grandtanteJE65
If hotter, drier summers are something we shall have to live with, then unfortunately the risk of water shortages and wild fires will increase.
Preventing this will of necessity mean that some of the things we have been accustomed to no longer will be necessary.
It is no skin of my nose if barbecues go out of fashion - I have no liking for food grilled over charcoal. To me it is a method of cooking that completely ruins good food, stinks the entire neighbourhood and takes longer than cooking indoors.
I appreciate that others hold a different opinion, which they are entitled to.
But barbecues may well be one of the things that need to be restricted or even completely banned.
Burning stuble was banned some years ago, and all forests have fire breaks, but it may be necessary to widen them. Ploughing up the edges of corn fields after harvest will not stop fires spreading, as fire can leap far greater distances than the edge of a cornfield.
If the general public cannot be educated to taking all rubbish, including glass bottles home with them, picking up cigarette ends and used matches if they smoke out doors and only lighting fires in specially designated places outdoors, governments may well have to restrict the public's access to woodland. Not something any of us would like to see happening, I am sure.
Remember the litter-bug campaigns of our childhood in the 1950s and 1960s when you could be fined £1 for dropping litter in Scottish streets? A simply enormous sum of money to a child. School teachers, parents, scout masters etc. made a great effort to teach us never to leave rubbish behind, but to pick it up and take it with us to the nearest bin. We were also taught to break spent matches in half and bury the end that had been lit, head down in the earth.
Regarding use or misuse of water - crops have to be watered. Flower-beds and lawns do not. Now I shall duck down behind the sofa - as I know you avid gardeners will not agree.
Nor will you agree when I say bath-tubs should be made illegal. No-one should even for a minute consider filling a bath tub with gallons of water that they use to wash themselves in and then pour down the drain! If you really cannot accustom yourselves to feeling and being clean by taking a short shower, turning the water off while you soap and shampoo yourself, then do at least use the bath water to wash floors or water the garden.
Another thing: why are modern washing machines pumping used, hot water straight down the drain? Remember the wash copper and the water being used to wash floors in, when the washing was done, or when the water in the copper was changed?
I am not trying to suggest that we all can or should lug buckets of water outside, but a pump could be fitted to bath drains or washing machines to pump the water into a resevoir from where it could be diverted either to washing floors, patios, cars, or flushing toilets.
Using clean drinking water to flush a toilet is not something the world can afford to keep on doing, is it?
Instead of just being frightened of forest fires and floods - both of which are frightening, let us start thinking how we can mimimise the risks.
I use as much water having a shower as having a bath. I know that because I kept the plug in one day when I had a shower. It might have been different before people had power showers fitted. And when you suffer from arthritis, as I do, a hot bath is very therapeutic. I do reuse the water, though, and have done ever since I had a water meter fitted. Also people need baths for young children. One of the joys of childhood, imo is playing with bath toys in the bath. Both my children and grandchildren have always loved bathtime. As for only watering crops and not flowerbeds what about the insect life (especially bees) and birds that our flower beds provide for. I do agree about barbecues, though. Never understood them myself. When I’m hungry I want to eat. Not wait ages for the barbecue to heat up and then burn everything. And, as a lousy cook, I’m quite capable of burning food without barbecuing it.Then again, I guess barbecues are social events and I’m not very sociable! I don’t think, as individuals there’s a great deal we can do to minimise the risk of fire and floods. It’s down to government to do more and spend more money. The current government cut back on firefighters I believe. I live in a flood area and recently drainage ditches have been maintained properly, but they weren’t for a while. Ditto the drains in the road. Flood plains shouldn’t be built on. I don’t know what the rules are about that now: they seem to change all the time. I’m sure that they recently said it was ok to build on flood plains again. My driveway allows water to drain through it but my neighbours drives, which were done after mine, don’t.