Changing environment - The greatest question facing us all

Over the last few days we’ve detailed how schools’ green flag programmes are fostering a greater understanding and urgency about how we develop ways of existing without further damaging the only environment we have.

These programmes are entirely laudable and, in hindsight, should have been in place decades ago but, as in so many fields, the truth comes dripping oh so slowly. And why only for children? Our record of environmental protection suggests all of us would benefit from any process that might deepen our understanding of how very precarious, how finely balanced, our situation has become.

Over recent days we’ve seen beaches closed because of an E.coli outbreak. We’ve seen a canary-in-the-mine fish kill caused by pollution. In the West we’ve had turfcutters ignore directives aimed at protecting the remnants of our raised bogs. We’ve seen Cork County Council establish a roving service to clean up illegal dumping. And, despite the wettest summer in living memory, Dublin’s water supply is still on a knife edge. We’ve had a great, disingenuous furore about septic tank charges as if it was not necessary to protect our drinking water from ineffective systems. We have dozens of towns, if not many more, dependent on sewage treatment plants long ago outstripped by development. This mismanagement has contributed to outbreaks of E.coli and cryptosporidium.