As the third annual Convergence environmental festival starts in Dublin, Sylvia Thompson asks if our bad record on Green issues means hopes for a sustainable environment are just a utopian dream. Or can we really challenge the current economic status quo?
An environmental festival optimistically entitled, "Exploring Culture for a Better World", begins today in Dublin. In the third annual Convergence festival, worthy themes such as green architecture, eco-tourism, sustainable communities, the local food economy and renewable energy will be discussed and debated. And music, theatre and film will be used to espouse environmental causes.
But, can such ideas be celebrated in a country with a growing waste crisis, traffic chaos in all major cities and towns, and with illegal toxic waste materials and the overuse of fertilizers and pesticides polluting the soil in which food grows and upon which animals feed? Have Irish environmentalists really got anything to celebrate? Do they sincerely believe they can convince local authorities to adopt the principles of green building and design? Can they genuinely provide an alternative to the sprawling housing that is eating up the countryside in the counties surrounding Dublin? Do they see any way of making cities such as Dublin nicer places to live, with more emphasis on enjoying day-to-day life rather than just surviving it? And how can local food producers really hope to compete in a market increasingly dictated by international trade agreements?
These are the very questions that many of the main speakers at Convergence hope to answer. And, yes, they sincerely believe they can have an impact. In spite of - or perhaps because of - Ireland's poor environmental record, Irish environmentalists believe there is a groundswell of public concern about environmental issues ready to be tapped into.
"It is the major housing crisis in Dublin which has made people dissatisfied with the options they have - unaffordable housing and a poor quality of life. If you can consider paying 50 per cent less for your home, you can also re-examine what work is all about," says Gavin Harte, who manages Ireland's only eco-village project, simply called "The Village" (see today's WebWorld).
To date, The Village consists of 22 households and has capacity for 100. Six sites have been shortlisted and the site for the eco-village is due to be selected this month. Members of The Village will then choose sites for individual houses, either as part of a streetscape or on lower density areas in the village. The eco-village will also include an enterprise centre, a children's play area, other civic buildings and, possibly, allotment gardens.
"We will submit an ecological charter and a design charter and the planning permission will rest with the local authority," says Harte. "What we are offering them is a template, an opportunity to improve on the ecological design of Irish housing. It is only when Green developers offer clear alternatives to buyers and local authorities that we can start to challenge shoddy building and design," he says.
The Sustainable Communities exhibition, video screenings and talks, mounted by The Village, at the Environmental Information Service, ENFO, 17 St Andrew Street, continues throughout the Convergence Festival.
Green architect, Emer O'Siochru, says that she was radicalised by the developers' zeal which emerged in Temple Bar over the last 10 years. "Our development system is wrong. It is speculative. It . . . pits people against each other. What we suggest is co-operative companies, formed by groups of landowners who can then sell on some land to outsiders at higher prices, and keep sites for local people and community buildings at more affordable prices. And we reckon we can compete with private developers by providing higher quality houses at the same price." During the Convergence Festival, O'Siochru will participate in a conference entitled, "Ecological Building for a Better World and Greening Dublin: Creating the Vision, Dubliners' Agenda 21".
As chairwoman of the Dublin Agenda 21 committee, O'Siochru is seeking equitable community representation on local government bodies, as defined by Local Agenda 21 agreements at the Rio Earth Summit, in 1992. One suspects only when such representation is gained will the Dublin committee be able to attain some of its environmental ambitions.
These ambitions include setting up community gardens and allotments on various sites owned by Dublin Council. "For example, Palmerston Park, in Rathmines, is a lovely park, but there is nothing the community can interact with. It would be very nice to have local composting and a demonstration area where people could learn good gardening techniques," says O'Siochru, whose office is in Rathmines. Community gardens were so successful in the Washington state city of Seattle that each instance of planning permission granted there now must have an allocation for a community garden.
Overall, however, O'Siochru is not impressed with the Government's environmental record. "Our country has got less sustainable if you consider poor water quality, loss of fertile earth, the carbon gas emissions and unsustainable building patterns. We have ignored the Kyoto agreements and the Government won't do anything to protect the environment if it impedes economic growth. The Government says that Comhar [The National Sustainable Development Partnership] is their answer . . . but it is just a talking shop, well away from where the real action is."
Richard Douthwaite, author and long-time environmental campaigner, admits that it is difficult to be optimistic, given Ireland's poor environmental record. "Probably, the only thing that can be celebrated is the continuing growth in awareness of the problems and the change in attitude demonstrated by the recent tax on plastic bags, because it shows that the Government is beginning to accept that it has to intervene in the market, because the market itself isn't going to deliver on environmental protection," he says.
Douthwaite is a founder member of Feasta, a think-tank which aims to provide ways for local economies to "make themselves less exposed to the vagaries of the international markets and government policies by meeting more of their needs themselves". Feasta will host a conference at the Convergence Festival, in which speakers will describe how the rise of farmers' markets in Britain (from one in 1997 to over 350 now) has helped farmers become independent of the fluctuating prices offered to them by the larger supermarket chains and how "shop local" projects in Irish towns has helped local communities here.
Helena Norberg-Hodge, another speaker at Convergence, is the director of the International Society for Ecology and Culture, and the co-founder of the International Forum on Globalisation. "I'm very encouraged by the growing resistance to globalisation around the world and the growth of the grassroots movement to rebuild local food systems," she says. "What we have to question is trade for the sake of trade. For example, in Britain, we export as much fresh milk and live animals as we import. If countries like Ireland and Britain put more resources into developing their home economies, rather than export economies, we would have less pollution, for example. The foundations of current economic theory are based on comparative advantage - specialising for export rather than maintaining and supporting a diversified economy to provide foodstuffs and building material for your own population," argues Norberg-Hodge, whose forthcoming book Bringing the Food Economy Home (Zed Books) discusses these issues in more detail.
"How we are Mortgaging Our Children's Future" is the emotive title of the Convergence lecture by toxicopathologist, Vyvyan Howard. "The only way we can keep control of the toxic elements in our waste stream is to separate waste at source. That means involving everyone in the community," says Howard. He believes only when a large per centage of reusableand recyclable waste is diverted from landfill will the Government then begin to seriously question how to deal with the remainder, and maybe even consider using alternative raw materials which don't contain such toxic waste.
The question remains whether this and other ecologically sound ideas which challenge the current economic status quo are utopian dreams or the roots of the only system which will keep us alive in the future.
The Convergence Festival runs from today until April 14th. Booking at: 01 8819613. Festival information at: tel: 01-4912327. See also www.sustainable.ie