Global warming, warmongering - ‘Worl’s in a terrible state o’ chassis’

CAPTAIN Boyle, Sean O’Casey’s character in his play Juno and the Paycock, was fond of proclaiming: “The whole worl’s in a terrible state o’ chassis.”

The world to which he referred stretched no farther than the tenements of Dublin during the Civil War, but they might just as easily apply to the state of the wider world today.

Our planet and its inhabitants face existential threats on two fronts: Global warming and global warmongering.