Ireland: disaster is looming

We already know that the Irish are the second-most litigious society on earth after the USA. And a fair few of us would sue our mothers if we thought there was a spare shekel in it. Given that, I’m surprised that we haven’t found a way to sue someone, anyone, after this summer’s weather.

It’s been incredible. Over the last decades we have become inured to scenes of flooding, famine and disease. But these have been in Africa – in Ethiopia, Sudan, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Mozambique – and in Asia, especially China, Vietnam and Bangla Desh.

But now that particular chicken has come home to roost much closer to home, as anyone who saw the incredible watery scenes from Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria and Russia can attest.

The monsoons came to central Europe, and over 100 people died. Over the past three weeks, vast swathes of land have been submerged under surging floodwaters. The ancient cities of Prague and Dresden have been swamped. Salzburg is declared to be a disaster zone.

Up to a hundred people were swept away in Russia. There were landslides in Switzerland. The grape harvest in northern Italy has been battered by hailstorms. Bridges and dams have been tossed aside like matchsticks in Germany and the Czech Republic. The Germans estimate the damage in that country alone will cost Ä25 billion to put right. In the Czech Republic, soldiers were authorised to remove people from their homes if necessary.

Meanwhile, on the east coast of America and in Vietnam there have been massive droughts and record temperatures. There have been forest fires in many US States.

In Britain, 20 days’ worth of rain fell on London in 30 minutes on August 7, 2002. This deluge caused chaos as the creaking drainage systems failed and flash floods swept through the streets. And there was more of the same in Glasgow and Yorkshire as well as in Dublin and elsewhere in Ireland. As if the summer hadn’t been bad enough!

As I write, In China’s Hunan province, a million soldiers and volunteers are trying to stop floodwaters sweeping dams away in the Yangtse basin... But that’s not all. There is also a three kilometre deep blanket of haze stretching across southern Asia... It’s been dubbed the Asian Brown Haze, a mix of ash, acids, smoke, chemical droplets and other pollutants.

We are now being told that the Brown Haze will get worse over next 30 years as the Asian population rises to five billion, and that it will cause severe climatic disruption.

Even without it, scientists are clear that freak weather will become the norm over the next ten to twenty years. Global climate change isn’t going to simply be a matter of gentle increases in temperature. Quite the opposite. Indeed, even moderate analysts are now saying that a catastrophe looms.

What’s causing it? Some have blamed El Niño. This is a warming of the surface waters of the Pacific Ocean. And it occurs at irregular intervals of two to seven years. This warming pumps a lot of extra energy into the atmosphere and upsets the usual climatic patterns.

Maybe that’s part of it. But others point to the so-called greenhouse effect. They say that global temperatures are rising fast and that polar icecaps and high mountain glaciers are melting at an incredible rate.

It is also suggested that a huge river of icy freshwater is flowing into the North Atlantic from the polar ice field and melting glaciers, and that it’s lowering the salinity of the sea, thus affecting fish life, as well as pushing the Gulf Stream to the south.

This will have disastrous effects in Ireland. A view is emerging that we only have another decade of living as we know it now, after which the Atlantic currents may well reverse or change. Which means we better get in touch with Iceland to see how to survive.

So, what to do? At the local level, all our town and city councils had better get their drainage systems in order, because they’re going to be taxed. Clean out those shores! Tunnels (like the Jack Lynch Tunnel) will be prone to flooding. Watch the electrics! Railways will be liable to subside. Roads will wash away. Potholes will be the norm. And all of us will need to look to our roofs.

On the grander scale, as you read this, over 100 world leaders, including Bertie Ahern, are meeting in Johannesburg for the UN World Summit on Sustainable Development.

The omens are not good. The world funked the Kyoto agreement, including the Irish, who have not met their targets. And they were far too modest even at that.

A year ago the world was blasted out of its complacency by the attack on the World Trade Center. The truth is that, nuclear and biological war apart, and perhaps a sizeable asteroid, the world we live in has no bigger threat than climate change. Wouldn’t agreement on tackling that be a fitting memorial to 9/11?

The Hog