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Half a month’s worth of rain fell on the Isle of Wight in one night this week, where only a few days previously Mona and I had sweated in a 5-day 30 degree heatwave. My son and his family are staying in our van now, and report too many instances of torrential rain beating on the roof.

More extremes of weather are now becoming commonplace, as the effects of global warming kick in. To combat any further warming of the planet, the Government want sales of new petrol, diesel and hybrid cars banned by 2035 and replaced with electric.

I don’t know if they’ve thought this through enough. The demand on the National Grid of millions of cars all charging away is going to be alarming, and we may even be faced with blackouts. Also at the moment there does not seem to be anywhere near enough charging points. To make matters worse, the Government’s loss of revenue on sales of petrol and diesel will no doubt be compensated by a higher price for electricity. This will make our electric bills soar skywards if we have to keep charging our cars every night. Currently an electric Smart car has a range of only 59 miles (charging costs £2.43 each time), but a Hyundai Kona Electric vehicle can travel 259 miles without needing a charge (charging costs £8.65 each time).

The time taken to charge a car will also have to be taken into consideration when planning a journey. With a 50kw rapid charger you can add 100 miles to the battery in around 35 minutes. To charge from empty will take around 8 hours.

The cheapest new Smart electric car is around the £20,000 mark, which is not really suitable for the average family of 4. Therefore it will be a case of paying not only more for electricity, but also more for a new family car. There will be no road tax for any electric car under £40,000, but this won’t be enough to offset the cost of changing from petrol/diesel to electric.

Global warming will bite us in the wallet for sure. I envisage many people trying to keep their petrol or diesel car running long past its sell-by date. By then the planet might have warmed up another half-degree or so. When it comes down to money, the majority might well think of their own personal finances rather than the planet, and this I fear will be the undoing of us all.

With the exception of two scheduled Book Funnel promotions, this may possibly be the last blog for a couple of weeks. Our van currently has no computer, and my granddaughter will doubtless keep me very busy until 7th August. I’m off to the IOW to catch up with her on August 1st when my son, his wife and younger daughter come home, and so I’ll say a fond farewell for now.