What type of future awaits our grandchildren?

Stand in the Gap

Kathleen Duffy

This morning the birds are singing in the trees though they seem hungry maybe because the ground is hard. The growth rate here last week was 45 dm/ha which is low, the downside of cold nights in the month of June, while the rotation is at 21 days held by feeding extra meal and bales of red clover silage.

Most of the AI serving is over, but we are still getting a few repeats so when Thomas returns from a few days’ holidays the bull will be running with the cows and heifers to mop up. The first scanning will soon take place and we, like all other farmers, will be hoping for good results.

Why are we, here in Ireland, experiencing such changes to our weather and our way of life? Well it is happening all over the world as we fight against climate change and global warming.

I greet my two little grandsons and I wonder what kind of world will they experience when they are in their sixties?

To understand Climate change we need to get the facts.

According to NASA ‘Climate change is a long-term change in the average weather patterns that have come to define Earth’s local, regional and global climates. These changes have a broad range of observed effects that are synonymous with the term.’

The United Nations website states that burning fossil fuels generates greenhouse gas emissions that act like a blanket wrapped around the Earth, trapping the sun’s heat and raising temperatures. These gases include carbon dioxide and methane. …Fossil fuel, oil, gas and agriculture are sources of methane while transport, energy, industry, buildings and land use are main causes of greenhouse gases.

The two websites show the key indicators include rising sea levels, melting polar ice, more extreme weather such as hurricanes, heatwaves, wildfires, droughts, floods, and precipitation; and cloud and vegetation cover changes, declining biodiversity.

When we look at Africa it is frightening to see the drought effects and with world population expected to reach 10 billion by 2050 we need to be able to grow food and feed the world which will have many more displaced people.

The world has become very unstable with the rise of the Far Right driven by the likes of Donald Trump and not to mention the world’s inability to stop the slaughter in Gaza or Putin into the Ukraine. We see the misinformation in the world like some people’s denial of climate change and COVID 19.

The bad news is that we are responsible, whether we are the ones flying high in the sky on fuel guzzling aeroplanes to far-fetched sunny climes, driving SUVs when a small electric car would do, not taking a bus, or shopping local to keep down food miles, not retrofitting our homes to change the turf, coal and gas cookers if we could afford the costs. We, farmers, need to change the way we have farmed over the last 60 years.

Governments will have to assist, our own Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) say we must invest in structural and behavioural change to enable the transition to a climate neutral, climate-resilient country.

But can we change? And are we willing to change? The high cost of solar panels and retrofitting, even with grants, are prohibitive. Buses are not available in many places, so we are car dependent. Electric cars are costly at present. Ireland needs to rapidly invest in renewables such as wind energy, especially off-shore, and make use of roof space on so many large buildings, especially farm buildings. This is a way for us ordinary people to play our part, by selling back to the grid.

While haemorrhaging growers here in Ireland due to low prices, much of our fruit and vegetables comes in with millions of air miles, ie; blueberries from Chile. There are more farmers over the age of 75 than there are under the age of 35 yet younger farmers are more inclined to implement the costly changes required. Solar panels and Anaerobic Digesters too could alleviate the energy shortfall and solves nitrates problem on most farms, just like in Denmark.

So, for our little grandchildren and our future generations, we must change. But it will be at a high cost, either way.