Photo was taken at Tooreenbawn, Millstreet, Co.Cork (Irl)

As today is the last day of January there is time left to include one more photo from a month that had only one talking point: SNOW! Our picture today is of a branch beginning to sag with the weight of snow on top.

Thought on Sunday – February – 31/01/2010

Our Thought For Today is by Fr.Tom Cahill called ‘Climate Change’

There’s something fishy about the North Sea. It’s getting hotter. Its temperature rose by 1¬∞C over the last 40 years. Not earth shaking, but serious enough to cause waves. The plankton that cod larvae like have had it. Some 60 percent of them have scuttled off to a cooler clime 1,200 km further north. The result? A sea change. Cod stocks dwindled; crab stocks exploded and jellyfish proliferated as the adult cod that feed on these became fewer. This in turn put pressure on flatfish such as plaice and sole whose offspring crabs crave. Just one extra degree of heat and an ecosystem’s food chain snaps. Even the quiet, away-from-it-all sea urchins, mussels and scallops on the sea bed haven’t escaped the squeeze.

Now, let’s enter our fishbowl and look at our society, our North Sea. Even here, one little degree of change can produce unforeseen consequences. I still remember the shock nearly 30 years ago while home on holidays from the missions hearing a seven-year old girl shout at a five-year-old boy and call him an a**hole. I thought only foul-mouthed Hollywood hoodlums used that language. I figured she’d been exposed at home to so-called entertainment unsuited even to adults. I fume when I hear on the TV seemingly concerned warnings from a disembodied voice about a film containing what it arbitrarily calls ‘strong’ language. It’s never ‘foul’, or ‘bad’ always ‘strong’. What a fine positive and ‘adult’ term for something that’s debasing!
Needless to say a lot more has entered the fishbowl from Hollywood and elsewhere that has raised the temperature.