Climate change and its unintended consequences

Berkeley

SCARCELY had I begun my first lecture of the fall semester here at the University of California, Berkeley, when I realised that I was too hot. I desperately wanted to take off my professorial tweed jacket.

A tweed jacket is a wonderful but peculiar costume. If all you have for raw material is a sheep, it is the closest thing you can get to Gore-Tex. Not only is it perfect for a cloudy, drizzly climate, it is also surprisingly warm - wet or dry - for its weight. In the world before central heating, the wool fabrics now most commonly associated with male formal and semi-formal attire were both effective and comfortable, regardless of whether one lived in Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, London, Bristol or Norwich.