This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column.
Michael Commane
Thursday is Little Christmas or Nollaig na mBan, or indeed, the feast of the Epiphany, which is the manifestation of Jesus as Messiah and Saviour of the world. It’s the feast that celebrates the arrival of the wise men from the East. How wise have we been this Christmas?
When people talk about our carbon footprint I know what they are saying but honestly I don’t understand the actual meaning.
I know next to nothing about carbon. I do remember from fadó fadó it is one of the elements on the periodic table and is represented by the letter C. Like the rest of the world I’ve been reading and listening about COP26, the United Nations Climate Change Conference, which was held in Scotland last year. Again, it was all sort of esoteric for me.
This Christmas just gone by I have observed practices that have made me ask are we really interested in protecting our environment.
It’s an everyday occurrence but in the lead up to Christmas the practice exploded exponentially. I’m talking about the number of transit vans that arrive at people’s doors with a single package. The amount of fuel it takes to deliver that one package and then the cardboard or paper wrapping that is dumped.
Over the Christmas I saw three such vans arriving at one house on one day. Can that really make sense?
But there is hope. There was an increase in recyclable material in the packaging left by Santa.
Again fadó fadó, Dublin Corporation, now divided into four local authorities, collected all domestic refuse in the county. A bin lorry came once a week and emptied residents’ bins.
Where I live today at least three, maybe four gigantic refuse trucks drive down the road, each truck collecting from a number of houses. It would seem they are all competing against each other for the business.
In the meantime these three or four companies are polluting the atmosphere far more than if it were just one refuse truck that did the job. But on the other hand, fadó fadó all our refuse was most likely dumped in landfill.
I don’t for a moment want to sound like Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol or make judgements on people but just before Christmas there were dire warnings that we may not have sufficient electricity capacity this winter. Christmas arrives and the quantity of Christmas lights that appeared on buildings, houses, trees, hedges, everywhere.
Yes, I know no doubt they are LEDs but they are still being powered by electricity, which is using vast quantities of oil and gas.
Are all the journeys that we make by car really necessary? Do you, do I take a moment out and ask ourselves do we really need to use our cars as often as we do.
And then there’s the vast quantity of food that will have been wasted over Christmas. It’s reckoned Irish people will have thrown away €42 million worth of food during Christmas week.
Yes, it is good that we have moved away from a judgemental society, nevertheless, have we become far too profligate?
No comments:
Post a Comment