Think globally and act locally — climate change is our problem too

MANY people cheerfully and willfully ignored all the warnings about a financial and property bubble and the damage that their bursting would bring to the Irish and world economies.

“Why did nobody tell us?” was a regularly heard complaint after the inevitable happened and with even worse consequences than most of the naysayers had predicted. Some people had tried, but few wanted to listen.

The same threatens now when it comes to dealing with the link between man-made carbon emissions and damaging climate change. That hasn’t gone away, you know. We just hear an awful lot less about it, in Ireland at least. Last Tuesday Business & Leadership magazine brought together experts in the “green economy” for a conference in Dublin that I attended. There were some fascinating speakers who demonstrated how private sector companies are making enormous strides to reduce emissions and their carbon footprints — and how they are failing often too.