The date – September 4th – had been etched in my mind for at least the last two months. That was the official launch day for The Lie of the Land, and as it drew ever closer, I was filled with a mixture of anticipation and, to be honest, dread.
All the usual stuff, really. What if nobody shows up and the room is half empty? What if the venue is a disaster, the caterers fail to appear, there’s a power cut, etc. etc. 
In a rush of optimism, I had gone for a bigger venue – the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin’s Dawson Street – which realistically needed upwards 75 attendees to look reasonably busy. As the date approached, my anxiety intensified as I scrambled to complete a series of last minute tasks related to the launch.
As tends to happen, the day did indeed come around. I completed my usual weekly Today FM slot a little earlier that day, and made my way to the RIA for around 5pm, an hour or so ahead of the event kicking off. Even before 6pm, there was already a good crowd gathering, and by the time the speechifying kicked off at around 6.30, it was standing room only, with the crowd of around 150 overflowing into the adjacent hall.
My commissioning editor at Penguin, Brendan Barrington, introduced the event and explained their rationale for choosing to publish what they believed would be an influential book about Ireland and the climate emergency at this time, and also, why they chose me to write it.
Matt Cooper, a man alway in heavy demand for his skills as a chair, agreed to be MC for the launch, and delivered a characteristically sharp and on-point speech, which was very generous indeed towards both book and author (he penned a piece around the event as part of his Business Post column three days later, text included at the foot of this article). My own remarks concluded the formal part of the event. I had lots of people to thank, and was delighted to do so, but overall, I kept it (at least by my standards) fairly short and to the point. The previous speakers had already covered much of the ground, so no need to keep people any longer than absolutely necessary.
The rest of the event was a blur of faces, book signings and general good cheer. There was a sea of familar faces, from family, friends and work colleagues to politicians, media colleagues and many people from both academia and the environmental community.
By 8.30pm, the stragglers were being ushered out of the RIA and we headed across the street to Cafe En Seine, where the after party continued until the wee small hours. Despite my earlier concerns, it was to be an evening to remember; one of the most enjoyable, even joyful events of my entire life, one I was hugely privileged to share with so many people.
Meanwhile, the book garnered a lengthy and very positive review in that Saturday’s Irish Times, with another equally positive review in the Irish Independent the following Saturday, and lots of media work, from interviews to podcasts and articles in between. I was absolutely delighted to see the book hit No. 9 in the Irish non-fiction bestseller list in the week to September 9th (UPDATE: the book rose to No. 3 in the bestseller list for the week to September 16th).
Where it goes from here, I have no idea, but it’s hard to describe just how good it feels, after a mostly solitary 18+ month slog, to emerge blinking into the daylight and take the fruits of that effort into the public domain.
Here’s Matt Cooper’s piece from the Business Post on September 7th:
The Land, the Lie, and the Climate Fight
On Thursday evening I was invited to make a speech at the launch of The Lie of the Land, a book about Ireland and its response to the climate crisis by John Gibbons.
A well-known journalist who has written for many publications, including this one, Gibbons is a weekly contributor to The Last Word on Today FM, where we spend between 12 to 15 minutes discussing environment stories of the week every Thursday.
We have done so for over four years now and I regard his contributions as essential to our editorial content.
I know him to be passionate, principled and pugnacious, features that come across strongly in this well-argued and well-written book, one that is loaded with facts to buttress his arguments.
That approach can be regarded as a problem in an era where facts and expertise are derided by those who prefer to believe the deniers who can be found on the internet, many of whom may be promoted by those with nefarious intent.
Gibbons is consistent and determined, especially in calling out the hypocrisy of corporate greenwashing, and he is strong enough to take the abuse he gets in return, although it can’t be pleasant.
The vitriol that is present in many of the comments we receive about his appearances on the radio show can be shocking, and I don’t show him all of them.
Some people simply don’t want to believe what he is saying because it is too uncomfortable for them. Some ignore him but others attack. They deny his facts, they deny climate science, and they are angry that the change he wants will led to a diminution in their standards of living.
Farmers get upset when he points out that farming is responsible for 38 per cent of Ireland’s greenhouse emissions – and only 7 per cent of gross national income – which he repeats with force in the book.
“There is a storybook image we love to sell to the outside world and to ourselves: that Ireland is a green and pleasant land, all fertile fields and rolling hills – but this image obscures the reality of biodiversity loss, nitrogen-polluted lakes, and the fact that we are far away from meeting our climate change commitments,” he writes.
He claims that Ireland’s “dramatic shift towards the most polluting food sectors – driven by a small number of agribusiness giants and facilitated by the state – benefits the few while imposing huge costs on the many”.
He proposes that we can “embrace a low-emissions farming model while preserving farmers’ livelihoods, making the countryside a better place to live, and delivering something Ireland conspicuously lacks: food security”.
Gibbons argues that where once politicians regulated the sector, they are now largely consigned to the role of cheerleading and funding industry plans. Another strand of that story, he contends, is the spectacular rise of the billion-euro agribusinesses as powerful players in shaping agri-industrial policy in Ireland.
He condemns the “wishful thinking and outright dishonesty that have propped up the status quo in Irish agribusiness”, and is particularly critical of how the decision to lift the EU milk quota in 2015 caused agriculture-related greenhouse gas emissions to skyrocket.
“Any intelligent and responsible strategy for the future of Irish agriculture has to be rooted in an acceptance that it is senseless to continue with a food production model dominated by meat and dairy,” he writes. “Even those who do not accept the moral and economic reasons for this will soon have to bow to the reality that the Irish agricultural model simply cannot be sustained.”
For all of that, I suspect that the chances of him having his way are slim to nearly non-existent. Any change will be gradual, incremental and limited. There are too many people who depend on agriculture, in many guises, for their livelihoods.
That is their picture, not the bigger one that Gibbons espouses. We will see that in the debate over the Mercosur deal the European Commission wishes us to ratify in the coming weeks.
