Environment

Even the scientists admit to feeling personal anxiety, grief or distress, over global warming

March/April 2022 75duplicity. Despite this, we managed once again to hold the line and steer the group’s reports from developer-friendly surrenders to solid conservation manifestos. History repeatsIn 2015 we had worked with then Fianna Fáil Senator Darragh O’Brien drafting his Moore Street Renewal Bill which reimagined the area as primarily a cultural and historic hub. It is a compelling and detailed document. In the 2019 election he stood as a TD, winning a seat and also becoming the Minister for Heritage. I emailed him offering congratulations and requesting an urgent meeting to discuss the Bill. He replied warmly saying we’d be meeting very soon. Since then, despite numerous emails, telephone calls and third-party interventions, O’Brien has not met us. Worse still, Taoiseach Micheál Martin held a behind-closed-doors meeting with Hammerson reps and allowed his praise of their planning application to be used in a company press release to accompany that planning application. A Taoiseach should never comment on a live planning issue.Following the City Council’s recent decision we now face into our second Bord Pleanála oral hearing, perhaps a judicial review, the Supreme Court and if necessary the ECJ. But we have in essence won the battle for Moore Street. Our victory lies in the simple fact, that though shabby, the 1916 terrace still stands. There will be an election quite soon and the main opposition party Sinn Féin has committed to implement the vision we have fought for. Your sense of history need be no more acute than your sense of irony to see parallels between this behaviour and the Rising itself, with Fianna Fáil somehow transformed into collaborators with the old enemy, and the insurrection being fought in windowless rooms. That the stakes are so diferent is the legacy of those who fought and died, around Moore St. The least we can do is properly mark their legacy. The Planning battleBack in 2009, we faced our frst Oral Hearing in a Soviet style conference suite at Dublin’s Gresham Hotel. Unlike Chartered Land we had no planning experts batting for us, but fought hard with an enthusiastic passion. Our case must have imprinted on the inspector as she found in our favour but her recommendation was not followed by her own board. We had to go to court.Some LawIn 2016 on the centenary of the Rising relatives of the 1916 leaders faced the Irish government in the High Court – a strange place, the gimcrack theatrics of its habitués chiming uneasily with its institutional staleness. The state’s appointment of Michael MacDowell as its lead SC was a calculated insult considering his grandfather’s attempt to call of the Rising. Before proceedings started there was an attempt by Hammerson to begin demolishing the terrace, but a spontaneous rallying of campaigners led to it being swiftly occupied while we sat in court. The judge, Max Barrett, seemed something of a maverick, with a background as a solicitor not a barrister. The two-week hearing passed in an indecisive fog of legalese and arcane ritual. On 17 March 2016 Judge Barrett read his judgment. It was framed in an impenetrable language, but the repetition of the term “granting relief” sounded positive. It was only when our solicitor who sat facing me visibly slumped in his chair that I knew something momentous had happened. I asked him: “Have we won?”, He replied “Everything”. Barrett had made much of the site a National Monument. Unfortunately ultimately the Supreme Court was to overturn much of his imaginative and learned judgment.MSAGThe government filibustered by cobbling together the Moore Street Advisory Group, essentially a talking shop for ‘stakeholders’ the MSAG was suffocated by public-service Background The Battle of Moore Street is the longest-running and most successful heritage campaign in this State. The battle is over the site of Ireland’s ‘Alamo’. undeniably the birthplace of our Republic where leaders of the Rising retreated from O’Connell St. In February 2022 it celebrates its twenty-frst birthday facing into a second An Bord Pleanála Oral Hearing following Dublin City Council’s planning permission in January to UK Developer Hammerson to destroy most of the most important modern historic site in Dublin. Modern HistoryIn 1999 there was a planning application to demolish the entire Moore St area. I contacted the National Graves Association who whipped up a campaign to take on the then owner of the site, Chartered Land. What started out as a small-scale campaign to save Number 16 Moore Street where fve signatories of the Proclamation including James Connolly spent their last hours as free men, expanded into a mass movement. Blood descendants of the 1916 executed leaders joined us, lending the campaign a unique authenticity.Over two decades the campaign met fve Taoisigh, seven successive Ministers of Heritage, countless TDs, councillors, planners and public servants. We encountered unbelievable institutional incompetence and dishonesty. Countering this we hosted packed public meetings, and staged street actions and guided walking tours of the ‘battlefeld ’. In September 2021 the campaign launched to widespread public approval our own vision for Moore Street, complete with digital renderings and a scale architectural model. And yet the Government refuses do the proper thing and compulsorily purchase the site. The Battle for Moore StMinister Darragh O’Brien will not discuss Rising relatives’ proposals. Taoiseach Micheál Martin held a behind-closed-doors meeting with Hammerson and supported their scheme though the Taoiseach should never comment on a live planning issueBy Patrick CooneyA little bit of history repeatingENVIRONMENTDarragh O’Briens

