Opinion

Jarlath Kearney: As temperatures rise, we need to recognise that anger is not the answer

Findings reinforce role of human activity on the climate and counter claims rising temperatures are part of natural cycles, experts say.
Findings reinforce role of human activity on the climate and counter claims rising temperatures are part of natural cycles, experts say. Findings reinforce role of human activity on the climate and counter claims rising temperatures are part of natural cycles, experts say.

It feels like there is more heat than light in the world right now. Preliminary results suggest July was the hottest month ever recorded on this planet.

The impact of the environmental climate emergency is obvious – even to the politically blind. If you can’t see the consequences, you can certainly feel them.

Ironically, much of the language used to describe the environmental emergency could also apply to the crisis that’s developing in our social climate.

Temperatures are rising politically, poison is being spread wantonly, tempers are red hot and reactive across the spectrum, and stability is being shattered. The consequences are intensifying without regard for the long-term impact.

As with the environment, we quickly need to change our social climate by injecting new narratives, innovative approaches and fresh solutions into the public square. Anger is never an answer. Rhetoric needs to be reasoned.

Our responsibilities to recognise the linkages between the environmental climate emergency and the social climate crisis – responsibilities to both planet and people - are interwoven and interdependent.

We need to recognise that this island’s great potential rests in our local ability - north and south - to light a spark of global cultural and diplomatic leadership by improving the ways that we think and act and talk towards each other. Our small scale belies our far reach.

Over coming days, weeks, months and years, our society will once again consider various sensitive anniversaries related to past conflict - 25 years, 50 years, 100 years. Reflection on our history will always remain important.

And yet, we concurrently need to keep in mind the thoughtful poise of Hugh in Brian Friel’s play ‘Translations’ that “a civilisation can be imprisoned in a linguistic contour which no longer matches the landscape... of fact”.

Facts matter for the future, not just the past. The facts on these islands are already transformed. And our language must begin to more fully reflect the changed, and changing, ‘landscapes of fact’.

A few weeks ago, the Northern Ireland Statistical Research Agency published the most recent official population figures. While demographic interest will usually be on the likes of community background and nationality, the most illuminating figure in the latest statistics was arguably about age.

As of mid-2018, over half the population of this state – 51.7 per cent - is aged under 40 years.

That means they weren’t born during the 1970s. They do not have a lived experience of some of the worst incidents and impact of the conflict on our streets. That’s not to diminish generational trauma among families of many victims and survivors, or those affected directly during later periods.

But the youthful age profile of our population raises an important question about the ongoing prevalence of language and discourse that has its roots in armed conflict and the politics of peace processing. Our older population is growing and this factor is influencing the narratives that younger people are absorbing. Meanwhile the world around us is transforming rapidly. We need to urgently consider these impacts.

Writing in this paper the day after Lyra McKee’s murder, I commented:

“Dignity stands innate, universal. For everyone. Its inviolability is gifted by our creation; our celebration, not destruction. Yet every time another’s dignity is denied or traduced, the culprit naturally surrenders some of their own.

The devastation of dignity is a vicious cycle from which this society has really only been beginning to emerge through the slow-dropping virtues of stuttering steps in generosity.

The milestones of mutual brutality became the bloodstained signposts to peaceful evolution. We somewhat learned about life’s value in retrospect, society’s moral compass buried under the tragedies.”

If we do anything in the time ahead, it should include the systematic recovery and regeneration of dignity – as both a word and a concept - in our thoughts, our discourse and our actions.

Dignity is a value in life that we can reflect onto others simply by first respecting it within ourselves. None of us always gets it right.

But if we begin to try, then the results will soon ripple, the temperature will cool, the social climate will improve, and the antidote to poison – namely, dignity – might just begin to reframe our public discourse. One can only hope.