Cassandra Voices

Tag: climate

  • Climate Change: What’s Driving us Crazy?

    Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climactic Regime (2018) by the recently deceased French philosopher Bruno Latour points to a conspiracy theory perpetrated by elites since the 1970s to conceal the true nature of climate change.

    Latour argues the intervening period, associated with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, ‘was initially marked by what is called “deregulation”, alongside ‘the start of an increasingly vertiginous explosion of inequalities.’

    This coincided, he says, with another phenomenon less often stressed: ‘the beginning of a systematic effort to deny the existence of climate change’. He defines “climate change” in broad terms as ‘the relations between human beings and the material conditions of their lives,’ rather than simply the climatic consequences of anthropogenic greenhouse gases, as the contemporary environmental challenge is commonly reduced to.

    This broader definition of “climate change” therefore encompasses ecological constraints – the material conditions of our lives – which even the most vociferous denier cannot gainsay, as well as other readily ascertainable phenomena such as pollution and nature loss.

    Latour continues, ‘It is as though a significant segment of the ruling classes (known today rather loosely as “the elites”) had concluded that the earth no longer had room enough for them and for everyone.’

    He contends: ‘they [“the elites”] decided that it was pointless to act as though history were going to continue to move toward a common horizon, toward a world in which all humans could prosper equally.’

    Thus, ‘From the 1980s on the ruling classes stopped purporting to lead and began instead to shelter themselves from the world. We are experiencing all the consequences of this flight, of which Donald Trump is merely a symbol, one among others.’

    He offers the stark conclusion that any observer of social media can attest to: ‘The absence of a common world we can share is driving us crazy.’

    Dominant players in the fossil fuel industry were undoubtedly aware of climate change by the late 1970s, and developed communication strategies designed to confound the public. Through their risk analyses, leading investment banks – representing the real elites – would surely have been privy to such information that had been circulating since the 1960s.

    Latour is correct to assert that since the 1970s inequalities have spiralled to the advantage of these elite ruling classes. However, his book fails to anticipate how canny operators among the elites – while preparing boltholes in remote locations – shifted approach on climate change

    Rather than ignoring what had emerged as a scientific consensus on the need to find alternatives to the extraction and use of fossil fuels, elites recognised mouth-watering opportunities for further wealth accumulation from renewable energy.

    Thus, investment portfolios were diversified, and bets hedged. It hardly mattered that technologies branded “clean and green” could still have devastating environmental impacts, or lead to new relationships of dependency in developing countries. In this re-alignment, companies create halo effects around products through greenwashing strategies. This explains the unprecedented attention to climate change we now see across mainstream media.

    The belated embrace of environmentalism – once the preserve of hippies – by elites also distracts from the urgent need for structural adjustments.

    The delusion of elite-led reform is sustained by a compromised and sycophantic media, reminiscent of the fawning courtiers of unaccountable monarchs. But all the indicators are that reforms will be cosmetic, as successive emission reduction targets are not met.

    Lacking “a common world”, where resources and opportunities are shared equitably within countries and internationally, populists may point to the hypocrisy of a system that permits “vertiginous” inequalities. Under private ownership, transitioning from fossil fuels to renewables yields profits for the elites, but may impoverish many who are already living on the edge.

    Since Latour’s book, much abides, but much has changed too. The apparent “symbol” of our collective madness, Donald Trump, lost the 2020 Presidential election, while other populist leaders such as Jair Bolsonaro and Boris Johnson have also exited stage right, for the time being at least. But inequalities only increased during the pandemic, when trust in science was undermined by profiteering.

    The ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, alongside simmering US-Chinese tensions over Taiwan, indicate the era of globalisation has come to an end. In this new edition of the Cold War, conservative, authoritarian leaders are pitted against Western governments dominated by elites that appear to be profiting from another crisis.

    Environmentalists ought to recognise that we are facing a nuclear winter, worse even than the impact of climate change, if the Ukrainian-Russian conflict escalates, and support attempts to broker a negotiated settlement. Moving forward, a new global compact is urgently required to address environmental challenges and rampant inequality.

