Inclement Weather: The Beast From The East and Britain's Odd Obsession

A good old friend of mine insists there is no such thing as global warming or climate change. “It’s only a change in the world’s weather patterns,” he says. “Happens all the time.” Which seems to me a pretty good if very simplified definition of climate change…… But then as a dyed in the wool Brexiteer for whom the EU is the root of all evil, he must of course be right, because aren’t they all?

As he lives in Kent, the Garden of England, my own home county and still gripped by the effects of The Beast From The East – the first one, never mind last weekend’s little returning flurry or the Part 3 widely predicted for this coming weekend, I do wonder how he is coping with it all, bless him.

For we Brits are not blessed with much common sense or many coping mechanisms when things turn a bit chilly.

This winter has been quite mild. In my adopted homeland, Poland, there has again not been a lot of snow. For our annual January skiing break in Szczyrk, in the lovely Beskid mountains on the Czech border, the snow, while better than the last couple of years (when snow machines were widely used to keep the slopes open) was still quite shallow and not ideal for skiing. By the end of the week, even that was going as a thaw set in.

In Warsaw there was even less: hardly more than a heavy frost before The Beast hit all of Europe at the beginning of March. Then we had a reasonable covering – as was the case everywhere – but it lasted little more than a week or 10 days. We had another dump last weekend that has remained, as the temperatures are still below freezing (just), and will probably get more this weekend. But it pales in comparison to the bitter winters and heavy snowfalls that were still the norm when I moved there back in 2000. I remember that first winter (2000-1) there was a huge snowfall in mid October and temperatures were frequently down to -20C throughout a winter that lasted until nearly the end of March. Since then, it has changed completely and it must be 6 years now since we had a White Christmas, perhaps longer. So what we have experienced this winter – more correctly, this month – is really nothing much.

In Luxembourg, where I am currently working, it has been very similar. The climate here is pretty much on a par with the UK – that is, temperate – and indeed in my six months here the weather has been typically English. Which is to say a lot of cloudy and wet days, not particularly warm (but not really cold either) with bright sunny days every so often. This month, The Beast left us alone: while Britain ground to a halt we had a single afternoon of heavy snow that caused a little flight disruption (it was a Friday, and made getting home a bit of a challenge for many of us) but it was all gone within a week. As I write, Beast 3 appears to be making its presence felt: it’s snowing and the grass outside the office is pleasantly white, but I don’t think it will amount to much more.

Across the borders in France and Germany The Beast hit just as hard as in the UK. But rather than grinding to a halt amid road closures, and people stranded overnight in traffic jams on impassable roads, and then a host of burst water mains as the thaw set in, life went on as normal. As it seems to have done in neighbouring Belgium and The Netherlands. Work colleagues from Romania and Bulgaria report similar normality, and remain mystified at the problems in Britain shown virtually round the clock on the BBC News channel.

It mystifies me too.

Winters are cold. They always have been and always will be – at least, until global warming really bites and the greenhouse gases caused by mankind’s reckless carbon fuel addiction turn the planet into a mini Venus – so I would expect people should be used to it and make the appropriate preparations.

As indeed they do across Europe (and indeed other places prone to cold winters like Canada, the US, Japan….). Come October, tyres are changed from summer to deeper tread winter ones. A different anti-freeze and screen wash capable of operating at -20C becomes the norm and often a legal requirement - in Poland and elsewhere, the police can operate spot checks and levy on the spot fines if the wrong tyres are on a vehicle. Snow ploughs and road gritters are made ready. At airports, de-icing equipment appears. People live their lives as normal, perhaps with a couple of extra layers of clothing and thicker top-coats and gloves. Bikes and scooters (very popular here, even with adults for some reason) remain in use. Trains continue to run to timetable, as do buses and trams. Roads remain passable, with care, and I saw no reports of people spending nights stranded anywhere else except in the UK (which is not to say it didn’t happen – but if it did, it was not widely reported here). There were fatalities because of the cold weather, notably in Poland where something like 50 rough sleepers died in various places over a weekend, but that merely proves that the problem of homelessness is not unique to Britain.

