Séamas O'Reilly: We don’t have to like the actions of protesters to know their cause is not merely worthwhile, it is our own

Debate is sensible if muted ... in a country [Ireland] where the spectre of “global warming” has, for some people, the ring of being threatened with a good time

Séamas O'Reilly. Picture: Orfhlaith Whelan

Back in Ireland this week, I was aware that the weather was fairly temperate.

“Fierce mild” as several people said, in that charming oxymoron used for this kind of blip in the forecast.

For a nation so used to biting cold, any glimmer of warmth found to be hanging on after summer like a recalcitrant house guest, was welcome, but there were more than a few raised eyebrows about a climate that seems, at least anecdotally, to be changing before our eyes.

We should, of course, be circumspect when ascribing this or that weather phenomenon to the almost bafflingly complex gyres of Climate Change™.

For one thing, the layers of cause and effect are so oddly intertwined that these are deductions best left to scientists rather than me, drawing conclusions from a vague feeling that I’m taking my coat off more than usual for October.

And it’s not like people aren’t talking about it.

In just the past few days, I listened to a radio debate about farmers’ responsibility to cut methane emissions, and caught several TV and social media ads about the reducing, reusing and recycling that banks and fast food companies think we should be undertaking.

It all seemed very sensible, but muted in that way you often find in a country where the spectre of “global warming” has, for some people, the ring of being threatened with a good time.

The fact is, we’re miles away from contemplating climate change as a physical reality. Every news story about the crisis may be expertly researched, cogently reported, and widely read, but they often seem too terrifying, too huge, to take on board. I’m not excusing myself from this lapse. I find it almost impossible to fully engage with the climate news for longer than a few paragraphs before a crushing sense of doom washes over me like brown sludge on a starving polar bear.

Let’s take Alaskan snow crabs, for recency’s sake. The estimated global stock of Alaskan snow crabs stood at 12bn in 2018. Last year that was down to a single billion. Last week: none. If that sounds like a lot, it’s because it is; a $100m sector of the fishing industry deleted, overnight, seemingly due to rising water temperatures. I don’t know what to do with this information. I don’t know what one Alaskan snow crab looks like; 12bn just places my brain on standby mode.

That’s the horror of the big numbers we’re talking about, and the swiftness with which complex, scary things occur. Changes are gradual until they aren’t, speculative until they’re imminent, and then they just … happen, and we move on to the next thing. We all use paper straws for a bit while governments and polluters do nothing or, worse, expand production.

I think it’s worth keeping this in mind as we watch protesters upping the ante. In the past ten days, climate protesters blocked the M25 out of London, threw soup on Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, and this week offered a generous serving of mashed potato on a Monet.

I’ll agree that the first time I saw the footage, I was confused. Were I to throw soup at a work of art, I guess I would have chosen an Andy Warhol, for symmetry’s sake. And Van Gogh does have a painting called The Potato Eaters which would have made more sense to pelt with mash than Monet’s Grainstacks.

However, most people’s disdain for these protests was rooted less in symbology, and more on finding their actions fatuous and the people committing them, annoying. What we do know, however, is that climate protesters actually make the news, because people find it easier to get angry at pink-haired students than oil barons and the governments who support them. On the day that Liz Truss resigned, the Van Gogh souping was the second most read on the BBC’s website, a feat never even close to being reached by news of retreating ice sheets, ominous climatology forecasts, or the deaths of 12bn crabs.

This tells us two things; firstly, the priorities of our news cycle, and possibly of our own idiot human brains, are vastly out of wack. And, secondly, protesters’ actions are likely much smarter, and much more necessary, than we think.

Conservative estimates say that, by 2050, fossil fuel usage will have raised sea levels by about 30cm worldwide. Mumbai, Shanghai, Bangkok, and almost all of southern Vietnam, will be below water at high tide. Kensington and Chelsea will go the way of Atlantis, as will Portsmouth, Cardiff and the entire East Riding of Yorkshire. Dublin alone will find Portmarnock, Ringsend and Sandymount in near constant flooding, if not subsumed completely. And it bears repeating; this is not the “doom-and-gloom, worst case possible” scenario; this is the “if we don’t do several very drastic things right now, this will happen” scenario.

If 2050 seems impossibly far off, consider that by 2035 — which is, somehow, only 13 years from now —  Nature suggests that all ice floating on the surface of the Arctic could have disappeared entirely.

This is only adding to the 95% of the earth’s oldest and thickest ice which has already melted between 1990 and 2020. As well as causing the rise in sea levels mentioned above, it will also reduce the surface area of the poles which reflects the sun’s rays, causing the Earth to absorb more heat and accelerate the melting in a vicious cycle so dizzying, I’d argue very few of us will be lamenting some soup on the protective glass of a priceless masterpiece.

We need a way of communicating how toxic this is, that goes beyond individuals and targets the people who can do the most to change it. Until we give the constant siren bells of scientific journals the same airtime as food-strewn paintings, this will mean inconveniencing ordinary people, and artworks, to get on the news.

We don’t have to like the confusing actions of mildly irritating protesters to know that their cause is not merely worthwhile, it is our own. I reckon we need the kick up the arse, quite frankly. The time for being fierce mild is over.

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