Water, water

Its odd to be writing about drought today, when outside it is actually raining. Not hard, but steady, and rain is forecast the next few days. On and off.

But we have had a dry spring which followed a dry winter. The Nailbourne no Drellingore didn't flow, which isn't unusual, but the long dry Spring with next to no rain had made it the driest for 49 years.

Its not just orchids that have suffered, other plants have too, and so then will insects that use the plants to lay their eggs and larva to feed on.

Entire colonies of orchids have failed, or produced one or two much smaller plants than usual. Some will have already formed wintergreen rosettes, so a rhizome for next year or some kind wil have been formed, so we should see plants next season.

But for many species, the arrival of the current rain and what will follow over the weekend is too little, too late.

With climate chage, this is likely to become the norm, rather and a once in 50 year event, and has profound implications not to just our wild fauna and flora, but of our food crops too.

In the US, the Government is stripping funding on climate change, among much else, and sheer denial of change is now rife in those making policy decisions, who see short term profit more imporatn than the survival of a few species of plants, or even the human race itself.

A temperature increase of 2 degrees C is now expected much sooner, which will have even more profound effects in local and global climates, with more extreme weather everywhere.

And we could change, but those in power chose not to, abandoning net zero, and the Labour Government targetting environmental protection laws and stopping growth.

It might be a few orchids now, but in less than a lifetime, staple crops will longer be able to be grown here, and further south, deserts will march, claiming more land that was once fertile.

But some people can make bigger profits.