Green Goddess: What might the summer bring?

It was during his early-morning horse rides in the sunshine that he became perturbed by the fact that other folk were fast asleep in their beds when they could be up and doing something far more productive.

Alas, the motion was ignored by the government (and, we must speculate, his friends and relatives who doubtless heard the merits of his argument on more than one occasion) and Mr Willett passed away in 1915. Ironically, the nation's long lies lasted only until the following year, when the government introduced British Summer Time in an effort to save money and fuel, hence aiding the war effort.

So here we stand almost 100 years later, welcoming the start of British summer time. A summer we await with bated breath, wondering if it'll involve months of barbecues (using locally sourced charcoal) and days out at the beach or endless weeks of rain and misery. After a few years of bungled weather forecasts and recent controversies over the research findings of the IPCC, is it even worth speculating about what summer might bring? To find answers to the many pressing questions on my mind (should I invest in new vest tops? Bother building a patio to catch the late afternoon sun?) I set my sights on the Met Office.

The first revelation was that weather and climate are not the same thing: "Weather is the temperature, precipitation (rain, hail, sleet and snow) and wind, which change hour by hour and day by day. Climate is the average weather and the nature of its variations that we experience over time." So there. Globally, the ten hottest years on record have all been since 1997. It's estimated that unless we limit emissions, global temperatures could rise by as much as 7C, pushing ecosystems like coral reefs and rainforests into irreversible decline.

Gloomy, eh? But wait a minute. Aren't these big weather changes natural? I quote the Met Office: "Yes. There is natural variability in Earth's climate but the current climate change is very unusual as it is not exclusively part of a natural cycle."So we have natural factors like volcanic eruptions and El Nio making their presence felt on our climate, but all the research says that the last century's changes are "almost certainly caused by man's activities". (I think that includes women, too.)

In terms of our British summers, we can expect hotter temperatures (anywhere between 2C and 5C by the end of the century) and the not exactly definitive possibilities of droughts and/or intense downpours. Globally, extreme weather is expected to lead to all sorts of unpleasantness – water and food shortages, poverty, loss of biodiversity and so on. On the upside, some areas may attract more tourists and benefit from longer growing seasons because of the warmer climate.

But while the heat might benefit my grape vines, it could just as easily lead to crop failures, new pests and, I kid you not, melt our roads. And really, it doesn't seem morally correct to look forward to balmy summer evenings and lower heating bills while the inhabitants of some Pacific island are watching their homes disappear under water.

Have we reached a conclusion? Of course not. Climate change is far too big a topic for the likes of me. Plus I'm feeling sleep-deprived, what with the clocks going forward. Thank you Mr Willett for putting the wheels in motion for that one. If you'd been around today, I wonder if you might have had any public-spirited ideas for solving global warming?

This Article was first published in Scotland on Sunday, March 28, 2010