Well it’s time to leave behind the political scene, worrying and frustrating though our Washington (and Tallahassee) brethren can be, and return to more honest topics before passions get inflamed again. And since the title of this blog is A View From Florida, how are things here?

One of the great changes this week, at least in the Central Florida region that I live in, is the return to more “normal” weather, by which I mean warm weather. We’ve had below normal temperatures for weeks and even some nights of frost. That’s not why we came to Florida!

So despite all the “expert” propaganda about global warming, we’ve had one of the coldest winters we can remember here. Sure, it’s all relative and I’d much rather tolerate slightly colder weather in Florida than the lousy ice and snow conditions that I’ve seen the rest of the USA experience for the last few months. But the cool Florida weather has seemed to go on longer and temperatures have been lower than I remember for a few years.

I guess that’s why we’re now told to use the words “climate change” instead of global warming: if the science is screwed up and the con is losing it’s impact, change the terminology to perpetuate the myth.

One guy on one of this week’s television programs (I think it was an Australian scientist on Fox News) came out with a more balanced and reasoned perspective than I’ve heard from Al or any of his zealots: he pointed out that true climate change can only be measured over many hundreds or even thousands of years because the changes are so slow and subject to temporary diversions. Apparently the inconvenient truth is that the one hundred years or so available to Al in his laughable film would only be relied on by a snake oil salesman or someone who really doesn’t understand the reality. Even the most extreme global warming fanatic may soon have to own up to the real reasons for promoting their cult: an opportunity to increase taxation and to control people’s lives even more.

Anyway, back to Florida and the cold weather. The last few weeks have had a big impact on the plant life and yards everywhere look battered and sad. Together with the lack of rain, lawns look almost destroyed and it’s difficult to see much improvement over the next few weeks even with the warmer weather. It’s become so bad that a serious look at synthetic grass is in order just to preserve the look of the yards and to avoid an annual replacement of worn out sod. Only the initial cost of synthetic turf stops me going ahead - otherwise, no more weekly mowing, no costly weed and feed treatments and no more bugs and lawn pests to contend with.

As far as plants are concerned, many have shriveled and appear to be dead. But a hearty cutting back has already resulted in signs of new life. So maybe the cold wasn’t that bad after all and we should just get on with life like the plant world is - without moaning!