‘This land is your land; this land is my land’

But first the news headlines – being how they announce things in better places than here.

Stop worrying; we are all going to be OK, we are all going to be grand.

The good news is that for the first half of this year, renewable energy overtook coal power to become the largest source of electricity in the world. This ‘switch’ (nice pun) has been helped greatly by a breakthrough in battery design which has played a massive part in improving efficiency. As we all know, production from solar and wind will fluctuate according to the weather, the season and indeed the time of day. That is where the new ‘megabatteries’ come into play. The new batteries make viable options of mass energy storage. Energy storage doesn’t mean barrels of oil and cubic metres of gas any more.

Despite the ongoing grim warnings about the effects of climate change, the above news does give greater hope for the future of our planet. Granted, climate change is already with us and even the deniers cannot argue with what we all see with our own two eyes. We are where we are and all we can do is for all of us to play our parts in cleaning up our act from here.

Continuing with the headlines from our good news department, we should not underestimate the capacity of the Earth to heal itself. Nature at work is a sight to behold and in small areas familiar to our gaze, we see where nature, often quickly, reclaims ground clearance and previous bog development. The benefits of anti-pollution programmes we can see working all round us and demonstrating the capacity of nature to heal itself. Some of the worst polluted fresh water lakes in County Cavan, for example, have shown dramatic improvements in a few short years. Fish stocks in some cases are as good as was the case two generations ago.

Despite many experts claiming that we have already damaged the Earth beyond repair, make no mistake but that our planet will continue to fight back through its enlightened renewable energy systems, in which water, carbon and sunshine nurtures life.

Some of the worst pollution can take a long time to recover from. Plastic particles and excess phosphates could take 1,000 years to clear. But 1,000 years is still only time – and that is looking at the extreme end of the problem. The important thing is that we don’t despair and that each and every citizen does their bit.

Climate change has happened before. Most of the Earth’s surface was once covered in ice and the other extreme is that fires burned over large areas. Mass extinctions wiped out nearly every living thing on the ground… and yet, here we are!

It is only about 50 years ago that people began to wake up to the problems of pollution. Air pollution was the first to be tackled and impressive results in tackling the smog in Los Angeles demonstrated what could be done when the will is there.

We now know that the most serious damage that humans are doing to the Earth comes from the burning of coal, oil, gas, and yes folks, we have to admit it, turf. The only way to win this battle is to stop setting carbon on fire.

Donald Trump talks about ‘beautiful coal’ and ‘drill, baby, drill’. That is just more of his reckless and dangerous proclamations to make fortunes for the wealthy at the expense of non-participating innocent inhabitants of a planet that belongs to all of us.

Every lump of Trump’s ‘beautiful coal’ and every gallon of oil resulting from his ‘drill baby drill’ will release carbon dioxide into the air causing floods, fires and drought.

When Donald Trump’s ancestors were doing… well, whatever they were doing in Germany at the time… the original inhabitants of that land had a different perspective on their responsibilities. Chief Seattle, a Native American leader of the 19th century, advised his people thus; ‘We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.’ Think about that contrast, my friends, and let us hope for the sake of our grandchildren that it is the latter leader’s wisdom that will prevail.

The great American folk singer, Woodie Guthrie wrote a song in 1940 entitled ‘This land is your land – this land is my land’. While the meaning and focus of the lyrics are often debated, it is most widely performed to show togetherness, that the land belongs to all of us, and therefore it beholds each and every one of us to take care of our individual bit of this Earth that ‘we borrow from our children’.

Don’t Forget

None of us are responsible for all the things that happen to us, but we are responsible for the way we act when they do happen.