issues: where to put the increasing number of human beings on this planet.
We care not about the lion, the leopard, the elephant or the rhinoceros; we have no interest in the polar bear, the koala bear, the vulture or even the blackbird. We want their homes. We want to swim in the sea, without being bitten or eaten by sharks; we want to live or go on holiday anywhere we want , without any risk whatsoever of being attacked by an animal - or insect. In our quest for world domination, we have begun to destroy everything in our path, without a care or a thought for whether it is going to cause us to destroy ourselves. We believe that technology is the answer to all our problems; that we should breed on an industrial scale and ensure that each and every human being that arrives on this planet survives, and lives for as long as possible. Every one of these human beings needs and wants things. Whether that be a worthless "trinket", made from the hide of an animal that gave its life so a human being can wear it around their neck, or the morbid and grisly reality of vivisection.
What is happening outside the windows and doors of our homes is due to everyone on this planet. If we want to continue living the debauch, unthinking, undisciplined and selfish lives that we are already, then we have to accept the consequences. These consequences are dire; they are not the babblings of "environmentalists" or "ecologists". They are not the trials and tribulations of children and young people, who personify their pets. Neither are they the foolish nonsense of an unknown writer, who studies how the human race has changed itself from being human, to a species that has become over-reliant on technology, and which is propelling itself to being mindless morons and automatons, because life is simple and easy that way.
The severity of the weather - across this planet - is merely a reflection on the irony of the human race. We have made an incredible journey from the struggles of our ancestors, to being able to understand some of the mysteries of the universe in which we live. But what we have failed to do - and are still ignoring - is to moderate our behaviour. We may have begun to understand how the universe works, but we have lost sight - or perhaps never thought about - how the Earth works. Until we do that; until we learn to live alongside the planet that gave us and supports our life, we will continue in our ignorance and arrogance, to destroy ourselves.
Predictions are not difficult to make; they emanate from the simple common sense and an understanding of how things work.
Something is seriously wrong with this planet. It will take inspiration and a real desire to make things better; to start to address the very serious problems we all face. Unfortunately, though, most of the problems of the human race stem from one thing only: greed; nobody is ever satisfied with what they have and everyone is encouraged to want more.
Unless and until we can curb our greed, with all that is associated with it, we stand no chance of enjoying a safe and peaceful future.
"The love of money is the root of all evil"