Sir, – I refer to the many interesting articles that have been published recently by The Irish Times on the impacts of climate change and the inaction that continues to be shown by both the Irish Government and the Irish people. The will of the Irish people can drive Government policy but the will for radical action isn’t there and I think therefore the real issue is the disconnect that Irish people feel in relation to the climate crisis and how it will affect them personally.
I believe this is because much of the reporting in the media in Ireland focuses on the environmental impacts of climate change – rising temperatures, increased forest fires and winter storms, etc. Many in Ireland do not see these as an imminent threat to our way of life and assume that as a country with a mild climate, we are not at serious risk of these effects or that we can mitigate them (such as by use of flood defences in the case of flooding risk).
It is for this reason, I think, that the Irish media should report on the societal impacts of failing to take action on climate change so that people can see that these risks pose much more of a challenge to us. As we have seen over the past few years, Ireland and much of the world has seen significant inflationary challenges as a result of the war in Ukraine and the Covid pandemic, among other factors. One overlooked element in the inflationary mix is the impact of climate change disasters on food prices. As droughts, fires and floods become more common across the world, they are going to wipe out crops in larger numbers, meaning there is reduced supply for ever increasing demand (as the world’s population increases). This will have the impact of pushing up prices and therefore directly lead to increased food bills for people in Ireland, to say nothing of the suffering that will be inflicted on the people of the global south in such circumstances.
Other societal impacts of failing to take action on climate change include increased migration and the rise of climate refugees as certain regions of earth become uninhabitable. Wars and conflicts will also arise as a result of increasingly scarce resources and these will in turn lead to further migration. As we have seen in the UK, the US and other European countries, increases in migration lead to increases in populism and the destabilisation of democratic norms.
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Climate change is not some far-off thing that is going to affect only the people of the global south or future generations, it is happening now and affecting Irish people now and will continue to do so into the future. There is still time to slow down and prevent the worst effects of climate breakdown but we must act now and take serious action, including making adjustments to our way of life. To understand the need for action, people must be informed of the real risks to them of inaction. – Yours, etc,
KATE FAGAN,
Wicklow.