I have had cats all my life until moving in with my wife as those of you who know will know that we have birds. This meant cats and birds don’t go together so I haven’t had a cat for a while now. I have always loved cats as they are far less ‘maintenance’ than dogs because they obviously look after themselves.

Also there is all the washing the dog, taking it for walk and all that which I just couldn’t cope with. However over the last few weeks I have to confess that I have ventured over the dark side (sorry to all dog owners!) and have been very close to two dogs, which have gone a long way to changing my mind about them.

The two dogs in question are a chocolate Labrador named Rusty and a Labrador called Josh. These dogs are the sweetest things ever. Rusty is about 18 months old and Joshua about 7 months. They are so energetic and it is amazing how much like children they are. Today we went walking in the local park with Rusty. He just couldn’t wait to get the lead off and run around the park after the ball that we were throwing for him. Just like a little child really. It was great to see all that energy and if only us humans could be satisfied by the simplest things. All Rusty wanted was a ball, food, water and his bed and he was happy as Larry (whoever he is!).

Cats on the other hand are a little more chilled out about life. Sleeping, eating and drinking is all they are interested in. They are not bothered about chasing after balls or toys. All the cats that we have ever had have been very calm and collected. Sophie the cat just loves sitting in her basket for about 22 hours a day.

I am not saying that I would now want to get a dog basically for the reasons outlined at the top of the article, but I think I have come to appreciate why there are so many dog lovers in this country.

Well that is it for another year. Christmas has come and gone once again. All over for another year. I don’t know about you but I always feel that Christmas is one of the biggest anti-climax’s of all time. We all seem to spend ages and ages in the build up for the ‘big’ day (which seems to begin in about September these days!) and then once the day arrives, well, it is just another day really. Don’t get me wrong it is nice to have the family round and that and the day is usually enjoyable, but the build up seems somewhat overkill to me.

We seem to put under increasing amounts of pressure these days to have the ‘most wonderful Christmas’ or the ‘biggest day’ of the year, when actually the whole point of Christmas has just gone. I mean at the end of the day it is to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ which I think people just don’t even think about any more. I am not religious at all and therefore Christmas to me has never been at the ‘real Christmas’, but why has it become this massive pressure time of the year? How has society created this image that Christmas has to be this ‘amazing’ time of the year?

If you have any thoughts then do let me know using the contact information at the bottom of the page.

I watched Extinct last night on ITV1 at 1930. I don’t know if you saw it or not but it is a program that is trying to raise money in order to save 8 different animals that are in real risk of becoming extinct. Last night it concentrated on the Polar Bear and the Panda.

Annika Rice was the ‘celebrity’ who was championing for the Polar Bear. She went to the Arctic and tracked polar bears in order to tranquilize them and then take blood samples. They also collared some of the bears in order to be able to track there movements. This is the work that needs the funding.

The reason that they are in danger of becoming extinct is mainly due to global warming (I hate that term as although true it is not true everywhere so lets stick with climate change!). The earth has warmed by 0.6 degrees in the last century on average, however at the poles the increase as been about 3 degrees. This means that sea ice is melting earlier and forming later each year. Polar bears rely on sea ice to live as they hunt seals for food and can only do this when the sea ice is there.

The idea of the program is that you ring and vote for your favourite animal to save. The animal with the highest number of votes will get half the money and the remaining half is split between the other severn. I found myself thinking well what actually can the money raised do to save the Polar Bear. After all £500,000 isn’t going to prevent climate change at all, that needs much more. However Annika Rice’s quote on the show saying ‘by voting for the polar bear you are voting for the planet’ is what sold it to me.

As many of you are aware I am a teacher and whilst currently teaching about climate change, I find myself telling children that they need to being all these energy saving things to reduce our energy use but I am thinking that really this is not going to make a spot of difference. The only way that real difference os going to happen, and animals like Polar Bears are going to be saved is if the people that really can change things start doing something about it.

During the show, Annika stated that if everyone in the UK bought and used just one more energy saving light bulb (we could shut a power station down due to the reduced amount of energy that would be used. If this is the case and it is that simple, why aren’t Mr Brown (Gordon!) and even Mr Blair (Anthony) and maybe more to the point Mr Bush (non comment!), setting up new rules for building new houses where every new house built must have every bulb energy saving instead of just one or two. Why don’t the building companies fit them as standard - the reasons because there profits would reduce too much. Stale mate, customer doesn’t want to pay the extra and trader doesn’t want to loose the extra. Therefore it is time to meet halfway. These large multinational companies making these energy saving light bulbs (that by the way cost over twice as much as regular energy wasting ones) should be saying, everyone can have one of these bulbs for £2 and £1 of that will go to charities like the WWF that can help animals like the Polar Bear above.

It is simple, without the ‘big players’ committing to solving the problem of climate change then we are never going to solve the problem. I am doing my bit, and now it is time for them to start doing their’s.

For this reason I voted the Polar Bear which means that you are voting to save the planet and prevent climate change.

It seems as though in the last week there has been a raging debate about the state of climate change once again. The government are now saying that we need to do something about this in order to save the planet - or more like they have finally realised that it will coast more money to do nothing than to spend money now and do something. Trust money to be the driving force behind the change!

My point in this article is about cars. They are a must for modern society and I love to have a nice one (well I think it is nice!). However it is time for the government to get tough on the people that drive, gas guzzling, carbon dioxide emitting beasts. How many time do you see Mrs Jones taking her kids round the corner (yes literally half a mile) in a massive 4 litre BMW X5 or the like? Well the answer horrifies me - too many. It is time to start taxing these people properly. I am not averse to people driving these vehicles. They are the pinnacle of automobile engineering and something to be admired, but they are a menace to the environment. People driving these should pay the real cost.

How about making it free to drive a small fuel economic low emissions car but double the price of the cost for larger cars. I would love a BMW X5 or the like but if I bought one I would be prepared to pay the cost to the environment. People need to start thinking the same.