Irish Examiner view: Collective action on our environment is long overdue
We don’t seem able to wean ourselves off our addiction to fossil fuels, and deeply conservative and powerful political regimes rely on them as a strong source of cash. Picture: visibleearth.nasa.gov
The hole in the ozone layer seems almost retro, a relic of a simpler time compared to what the planet has been through since.
It emerged this past week that its repair has been a success, a long-term consequence of restrictions from the 1980s on the various gases that had eaten through it.
However, it also emerged that it’s making the planet warmer by some 40% more than expected.
A report in suggested that, by 2050, the ozone would be the second-highest contributor to warming after carbon dioxide.
The ozone repair, though, the report argues, is still fundamentally a good thing, given that it reduces radiation risk to people and animals.
Just as importantly, it shows that when we collectively put our minds to it and — shock, horror! — actually legislate on a wide scale, we are able to bring about planet-wide positive change.
We can achieve wonders when we make an effort.
We could do with some of that spirit now more than ever.
The citizens living 40 years from now should have been able to cite the Paris climate accords alongside the repair of the ozone layer as a demonstration of our collective ability to maintain the planet.
Except we don’t seem able to wean ourselves off our addiction to fossil fuels, and deeply conservative and powerful political regimes rely on them as a strong source of cash.
A report in 2023 by the thinktank InfluenceMap showed that 36 companies are responsible for about half of all fossil fuel carbon emissions.
If the oil firm Saudi Aramco was a country, it would be the fourth biggest polluter in the world after China, the US, and India.
The intensity of the fires this summer in Portugal and Spain, attributed to climate change, should be a wake-up call, as indeed should the fact that 500,000 people have had to flee flooding in Pakistan this week.
Not a day goes by where we don’t read of some climate-caused catastrophe.
In the 1951 science fiction classic , all electrical equipment is turned off for 30 minutes by alien ambassadors as a demonstration of their power.
Something similar happens in the 2008 remake but in that version, where the theme is environmental damage rather than nuclear weapons, the point is to bluntly remind humanity that it can choose to act differently, or be forced to.
In that version, the power doesn’t come back on.
We are unlikely to receive any alien delegations, so that just leaves us versus nature, both our own and the planet’s.
And while humans come and go, in one way or another, the Earth abides.
Sometimes, you look on your own work and realise it hasn’t quite gone the way you thought it would.
OpenAI boss Sam Altman, the company which, for good or ill, transformed the tech landscape with the release of ChatGPT, seems to have had such a moment in recent days.
He took to X to comment on how many accounts were fuelled by LLMs (large language models), the technology behind so-called artificial intelligence.
He wrote: “I never took the dead internet theory that seriously, but it seems like there are really a lot of LLM-run Twitter accounts now.”
Dead internet theory states that much, if not most, of online traffic is down to automated agents or bot accounts, rather than people.
LLMs are used to automate vast numbers of social media accounts.
Bot accounts are not even remotely new and have existed for years, in great numbers, and are sometimes operated by individuals running hundreds of accounts, but the release of the various AI chatbots have given them a new lease of life and nuance.
Whether Altman was having an “oh no, what have I done?” moment or if he was even thinking that deeply isn’t clear.
It is a reminder that, no matter how well-intentioned the innovation, it will be taken advantage of by people who see unexpected and unanticipated uses for it, and that there are never any guarantees that the adaptations will be for the greater good.
Many of us, too, will wonder if future generations will really forgive us for accelerating the climate crisis just to amplify suspect political messaging and scams.
Others, well-versed in our self destructive nature, won’t be the least bit surprised.
Ireland may be barely a blip, if that, on the overall consciousness of most countries in Asia and yet we somehow still manage to make an impression at the highest level.
Our artistic and cultural endeavours have long proved a boon of soft power, and not just in Asia.
They were, however, recalled in recent days by Jim Sharkey, the former Irish ambassador to Japan.
He remembered, for example, how poets Seamus Heaney and Michael Longley had long affinities for Japan, and that it was returned in Heaney’s case by a visit from the emperor and empress in Co Wicklow in 2005.
He pointed out also how the works of Yeats and Joyce had taken root in Japan decades earlier, and some of us who have laboured through it — regardless of its place in the Irish literary pantheon — may well wonder if exporting Ulysses can be truly seen as an act of affection.
The translation, however, is considered something of a masterpiece, a reminder perhaps that the work of the translator is as important as the work of the artist, and also that art can transcend language barriers.
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