    The environmental movement should develop a more nuanced understanding of the social and political forces ranged against meaningful reforms in the West. To develop, as Latour puts it a “common horizon” – and overcome collective madness – in the face of climate change and inequality, democratic governments must act to reverse the deregulation that occurred in the 1980s, and in particular assert control over a highly profitable renewable energy sector.

    Feature Image: “Rebellion Day” on Blackfriars Bridge, 2018.

  • Thought Leadership Required for Climate and Biodiversity Crisis

    The great English chemist James Lovelock conceived the Gaia (Gr. ‘goddess of earth’) Hypothesis in 1972, later developing this alongside American microbiologist Lynns Margulis. Later still, Lovelock, aged eighty-seven, was awarded the prestigious Wolston medal by the Geological Society of London for his pioneering concept.

    Now firmly embedded in the zeitgeist, the Gaia Hypothesis posits that unknown forces, popularly conflated with the idea of Mother Earth, nurture our planet’s physical environment to sustain life. To draw on another famous scientific analogy, it might be said that Gaia maintains ‘just rightness’ (i.e. ‘the goldilocks theory’) through righteous homeostasis.

    As Gaia approaches her golden jubilee, however – and James Lovelock edges toward his one-hundred-and-first birthday – the evidence mounts against faith in the concept of perpetual renewal; her resilience and raison d’être has been weakened after millennia of selfless resolve .[i] The precipice lies before us.

    Gaia has tolerated humanity’s repeated abuses, but only in recent geological time has her mood turned conspicuously (and literally) stormy.

    There are, nonetheless, grounds for hope. As Gaia’s health fades, Greta Thunberg’s rage burns ever more brightly. There is an existential ecosystem crisis to be called out, and Greta has risen to the challenge.

    A strange energy reverberates whenever this Swedish teenager speaks publicly. Her unflinching delivery is as riveting as a tense drama; her conviction is that of a seasoned stateswoman, with deliciously scathing rhetoric unleashed in staccato rhythm.

    Intriguingly, the voice retains the appeal of naivety. Significantly, despite and indeed because of this innocence, the overall effect can be intoxicating to grownups who thought they had lost hope.

    ‘Futile Nobility’

    Greta’s fury has burned a hole in the establishment’s defences. The fire she started has been stoked by public sentiment. A paradigm shift in environmental attitudes is now apparent, but worryingly certain world leaders have adopted a bizarre form of stoicism in the face of Greta’s resuscitation of Al Gore’s ‘Inconvenient Truth’.

    Against this backdrop, scientists’ noble pursuit of rigorous data to prove what may seem obvious can seem futile.

    For instance, in the recent Special Report on Climate Change and Lands, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), embodying the spirit of righteous scientific detachment, claim only ‘high (but notably not ‘very high’) confidence’ in the (surely self-evident) statement that ‘sustainable land management can contribute to reducing the negative impacts of multiple stressors, including climate change, on ecosystems and societies.’[ii]

    There are other examples of such reticence. In the midst of the Sixth Extinction, following on from a century-long campaign of insecticide, a team of UK entomologists published a paper calling for more data on insect declines, state:

    we respectfully suggest that accounts of the demise of insects may be slightly exaggerated. Bad things are happening—we agree—but this is not the whole story. We call for hard‐nosed, balanced, and numerical analysis of the changes taking place, and for calm and even‐handed interpretation of the changes, rather than rushing headlong into the hyperbole of impending apocalypse.[iii]

    Selling Copy

    Political leaders such as the POTUS Donald Trump, and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a.k.a ‘Trump of the Tropics’, who recently mocked his latest nickname ‘Capitão Motoserra’ (Captain Chainsaw),[iv] provide a jarring contrast to valiant scientific rigour. Sadly but no longer surprisingly, these leaders frustrate efforts to slow anthropogenic ecosystem decay. Sadder still, we are increasingly desensitized to the toxic brew of xenophobia and climate denial.

