Apocalypse Now?... Only one way out!
APOCALYPSE NOW? That pretty well sums up the view of the leaders of Europe, North America and Japan, gathered as the G-7 in the little Alpine village of Elmau in early June. Moreover, it is a view that the authoritative UN Panel on Climate Change backs wholeheartedly, as indeed do a range of worthies, including figures so disparate as Kofi Annan and Arnold Schwarzenegger, all of whom predict doom and disaster should we persist in our present wilful ways. Unpleasant though it may be, climate change is a reality and its impact on the world in which we live and breathe is likely to be severe and widespread, and not simply for those far distant places, of which little is known and in which one’s interest is at best minimal.
A precarious future
Ireland, with its Atlantic weather system, is particularly susceptible to extremes of rain and wind. According to Met Eireann’s records, last summer was one of the hottest yet recorded, last winter the stormiest since records began 140 years ago, with rainfall twice the normal levels - a disturbing indication of a long- term global threat that is already discernible. One has only to recall the winter snowfalls that brought so much misery, the hurricane force winds that left much of the western seaboard without electricity for days on end, the crippling cold that took the lives of the unfortunates sleeping rough on our city streets, the contaminated water that forces a good proportion of Roscommon’s population to boil their tap water before they drink it. Yet bad though our present predicament may be, our future situation is liable to be even worse. There is every indication that, in the absence of drastic counter measures, Ireland will experience highly unstable climatic conditions with more frequent gales and flooding in winter and water shortages in summer.
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