Is Honiara Heating Up?

Is Honiara heating up? Recent temperature readings in the past week have recorded a scorching 32 degrees on average. The long spell of dry weather is not helping either.

Solomon Times spoke with Wilson George of the Climate Change office in Honiara to make some sense out of this unusually hot weather patterns.

Mr. George basically confirmed the obvious and that is we are experiencing the effects of climate change which he said started way back in the late 1980's. He said that as human development progresses, air pollution also increases thus affecting the environment hence the weather.

In a rather blunt assessment Mr. George said that "we will continue to experience abnormalities in weather patterns in many more years to come." Mr. George also gives an example, "normally in or around June and July we usually do not experience rainy weather but nowadays that is not the case anymore...it is now very unpredictable."

Despite such gloomy assessments the scientific community says that satellite measurements show the planet hasn't warmed since 1998, and temperatures have now fallen for six years or more. But many do not buy into such scientific findings simply because the rising heat is just too obvious.

Huge flocks of Honiara residents continue to head west to cool off during the weekends. New swimming spots are being cleared almost every month by Guadalcanal landowners as more people are willing to pay for such swimming spots.