Zone5

The flooding was so bad around the city and county of cork last week that I was wondering whether I would actually be able to travel to Kinsale on Tuesday to do my comradely duty and picket the college.

Kinsale College staff on picket duty

As it turned out, the road through Bandon, which had been closed by the floods, was open by last Tuesday. In fact although I had traveled to the Tipperary Institute on Wednesday night, returning Friday afternoon, I saw none of the floods at all.

I was in two minds about the national day of action by public service workers: there are a lot of issues around the split between the public and private sectors and I am not yet convinced any union or political group has a coherent enough plan of action given the country is bankrupt.

The Celtic Tiger began in earnest around the time I first moved to Ireland in 1992.  I watched  through those years  aghast at the sheer rate of change and development, not able to believe that it could last long, amazed each year that it continued. As an awareness of impending peak oil dawned, it seemed the party’s end would not be long coming, yet even after the collapse of Lehman Brothers the two-car Dublin commuters were claiming we were just “talking ourselves into a recession”.

Ireland has amassed one of the highest per capita debts in the world through a regime of cheap finance for houses and cars; the collapse was always inevitable and has now left us with a broken economy barely able to keep it social services going. Further cuts in health and education and welfare seem inevitable; the government has barely begun to adress the public finance deficit with what is currently proposed.

Of course we should be calling for the heads of the bankers and political leaders who exacerbated the crisis but the real problem has been a complete disconnect with reality caused by the fantasy world that cheap oil and finance had created. The ultimate cargo cult, the wealth was wasted rather than being used to develop resilience of any kind.

The floods bring a double whammy as all the chickens come home to roost for this small island nation.  Rapid economic growth has meant Ireland has contributed more than its per capita fair share of carbon emissions during the boom years and the  warmer than average sea surface temperatures are likely connected to the record breaking rainfall this month. In addition, unrestricted development on flood plains and lack of investment in flood prevention has hugely exacerbated the problems, with a larger population just meaning more people are effected.

As I write parts of Athlone and parts of Galway are still closed off and under water, and hundreds of people already struggling with their repayments have lost their homes or their businesses. Many already beleagured farmers have been decimated, and land and plant damaged or destroyed.

We have a way to go in this country before a Katrina-like disaster strikes but the confluence of debt, climate change and peak oil bring the possibility closer each year. In an environment of increasing industrial discontent and financial misery how long before we are simply unable to recover from repeated climate change events. Already there is serious discussion parts of Limerick and other towns becoming permenantly uninhabitable.

The need to plan for a general curtailment of our activities and retreat into more sustainable modes of existence is now an immediate necessity.