Trees, the Thames River, plastic bottles, bridges, birds, hills and valleys, and flowers are all things I invariably notice as I walk city streets for an hour, 4 or 5 times per week.
I cannot help but notice the rapid week to week changes in the natural surroundings brought on by rising temperatures, warmer this year in March than I can ever recall in the past. (“We’re not breaking records this year, we’re smashing them,” says an article in a local newspaper.) I cannot help but notice that plastic bottles have become the most common items that litter city streets and parks and pathways, barely outnumbered by the spring flowers making their way through remnants of last fall’s leaf clutter.
Noticeable too are the trees in bud, some soon to be in bloom.
As I walked through Thames Park recently I wondered if most Londoners feel it’s a good thing or bad, that spring is coming earlier each year. My impression is, based on conversations with a dozen or more friends and acquaintances, that most like the warmer weather (the golfers in the crowd truly love it), and only a few feel it is weird or wonky and may come at a cost.
I don’t know if I’ll develop a long-term habit of walking the streets of Old London Town for the sake of ‘fun and fitness’ (it’s ‘early days’; as well, I should add ‘photography’ to the mix), but it seems apparent global warming is developing a stronger grip on our local climate.
As it does so, I think fewer will actually like the warmer weather - in spite of an earlier golf season and other fun consequences - because the ugly consequences related to climate change will be more apparent or better known.
[Photos in Thames Park by G.Harrison]
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Please click here to read Walking 5: Discovering London in one pair of pants
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