Sowing the seeds of change: A modest but powerful move
One of the shameless and all-so-revealing dodges used by Irish businesses, whose balance sheets might be constrained by a more responsible, by a more honest response to climate collapse, is that this is a small country that can’t really do much to turn the climate change tide.
We are so very small, goes the drive-on-regardless argument, that there is nothing we could do that would have a global impact.
That, like all Ponzi schemes, seems plausible at first glance but when reality intervenes — as in the fact that the world is made up of many small countries — it is seen for the swizz it really is. Many small countries working together can achieve great things.
Another self-serving argument offered by those unwilling to face reality is that there is little or nothing an individual can do to avert climate collapse.
Not so, meet Orla Farrell, who has, for two decades used trees to educate children about their place in the world and their obligations to it.
She has retired early and, in conjunction with Crann — Trees for Ireland and progressive local authorities, she intends to get every one of Ireland’s one million schoolchildren to plant a tree over five years.
Inspired by Kenyan Noble laureate Wangari Maathai, founder of the Green Belt Movement, and German schoolboy, Felix Finkbeiner, who has planted 15bn trees, this project is both practical and inspirational.
Yes, it is possible to confront climate change, one small step at a time.
