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STOP talking about the environment!

  • 08-10-2008 11:53pm
    #1
    Húrin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,045 ✭✭✭


    I am posting this simultaneously in Politics and Green Issues because of the subject of the video.

    George Marshall of the UK Climate Outreach Information Network in short interview argues that we must stop refering to climate change as an environmental issue, arguing that this provides a handy denial strategy for people to argue that it has nothing to do with them...

    http://www.climatedenial.org/


Comments

  • #2
    Húrin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,045 ✭✭✭Húrin


    Imagine if scientists found that global warming was being caused by North Korea deliberatly pumping chemicals into the atmosphere. Wouldn't the response be immediate and severe? Why is there such irrational reluctance to act on a problem as large as global warming?


  • #3
    turgon
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,762 ✭✭✭turgon


    Húrin wrote: »
    Imagine if scientists found that global warming was being caused by North Korea deliberatly pumping chemicals into the atmosphere. Wouldn't the response be immediate and severe? Why is there such irrational reluctance to act on a problem as large as global warming?

    Because such action requires personal sacrifice, wheras bombing a foriegn country is something you can avoid if you keep the telly off


  • #4
    Húrin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,045 ✭✭✭Húrin


    turgon wrote: »
    Because such action requires personal sacrifice, wheras bombing a foriegn country is something you can avoid if you keep the telly off
    Why are you trying to turn climate change into an issue solely for individuals? This is a strategy to keep it out of the crucial political realm.


  • #5
    EamonnKeane
    Closed Accounts Posts: 950 ✭✭✭EamonnKeane


    Húrin wrote: »
    Why are you trying to turn climate change into an issue solely for individuals? This is a strategy to keep it out of the crucial political realm.

    Agreed. The notion of individual redemption takes environmentalism in a disturbingly religious direction. To build a road from Dublin to Cork, would you ask everyone to volunteer to lay 1 m of road?


  • #6
    Húrin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,045 ✭✭✭Húrin


    EamonnKeane wrote: »
    Agreed. The notion of individual redemption takes environmentalism in a disturbingly religious direction. To build a road from Dublin to Cork, would you ask everyone to volunteer to lay 1 m of road?
    That's a good analogy, but it's not really transforming environmentalism into a religion I'm thinking of. It's the way the media discusses climate change as an "environmental issue" (when it is really a social and economic issue in terms of its effects) that must be solved by individuals reducing their "carbon footprint". It reduces what is an international emergency, into a smug hobby for the middle classes.

    It ignores the simple fact that if fossil fuels are taken out of the ground, someone, somewhere, will burn them. And it won't make climate change any easier for you just because it wasn't you that burned it.

    This is why the problem needs to be solved at the highest levels of government and business. Given that it is extremely late in the day, and governments are now only starting to wake up, it is inevitably falling on individual communities worldwide to mitigate their emissions and adapt to the effects of climate change.


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  • #7
    Macha
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 6,376 Mod ✭✭✭✭Macha


    Have you heard of the transition town project?
    http://www.transitiontowns.org/
    That's effectively communities taking it upon themselves to take action on climate change and other environmental issues. If top-down action isn't happening, bottom-up has to step in.


  • #8
    Húrin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,045 ✭✭✭Húrin


    taconnol wrote: »
    Have you heard of the transition town project?
    http://www.transitiontowns.org/
    That's effectively communities taking it upon themselves to take action on climate change and other environmental issues. If top-down action isn't happening, bottom-up has to step in.
    Yes it's pretty excellent and it started right here in Ireland! It's a pity it has not grown more rapidly here, though a few towns in Cork and Kildare are going for it.

    After I finish my degree (next June) I would be interested in starting up a project like this in my home, Dublin. However, I think that Dublin may be too big a city to do this - the biggest TT so far is Nottingham, a quarter of Dublin's size - so I am trying to think if it would make much sense on a divided basis (e.g. south central area).


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