Rain, rain, rain - Warning from the future?

SO, how was it for you? Was your weekend a washout? Wellies and sandbags to try and stave off the flash floods, extraordinary rain and this never-ending summer of clouds, showers, winds and occasional floods? Did you get caught in the flooding on the M50?

Met Éireann has said that in the 24 hours from midnight on Friday, 76.2mm of rain fell at Dublin Airport, a record for August.

Though this rainfall is exceptional, the damage and chaos it caused seems completely disproportionate. It was like what happens when we get a decent fall of snow: the whole country closes down. Is it that we are just not used to coping with these eventualities, or is it that our infrastructure is designed to cope with a climate from a different time?

And, just to prove that one man’s cabernet sauvignon is another man’s poison, while we were cursing the rain the wine growers of south-east Australia were cursing the drought that has lasted for nearly a decade. It is the worst in the past century, and so great is the threat that Australia’s wine industry is in jeopardy.

Scientists have been warning us that we are facing tremendous climate change, yet we cannot cope with relatively minor blips.

A lot done, but a lot more to do indeed.