From JOHN TOWNLEY
In ‘If it’s warm it must be a workday’ (This Week, 29 January) I noticed
with some amusement that ‘at least 2 per cent of Thursdays are Thanksgiving
holidays in the US’. Strange, for a one-day-a-year holiday . . .
Nevertheless, this concept may offer hope for a pleasant battle against
global warming. There has been a trend (in this light, a very healthy one)
toward an ever-greater number of national holidays in the US, at least,
particularly honouring ethnic minorities (Martin Luther King Day and Kwaansa
come to mind). If each of these has a nearly 3 per cent input into this
cooling effect, not to mention the ancillary benefits of less pollution
and power use during these periods, perhaps Adrian Gordon has stumbled on
something really revolutionary. An answer to global warming may simply
be declaring holidays – lots of them.
John Townley Virginia, US
