Letters to the editor: Educate our young people to be aware of climate issues

If young people were more educated on the importance of climate justice and the issues we would be one giant step closer to tackling climate change.

Schools should be doing more to educate people on climate issues, what climate justice means, and to empower them to make environmentally-friendly decisions so that we can build a more sustainable future.

If you had asked me two years ago if I wanted to learn more about climate justice I would have honestly said no. But now, today, I am a Youth Climate Justice Ambassador for ECO-Unesco.

This wasn’t because I didn’t have an interest in climate justice, I just didn’t know what it meant.

There aren’t enough discussions around climate issues or actions being taken to tackle it, not because it isn’t a pressing issue, but because we are not fully aware of the effects it is currently having on our planet; nor do we feel we have the skills to make a difference.

If young people were more educated on the importance of climate justice and the issues in hand, we would be one giant step closer to tackling climate change.

Young people need to be more educated, particularly in schools, and be made aware of the climate issues we are facing and be equipped with the skills to challenge it.

In a recent survey by ECO-Unesco, more than 1,000 people aged 15-24 were asked about the main barriers to taking climate action. It was found that 58% of young people feel they need more local opportunities to get involved in climate action; 52% feel they need to gain more skills, and 52% feel they need more information on climate change and taking climate action. Ninety-eight per cent of respondents had concerns for climate change with more than 77% being very concerned. So it really is a pressing issue for this generation.

For me, eco-anxiety has become a huge part of my life, even making small changes like brushing my teeth with a bamboo toothbrush and avoiding buying bottles from the shop has made a difference. I would rather go thirsty than buy single-use bottles from a shop.

Young people want to be more educated and want to learn the skills to make a difference.

If we don’t address these needs, how will we ever make a positive environmental change?

I think schools should definitely be doing more. I think we can always do more.

Sofia Keogh, 16

Youth Climate Justice Ambassador

ECO-Unesco

Apology ‘of sorts’ for Mountbatten

Finally, an apology of sorts from Mary Lou McDonald on behalf of Sinn Féin for the Mountbatten atrocity carried out by IRA.

However, Detective Garda Jerry McCabe’s widow and children are still facing a life sentence without a brave husband and father.

When will even one Sinn Féin TD have the guts to finally condemn the shameful murder of a brave garda, who was protecting the children’s allowance and social protection payments to the retired and unemployed in our country?

Seamus O’Riain

Castleconnell

Co Limerick

Taking vaccine is for common good

Vaccines are critically important in the fight against Covid-19. The evidence is clear enough in countries such as the UK and Israel where vaccination programmes are well advanced.

Here in Ireland, the benefits of vaccination in nursing homes and amongst those working in healthcare is not in doubt because death rates and serious illnesses have gone down.

However, John Tierney’s disdain for such progress is clearly expressed when he writes: “The Covid-19 vaccine bandwagon has rolled into town” — ‘Enforcing vaccination is medical fascism’ (Irish Examiner, Letters, April 17). The role of vaccination in preventing disease and saving lives is called into question — despite the overwhelming scientific evidence in its favour.

Discussion of “both sides” of the argument in relation to patient safety is not a reasonable proposal in this context because the risks associated with the Covid-19 virus far outweigh those presented by the vaccine

It is, of course — as pointed out by Mr Tierney — a person’s right to refuse vaccination. But if individuals insist on such a right, then they are acting against the common good.

In these circumstances the state is justified in taking proportionate measures to safeguard public health.

Dr Don O’Leary

Mallow

Co Cork

Government destroy the country

With an abundance of caution in one hand and an absence of common sense in the other, the Government have managed to destroy the country.

History won’t be kind.

Vincent McMahon

Shanaway Road

Ennis

Accounting costs for lost civilisations

I have started to understand why so many civilisations have disappeared throughout the history of our planet.

When non-productive people put themselves in charge of working people and start taking as much of their money as possible by whatever means, borrowing whatever else is needed to give themselves a good life without any accountability for the end result, disaster is the only possible ending.

Richard Barton

Maynooth

Co Kildare

Control borders in fight against Covid

It’s a disgrace that anyone visiting Ireland from a high-risk Covid-19 country would dare to challenge Irish laws.

It never ceases to amaze me how foreigners become so quickly adept in locating legal representation as soon as they’re off the plane. How many Irish people visiting South Africa would know where to find legal aid in present restrictions?

I wouldn’t dream of challenging any laws in another country.

We need to get tougher in the implementation of what makes Ireland different, including our laws.

Covid-19 is proof that national borders need to be enforced. I would go and rebuild these myself if I could. I’m also a firm believer in the adage about ‘when in Rome’.

Dr Florence Craven

Bracknagh

Co Offaly

Going to a church is not a criminal act

Our church buildings are ideal. Draughty beautiful venerable high-ceilinged places. WB Yeats was an architect at heart. When you go to Mass in Ireland, you are certainly adding “prayer to shivering prayer”.

Our churches are draughty.

In recent years, social distancing at occasions of religious communion and worship has not been a challenge — for all sorts of reasons.

The car park is the crucial thing. If our religious can organise the manner in which people travel to church and travel home from church then the churches should be opened.

Christianity has “sustained us through centuries of trial”. It says so in the Constitution.

The criminal law has no constructive part to play here. But at the same time, religious leaders must lead. We are nearly there.

This from a “lapsed Catholic”.

Michael Deasy

Carrigart

Co Donegal

Zoom is nothing to be smiling about

Is smiling really that important in human relationships and why should people feel so pressurised to get their smile “fixed” these days?

Is smiling and looking “good” at meetings more important than, say, listening to the other people at a meeting and ensuring that the meeting is constructive and successful? If people who are attending an online business meeting are preoccupied with how they look on-screen, how on earth would they be able to listen attentively to each other and how is that meeting going to be successful in any way?

I ask these questions having read Helen O’Callaghan’s article — ‘Smile, you’re on Zoom’ (Irish Examiner, April 16). I think smiling has now assumed an importance in everyday life that’s simply not rational or reasonable, particularly with the advent of Zoom and similar technology.

Smiling is merely one of many varieties of facial expressions used by human beings. Quite often it accurately reflects the emotion(s) the smiling person is feeling at that moment and it accurately reflects the general situation around them, but quite often it doesn’t. After all, our bankers, developers and politicians all had big smiles during the Celtic Tiger boom, a few years ago and look where that finished up.

This isn’t to denigrate the act of smiling or to diminish its importance; smiling is important but I would argue that smiling is not as important to human relationships as listening is.

People have the same right to show any other of the many facial expressions available to us humans, if they feel like it, just as they have the right to smile, if they really feel like smiling.

Whether one smiles a lot or not at all should not matter one way or the other. It may be human nature to assign a critical importance to smiling and other superficialities, but it’s not very humane or respectful now, is it?

Tim Buckley

White Street

Cork