Climate Change

Lead Pencils Are The Environment’s Best Hope

  • Systematic change is only possible through the ballot box

  • Carbon emissions have more than doubled in the last 30 years

  • Climate Change now affects the Kardashians

William Priestley

The most effective thing any citizen can do to protect the planet is vote. The sad reality is that individual action outside of the political process can no longer address global warming: the problem is too big and too complicated. Tourism, for example, accounts for about 10% of global greenhouses gases and, of this, air travel is the major culprit. While the individual citizen could travel less in order to reduce his or her carbon footprint, the challenge is now beyond reducing our carbon emission. The target is eliminating them. Assuming that we’re not going to give up on air travel as a whole, the solution can only be found at a policy level: whether that be massive research and development into electric planes or similar investment in carbon-neutral fuel.

Similarly, the individual can recycle household waste but not rebuild rail networks, water systems or power plants: only public policy can do this. What’s more, for these changes to be effective, they require extraordinary coordination of effort and behaviour. In 1997, Repak was set up and separate recycling bins were introduced in Ireland. This represented a major policy change that has a hugely positive effect on how we deal with waste. Coffee cups, which alone make up 4% of all commercial waste, are now being targeted by public awareness campaigns. In Dublin City University, elected student leaders are leading the drive to have the university plastic free by 2020. 

National Policy

We need this change and we need it to be led by national policy. As a society we discard an incredible 80% of what we produce after a single use and, despite having brown bins, our restaurant bins are still a third full of food waste. Ireland must increase its plastic packaging recycling by up to 80 per cent by 2030 if it is to meet strict new EU targets. For the most part, it is not that people are not engaged or unwilling to make the necessary changes, it is more that the structures still aren’t there to allow them to do it. People don’t necessarily choose non-recyclable coffee cups over recyclable ones: they choose non-recyclable ones because they are the only option in most cafes. 

We have never faced anything like the threat of global warming before. Its consequences are beyond our comprehension and further distorted by our default and deep-seated defence mechanism of wanting to believe that everything will be ok. We underestimate the grimmer consequences of our actions because we have no template against which to compare it.  As a result, our expectations of the future are based on today instead of what scientists are telling us. Unfortunately, even this message is distorted by voices from the minority outside the consensus. While subservience to a consensus is not necessarily the best rule of thumb, there can never be total unanimity on something with so many vested and powerful interests. 

Global Cooperation

The concept of collective action is taking hold across the planet. While we all agree that something needs to be done, the transition to action is hampered by the fact that many nations are incentivised to go slow and let others clean up the mess. Consequently, carbon emissions have more than doubled in the last 30 years. Put another way, more damage has been done since we knew there was a problem than beforehand. In 2016, the Paris Accord brought together the nations of the world to tackle climate change. Not everyone signed up, most famously the world’s biggest economy, and of those that did, no country is on track to meet their commitments. 

The situation is further complicated by the reality that how you behave a country will have little indication of the consequences for your citizens. India, for example, is likely to be affected four times harder than its correlating emission output. The United States is the opposite. With such a fraught political landscape, it is only representatives who are putting climate action at the centre of their policies that can address this problem.  

Climate change is already underway. The difficulty is that the consequences are often in places far away from us in the West. Wildfires are the one significant exception to this and, in many ways, have done more than anything else crystalise the reality of a changing planet. While over 50% of the great barrier reef has died since 2016, this 1000-mile natural organism is buried under the sea, California wildfires, on the other hand, affect the Kardashians. The videos of raging infernos are so vivid and so tangible and for most people in the West, they are perversely invaluable agent for change. 

We have consistently demonstrated an ugly reflex to turn away from the suffering of the Global South in the past. Our reaction to their plight at the hands of climate change is currently the same. What wildfires have underlined in the most powerful and Instagram-friendly way is that you can’t escape climate change through wealth or fame. Suddenly, the well-being of the planet is everyone’s problem.

Lead for Change

Contrary to popular belief, a lead pencil does not actually contain any lead. In fact, it was never made with lead. Instead, it contains graphite, a form of carbon. That doesn’t make bad. Air travel and plastic are not evil. The very fabric of modern civilisation would not be possible without harnessing the power of carbon. The issue now is what we use that power for. Governments can seize the opportunity it provides to drive change and innovation. The citizen can use it to ensure we have the kind of government that prioritises change. 

Ireland has consistently had one of the lowest rates of Green parliamentarians in Western Europe and we rank lowest on climate action across the EU. It’s obvious to children what’s happening. If you take out a mortgage today, it will be obvious to you too before the debt is paid off.