    Whilst posing less risk to the environment than ignorance at world leader tier, the disregard of the most bombastic commentariat is equally galling. Cue journalistic tropes of Alpen-crunching tree embracers, guffawing reference to Ireland’s ecological anti-hero, the Kerry slug, and glib ‘kill the whales, save the plankton’ slogans.

    Purveyors of such sensationalist hyperbole do so to sell copy. The shock-jock Jeremy Clarkson wincingly entreats Greta, with misogynistic undertones ‘to be a good girl, shut up, and [don’t] go out in a skirt that short.’[v]

    Meanwhile, the self-proclaimed ‘obnoxious, loud, and frequently fired ,’[vi] U.S. Republican journalist Michael Graham is another exploiting an angry white male anti-environmental constituency to garner a following.

    For his part, the POTUS has also sparred with the Swedish child activist, in characteristically unbecoming fashion, mockingly referring to this ‘very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future.’[vii]

    What fun would ensue if the IPCC were to invite Thunberg, Trump, and a band of other incendiary speakers to a public climate debate. The Canadian clinical psychologist and global media star Jordan Peterson could provide ruthless post-match psychoanalysis to provide car crash television on a stratospheric level.

    I suspect Thunberg might decline the opportunity as a matter of principle stressing the irrelevance of idle words.

    Yet it seems we need Greta to stimulate our senses, deadened as we are by a constant stream of ever-worsening statistics. As an example, take these statements of fact: ‘Nature declines are at rates unprecedented in human history;’[viii] an area of primary tropical rain forest the size of Belgium was lost in 2018,[ix] and these losses exceed those from 2017 when an area the size of a football pitch was lost every second.[x] Is it just me, or do these harbingers come off sounding oddly banal?

    Here in Ireland, 85% of habitats, protected under EU Habitat Directives, are in ‘unfavourable status.’[xi]  Curlew numbers – whose reverberating cry was once a soundtrack to Ireland’s uplands – have declined by 96% since the late 1980’s,[xii]  and may go extinct within five to ten years. Such statements sting and depress, but many of us seem desensitized by over-stimulation in a mediated age.

    Eco-thinkers

    ‘Ms.’ Thunberg, as she is sometimes addressed with mocking respect by her dissenters, is inarguably an ecological ‘thought leader.’ That term seems to have been first used to describe American philosopher and early ‘eco-thinker,’ Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was said to have ‘the wizard-power of a thought leader.’

    As we face down the ecosystem crisis, we need more environmental thought leaders to stand on the shoulders of giants such as Lovelock, E.O Wilson, and Dublin’s own Frank Mitchell.

    We need effective eco-communicators to recruit followers to the environmental movement. These new recruits could heal the fatigue in long-term activists – labelled as outré or leftfield by the establishment – jaded by the inaction of policymakers.

    With environmentalism mainstreaming, new voices can dynamise and nourish environmental stewardship on the heretofore disinterested fringes.

    Hearteningly, in May 2019, Dáil Eireann became the second legislative assembly on the planet (after the House of Commons in the U.K.) to declare a Biodiversity and Climate Emergency. After decades of numbing stasis, law-makers in this State with the power to instigate change seen to have committed to radical environmental objectives through Ireland’s Climate Action Plan,[xiii] and Ireland’s (third) National Biodiversity Action Plan.[xiv] Let’s wait and see whether long-term institutional failures can be overcome.

    As a career ecologist, I care as deeply for slimy moss, and eels as for doe-eyed dolphins or deer. All are a part of the web of life; even the wasps we love to hate play their part as aphid predators. Yet committing my life’s work to conservation has done little to allay a sense of powerlessness to bring about meaningful changes.

    And yet – with rumination over my own more unsustainable habits a favourite past time – I see that we can all do more on an individual level, becoming, like Greta, the change we want to see in the world.

    Whoever stated: ‘the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,’ happened upon a problem and solution to the current biodiversity and environmental crisis.

    For the sake of Mother Gaia we must substitute kinesis for stasis. The power of one is the collective potential of all. Wizard- (and perhaps also witch-) powered thought leaders are at the ready.

