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 Up and coming film maker, Meaghan Carmody, recently screened this documentary to educate the public on the impact of agriculture on climate change. It's funded by the SUAS Ideas Collective and features commentary from Eamon Ryan (Green Party Leader), Dr. Rogier Schulte (Teagasc), John Gibbons (Environmental Journalist), and I. Worth a watch and a share.
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A few days ago, I was called out by some friends on Facebook for offending their sensibilities by posting photos of children washed up on beaches, highlighting the cruelty of the migrant crisis. I see their point. - Who wants to be confronted with offensive images of dead children amidst photos of family holidays and our own children going back to school. I should probably leave my bad news and political activism to Twitter and newspapers. But, the residual from my Facebook faux pas is that I’m left wondering if we will continue to avert our eyes to this atrocity as we have been doing with climate change.  waterfordwhisperernews.com The refugee story in Ireland has many parallels to the climate change narrative here. This week, Fine Gael applauded its own decision to take 600 additional refugees as a “progressive step forward”, but at the same time, Ireland was singled out as one of three countries not doing enough to help the migrant crisis. We’ve seen the same rhetoric with climate change. – The Taoiseach tells the world how much we care and what great leaders we are in climate action, while Europe ranks us bottom of the heap and our national action plans for addressing climate change remain non-existent. In both issues, our government pats itself on the back for doing “feck all”. Fine Gael’s recent press release on the migrant crisis refers to the need to take into account these refugees “wider suitability” before relocating them to Ireland. I get chills down my spine at the thought of our government play judge and juror regarding the “suitability” of these people. Who exactly would be suitable enough for them? Is this Fine Gael's hidden way of reassuring the xenophobes that nothing will change? With the migrant crisis, as with the climate crisis, we hear the government talking about Ireland doing its “fair share”. Once again, we are reminded that Ireland is only a small country, trying to recover from difficult economic struggles, and that we shouldn’t be expected to do too much to solve this problem. I am sick of listening to a government hide behind our country’s size as a reason for insufficient action for anything. Historically, we are a nation that has had tremendous global influence despite our size, yet today we use that size as a reason to always be a follower (or even less than a follower), but never a leader. Leading on an issue with such a strong moral imperative would give us something to be proud of again. Could we be a country that gives the Céad míle fáilte to refugees in the same way we welcomed foreigners during the 2003 Special Olympics?  IrishExaminer.com Chancellor Angela Merkel says the migrant crisis is an even bigger crisis than Greek financial meltdown. Note the word “crisis”, which usually demands an immediate response. A recent report on the inadequacies of the Irish asylum process and the need for urgent reform to cope with this crisis was met by Fine Gael TD, John Deasy, with the response that the Government “shouldn’t implement any changes until we are in a position to gauge the immediate consequences of a massive increase in economic migrancy [sic] and the effect that may have on genuine asylum seekers and our asylum process”. On the asylum process, as with climate action, our government is adopting the “look for-a-really-long-time before you leap” approach. Are we too busy living in our own private Idaho?Right now, 100,000 people are marching on the streets of Dublin demanding their right to water and, ironically, the B52s song ‘Living in your own private Idaho” is playing on my favourite podcast. Metaphorically, the term refers to someone who is wrapped up within his/her own very narrow sphere of interest or frame of reference. So I wonder if we are too focused on our “own private Idaho” to march for the 2,500 deceased men, women, and children who gave up their lives this year for the chance at a better life on European soils? As General Election 2016 approaches, will we ask our candidates what they plan to do about the migrant crisis? Or will we instead demand that our politicians fix a pothole , get our trees trimmed, or do something about that dog poo on the footpath? Excuse my sarcasm, but I’ve done enough canvassing to become a bit cynical about what the doorstep issues might be for General Election 2016.
This revelation of widespread racism was the hardest thing to get over from my brief foray into politics. I had no idea that so many seemingly intelligent, privileged people could be so racist and naïve to blame immigrants for an economic crisis that was so clearly not their fault. I tried to put that issue behind me, arguing that people’s tendency to discriminate against other nationalities has nothing to do with my professional interest to halt climate change. But, today I’m reminded again how everything is connected – Every country that these refugees are fleeing has suffered the effects of climate change. The Syrian war has even been directly linked to climate change as one of the factors that sparked the conflict. When I saw those images of migrant children washed up on the beach, my first reaction was “I contributed to their deaths”. It’s my own privileged, emission-producing lifestyle that has antagonised the hardship these refugees faced in their own countries. Yet, our contribution to the migrant crisis is to take in 1,120 of the 60,000 current refugees over the next two years (0.024% of our population), while Germany will take over 10,000 (equivalent to 1pc of the German population). And once these refugees enter our country, they are treated like prisoners under the current asylum process. Someone should do something.... I’m always asking people to make climate change a “doorstep issue” – Enjoy watching your Dail candidate’s jaw drop when you ask them what they’re doing about climate change (if anything)… Now, I want to add a burning question for the doorsteps, “What do you plan to do about the refugee crisis?” Based on climate projections, it’s only going to get worse in the years to come. Our future representatives should have some policies to bring to the table, and they should account for our moral obligation to help those less fortunate than ourselves. We turned our backs on the Jews in World War II and have expressed regret for it. Will we let history repeat itself or will we make up for our inaction in the past? I’ve been talking about the migrant crisis with a number of concerned friends, wondering what we as ordinary citizens could do to make a difference to this crisis. Of course, there are a number of great efforts being made to provide migrants with clothes, sleeping bags, etc. and there is a petition you can sign to ask the government to agree to house more migrants, but nothing goes further than directly asking your own TD what they plan to do about an issue. As your representative, whose salary is paid through your taxes, they are obliged to respond to you. Just by bringing the issue to their attention, you’ve demonstrated that this is an issue that could cost them a vote. One of my friends confessed she’d never contacted a TD about anything, despite being very passionate about social issues. So, to make it easy for you, I’ve drafted an example e-mail and included a link to find your TD’s email address here. This action will take you less than five minutes and could make a difference in defining our State as a country who leads on global moral issues rather than one who continues to hide in the corner and shirk responsibility.  Keep fighting the good fight!
Cara More information on the Green Party's call for increased government action on the migrant crisis can be found here. |
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