Colm O'Regan: 40 days of rain in July — reckoning with climate reality

‪Comedian and Irish Examiner columnist Colm O'Regan, pictured in Cork. Pic: Denis Minihane.

I’m THIS close to saying “the line”.

Back in the day, Surf Washing Powder had a long series of ads. Gillian (Niall) Quinn was in one. 

“Ah Mikey,” she said as her son made a mess with a football. 

There was a catchphrase about Surf removing 99 stains (although to paraphrase Jay-Z, it isn’t clear whether a pitch ain't one). 

Before her, Mary (Glenroe’s Biddy) McEvoy had the definitive catchphrase. “If you’re not happy, Lever Brothers will give you your money back.” Did anyone get their money back? 

Was anyone going around the pubs of the parish throwing money over the counter saying “Pints are on the Lever Brothers!”

The ad people must have become aware of the line becoming a ‘line’ so in one of the ads, Mary McEvoy is shopping and a fella with glasses at the counter recognises her and says, “Will ya say the line?” so she reluctantly has to say the line about the money-back guarantee.

I remembered that because these days, it’s all I can do to not say “the line”. I reckon if I see one more weather forecast about “scattered showers merging to form a more organised band of rain” it’ll tip me over the edge. 

“Where’s all this global warming now?” says Colm, pleased as punch with himself. The words will spill out before I can stop them. “We could do with a bitta climate change here now, hah?” High-fives all around. 

I know it’s a stupid line because (A) there’s a difference between weather and climate, and (B) anyway this weather is probably caused by climate change as well. 

The second one is harder to get one’s head around because over the years we’ve been told a lot about the greenhouse effect and carbon emissions. And I don’t know any greenhouse that suddenly starts pouring rain randomly in one corner. Unless people in glasshouses have been throwing stones.

But once you understand that climate change means warming and/or Associated Mad Stuff like long-term blocking airmasses separating us from 40 degrees in Greece and keeping us in a northerly airflow, it makes some sense to me, a dope. 

If you pump a load of anything artificially into a system as complex as an atmosphere, it’s not going to react straight away by getting evenly warmer in every square foot. It’ll be unpredictable. 

Like, if you stressed someone out, you wouldn’t know how they might lash out. They might curl up in a ball, slap someone, start laughing hysterically, and start bingeing. Or in this case, have a really wet July.

That unpredictability makes things scary. We used to have a rough idea of what each month might bring. Or at least how much to distrust it. Now feels chaotic though.

Farmers are dealing with drought in February and floods in July. Cows indoors in July like the rest of us, staring at the Tour De France.

You’re going to hear the word adaptation a lot more. We still have to try and ‘mitigate’ — stop things going from bad to worse. But we’re also going to have to ‘adapt’ — live with bad.

If it’s 40 degrees temperature in Europe and 40 days of rain here in July, is there any point in school holidays in July? Might as well be learning something in the daylight. 

And we can’t all be on our holidays in May without getting letters from Tusla. (It will take CenterParcs precisely 12 minutes to cop onto that though).

For all this doom-laden thinking, if we get two nice days to rub together in August, my mind will put all of this to one side and embrace the present. 

The twin-track approach: Existential dread and taking one day at a time. For now, that’s my new line and I’m sticking to it.

CLIMATE & SUSTAINABILITY HUB