    [i] Tyrrell, T. 2013, Gaia: Death of a beautiful idea. https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22029401-800-gaia-the-death-of-a-beautiful-idea/

    [ii] IPCC, ‘Climate Change and Land’, August 2019, https://www.ipcc.ch/report/srccl/

    [iii] Chris Thomas, T. Jones and Sue Hartley, ‘“Insectageddon”: A call for more robust data and rigorous analyses’, Global Change Biology, March, 2019. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331456611_Insectageddon_A_call_for_more_robust_data_and_rigorous_analyses

    [iv] Tom Phillips, ‘Bolsonaro rejects ‘Captain Chainsaw’ label as data shows deforestation ‘exploded’’ August 7th, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/07/bolsonaro-amazon-deforestation-exploded-july-data

    [v] Clarkson, J. 2019 27 Sep 2019. The e world may be getting hotter, Greta Thunberg… but having a meltdown isn’t going to help https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10022396/greta-thunberg-meltdown-wont-help-world/

    [vi] Ward, E. He’s loud. He’s controversial. And he knows he’s right. Style Weekly. https://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/hes-loud-hes-controversial-and-he-knows-hes-right/Content?oid=1382305

    [vii] Kate Lyons, ‘Donald Trump tweet appears to mock Greta Thunberg and UN speech’, September 24th, Irish Times, https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/donald-trump-tweet-appears-to-mock-greta-thunberg-and-un-speech-1.4028590

    [viii] Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), ‘Nature’s Dangerous Decline ‘Unprecedented’; Species Extinction Rates ‘Accelerating’’ May, 2019. https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/nature-decline-unprecedented-report/

    [ix] Niklas Magnusson, ‘Deforestation Wipes Out an Area the Size of Belgium’, April 25th, 2019, Bloomberg, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-25/how-bad-is-deforestation-two-connecticuts-were-lost-last-year

    [x] Damian Carrington, Niko Kommenda, Pablo Gutiérrez and Cath Levett, ‘One football pitch of forest lost every second in 2017, data reveals’, 27th of June, 2018, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2018/jun/27/one-football-pitch-of-forest-lost-every-second-in-2017-data-reveals

    [xi] NPWS (2019). The Status of EU Protected Habitats and Species in Ireland. Volume 1: Summary Overview. Unpublished NPWS report

    [xii] Unpublished data from Allan Lauder (2017) cited in O’Donoghue, B.G. (2019). Curlew Conservation Programme Annual Report 2018. National Parks & Wildlife Service, Killarney O’Donoghue

    [xiii] Government of Ireland (2019). Climate Action Plan 2019. https://www.dccae.gov.ie/en-ie/climate-action/publications/Pages/Climate-Action-Plan.aspx

    [xiv] Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht (2019). National Biodiversity Action Plan 2017-2021 https://www.npws.ie/sites/default/files/publications/pdf/National%20Biodiversity%20Action%20Plan%20English.pdf

  • Irish Media’s Business Model Brings Climate Inaction

    Following a global trend since the arrival of the Internet, mainstream Irish media, including the so-called ‘paper of record’ the Irish Times, is increasingly required to sell itself. The days of someone reading a daily newspapers cover-to-cover are fading into nostalgic memories. Now editors feel obliged to dangle click-bait, and even fake news, often through social media feeds, with content increasingly accessed on smartphones.

    The result is diminished intellectual content, with greater emphasis on sports, titillating lifestyle stories, and consumer surveys. Moreover, advertising paymasters, generally multinational companies, often appear insulated from probing investigations; in Ireland’s case leading to a reliance on foreign-owned publications to break stories.

    Journalism should not be placed on a pedestal, or equated with a secular priesthood: any writer has conflicts of interest, biases and personal foibles. Nor are business people bereft of ethical considerations. The point is about how the interests of the public informant and salesperson are balanced across a media spectrum, and the danger inherent to any democracy when media is run on a purely commercial basis, identifying its interests with other businesses. This now appears to be the case with the three main Irish players: the national broadcaster RTÉ, Independent News and Media and the Irish Times newspaper (which last year purchased the only other indigenous national daily, the Irish Examiner).

