DEAD IN THE WATER
POLITICS “is really ill-suited to keeping our feet dry”, a new climate series from RTE has found, as rising tides will ultimately wipe out some Irish towns and cities.
Journalist Philip Boucher-hayes travelled to Greenland’s melting ‘zombie’ icecaps, a Malawian community devastated by inland hurricanes and the Netherlands, where they seem to have found solutions to what climate change has in store.
That the map of Ireland will change in the coming centuries, losing parts of Dublin, half of Cork and some coastal communities as seas move 500 metres inland, is inevitable.
But how we adjust and mitigate against the worst of it, is not.
Speaking to The Star ahead of the launch of Rising Tides: Ireland’s Future In A Warmer World this Wednesday, Mr Boucher-hayes, told us: “Once you stand on one of those glaciers and you understand how fast it is moving out to sea in the direction of Ireland – you understand what this crisis is about in a far more compelling way than... projected figures.
“You think ‘everything that I can see, everything on the periphery of this massive island is zombie ice... committed to melting’.
“It’s not going to be here in a couple of years time and it flows out to sea in the direction of Ireland.
“The climate sub-committee of the cabinet was told this two years ago. “Ireland will see, in the centuries ahead, five metres of sea level rise.”
Greenland’s glaciers are melting six times faster than 20 years ago because of greenhouse gas emissions.
It was there, glaciologist Jason Box told the three-part series: “We can see from satellite pictures that this area is doomed, I call it a disaster in slow motion”.
The only way we can prevent the worst of it, is by cutting our emissions.
Mr Boucher-hayes added: “For every metre that the water goes up, it comes in 100 metres – so 5 metres of sea level rise means 500 metres in.
“That’s not uniform but it does mean