Things have been happening in my favourite adopted country, South Africa. In Durban, the people occupied with global warming spent a fair amount of money on palavers that didn’t reduce the amount of CO2 or carbonic gas they had produced by flying planes to come to this venue. Never mind, there’s hardly a thing that us humans can do to without generating this gas that’ll heat up the planet if we believe some people.

Do you like wine and do you drink it? Well my dear, if you do, you ‘re responsible for a fair amount of CO2. How come, you ask me? it’s very simple. You know that wine is the result of the fermentation of grapes as the sugars of these grapes are transferred by yeast into alcohol and..yes, you got it… CO2! To make one litre of wine, about 40 litres of CO2 is produced and as that stuff weighs a little less than 2grams a litre we see that when you get that good feeling after a fine bottle, 60 grams of CO2 went into the atmosphere to produce that flask. I don’t know how much CO2 was produced to make the glass for that bottle.

A lady from the KWV told me once that the annual wine grape harvest in South Africa was a little more than one million tons which should give about 750 million litres of wine, times 2 grams which works out to 15 million kilograms of CO2 that the wine makers produced while making their wines. You can see how a bunch of abstemious greenies would be ready to compare us wine makers to the owners of coal-fired power stations which wouldn’t be much more idiotic than many of their other statements. The vegetarian/teetotaller (I shudder) greenies even blame our cattle for farting, just as well they were not there when a 100ton Diplodocus relieved himself with thunderous methane blasts. How much of the wine makers’ CO2 is absorbed by the vines we don’t know but if wine making would have to be abandoned in order to save the planet, that planet without wine would not be worth the saving.

Of course nothing was decided in Durban and nothing will ever be decided during such venues because the world’s governments are all utterly corrupt and looking after Gaïa’s well-being is not their immediate concern, having more control and power, is.

I repeat myself but if the rainforests can’t be saved, nothing can.

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My friend Barbara, who is busy in the Cape Town docks told me that the arrival of the Volvo Ocean Race boats solicited great interest, despite the fact that only three out of six managed to get from Spain under their own sails. The crews of the damaged vessels did a most exceptional job to get their craft ready for the next departure last Dec.11. and set out for their secret destination by hugging the south african coast towards East London before going east. Fear of a bunch of piratical Arabs appears to be the leitmotif in this vehicle selling publicity stunt and ‘sailing’ seems to be considered as an afterthought. An American friend who has quite a few Volvos around the world behind him agreed with me that the boats ought to have gone north in convoy from the Seychelles Islands in order to clobber these pirates. He’s knowledgeable in guns and specified a calibre 50 that would knock them out long before these fellows could come into range with their AK47s. I’m a bit old now but with Jerry we might have done a fair job.

The real sailor these last few weeks is ‘Banque Populaire’, a 40m. trimaran that left the Channel, France 23 days ago with a crew of fourteen and rounded our Cape of Good Hope in less than 12 days, passed southern Australia and New Zealand hardly a week later and is now being hammered by great gales on her way to Cape Horn before being able to turn north from there to see if a sailing boat can get around the world in less than 48 days. It looks that these fellows might make it in 45. When, about 12 years ago, my son talked to me about this Trophy Jules Verne, sailing around the world in 80 days, I considered the feat non-attainable with the knowledge I had then. Just as well I didn’t bet great stakes because a few years ago a French fellow by himself in a big trimaran sailed around in about 52 days.

As individuals humans are capable of great exploits, as communities we’re worse than lemmings.