    It is also apparent that the current Irish government’s ‘pro-business’ policies align with the interests of leading providers. This brings broadly sympathetic coverage, evident especially in the uncritical ‘reporting’ of strategic leaks, and publication of generally flattering images of leading politicians, especially media-conscious Taoiseach Varadkar.

    The close relationship between mainstream Irish media and the government came into sharp focus last year when unmarked government advertorials appeared across indigenous print media.[i] This now has serious implications for reporting on the environment, including man-made climate change and the Extinction Crisis.

    Climate Inaction

    On June 16th the Irish government launched a Climate Action Plan that gained essentially positive press coverage, emphasising how seriously the government was taking the issue. For example, the headline in the Irish Times the following day read: ‘Climate action plan promises ‘radical’ change.’

    Environmental NGOs, however, reacted very differently to the Plan. An Taisce said it fell ‘well short of the kind of radical, transformational document our recently declared national ‘climate and biodiversity emergency’ warrants.’[ii]

    Friends of the Earth offered a more favourable assessment describing the machinery for delivery as ‘the biggest innovation in Irish climate policy in 20 years.’ They cautioned, however, that the ‘plan gets us to the starting line on climate action. It will take consistent political leadership to ensure it is implemented on time…’[iii]

    Elsewhere, The Environmental Pillar, a coalition of over thirty national environment groups, lambasted a ‘general lack of clarity, ambition and urgency in the new Climate Action Plan to Tackle Climate Breakdown’, or reverse biodiversity decline.[iv]

    Finally, the Irish Wildlife Trust in its press release bluntly stated: ‘There is no indication that the government is willing to rethink agricultural expansion plans which are as odds with environment goals.’[v]

    Importantly, agriculture (essentially livestock agriculture) and transport (mostly of the private motor car variety) are projected to remain the main sources of Irish greenhouse gas emissions (currently combining to comprise over 50% of the total – rising both in absolute terms and proportionately. See table below).

    Climate Deception

    The Plan does little to address the Irish population’s disproportionate contribution to a climate change (the third highest per capita in the EU[vi]) that is already giving rise to extreme weather events close to our shores, and increasing frequency of storms here too. It also all but ignores a potentially irreversible Extinction Crisis facing the natural world, including in Ireland.

    Since then the government has blocked the passage of a cross-party Climate Emergency Bill, using a previously arcane and potentially unconstitutional ‘money messages’ parliamentary procedure. The Bill would have denied any further licences being granted for the purpose of oil or gas exploration in the country. This is certainly not evidence of the kind of “consistent political leadership” sought by Friends of the Earth, who, on reflection, more recently acknowledged that the ‘actual measures in the Plan don’t add up to bringing Irish emissions down far enough fast enough.’[vii]

    In essence, the Irish Times, among others,[viii] helped generate positivity in the Plan’s wake. This is apparent in the opening paragraph to an editorial the following day:

    The appropriately broad scope of the Government’s Climate Action Plan must be acknowledged. A scan of the plan’s headings shows that this administration, however belatedly, has fully grasped that global heating is negatively impacting every aspect of our life and that a plethora of policies and behaviours require urgent changes.[ix]

    Over the following days, opinion writers debated aspects of the plan, but none, it seems, was permitted to excoriate it.

    The greenwashing is best illustrated by a photograph featuring the following day in the Irish Times of the full Cabinet of Ministers arriving in the Phoenix Park to launch the Plan on an electric bus.[x] Yet this is one of just 13 State-owned electric vehicles among 6,573 listed, and came after the National Transport Authority recently announced the purchase of a further 200 diesel buses,[xi] for use nationwide. In Dublin nitrogen dioxide levels from diesel engines are already in breach of EU standards in a range of locations,[xii] seriously imperilling human health.

