Our reluctance to react with urgency to global warming is baffling

IN ‘HAMLET’, Ophelia is a uniquely delicate creature who meets a tragic end, melting hearts of stone. The eponymously named hurricane that swept this country yesterday was a reminder that nature in its rage doesn’t discriminate. Ignore it or underestimate it and its savage power can be devastating. The hurricane that swept the country in the past 24 hours was the sixth of the season. Extreme weather events are no longer exceptional. The emergency services, line-crews and those who risked their lives in the interests of others deserve all of our gratitude. Often taken for granted, their commitment and expertise are nonetheless the difference between life and death.

The last number of years have given us a series of meteorological disasters that exacted a huge toll on communities and livelihoods. Each incident is analysed and categorised, but those caught in the catastrophe are often left picking up the pieces alone.

Insurers and State agencies have been too slow and too restrictive in meeting urgent needs.

Reacting to a sequence of spectacularly destructive weather events in the US, Michael Moore wrote: “As the country continues to dissect the recent natural disaster, we might want to start considering what about the disaster wasn’t actually ‘natural’ at all . ... Human activity, the burning of fossil fuels, is causing global warming. Global warming is causing the oceans to warm. Warm oceans are steroids for storms.”

Mr Moore’s concerns have a global resonance; but what of the global response? Back in 2012 Donald Trump tweeted: “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive.”

Three years later his contribution to the debate was equally self-serving and vacuous as, on October 19, 2015, he tweeted: “It’s really cold outside, they are calling it a major freeze, weeks ahead of normal. Man, we could use a big fat dose of global warming!”

We are not immune from such nonsense ourselves. In May 2016, Independent Kerry TD Danny Healy-Rae went on record to insist that he does not agree with all the talk about climate change. “God above is in charge of the weather and we here can’t do anything about it,” he said.

It would be nice to be able to ignore such asinine foolishness, but we can scarcely afford to given Ireland’s failure to meet commitments. For years we have been enthusiastically agreeing to tackle climate change. Our performance in regard to meeting the UN’s Kyoto Protocol over the past two decades tells a different story. Our greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise and the country ranks as one of the worst in Europe for failing to meet targets. If there was a role of shame for delinquency in failing to meet responsibilities, we would be close to the top.

We now face non-compliance costs of up to €600m by 2020 and between €3bn and €6bn by 2030. We can either embrace radical climate action measures and slash emissions, or be forced to. As the evidence of global warming is at its most overwhelming, the reluctance to react appropriately is ever more baffling.

The reticence to risk losing votes to do what is so urgently demanded is reprehensible.

We have been told by the experts what needs to be done, Ralph Waldo Emerson advised that we should: “Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.”

But even the patience of nature is hardly inexhaustible.