Dublin and Dubliners are in need of a good kick in the behind. The city's refusal to take part in today's European Car-Free Day is just the latest manifestation of its inhabitants' increasing predilection for burying their heads in the tarmac, writes Mary Raftery.
When taken in conjunction with the results of a recent survey showing that Dubliners are in denial about the reality of climate change, it is becoming clear that the capital is not only out of step with the rest of the country, but is also refusing to take responsibility for the effects of its transport habits.
It is certainly true that the city's efforts on previous car-free days were lampooned as ineffectual and tokenistic. In the last two years, gridlock even seemed to increase on the day in question. That this was the perfectly logical result of closing off certain streets to motor traffic didn't seem to occur to those who condemned the initiative as a failure.
But at least in the five years since the start of the Europe-wide designation of the 22nd September each year as a car-free day, Dublin has made some sort of an effort. This year there is nothing. Even the lip-service is gone.
The purpose of the EU car-free initiative was primarily to focus attention on our transport habits and their impact on the environment. It has been an attempt to shift people, if only for one day, towards other, less polluting means of transport.
The problem of course in Dublin was that it merely highlighted the inadequacies of the city's public transport infrastructure. It hammered home the reality that the service simply could not cope with any significant number of people leaving their cars at home and trying to get the bus to work.
Much of the negativity surrounding the car-free initiative came from those motorists civic-minded enough to use public transport for the day, discovering in the process that either the buses did not go on time, or were full and passed them by.
This is the daily reality for thousands of regular public transport users, and the focus on its inadequacies provided by the car-free day was a useful exercise. Equally, it gave cyclists an opportunity to highlight the dangers they experience within the city, and the extent to which cars ignore and intrude into cycle lanes.
However, this year the powers-that-be within the city have decided that since the car-free exercise seemed to cause so much complaint, the solution was to abolish it. And judging from the attitudes of Dubliners to climate change and pollution, it is likely that few will object.
Sustainable Energy Ireland this week published the results of a survey designed to analyse public attitudes to global warming and our responsibility for it. Scheduled to mark Energy Awareness Week 2005, it compared the views of people in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway, Waterford and Dundalk.
Most startling of the results is that uniquely in Ireland, a majority of Dubliners (57 per cent) do not believe that their actions contribute in any way to climate change. Even president George Bush has stopped trying to get away with that one, which make this level of denial among Dublin's citizens acutely disturbing.Across the rest of the country, over two-thirds of people accept the overwhelming scientific evidence that their actions do indeed have an effect on global warming.
Forty-two per cent of Dubliners say that they never think about climate change and that it has no impact on their lives. This compares with 31 per cent nationally and only 15 per cent in Galway, which consistently emerges as the most environmentally aware part of the country.
Perhaps the most depressing result was that in Dublin, alone again across the country, a majority of people (55 per cent) said that they were not worried about the impact of the greenhouse effect on future generations.
Nationwide, two-thirds of those surveyed said that they were concerned about the effects of global warming into the future, with people in Galway again being the most worried (at 85 per cent).
The polluting habits of Dubliners mirror their lack of concern about climate change and global warming. Sales of sports utility vehicles (SUVs) have increased more rapidly in Dublin than elsewhere.
These are not only stupidly unnecessary for urban driving, but are also responsible for a disproportionate share of carbon emissions, the main contributor to global warming.
Dubliners also do not share their cars. Recent figures from the Department of Transport indicate that three out of every four cars driving into the city each day contain only one person - the driver.
It is against this background that one should perhaps take a somewhat jaundiced view of the recent public whingeing about high levels of tax on cars and fuel. The fact that the Government has again dismissed out of hand the arguments for a carbon tax, to curb energy use and emissions, is further evidence of an entire society, and particularly a capital city, happily motoring down the road to perdition.