74March/April 2022‘Strategic Action Plan for the NPWS’ which is the planned outcome of the Review process”, he replied to a written Parliamentary question on 21 January 2022.This technique of making a fnal report part of an ongoing multi-part bigger report, to avoid release, has been resolutely struck down by the EU Commissioner for Environmental Information.Unfortunately for the Minister, he forgot what he had said in his written reply. Pádraic Fogarty author of ‘Whittled Away’ wrote on 4 February that he had been “assured by the Minister that the review of the NPWS and an action plan to implement its recommendations would be published next week or the week after”.The ‘NPWS Review’, was leaked to anonymous but well-informed campaigning website – irishriverproject.com’. It was even more devastating than anyone imagined. Tim O’Brien of the Irish Timessynopsised its fndings: “not ft for the task, according to a Government-commissioned report”. What was needed was “a fundamental overhaul of structures and governance” (the NPWS doesn’t even have a single boss), “a clear strategic plan and leadership to implement it, better internal and external communications, and re-energised teams”. Otherwise the NPWS “cannot meet current obligations, let alone plan for and respond to future challenges and legislation, including the Climate Action Bill and EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2030”.Paddy Woodworth summed it up: “It is vital that the review, and associated materials, are published now so that the public can judge for themselves whether this ‘action plan’ really follows through from the incisive proposals put forward in the Final Report on the key fndings and recommendations”. Final Report on the Key Findings and recommendations, June 2021’. But according to a spokeswoman for Malcolm Noonan, it is in fact not so much “fnal” as a ‘draft review’. She said “Mr Noonan will not be commenting as a fnal version is as of yet unpublished”. Clearly there is a battle over the fnal version with some people close to Noonan keen to adulterate the substance of the review. The Minister was more polished, explaining in a written parliamentary response to a question on 21 January this year that there were in fact three phases to the Review process. The frst phase of extensive research, consultation and orientation “feeds into the remaining phases as the rest of the Review process continues apace”.Veteran restoration ecologist Paddy Woodworth pointed out in the Irish Timeson 15 February that it went through a laborious process within the NPWS. Now, “It would hardly be acceptable for an independent report to be rewritten by those it’s reporting on”. We are now in the second phase. The ‘refect phase’. That is the Minister is in the ‘refect phase’. Though – keep up – we the public don’t actually get to refect before it’s all over – when we move onto the fnal phase – the ‘Renew Phase’. “None of the component parts of the Review process will be disaggregated or published separately ahead of a Government decision on the The NPWS handles the State’s nature conservation functions. As well as managing the national parks, the activities of the NPWS include the designation and protection of Natural Heritage Areas, Special Areas of Conservation and Special Protection Areas.A 2019 report to to the EU written by the informed scientifc division of the NPWS stated that “85 per cent of habitats are in unfavourable (i.e. inadequate or bad) status, with 46 per cent of habitats demonstrating ongoing declining trends”.Recognising this, the Dáil declared a biodiversity emergency that same year. Green Party leader Eamon Ryan fulminated that the climate and biodiversity emergency meant “absolutely nothing unless there is action to back it up”. Well there is no action. Ryan went on: “That means the Government having to do things they don’t want to do”. Well in government the Greens won’t push their agenda when it hurts or annoys. In an article last year in VillageI posited that the NPWS need the following: more money, deference to EU habitats laws, more emphasis on science not local politics and more power to experts not bureaucrats.Perhaps recognising these and other defciencies a strategic review of the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) by Professor Jane Stout and Micheál Ó Cinnéide had been commissioned in 2021 by Green Heritage Minister Malcolm Noonan, Last June, the authors submitted their “Final report on the Key Recommendations and Findings” to the Minister. It was expected, from the Terms of Reference, that it would be published shortly afterwards. The June report remains unpublished but details have leaked into the public domain. It appears to be an admirably frank and forensic analysis of the NPWS. The authors fnd the organisation is not ft for purpose, and “cannot meet current obligations, let alone plan for and respond to future challenges and legislation”.The title page calls it ‘Review of the NPWS 2021: It is vital that the review, and associated materials, are published now so that the public can judge for themselves whether this ‘action plan’ really follows through from the incisive proposals put forward in the Final ReportBy Tony LowesENVIRONMENTPublish the Final Report on the NPWS now, Minister NoonanAn extraordinary chance to change our conservation culture is being blown by a weak minister, intimidated by a cabal of senior civil servants and National Parks and Wildlife Service careerists who don’t want a critical report publishedGrasp the nettle, Malcolm

