“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it”. So wrote novelist Upton Sinclair, and boy, did he have a clear understanding of human nature.
Last Thursday’ PrimeTime on RTE featured a report on what it called ‘Turf Wars’, the latest skirmish in the ongoing east-west battle to define what country we really are, and perhaps, what century we see ourselves in. I wrote about this at length last August – one para from that article is below:
“Ireland doesn’t have any significant coal deposits to burn. What we have instead are some of the world’s most important bogs. Peatlands comprise almost a fifth of Ireland’s land cover, and lock away a massive 1.2 billion tonnes of carbon. They are also home to around half our endangered bird species and around a quarter of endangered plant species. Peat bogs are amazingly efficient carbon sponges. A healthy bog typically stores 10 times more carbon per hectare than any other system, including forests. Peatland protection, according to the UN Environment Programme is “among the most cost-effective options for mitigating climate change”. Damage to peat bogs is now producing the equivalent of over a tenth of total global fossil-fuel emissions.” Continue reading
