Be careful 20!
We Climate Change sceptics (sorry, heretics) must tread very carefully when we make such remarks.
What you say is perfectly true. The couple of hot summers we had were, we were told, “clear evidence” that the climate is changing. Of course they were nothing of the sort, but were simply variations in weather patterns which the UK experiences.
So clear was this evidence that even respected gardening experts were telling gardeners to convert their gardens to accommodate cacti and other plants capable of withstanding arid conditions. The UK, they warned, was about to encounter desert-like conditions in the not-too-distant. I think I still have a copy of the Gardeners’ World episode where Monty Don (no less) created his “dry” garden to demonstrate what could be done. I wonder just how much Mr Don (whom I admire as a gardener) was leaned upon by his bosses to make such pronouncements. It is unfortunate that Monty’s premature departure saw the series relocate from Berryfields to a ploughed field somewhere near Birmingham. Its metamorphosis into a children’s programme meant we could not see how the “dry” garden coped with last summer’s near-record rainfall.
Now, when people attempt to put the Climate Change lobby in its place by mentioning the cold weather they are (quite rightly) told that such short term local variations are nothing to do with the climate. Myself, I can’t wait for the UK’s climate to change. It would save me a fortune on heating and holidays to the tropics to escape the cold.
(Cue jake to come in and tell me how selfish and foolish I am. How the sea is going to swamp 80% of the mainland, how the winters will be long and cold, the summers dry and hot, and how Bangladesh and the Maldives will cease to exist by 2020. And why changing my lightbulbs will prevent all of these catastrophes!).