hot under the collar

I've just walked to town and back and let me tell you, it's hot.

Not as hot as Adelaide, I'll grant you that, but for Tasmania this is a stinker of a hot day - we've hit 32 degrees Celsius (90F), which is outrageous for half way through the first month of autumn! Last year we had an unseasonably warm autumn, but this year it's hotter!

It scares me really. When I'm not rejoicing over the incredibly speedy germination of my bok choy and cabbage, or revelling in the feel of warm sunlight on my face I wonder what will become of us. If the average temperature is calculated using temperatures from the previous twenty to thirty years, what happens when our current 'extreme temperature' is swallowed up in those average calculations and eventually becomes the norm as the cooler temperatures of the past drop off the scale? What if 30 C days become the norm for autumn in this part of the world?

And we had almost no rain last winter, hardly any rain this summer... what will we do if it doesn't rain this winter?

The climate is a changing and regardless of the heat, it sends chills up and down my spine. How will we live in a world we have destroyed?

Come on people, start living differently. We have to halt the heatwave!