         
Blog posts by msjnBlog posts by date:Sage, lavendar and bees
More from the garden. We've had an amazing number of roses -- huge masses of highly scented flowers that surround you with their perfume even when you are just walking past the garden. Some are already winding down their first flowerings, while the wild roses are just beginning. At the same time, the sage is at the mid-stage of its flowering, a great purple drift, and the French lavendar, which has been in flower since April, is just coming to an end. Several weeks ago I was struck by the lack of bumblebees for the flowers; in the past, the sage and lavendar in particular were "bee magnets." But when the flowers first arrived, nary a bee was to be seen . . . and only in the past few days has their constant humming been a factor. So here's the question: initially, I thought the lack of buzzing might have been down to the general diminution of the bee population recently. But now I wonder -- was it just that the flowers were out so much earlier this year (the lavendar in particular) that the bees couldn't keep up -- another instance of wildlife not being able to keep pace with the rapid change? Anybody know the answer to this question?
Initial Musings
I'm new to the whole blogging world -- so this is a very simple initial musing. I've just been at a conference -- the 2007 Ecumenical World Development Consultation -- which had a partial focus on Climate Change as part of its general theme of "how do our choices [in the North] impact on the Global South?" Andrew Simms from the New Economics Foundation and Sir John Houghton (www.jri.org.uk) gave excellent presentations on the nature of global warming and what needs to happen in terms of adaptation and mitigation. Now, back home, I'm looking at what I plant in my garden this year. From the very large-scale . . . to the very (in the case of my garden, VERY) small. But I'm keenly aware that it's in that gardening, that connection with "the natural world" that I'm most immediately conscious of the impacts of global warming in this precise area at this immediate time. Will we have another baking summer? Is it worth planting lupins? Or should I go for ever more lavendar? And then this thinking about the land and my relation to it brings me back to conversations with colleagues in the Global South, colleagues whose awareness of the potential impacts of global warming is far greater -- not least because the potential consequences in their areas are on a scale we can't really yet conceive of. I think of the woman from a small Pacific island, who recently described how another island had been completely submerged and spoke of her fears for other islands. . . . a woman from Swaziland (Southern Africa) describing the terrible impact on her largely rural society of the current drought, the kind of drought that could become ever more common if global warming scenarios progress. . . . I remember the fragility of the land, the very marginal nature of it, in the area of South Africa with which our diocese and church are linked. And I remember the comment of a Melanesian, expressing what so many in developing countries must feel: "We are the innocent victims." So, given these potentially horrendous consequences for others of our continuing along in the status quo, how do we begin to inspire people to act in positive ways? I am so glad to be part of Climate-X-Change and hope that we can continue to explore ways to inspire, challenge, and move each other along the road!
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