CHOICES SHAPE YOUR FUTURE
By Judith Ashton
The transition into very hot weather feels rather sudden. Last week there was cold air from Siberia and I was well wrapped up against it. This week my body is trying to adapt to extreme heat. It’s very confusing and doesn’t feel right at all. When I was younger, I loved the heat, the sun and getting a tan. I always felt so much better when the sun was shining. I felt I could expand, take up more space and the heat would warm my bones. I would head to the nearest swimming place and dive in and feel the exhilaration of the sudden cold, which would really wake me up and make me feel so alive.
These days, that is no longer the case. We now fear hot weather and are warned, “Too much sun is bad for your health. Too much sun can cause skin cancer. Diving into cold water could trigger a heart attack. Pale is beautiful, and the only good tan is no tan — or a fake one!” Our planet is heating up. We failed to act on the warnings issued 40 years ago, when global action might still have prevented this climate catastrophe. Humanity can unite in an emergency, as we saw during the pandemic. Drastic collective action was swiftly ignited, governments co-operated and billionaires prospered.
The climate emergency is an uncomfortable message for humanity, so what have governments done? In my view: too little, too late. There are initiatives such as solar panels, recycling and improved insulation which can only be positive, but at the same time huge billionaire-owned data centres are consuming vast amounts of water and energy. Utility bills continue to rise. Water, even in Ireland, is not limitless. Shortages, droughts and conflicts over water are inevitable. One overly tanned president, who knows nothing about science, denies the problem entirely.
Certain sectors are already speaking of food security and food shortages. The fertiliser crisis caused by Trump’s Iran war may result in broken economies and famines due to crop failures. Lenin used the phrase, “three meals away from chaos!” It is a well-known socio-political saying that suggests civil order is fragile and depends on a secure food supply. Irish society is vulnerable; our food systems, including transport, hauliers, fodder suppliers and farmers, are all tightly interconnected. We have recently seen how easily such a system can break down, as the current fuel crisis demonstrated.
Supermarket shelves can empty very quickly. We are all familiar with price gouging, where unscrupulous businesses exploit a crisis by raising prices and making the cost of living even harder to bear.
The cyber attack on the HSE reflected the vulnerability of major institutions to hackers. Banks are constantly on high alert. A day might come when none of the cash machines work and transactions become impossible. Panic ensues.
Ireland has not seen food riots since the famine and the memory of such hardship still runs deep. Many European countries have sent leaflets to every home, e.g. Denmark, telling people to get supplies “just in case”. Just in case of what, we may ask?
Do European governments know more than they are telling us? They say, in case of natural disasters, e.g. floods, possibly wars and food shortages.
I have heard it said that most households are only three meals away from starvation. It makes me wonder how many people keep food reserves at home. The Danes are told to stockpile essentials such as matches, cash, candles, toilet paper, sanitary ware, medication, cooking oil, flour, tinned food, pasta or rice, batteries and ways to charge phones without electricity. But with so many people struggling to afford their weekly shop, setting aside even a week’s extra supplies may be impossible. In a crisis, how long could your household manage?
Better still, we’re told that we should all grow at least some of our own food. This year, if there’s another crisis, I will manage on a good crop of parsley, lettuce, rocket, mint, chives, beetroot and spinach, and with a few bags of brown rice and some red lentils to go with it, things are not quite as bleak as they might otherwise be, and I should make it through the summer. But what about winter? I haven’t planted any crops, so I am currently researching “Breatharians” — people who claim they can live on air and cosmic energy alone. It is cheap, freely available and I am a fast learner, so there is clearly nothing to worry about!
