This post was written last week, when it was incredibly hot. It was too hot to continue writing so I delayed it.

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Pheeee-ew! It is hot! It’s 43ºC today, after 39º yesterday. And tomorrow it is forecast to be 42º, and 41º on Saturday, and another forty degree-er on Sunday, and another on Monday. We’ve already exceeded the record for the number of forty degree days this summer. And we’ve had above 30deg temps for more than ten days in a row, I think.

Luckily, as I’ve said before, this house is well insulated and with ducted air con, I’m hardly noticing the heat. I don’t need to turn it on until around midday, and it goes off at about 5pm because it gets too cold in my TV watching position. I don’t need it on overnight, either.

So with solar power, and the $400 grant from the state government, I don’t need to worry about the cost of running the air con either. Not much, anyway. This is all good.

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I’ve delayed continuing this post for a few days and wowee! The heat goes on. This is the hottest February I have ever known in my 77 years. We had three days of 43degC in one burst last weekend and we’ve had about eight days over 40deg in the 20 days of the month so far. It’s a cool change today, only 37deg! And there’s more to come – the highs will continue on Thurs, Friday and the weekend.

The question is, is this global heating? Is this climate change? If, by some miracle, we reversed the increase in CO₂ in the atmosphere, would the temperatures go back to the mid to high thirties?

I think the answer is, probably yes, but it would take up to a century for any change to take effect, because that’s how long the increase in CO₂ and hence the heating has been going on.

So the answer is, better get used to it. I absolutely do not think we will stop the increase in atmospheric CO₂ (erroneously called “carbon” – carbon is black soot, CO₂ is a gas!)

My house is very well insulated (sheets of fibre in the roof space) and I have ducted airconditioning. I haven’t even turned it on yet today, at 10am.

My cars are airconditioned, and the premises I visit are also airconditioned, so I’m not exposed to the heat much.

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The announcement of all those new Navy vessels today is great, but for cryin’ out loud, where are we going to get all the highly skilled construction workers to build the ships, and all the thousands of new crew members to operate them? Isn’t it clear, skills and experience are becoming so much in demand. But the company I worked for all my working life placed a low value on training.

I worked with a guy, 10 years younger than me but extremely bright, a software programmer who had the ability to easily pick up new software languages.

He wanted to do a degree at Curtin University and all he wanted from the company was to be able to arrange his shifts so that he could attend lectures at the uni during the day, that is, in work hours. He wasn’t asking for time off, just to be able to arrange his shifts to give him time to attend lectures.

The company’s answer was no, we need you here, sorry. It was unbelievable and has not been forgotten.

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