THE REALITY OF GLOBAL WARMING IS BEING HIDDEN AND DENIED IN A FOG OF GREED AND POLITICAL COWARDICE

change and yet in its budget considerations our Government chose to ignore it. In a miserable acknowledgement of the reality it added a paltry 1pc to VRT.

Dr John Fitzgerald, chairman of the Government’s own Climate Change Advisory Council, called the failure to address carbon emissions and climate change in the budget “depressing.”

Leo Varadkar disingenuously and disgracefully framed the budgetary choice as one of either tackling the housing crisis and increasing social welfare or taking up our climate change responsibilities. Using the poor as pawns was a low stoop. There are more choices available than that.

But there is no point in just blaming the Government. We all need to look into the eyes of our children and grandchildren and do our duty by them. Every creature under the sun provides for its young in terms of food, shelter and safety. We are the only species bent on the ultimate destruction of our habitat as we pursue the short-term satisfaction of our appetites.

We all want someone else to shoulder the cost and the sacrifice: farmers don’t want to cut back on stock numbers or diesel use; affluent urbanites want two sun holidays a year and their avocados flown in fresh from Mexico; most of us prefer to use our cars than take public transport, and everybody is afraid to challenge the air transport industry, among the greatest polluters of all.

How much do we know and how long do we know it?

In 1962, Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring alerted the world to the environmental disaster wrought by the indiscriminate use of pesticides. Since then libraries of books, studies, research papers, documentaries and international reports have painted an increasingly stark picture of the impact our behaviour is having on our planet.

That picture ought to have spurred us into real and effective action a long time ago.

Let’s not wait for the days of shame, regret and pain when our children and grandchildren will look at us and ask why we knew so much for so long and did nothing.