April 18th, 2015 Bantry: Climate Change - A Talk By John Gibbons

UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon wrote that “we are the last generation that can take steps to avoid the worst impacts of climate change”

Environmental writer John Gibbons, in his Think or Swim blog adds

"What is truly difficult to believe is that while we have the great misfortune of living in an era of unprecedented ecological and climate crisis, these extraordinary facts are in no way impinging on our national discourse, either through the media, civil society groups or our political classes. 

Instead, the gathering ecological storm is fenced off into an obscure corner tagged ‘environment’, where it is left to a handful of activists to try, against near-impossible odds, to draw the attention this existential crux so desperately demands".

Anthropogenic climate change is upon us. The scientific consensus on this is overwhelming – even if a core section of Ireland’s media are somewhat unwilling to acknowledge the unpalatable truth.  So what can we do in the face of what are enormous odds? Ignoring the fact of climate change is no longer an option. While climate change is an undeniable catastrophe for our environment and every living creature in it, catastrophising about it does not help the situation. 

 "Geoengineering is starting to surface in polite circles as our best hope for dealing with the symptoms of climate change, without of course troubling ourselves to actually address the causes", Gibbons continues.

“The earth is not our prisoner, our patient, our machine, or, indeed, our monster. It is our entire world. And the solution to global warming is not to fix the world, it is to fix ourselves”, says Naomi Klein. 

In the words of environmental author Kenneth Brower: “The notion that science will save us is the chimera that allows the present generation to consume all the resources it wants, as if no generations will follow. It is the sedative that allows civilization to march so steadfastly toward environmental catastrophe. It forestalls the real solution, which will be in the hard, nontechnical work of changing human behaviour”.

Gibbons concludes that "fiddling with untestable global ‘climate management’ schemes is simply an extension of the hubris that brought us to this dire predicament.  “People often say nothing one person can do will make a difference. Nothing could be further from the truth,” he continues. “There are no technological solutions that will fix this problem. In fact it can only be solved by us as individuals — by the choices each and every one of us make in our everyday lives.” 

A specialist environmental writer and commentator with a particular focus on Climate Change, Gibbons wrote a weekly column in the Irish Times on climate change for nearly three years, and is now a regular media contributor on environment, energy and climate-related issues. He maintains a blog at ThinkorSwim.ie. 

Understanding and making adjustments to the dawning of a new and urgent reality is the subject of a talk by John Gibbons to be held upstairs at 

Organico, Bantry on April 18th 2015, at 4pm

In his talk, John will summarise the known facts to date and then talk about what measures we might take to address the problems we face. 

A graduate of UCC and DCU, he is also MD of a healthcare publishing and communications organisation, MedMedia Group, which he co-founded 24 years ago. Married, he has two daughters in primary school and lives in Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin. The talk will begin with a 30-minute film. John will then give an overview of the present state of scientific knowledge and what might be done tackle climate change. This will be followed by a Q&A session. This is a free event.