BY CLLR NIALL MURPHY, GREEN PARTY
As the Summer approaches, happiness spreads as thousands flocked to the Bloom gardening festival in Dublin or the long walk on the Prom or the first swim in the ocean.
While we have experienced these gifts for thousands of years, there are no guarantees that these gifts will ‘keep on giving’.So how does this relate to the Local and European elections on Friday, June 7, when each of us gets the chance to cast our ‘vote’.
The ballot paper determines our local political leaders for the next five years. Of course, each ballot cast is of immense value. But, even more importantly, each ballot cast is our decision about who we trust to make the right decisions for us today and for those generations to follow.
We have our own opinions on every topic, whether it be on immigration, housing, health care, education, or transport. We are missing one key element in coming to this decision and that is our lives are now entering a change directly associated with the changing climate.
Many of us may stop reading at this point as ‘we’ve heard it all before’. But this is not scaremongering, it is reporting on the facts as determined by climate scientists from around the world.
Are we here by choice, no. We are here by necessity and we carry the responsibility of science in seeking to make the right decisions for the future generations to come. Many of these policy objectives are not easy to present as they incur a level of hardship, yet are essential to limit further changes in our climate.
If the concerns about nature were resolved in the morning, the Greens could disband immediately. Sadly, that is not going to happen as we head into decades of weather disruptions that will require huge adaptation.
The increasing threat of powerful storms coming in from the Atlantic, higher levels of rainfall resulting in more localized flooding and the possibility of heatwaves or droughts at other times are some of the warnings from the science. There are no places on this planet that are immune from the effect of the changing climate.
Each of our voting decisions will be the reflection point that future generations will look back on when asking; “what did each of you do to fight climate change!”
