You know, the one about how man-made carbon dioxide – not the natural variety, but the man-made one – was causing the world to burn up. It was stated to be “the greatest moral issue of our time”, or some such. In one sense, that statement was right – it has been the greatest lie of our time, and that is certainly a moral issue.
Anyway, nature, with little regard for morals, lies, politicians or deluded scientists, has put the issue into the freezer, it seems. Today’s Australian carries a link to an article in The Times by Tom Kington headed Italy snow: tourist hotspots shiver, which commences:Italian cities accustomed to mild temperatures all year round have been struggling with once-in-a-lifetime snowfall, while sites such as the Roman amphitheatre in Taormina in Sicily, the island of Capri and the beaches at Rimini have all been covered by snow.
And so it goes on.
In Rome, schoolchildren slid across iced pools in baroque fountains.
The region of Puglia, which rivals Tuscany as a summer destination for British travellers, has been worst hit, with 80 per cent of schools shut as classrooms freeze up and soldiers dig through snow to reach farmhouses amid picture-postcard olive groves.
Four people have died from the cold in the region while police saved 300 freezing and hungry dogs at Laterza after the municipal pound was cut off by heavy snow. Rosa Maiullari, a midwife, needed to borrow her husband’s tractor to get to her hospital near Bari.
The region’s governor, Michele Emiliano, demanded that the government declare a state of emergency in Puglia. The farmers’ association, Coldiretti, said that vegetable deliveries were down 70 per cent after fields froze over, costing its members 110 million euros.
Further north in mountainous Abruzzo, hundreds of residents of Schiavi di Abruzzo have been cut off by heavy snow for six days, while in Sicily 20 tourists were rescued from snow drifts on Mount Etna as temperatures dropped to -11C.
And so do the lies, despite all the evidence to the contrary, in the USA, which is available to us all on our TVs, and now in sunny Italy.
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