So who should we blame for this sham of a summer?

Michael Wolsey

WHAT an awful summer!

Empty beaches, flooded streets, crops rotting in the fields. Ice cream sellers are going broke while umbrella manufacturers flourish.

What further warnings of climate change do we need?

It’s time, and past time, that we mended our ways and got a grip, once and for all, on our carbon-emitting, earthwarming habits.

Trouble is, we’ve left it a bit late. For the summer I’m referring to is the summer of 1912, the wettest recorded in Ireland..

This year saw the wettest July on record and August has been nothing to shout about. But 2023 has not given us Ireland’s worst summer. It is not even a close contender for that sorry, soggy title.

The rain -soaked season now squelching its way towards autumn looks like being the third worst on record since the washout of 1912.

But Ireland’s records go back a mere 180 years – hardly a wet week, you might say. Before that they were recorded by Britain. The wettest summer in Britain’s Met archive was 1727 and it makes 2023 look like a soft day.

We tend to blame all extreme weather on global warming caused by human activity. But I don’t think it can be blamed for the floods of 1727. Nor for the Great Frost which struck Ireland, and much of Europe, in the winter of 1739, and the next two years, turning our rivers into roads of solid ice and our lakes into huge skating rinks.

Was it to blame in 1986 when Hurricane Charlie crashed like a wrecking ball through much of the country, bringing death and destruction?

Maybe. But what about Hurricane Debbie in 1961 which ripped up trees, knocked down walls and killed 18 people in Ireland? Nobody had even heard of global warming back then.

Nor is it likely that the burning of fossil fuels contributed to Ireland’s most infamous storm on the Night of the Big Wind. That cyclone, which came blasting in on January 6, 1839, left hundreds dead and thousands homeless.

So if human activity did not cause extreme weather problems back then, why are we so sure it is to blame for them now?

When I have raised this point in the past I have been accused of denying climate change. Not so. Of course the earth’s climate is changing. It always has.

It was climate change that knocked this little island of ours into shape about 12,000 years ago when global warming ended the last Ice Age and washed away a land bridge that had formed between Ireland and Britain.

Low-lying lands were inundated as the sea rose; the land bridge was overwhelmed and salt water flooded what was then a freshwater lake, forming the Irish Sea.

Obviously human activity had no bearing on these events and I am not convinced that is solely to blame for the present weather changes.

I approve of reducing the use of fossil fuels. They cause pollution and damage our health. In any case, we will eventually run out of them.

I approve of curbing our reliance on plastic. It is getting into our food and destroying our seas.

I approve of cutting back on road traffic. It is making our cities unpleasant and , if it is not restricted, will make urban travel impossible.

I approve of changing our ways. But I fear the climate will keep on changing whether we do so or not.