Pressure’s on us all this year to slow down and green up
THE fight against climate change and the battle to reduce the terrible carnage on our roads will have the most dramatic impacts on our lives this year. Both the local and European elections in June and even a possible general election in the autumn (after a giveaway budget by Michael McGrath) will pale by comparison.
After last year’s miserable parade of unspeakable disasters on our roads, with the deaths of 184 people and thousands of injuries, we’re now facing fairly startling – and thoroughly justifiable – reductions in speed limits nationwide. If effective, this pivot to much slower speeds will change our entire approach to driving.
Throughout the country, according to Junior Minister for Transport Jack Chambers, the speed limit on national
secondary roads will drop from 100kph to 80kph, while on many local roads the limit will go from 80kph to 60kph. The transition will take some getting used to and will require sustained Garda enforcement.
But the most striking reduction in the speed limit is planned for all builtup urban areas and residential roads used by significant numbers of pedestrians and cyclists. There, motorists will have to drop back from 50kph to 30kph – a pace that seems like walking when compared to what currently passes for reasonable. It’s going to be a complete head-wreck for compliant drivers, with impatient motorists up their behinds, pressing against their back bumpers.
Mr Chambers says the lower speed limits law will be enacted within months and come into effect later. The challenge, of course, is for Mr Chambers and his colleagues in Government to provide gardaí with enough resources to enforce compliance – and that’s a big ask in circumstances where the number of gardaí on road safety duties has dropped to just 650, from the 1,100 it should be.
The urgent need for stricter enforcement is now indisputable, with over 800 arrests for driving under the influence of drink or drugs over the Christmas period. Sadly, during that time 14 more people were killed.
The personal impact that tougher road safety measures will have on us all will be matched by our enforced transition away from fossil fuels to save the planet, and ourselves. There’ll be fewer fires in the open hearth, more emphasis on public transport, more electric cars, which don’t come cheap, and a significant tightening of the screw in respect of domestic waste. We’ve been very late to the party.
At national level the plan is to reduce emissions by 51% by 2030, just six years away, and to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. With the EPA warning we’re already in line to miss the 2030 target by a large margin, harsher measures will almost certainly have to be introduced.
Farmers are expected to shoulder emissions reductions of up to 30% and that will directly affect consumption – your tasty fillet-rare is set to become less frequent, and in perhaps a few short years will inspire the same social disapproval that smoking does today.
The EPA also estimates that every year we generate about 1.2 million tonnes of food waste – and shamefully, just under a quarter of that comes from restaurants and other food outlets. Amazingly also, primary food production discards about 70,000 tonnes of food each year.
BUT a major contributor to food waste, 250,000 tonnes of it at least, comes from our own homes. This, however, is likely to be a serious underestimate as food waste that goes down the sink or is composted at home or otherwise discarded is not included. Per person we’re now dumping over 50 kilos of food each year, with an annual cost per household of around €700. Don’t even mention the food wasted this Christmas.
But that’s all about to change too, with Environment Minister Eamon Ryan now making it mandatory for every household to be provided with a brown bin for food and light garden waste by their bin collector. This is hardly surprising considering that well over 20% of the content of general household waste bins is food and other organic waste more suitable for composting.
There’s little enough any of us can do about inflation, which will be directed by events such as the war in Ukraine and perhaps by even greater instability in the Middle East. Governments come and go and even a new administration in Ireland will take time to confront and resolve health, housing and migration.
When it comes to road safety and waste disposal, however, it’s all down to us. We’re all on the front line, and the pressure to change tack rests on all of us individually. It’s a new world.