    The EPA’s recent emissions’ projections[xiii] make for stark reading:

    Mt CO2 eq 2017 2020 2025 2030 Growth 2018-2030
    Agriculture 20.21  20.32  20.66  20.85  3.2%
    Transport 12.00  12.68  12.48  11.86  -1.2%
    Energy Industries 11.74  11.95  13.66  8.62  -26.5%
    Residential 5.74  6.42  5.66  4.55  -20.7%
    Manufacturing Combustion 4.66  3.86  3.70  3.44  -26.2%
    Industrial Processes 2.23  2.39  2.67  3.01  34.6%
    Commercial and Public Services 1.97  1.31  1.15  0.97  -50.9%
    F-Gases 1.23  0.98  0.90  0.78  -35.9%
    Waste 0.93  0.58  0.49  0.44  -52.2%
    TOTAL 60.74  60.53  61.43  54.55  -10.2%

    The highest-emitting sector, agriculture, is predicted to increase its share to almost forty-per-cent of the total by 2030, while emissions from transport flatline. There is no evidence that the government’s Plan will alter these trajectories.

    Climate Opportunism

    In fact, climate change is being sold as an opportunity to roll out a fleet of electric cars, especially once the implementation of Bus Connects – really a road-widening exercise – ensures Dublin becomes even more of a U.S.-style motor-city.

    Foreign manufacture of electric vehicles externalises environmental and human impacts, including the mining of cobalt in Congo for lithium batteries.[xiv]

    Considering the success of the Luas, light rail seems a superior option to develop in our urban areas than noisy, uncomfortable and polluting buses. With a comparable population to Dublin, Prague has an extensive tram network offering a rapid, regular and comfortable service.

    A sensible climate action plan for urban areas could offer scope for a new generation of electric vehicles, including electric bikes, scooters and vehicles for the elderly – perhaps even involving state assistance to manufacturing enterprises. The motor car, as currently conceived, is not simply a major polluter, it is also unnecessarily large and poses serious dangers to other road users, as well as leading to social atomisation.

    Moreover, as long as fossil fuels generate electric power (under the Plan coal-burning Moneypoint power station is to be phased out in 2025,[xv] conveniently beyond the lifespan of this or the next government), electric vehicles could actually generate higher emissions than diesel equivalents, as one German study shows.[xvi]

    Another lacuna to the Plan is a failure to discuss reducing air travel between Dublin-London, accounting for 15,000 flights per annum, making it the busiest air corridor in Europe.[xvii] This might involve improving ferry services out of Dublin and, at the very least, providing a rail service from the Dublin city centre to the Port. It could even involve cooperating with the U.K. government to achieve improvements in the rail service out of Holyhead, potentially making sail-rail journey times competitive with air travel alternative.[xviii]

    Furthermore, the tired argument about maintaining the status quo in agriculture, the worst-offending sector, to the benefit of a narrowing elite, and underpinned by billions in subsidies, is based on a common misconception that Irish livestock ‘production’ diminishes impacts from livestock agriculture occurring elsewhere.

    This is the ‘our coal smokes less than their coal’ argument. In fact, recent analysis by An Taisce of U.N. figures[xix] shows Irish agricultural products to be responsible for among the highest emissions in Europe. Any plan purporting to diminish Ireland’s contribution to climate change is a waste of paper without proposals for radical reform of Irish agriculture. Emphasis, and subsidies, should shift to the cultivation of fruit and vegetables for the home market thereby reducing fossil fuel dependency, increasing employment and potentially raising the nation’s health.

    The so-called ‘Paper of Record’

    The Irish Times should not be considered a ‘paper of record’, or an unbiased conduit of ‘facts’, as it advertises itself. Although managed as a trust, a significant salary overhang and investments extraneous to news-gathering and commentary, including www.myhome.ie, have seen it develop into what is an overwhelmingly commercial concern. This approach may be a necessity for the survival of a medium-sized newspaper in the digital era, but it has important, generally unacknowledged, consequences for Irish democracy.

    It should be emphasised that many Irish Times journalists display diligence and integrity, and stories are still broken, but since Paul O’Neill became editor in 2017, the paper has become noticeably more business-friendly, and deferential to the current government.

