THE new year should have only one resolution – for us to seriously face climate change.
We are destroying our planet. We are creating a planet catastrophe that our grandchildren will not be able to reverse.
We have just emerged from the hottest year on record and 2022 will be hotter. Already we can see the toll it is taking.
We have just spent a Christmas where we didn’t need a winter coat going out for God’s sake. There are fewer, far fewer, birds in the sky this year. Listen when you go for a walk, it is nearly silent in so many places where there used to be joyful birdsong. There are fewer insect smears on our windscreens, because there are fewer insects. We can feel and hear the catastrophe, but we are deliberately not paying attention.
National self-determination, in the face of misrule from fascist London, is achingly needed, and within the Irish people’s grasp, if we can just have courage.
This year there will be political manifestos published for Assembly elections. I have no doubt all but a couple, if even that, will mention the environment, but will there be the needed meaningful, radical approaches? Will there be a serious attention to this catastrophe, or will it be asked to wait until other issues are addressed?
Of course, getting health sorted is imperative. Indeed, health has parallels to addressing climate catastrophe with fire-fighting taking the place of strategic investment in change.
And getting houses out of the ground is utterly essential, and progress is at last happening, when once it seemed impossible.
National self-determination, in the face of misrule from fascist London, is achingly needed, and within the Irish people’s grasp, if we can just have courage.
But none of those massive issues will matter a hill of beans if the planet faces irreversible catastrophe in a short period of time.
But it is not just the political class who must shift. It is all of us.
It is 22 years since we toasted the new millennium. For most if us that feels like such a short time ago. In 22 years’ time, if we keep treating climate disaster as we do now, the world will not be habitable in vast, vast, areas and we will have lost full species of animals and tribes of people. Those who were babies or not even thought of in 2000 get that. Why is my generation so slow to embrace the real battle of our time? Wilful ignorance is the only explanation, but we have no excuses.
In the face of Covid, we have become accustomed to listening to scientific experts and supporting their intervention into governance and public policy in the face of an emergency. The same type of thinking must be adopted for the climate.
Is a government serious about climate catastrophe if they do not have a dedicated ministry and climate recommendations are not part of weekly cabinet/ Executive meetings?
Where are the science advisors on climate? Where are the regular press conferences on what can be done in our space now, this week, next month? Persuading us and preparing us and arguing for dedicated resources?
Photos of us planting trees are great, but not enough. Without urban landscape change it’s lip service.
