Helping the neighbours deal with sea level rise
more stories from the Bellender Arms
The Pub door burst open and George rushed in all flushed.
“Stop everything,” he shouted. “We have been asked for help.”
He was a bit out of breath which is unlike him, he seemed to have been running and discussions started around the bar as to if and when anyone had ever seen George break into anything more than his usual shuffle.
George was visibly annoyed by this detour and stood on a chair in order to make himself heard. He was lucky that the Pub chairs are made by our local wood turner using local sustainably harvested wood and are extremely solid, if a tad heavy.
“They’re in trouble in the next village, another of the houses is sliding into the sea,” he continued. “They need help to get all the furniture and whatever out before it drops off completely.”
We locals leaped to our feet, we never hesitate when there is a call for help, and we started walking to see the neighbours.
There was a lot of anxious activity in their village and forging through we went straight to the cliff. There, just as George had said, was yet another house starting to topple over. It was evident that this was a relatively unused holiday home, the owners weren’t there and were apparently to be found in another of their holiday homes which is in New Zealand, somewhat distant. The owners had finally replied to the urgent calls that had been placed since early morning. Their reaction surprised the locals, apparently the owners were little concerned by the approaching disaster as the house was fully insured. It seemed that they were also a bit fed up with the village as it had become quite dominated by empty holiday homes and had lost it’s ‘character’.
You can well imagine that such indifference didn’t warm the cockles, or any other type of shellfish, of the hearts of the locals.
“Let it fall,” went up the cry and as one their heads turned towards the Pub and their feet quickly followed. We were left twiddling our thumbs and shuffling our feet and generally feeling ill-used, fortunately Mathilde remembered the adage ‘when in Rome do like the Romans’ so we followed the locals to their Pub. An interesting side story is that when the neighbours named their Pub there was some confusion about the spelling and what was supposed to be the Balmy Arms is actually turned out as the Barmy Arms which doesn’t mean the same thing but coincides with our opinion about the neighbours.
The door swung open and we walked in to be greeted with the normal hoots and shouts of “here come the tree huggers.” We take all this with our normal remarkable poise and tend to ignore the teasing.
This time however George did riposte as he had a splinter from trying to save a pine cabinet in the doomed house. He wasn’t in a mood to take such teasing from people he had come to help.
“Why is it,” George asked “that you have continued building houses near the cliff?”
He paused for sip of lemonade, the Barmy Arms is a commercial Pub and we boycott the beer because it tends to bring on indigestion, acid reflux and the palsy.
George continued, “I remember my Dad talking to you about this back in 1971, he explained to you that an ancestor of his had been convicted for not paying the duties on the Gin he produced. He got transported to Australia in 1868.”
As too often with George’s stories people tend to quickly lose the plot and none of us could see the link between his Gin making convict ancestor and houses falling off cliffs. Nor what Australia might have to do with it.
“My ancestor stayed in touch and would write regularly and his children did the same. One of the things they like to share are the local newspaper cuttings with which they accompany their letters.” George continued. “One of the cuttings, which arrived in 1912, discussed how coal burning produces carbon dioxide which increases the ‘blanket’ effect of the atmosphere, you must remember my Dad explaining it to you?”
There was a bit of a silence as some people checked their internal memories and others checked their external ones stored in their telephones. A chair creaked and Tom rose to his feet.
“When I was naughty my mother would tell me scary stories and she made one up inspired by what your Dad’s had said. I used to have trouble getting to sleep what with worrying that my bed might slide off a cliff, I used to curse your Dad well and good,” Tom recounted.
“Well shoot the messenger why don’t you,” riposted George in his caring and heart warming way. “My Dad bothered coming all the way here just to warn you that in a warming world sea levels would rise because of glacier melt and expansion of the water bodies, I remember he suggested, quite forcefully for him, that it’d be a good idea to stop building on the cliff top. He had already explained all that to us in a village meeting in the Bellender Arms, we agreed with his analysis and stopped all cliff top building projects. Without wanting to seem smug, we don’t have any houses falling into the sea, that said we don’t have any holiday homes either.”
A lot of grumbling could be heard around the room, nobody appreciates being told off, especially the clients of the Barmy Arms.
“How could we have been sure?”
“I stayed at home the evening George’s Dad explained all that and nobody told me about it.”
“Do you know how many people come through here touting their conspiracy theories?”
“There is no scientific basis to the idea that water expands when warmed.”
“If there is more water in the oceans they will weigh more and press harder on the ocean beds making them sink and so there is no overall sea level rise.”
“Fresh water is less dense than salty water and freezes at a lower temperature so if the ocean’s get less salty they will freeze easier replacing the glaciers and stuff.”
“My Dad always reckoned that your Dad should never have grown a beard.”
“Do you know what?” Shouted George. “These are the exact same arguments you brought up with me Dad, here we are a few years later and you’ve got houses dropping like lemmings off the cliffs!”
“Poor foundations probably,” came a voice from a dim corner.
“Are you serious?” George had completely lost his calm. “You’ll be telling me next that extra-terrestials are parking their spacecraft hidden away on the ocean beds and sea levels are rising because of deplacement, like when you sink your duck in the bath!”
There was a telling and thoughtful silence as the locals considered this new idea, we decided it was time to take George home.