    One leading columnist, Stephen Collins, is particularly partisan in his support for the dominant economic consensus of steady growth and rising rents administered by a political duopoly.[xx] Left-wing analysis of Irish politics and society is only given an intermittent platform, especially since Vincent Brown’s retirement, and with Fintan O’Toole mainly devoted to international commentary.

    Notably, Dan Flinter, chairman of the Irish Times Trust since 2013, holds a range of external directorships, where potential conflicts of interest could arise. For example, he is a non-executive director of Dairygold Co-Op, and chairman of its Remuneration Committee and a member of the Acquisitions and Investments Committee.[xxi] Ongoing expansion of the dairy sector since the lifting of EU milk quotas in 2015 has been the leading cause of the agricultural sector’s (and the country’s) rising emissions.

    A worldwide environmental crisis is upon us, and many, particularly young, Irish people are focused on the country’s global responsibilities. Meaningfully addressing the gathering storm – in Ireland’s case by shifting agricultural priorities (and subsidies) away from livestock production and phasing out the motor car in urban areas – would work, however, to the detriment of vested interests that advertise heavily in Irish media.[xxii] Such an approach would also be anathema to the dominant paradigm of economic growth-without-end, oblivious to environmental impact.

    The government’s Climate Action Plan seems to have been designed to assuage the justifiable fears, and desire for real action, among wide sections of the population, but it is really a greenwashing exercise, as the responses of leading environmental NGOs show.

    Unforgivably, the Irish Times misrepresented the Plan as a ‘radical’ document, despite its obvious deficiencies. This is a betrayal of a loyal readership, and honourable journalists working there. Irish democracy is being undermined by an institution which many of us grew up believing was one of its cornerstones, on an issue of crucial global importance.

    [i] Kevin Doyle, ‘Varadkar orders review of Project Ireland €1.5m publicity campaign amid controversy’, Irish Independent, March 1st, 2018. https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/varadkar-orders-review-of-project-ireland-1-5m-publicity-campaign-amid-controversy-36660463.html

    [ii] Press Release. ‘New Gov’t Climate Plan offers much improved rhetoric: but An Taisce cautions that “winning slowly will be the same as losing”’ June 18th, 2019, An Taisce – The National Trust for Ireland. http://www.antaisce.org/articles/new-gov%E2%80%99t-climate-plan-offers-much-improved-rhetoric-but-an-taisce-cautions-that-%E2%80%9Cwinning

    [iii] Press Release, ‘Promised mechanisms to ensure delivery and oversight are biggest innovation in Government climate plan’, Friends of the Earth Ireland, 17th of June, 2019,  https://www.foe.ie/news/2019/06/17/promised-mechanisms-to-ensure-delivery-and-oversight-are-biggest-innovation-in-government-climate-plan/

    [iv] Press Release, ‘All-of-Gov Climate Plan falls far short on biodiversity measures’, Environmental Pillar, 17th of June, 2019, https://environmentalpillar.ie/all-of-gov-climate-plan-falls-far-short-on-biodiversity-measures/

    [v] ‘PRESS RELEASE: Nature largely missing from the government Climate Action Plan’, Irish Wildlife Trust, 18th of June, 2019, https://iwt.ie/press-release-nature-largely-missing-from-the-government-climate-action-plan/

    [vi] Conall Ó Fátharta ‘Ireland’s Emissions the Third Highest in the EU’, November 23rd, 2016 Irish Examiner, https://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/irelands-co2-emissions-third-highest-in-eu-431895.html

    [vii] Untitled, ‘End of Term Climate Report: ‘Little Leo is falling in with the wrong crowd’, Friends of the Earth, 9th of July, 2019, https://www.foe.ie/news/2019/07/09/end-of-term-climate-report-little-leo-is-falling-in-with-the-wrong-crowd/

    [viii] Broadsheet.ie offers a summary of the newspapers headlines the following day: https://www.broadsheet.ie/2019/06/17/de-tuesday-papers-321/

    [ix] Untitled, ‘Irish Times view on the Climate Action Plan: activity must match ambition’, June 18th, 2019, Irish Times, https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/editorial/irish-times-view-on-the-climate-action-plan-activity-must-match-ambition-1.3928552

    [x] Miriam Lord, ‘Miriam Lord: From emission agnostics to climate apostles’, June 17th, 2019, Irish Times, https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/miriam-lord-from-emission-agnostics-to-climate-apostles-1.3930031?mode=sample&auth-failed=1&pw-origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.irishtimes.com%2Fnews%2Fpolitics%2Fmiriam-lord-from-emission-agnostics-to-climate-apostles-1.3930031.