March/April 2022 73Health ofcer visited in 2018. He recorded complaints of “nausea, headaches, irritation of the eyes and stomach sickness”. He wrote that: ‘’The ponding was so thick and stagnant that birds and wildlife were walking along this pond of waste”. “Both solidifed and liquid material” were reported “at least 0.5-0.75 metres in depth”.As for beginning the work on the Council Cottages site, an Irish Water email dated 2 November 2021 made it clear: “As well as not having the resources to run tender, we haven’t the capability to do any required design work either’, As to the Public Toilets and their unauthorised connections, almost 10 years after first prosecuting Galway County Council for a failure to clean up the Council Cottages discharge, the EPA commenced proceeding in 2021 against Irish Water for the failure of the Public Toilet. With no planning permission, no EIA, and no Natura 2000 Impact statement, Irish Water instead lined up on the dock at Galway 20 purafow units for the Council Cottages, telling residents that: “As there is no funding in place for the site, this need will compete for funding along with other national needs in the next Investment Plan (2025-29)”. The February 2022 screening for an Appropriate Assessment under the Habitats Directive for the 20 units failed to mention the adjacent protected lagoon. Called in by residents, solicitors for Friends of the Irish Environment (FIE) stopped all work on 11 February 2021. ‘Kilronan and Killeany Sewerage Scheme’. A treatment plant was costed at €7.2 million with a Time for Delivery of 2014. On 6 June 2013 the Environmental Protection Agency brought its frst prosecution under the Waste Water Discharge (Authorisation) Regulations. In Kilronan District Court it prosecuted Galway County Council for its failure to control the pollution – from the Council Cottages only. In October 2014, a certifcate of authorisation was issued for a constructed wetland to deal with the sewage – again only for the Council Cottages. Good for one year, it was extended for a further year, costed at €350,000, and never built.A 2017 Galway County Council site-inspection report again warned that: This cesspool poses a serious environmental and public health and safety issue”. But Galway County Council published its own legal opinion the following year that the matter was not the responsibility of Galway County Council but of Irish Water.The Health and Safety Authority Environmental InIreland, raw sewage runs freely from the mountains to the sea. 54% of urban sewage is classified untreated by EU legal standards. There are 400,000 to 500,000 septic tanks across Ireland which an EU Court case required Ireland to inspect from 2014. The subsequent septic-tank inspection system of 1,000 per year shows average failure of over 50%. And of those failed, the failure rate of householders to fx the failed systems has risen every year since inspections began in 2014 – and is now more than 50%.Ireland is awash with raw sewage. It sinks into our groundwater and contaminates our surface waters, leaving us with the highest cryptosporidiosis infection rate in Europe. The debilitating parasite was responsible for the virtual close down of Galway’s mains water system in 2007. Statistics show an increase in incidence in the last two years of 33%. And it’s not just animal faeces. Recent studies have shown toxic chemicals and pharmaceuticals in wastewater have reached a third of global rivers, causing not only pollution but contributing to the build-up of antimicrobial resistance in humansBut nowhere can it be more fagrant than on Inis Mór, the largest of the Aran Islands (population 870). 160,000 tourists visit the island each year. Each time they use the public toilet in Cill Rónáin their faeces pool in an open cesspit a few hundred metres below the village. If it rains hard and there are many tourists, raw sewage runs down the main street.Up to a dozen businesses have unauthorised connections to the small septic-tank system which serves the Public Toilet and which now overfows and ponds on the surface where the original septic tank stands. In the next feld, a separate long-failed septic tank is host to the raw sewage from 10 houses, known as the Council Cottages, only metres away.Both are separated only by a traditional stone wall from a protected coastal lagoon, listed as Annex I in the Habitats Directive – the most important habitats.Kilronan/Cill Rónáin was one of 46 schemes approved by Minister Síle de Valera in 2003 at a projected total cost of €350 million for some 46 schemes. It never happened. Water Needs Assessments confrmed the need in 2006 and again in 2009. In 2008, the Council published the The ponding was so thick and stagnant that birds and wildlife were walking along this pond of waste. Both solidifed and liquid material were reported ‘at least 0.5-0.75 metres in depthInis MórtoThe biggest Aran island is awash with raw sewage but after years of neglect a legal action has been initiatedBy Tony LowesENVIRONMENT

