John Butleron worrying signs of climate change
A recent news story reported that the worst flooding in 50 years in the Hunan province of China has caused a plague of two billion mice. Apparently, roads and hillsides have been blackened with rodents, and entire crop fields are being devoured in a single afternoon. Chinese media reports that the sound of eating is so loud that it can be heard from within villagers' homes.
There's no point in telling anyone in Ireland who had to endure 50 days of rain in June and July that it could have been worse, but clearly, it could have been far, far worse. The residents of our land haven't been inured to the sight of rodents like they have been in London and New York. A biblical plague coming hard on the heels of tropical rain would have been enough to finish off many of my friends and family, all of whom were struggling through the months of June and July.
The rats in Manhattan work that subway line like you're not even there. They are cocky and muscled, clocking you on the platform as they finish a discarded box of donuts down by the tracks. They are so sophisticated in the art of urban dwelling that they exhibit traits hitherto traditionally associated with humanity - they are sullen. They know that your fear of them far exceeds their fear of you; they know that they would totally take you down in a fight, and they know that you know all of this, too. It's a very uncomfortable situation altogether.
With the notable exception of Rats in Paths to Freedom, Irish vermin have kept a low profile down the years. This suggests that we have less of a problem than in China. Looking back, I don't remember ever seeing more than an occasional rat or mouse. My Dad memorably took a camán to a little mouse in our kitchen once. He scurried with surprising speed across the linoleum, and within minutes, the problem was solved. Given that we haven't had to grow used to the sight of them, I can't begin to imagine what our reaction might be to an infestation of vermin, but I know what my Dad would do. He might even forgo the golf.
You don't have to look far this summer for worrying signs about global warming and the extent to which the degeneration of our planet appears to have accelerated. Apart from the monsoons in Dublin and China, we have seen snow fall in Buenos Aires for the first time since 1918, and record high temperatures have been recorded in the United States and Australia. The issue is now firmly on the agenda, embedded in the public consciousness as a result of all this extreme weather. We no longer have the luxury of reasonable doubt. It's happening now.
Upon his election last week as the leader of the Green party, John Gormley justified the party's decision to enter coalition with Fianna Fáil thus: "Quite simply, we don't have the luxury of time on our side when it comes to climate change." Whatever your politics, who can argue with that? You know you're in trouble when Al Gore's visibility is higher than ever before. As someone in the American press recently commented, we must leave aside the equally inconvenient truth that he lost one of the most winnable elections of the past 50 years (for whatever reason) and embrace the message preached by Gore and the Irish Green Party.
Yet as with everything I do, the pessimist on one shoulder continues to trade insults with the optimist on the other. I sort the bottles and decline packaging in shops, yet I suspect it's having no effect whatsoever. This argument I wage against myself is perfectly embodied by two good friends of mine. One makes his home in Las Vegas, Nevada, the other in Boston, Massachusetts. I am struck here by the symbolic resonance in the choice of each hometown. The friend in Las Vegas drives a Harley and an SUV around the scorched desert, and during the record highs of this summer, the thrumming sound of an air-conditioner pervaded his house.
When my friend in Massachusetts has to drive, he does so in a hybrid car (a Toyota Prius), but he cycles to work every day on a bike path snaking through the verdant New England landscape. He tends a vegetable patch and a compost heap, and uses an energy-efficient washer-dryer. Apart from the cars and the air conditioning, my friend in Nevada isn't nature's outright enemy. In fact, his carbon footprint probably matches that of the average reader. It's just that his inaction every day appears to undo the best efforts of my friend in Boston.
The plague of vermin is a Chinese problem, for now. The root cause is the heavy rain and subsequent flooding, but another reason is that the Chinese are partial to eating snake and owl, and these killers-of-rat-and-mouse have nearly disappeared from the habitat. The natural food chain has been broken, and the dire consequences are there for all to see.
All is not lost, however. I know someone who describes drinking when hungover as "the Irish solution to the Irish problem", and there is a unique, local solution to the Chinese problem, too. The citizenry of the southern city of Guangzhou are partial to cooked rat, so the restaurants are booming, as the population gamely attempts to eat its way back to a working majority.
When it comes to our individual power with regard to the climate - no more so than if I had been served a suspiciously small grilled portion in a home in Guangzhou - my cynical side smells a rat. My friend in Boston and I, we recycle because we're worried about our future and it makes us feel better to be doing something about it. So for now, let's all pretend that it makes a difference.