    [xi] Juno McEnroe, ‘Only 13 of 6,700 State vehicles are electric’, July 1st, Irish Examiner, https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/only-13of-6700-state-vehicles-are-electric-933924.html

    [xii] Cormac Fitzgerald, ‘Levels of dangerous air pollutant NO2 possibly exceeding limits on M50 and on Dublin street’, thejournal.ie, July 9th, 2019, https://www.thejournal.ie/pollution-traffic-4715146-Jul2019/

    [xiii] ‘EPA’S GREENHOUSE GAS PROJECTIONS SHOW THAT IRELAND HAS MORE TO DO TO MEET ITS 2030 TARGETS’, Environmental Protection Agency, June 6th, 2019. https://www.epa.ie/mobile/news/name,66072,en.html?fbclid=IwAR3cGLpPKV9k4fTIVE8EMCJ_DPqG4bK_Ked5xWObMD5pzt_j63_wGQK7R24 accessed 9/6/19.

    [xiv] Untitled, ‘CBS News finds children mining cobalt for batteries in the Congo’, March 5th, 2018, CBS News, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cobalt-children-mining-democratic-republic-congo-cbs-news-investigation/?fbclid=IwAR1uNxopb2YEdfPIUyQvoTtfBVWn-o7OKTvAHuPH_IgV4HfVnmAeSzFE9_Q

    [xv] Government of Ireland, ‘Climate Action Plan – To Tackle Climate Breakdown’, June 16th, 2019, p.23. https://dccae.gov.ie/documents/Climate%20Action%20Plan%202019.pdf

    [xvi] Commentary, ‘Electric Vehicles in Germany Emit More Carbon Dioxide Than Diesel Vehicles’, June 10th, 2019, Institute for Energy Research, https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/international-issues/electric-vehicles-in-germany-emit-more-carbon-dioxide-than-diesel-vehicles/?fbclid=IwAR3PGVCkKRWjp12WtvqFMCgqKpOYhh4f001QxrRt6OEeUJ7S0eLQI5DkLys.

    [xvii] Untitled, ‘Dublin-Heathrow Busiest International Route In Europe’, 21st of January, 2019, Roots Online, https://www.routesonline.com/airports/2412/dublin-airport/news/276780/dublin-heathrow-busiest-international-route-in-europe/

    [xviii] Ruadhan Mac Eoin, ‘A User’s Guide to ‘Sail-Rail’ with Bicycle and Opportunities on the Dublin-London Route’, April 30th 2019, Cassandra Voices, http://cassandravoices.com/environment/off-the-rails-sail-rail-with-bicycle-from-dublin-to-london-with-some-observations-on-opportunities-for-improvement/

    [xix] Press Release, ‘Bombshell for Irish Beef’, An Taisce – The National Trust for Ireland, February 10th, 2019, http://www.antaisce.org/articles/bombshell-for-irish-beef.

    [xx] For example: Stephen Collins, ‘Politics of centre ground has served Ireland well’, May 2nd, 2019, Irish Times, https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/stephen-collins-politics-of-centre-ground-has-served-ireland-well-1.3877455

    [xxi] Dairygold Annual Report, 2018. https://www.dairygold.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Dairygold-Annual-Report-2018.pdf

    [xxii] As regards the motor car industry, see Stephen Court, ‘Drivetime’, Cassandra Voices, 31st of May, 2018. ‘http://cassandravoices.com/environment/drive-time-the-irish-medias-message/