The Wakes

My friends J and C, and I,  revisited The Wakes, home of the 18th century  naturalist Gilbert White. We first went there in May. Today, we had tours of the garden and house/ museum, interspersed with lunch. The guided tours, first with an enthusiastic and knowledgeable volunteer gardener (Steve)and the second with  the  ebullient and expert  collections manager, (Kimberley James) were both really interesting. 

Gilbert White's "The Natural History of Selborne " has never been out of print since it was first published in 1788. 
He noted changes in the weather  at Selborne from year to year, much as we do now. So is climate change not really a new  thing? 
The important difference we now face,  I discovered by coincidence, this morning when  listening  to Radio 4's " The Life Scientific". Jim Al- Khalili's guest was Gideon Henderson, the Chief Scientific Advisor to DEFRA, and a geochemist, whose work focuses on the carbon cycle and  on understanding  the mechanisms driving  climate change. He said that  while the world has experienced  huge, but "normal",  climate changes over the past millions of years,  what we really  should be worrying about is  "Carbon Change", because   it is what has happened to carbon, since the industrial  revolution,  that is the crucial issue. While it used to be held safely  within trees and  other plants and peat, etc, now much of it has escaped into  the atmosphere and on Earth in the form  of  carbon dioxide, toxic gases and other harmful  compounds.        

My blip is of my friend Jenny enjoying a small corner of the garden at the Wakes, which was full of the bold, bright, and deep  colours of high summer.