DÁIL IN A DAY’S WORK

The slow drag towards a new definition of the future in the northern part of the island continues apace. Very slowly. I’m not holding my breath, mind you, but there are hopeful signs. From the prospect of dreadful carnage, they have retreated to mere civil disturbance. Roads are being reopened, courts are being picketed, protests are being mounted, bigots are being confronted. It isn’t exactly normal, as we might understand that word in the United Kingdom, or in the Republic of Ireland, but it’s a hell of a lot more acceptable than bombs and bullets.

It gives the rest of us a chance to examine a range of other issues that have been long neglected. Indeed, there is a whole world out there which has been in need of a spotlight for some time.

The high profile topics, like the “peace process” and the Beef Tribunal have preoccupied attention. And the various threats and alarums over the Presidency of the High Courst, and Irish Steel and TEAM Aer Lingus, have kept the Charlie Bird reporters of this world in clover.

I sometimes wonder about that lot. They have a unique power: by the merest suggestion, they can provoke the very news that their jobs depend on. There’s something wrong there.

From our political correspondent...

Don’t you all get the sense that they sit around in the Shelbourne, or Buswell’s Hotel deciding on which rumour they’ll pursue this week? Nothing doing in the House ... let’s find an informed source to speculate on a heave against .. well, choose yer leader.

The problem is that it’s all very cosy. The leaders may be heaved or not, but the broad frame of reference remains: the media have their day. But no real question is asked. Leaders are changed. Albert Reynolds for Charlie Haughey, Mary Harney for Dessie O’Malley, and so on. But over all these alarums hangs the spectre of adolescence, and college debating societies, and immature (d)alliances.

Some things never change. Those of us who love dogs will recognise plenty. The lamp-posts are imprinted.

Just what would happen if the political reporters for radio, TV and newspapers were to pursue significant stories, as opposed to juvenile posturing and conspiracies one can never know. But the mutual seduction process that occurs between politicians and their journalistic Boswells certainly mitigates the political process. If the population at large is cynical about its elected representatives, the latter have only themselves and their media toadies to blame.

This rant is inspired by .. well, perhaps it’s best left unstated. I had one of those conversations in a pub near the Dail. It left me feeling queasy. It was all about signals. All I bloody hear about these days is signals. What the hell is this? It’s like the present Dail has hired Geronimo as press attache. There’s a reluctance to tamper with Articles 2 and 3 for fear they might “send the wrong signals to nationalists in the North”.

There’s also signals to the Unionists, to the trade unions, to the hierarchy . . . Say what you gotta say. To one and all. Forget the posturing. Dump on the political correspondents. Go straight to the people. Trust the voters!! As Madonna says, “I never loved anyone till I learned to love myself”. Politicians have got to loosen up. Take it as it comes. Be honest and you will win (back) the trust of your supporters.

One subject on which politicians could profitably take a stand is the environment. Look at the success of the Greens. The environment is good news all around. Nobody can object, except for the various entities that pollute the sea around Cork.

But it is also a very serious topic. And grave changes are afoot which we will ignore at our peril.

In particular, I would instance the recent extraordinary revelations about the Antarctic ice. I’m sure you’ve all read about it, but just in case you haven’t, it seems that flowers and grass are spreading explosively across the north of Antarctica.

More than two thirds of the 2,000 square kilometre Wordie Ice Sheet has melted away in the past 30 years. The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) warns that other sheets face similar “catastrophic disintegration”. A half-globe away, scientists have recorded that the salinity (salt level) of the North Atlantic has declined by 15% in recent years, a sure sign that polar ice caps are melting, and a certain precursor of climatic instability.

And there’s more. Apparently researchers at the Missouri Botanical Gardens have found that trees in forests in Australia, Southeast Asia, Africa and Central and South America are growing and dying more rapidly than in the past. The most likely cause is a build up of carbon dioxide.

Coral reefs are dying as a result of rising water temperatures. You wouldn’t know this from your summer swims in the Atlantic, but in fact, exceptional warming has been recorded in all seven oceans. European glaciers are smaller than at any time for 5,000 years.

It all adds up to the same thing: all those doomy warnings about global warming were right on the button, and later this month the official Inter-Governmental Panel on Climatic Change (IPCC) will publish a report which concludes that the world’s climate is seriously at risk.

That doesn’t mean that the end is nigh. It might be, but with political will it needn’t be. Which is where we return to our political representatives and their pals.

Their challenge is to respond to this threat, but constructively. To balance the respective needs of environment and employment in a vision that respects the future.

Most politicians find this rather difficult. Cynical by nature, they go with the flow. There are many reasons why they should reconsider this easy option. Not the least of them is the fact that if all the water tied up in the ice caps and the glaciers were to melt, Ireland would lose about 25% of its land mass to the sea.

Apart from wanting to satisfy St Patrick’s alleged prophecies, I can’t think of a single reason why anyone would want such a thing, can you?

• The Hog