The first regular meeting of 2011 was kicked off by Keith Rawlings (Rawlings Structural Design Ltd) using the five minute slot as an excuse to present one of his favourite rants. On this occasions “Babies in Pubs” and “Men in Shorts” were put to one side in favour of what Private Eye describe as Greenwash.

First the facts. The Earth leans at an angle of 23.5 degrees to the vertical, which, given the diameter of the planet combined with yer basic trig, means that one pole is 3100 miles closer to the Sun than the other. It is this lean that accounts for the difference between summer and winter. As the sun is 93 million miles from the earth, a variation of 0.003% of that distance results in a fairly significant change in temperature across the seasons.

It is also known that planetary axes wobble. Earth’s was not always 23.5 degrees and there are planets in the solar system that lie on their sides or are upside down. Ergo, it shurely wouldn’t take much of a wobble for the Earth’s climate to change by the odd degree or two.

Aha! they say, but we have been measuring stuff for years, so we know what’s what. ’tis true! We have been capable of measuring astronomical stuff for sometime. Ancient Egyptians did a bit of it, so arguably, man has been able to consider the Earth in the heavens for 5,000 years. If we say (because it makes the maths easy) that man has been around for 60,000 years, we can claim to have a reasonable history of the Earth, astonomy-wise, for 1/12th of our existence.

But then if we measure the life of the earth as a 24 hour clock, homo sapiens appeared at 2 minutes to midnight. In those terms, we have only documented the last 20 seconds of the history of the planet. Or, as there are 86400 seconds in a day, or 0.02% of the planet’s existence.

This is not to say that we should not husband the Earth’s limited resources. Or that failing to launch clouds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is a bad thing. And it may even be that those who suggest that man is responsible for climate change are far from being wrong. It’s just that, given the statistics above, how can they be so sure?

At this juncture Francis Tresham (Tresham Games) attempted to refute the wit and intelligence of our speaker by suggesting that the elliptical orbit of the Earth is also a majr factor. Fortunately, this Rawlings bloke is a seasoner ranter and had done his research. He was therefore able to point out that the perihelion and antehelion (see!) were less influential on climate than the angle of the dangle. So there!

After a set of interesting and entertaining one minutes, Cliff Herring (CCH Project Management) demonstrated his experience in the field of construction management by recounting the positive comments and testimonials received from Clients. He made the point that saving such comments  can have an extremely uplifting effect on the manner in which business is conducted. Cliff added that placing  such comments to websites and literature can have a similarly positive effect on potential Clients and Customers.

All in all, a lively, entertaining and positive meeting. After a group hug, we all went about our respective businesses with a particularly sunny disposition. Tilted at 23.5 degrees to the vertical, of course. At least, for now.