Back in the days when a Less Developed Country (LDC) was defined by reference to its GNP per caput (if you were the IMF being pedantic) we used to enjoy arguing about whether this was too crude a measure.
After some experience of living in such a country it seemed to me that what really characterised an LDC was first, the extent to which the people living there were still at the mercy of their environment & secondly, the relative lack of division of labour. By being at the mercy of the environment I really meant just the weather, particularly tropical rain. You did not venture out in a downpour unless you had a car, & even so you sometimes had to pull to the side of the road for a time because of poor visibility; drainage was primitive, so that the ground around the house would be swampy & difficult throughout the rainy season.
In that context it has been very instructive to hear the sense of personal insult being expressed by people who have been inconvenienced by the snow & ice – I particularly enjoyed the lady from Scotland who appeared to think it an outrageous dereliction of duty on behalf of the local authority which failed to clear her route to pick up the children from school, turning a 30 minute journey into one which lasted four hours – presumably the way had been clear when they went to school in the morning. And as an aside, how come nearly everybody who has been contacting the BBC with tales of their experiences in Scotland has done so in an English accent?
But what a year it has been – starting as it meant to finish, as far as snow, ice & deep freezing conditions are concerned, with a volcano thrown in between, just to test us.
And while it is understandable that people feel they must travel at this time of year, despite the warnings, it is amazing how many set out as if it were just an ordinary day, without taking any special precautions or carrying necessary supplies.
RTÉ1 last week carried an interview with a woman, born in Buffalo but now living in Ireland. It was instructive to hear how her father had made sure that all his three daughters were trained in how to prepare their car for winter, almost as soon as Labor Day was past; beside the usual blanket, spade & torch the most surprising backup aid was an 8 hour candle – enough to keep the car warm inside without the need to keep the engine going. I rather suspect that big American cars provide a safer lodging place on the dashboard for one of those than do smaller European models.
At least the Chief Scientific Adviser to the government has got his chance to demonstrate the real value of science-based policy; the Transport Minister has asked him to advise on whether we should now plan for snowstorms to feature more often than we allow for at present & invest accordingly.
Shades of 1976, when the country was divided over the question of whether The Drought required us to invest squillions in a new National Water Grid to carry water from the wet north west to the arid south east or whether we had absolutely no need to worry because this had just been a 1 in 300 year event so we had plenty of time to prepare for the next one.
Picture from NERC Satellite Receiving Station, Dundee University, Scotland