72March/April 2022to participating in climate demonstrations – it appears that being photographed waving a banner remains a “bridge too far” for the majority of working scientists. Whether this too changes as climate impacts intensify remains to be seen.While as individuals, most scientists are happy to engage in advocacy, three quarters of respondents did not think the IPCC itself should engage in advocacy work, believing it is more efective when it is seen to be strictly “sticking to the science”. Given the repeated eforts, mainly from the right, to politicise climate science and to discredit scientifc evidence by casting doubt on the integrity and honesty of the entire IPCC process, this caution is understandable.The stone wall that most scientists erect between their personal lives and their work has, in the face of the climate emergency, begun to crumble. Two in five survey respondents admitted that their knowledge of global warming has afected their decision on where to live. When it came to the most intimate personal decision on whether or not to have children, some 17% stated it had had an impact, while 21% said that global warming had infuenced their lifestyle choices, including those relating to diet, transport and travel.Being a professional in a feld often confers feelings of invincibility: many doctors for instance intuitively believe that illness is something that happens to other people, and can feel genuinely shocked to fnd themselves as patients. Similarly, scientists may have hitherto felt professionally immune to touchy-feely concepts like “climate anxiety”. We now know for sure that this is no longer the case. John Gibbons is an environmental journalist and commentatorassessing the causes and extent of climate change. It published its Working Group report last August.According to the IPCC: “Unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting warming to close to 1.5 °C or even 2° C will be beyond reach”. When asked whether they believed they would witness “catastrophic impacts of climate change in your lifetime”, an astonishing 82% of respondents said yes. With ages of IPCC scientists ranging from the 30s-60s, this indicates just how close the great majority believe we are now to catastrophe.On a more positive note, one in fve scientists said they still expect nations to act to limit global warming to around 2°C.While traditionally, scientists have been extremely reluctant to engage in climate advocacy of any kind, fearing it might be seen as a loss of objectivity, the Nature survey found 81% of respondents agreeing that climate scientists “should engage in advocacy on this issue”.Some two thirds of scientists report that they already engage in climate-advocacy work, with science-promotion via speeches, articles and videos being by far the most common mediums. Two in five said they personally contacted lawmakers or government ofcials to advocate on climate-policy issues, and a similar number sign petitions and letters supporting climate action.However, just one in four scientists admitted As the climate emergency deepens, the pendulum of public and political opinion is swaying wildly, from optimism to absolute despair, and every point in between. However, one group uniquely placed to ofer both a personal view and an expert perspective are the hundreds of scientists who co-author the mammoth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment reports.The science journal Naturerecently canvassed the views of these IPCC experts. The results are far from encouraging. A total of 234 scientists replied to the anonymised survey, and three in fve of them believe the Earth will heat by at least a devastating 3°C by the end of the century. The target of the 2015 Paris Agreement was to limit global warming to “well below” the 2°C danger line, and ideally, to as close to 1.5° as possible. Seven years and one global pandemic later, global emissions remain on an extremely dangerous trajectory.When asked if they believed the world now faces a “climate crisis”, nine in 10 respondents agreed. Almost two thirds of the scientists surveyed admitted to personally experiencing “anxiety, grief or other distress” because of their concerns over climate change.What is particularly sobering about these fndings is that senior scientists are professionally sceptical and cautious, with their careers built around objective observation and empirical data, rather than personal feelings or impressions. They are, in essence, the very last group you would expect to be sounding the alarm bells – unless they truly believe the situation is indeed dire. The scientists surveyed by Nature are members of the IPCC working group charged with The science journal Nature reported three in fve IPCC experts believe the Earth will heat by at least a devastating 3°C by the end of the centuryFeeling the HeatEven the scientists admit to feeling personal anxiety, grief or distress, over global warmingBy John GibbonsENVIRONMENT