And when the snow went and temperatures rose, the water mains did not burst. There were no floods. Houses at the coasts have not been washed away by coastal erosion. To this writer, in fact, there has been precisely NO observable change. Nothing. Dinada. Diddly squat. Life continues with its unchanging patterns.

So – WHY has this not been the case back in my homeland? Why does Britain grind to a halt at the first sign of inclement weather?

Are our global neighbours all so much better prepared for it? On the surface, that appears to be an unequivocal YES. Are French and Germans, Luxembourgers and Belgians, Poles and Romanians and Bulgars all so much more smart than the British? I would have said no, not really…...in which case, why do they all cope so much better than we Brits? I thought we were the people with the Stiff Upper Lip, superior endurance in difficult times, a dogged it’ll be alright on the night optimism that is the envy of all……

Are we really? From the evidence I’ve seen this last couple of years – no longer. For reasons I can’t pretend to understand, let alone explain, we appear to have become a nation of sufferers and moaners, a people lacking common sense and an inability to think for ourselves. Do we really need 24 hours a day coverage and police warnings only to go out if absolutely necessary when the temperature drops a few degrees (and it’s not only in cold weather: the same refrain seems to be parroted in the summer, when the sunstroke warnings tale over….)? Are we so lacking common sense that at the first sign of a cold snap we have to empty the shops and supermarkets of “essentials”, as if it will be weeks before we are able to go back to Asda or the local corner shop?

In summer, do we really need to be told to use suncream when we go out to the beach or somewhere? Is it really newsworthy that record temperatures have been set in the Outer Hebrides or the Isle of Wight or somewhere? Is it really necessary for some government nonentity like Gove or Hunt to appear on the news, earnestly telling us to conserve water to stave off a possible drought, or stay indoors to avoid sunstroke putting serious strain on the NHS…… For God’s sake! A little common sense is surely all that is needed, not reams of “official advice”!

Is our national infrastructure so bad nowadays that we can’t even rely on our water supplies to be maintained, our public transport system to operate normally, except within what appears to be a narrow temperature band (somewhere between 10 and 15C)? If that is indeed the case, then it is a savage indictment of successive governments and their short-sighted policies (not only the current lot).

I’ve been to many countries over the last 20 years, working. Sometimes it’s been for a couple of days, often for weeks or months at a time. I’ve criss-crossed Europe, spent a lot of time in the Middle East. Been to North and South America, to Africa and the Caribbean. And nowhere in all my travels have I encountered a people so obsessed with the weather (as opposed to climate) than we British.

Generally, people just go about their daily lives and the weather is simply a part of that. If it’s hot, leave the jacket at home or wear lighter clothing. Wet – put on a waterproof jacket or take an umbrella. Cold – a thicker coat, maybe gloves and a scarf. It is what it is today, and there is no comment or discussion needed. Let’s talk about sport, or politics or something instead….

In the UAE or Qatar or Israel, people don’t complain about the sometimes intolerable summer heat. They dress to suit the climate, and get on with their lives. Air conditioned cars and offices are the norm, and every house or apartment has a fan or air conditioning unit or a shady balcony or terrace to sit on and enjoy the warm evenings. In more liberal places – Tel Aviv springs immediately to mind – there is a year round beach culture shared and enjoyed by all, no matter their religious beliefs.

Indians do not complain about the monsoon season, or the high humidity of summer where your shirt is wringing wet within minutes of setting out. The rains are a necessity for life and welcomed accordingly.

Places like France and Spain and Italy have long-established traditions of siesta time each day, and of July and August being the time when everything tends to shut down for the summer holidays – staff levels drop as everyone heads to the coast, armed with beach umbrellas and (of course….) suncream without any television or government prompting, and business carries on quite happily with a skeleton staff.

The thing is, the human race is adaptable, the most adaptable species in existence, that can live quite happily in the most extreme conditions.

Which is why Britain’s weather obsession and climate incompetence baffles and saddens me.