SEAI 180 Degrees Season 4 Episode 5

The Scientist, Professor John Sweeney

Jim Scheer 00:04

Hi, I'm Jim Scheer, host of 180 Degrees, a podcast brought to you by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland. In this series, I talk to climate leaders about how they first connected to the urgent need for climate action. We go back to their roots and talk about their journeys, discover what drives them, and what keeps them motivated. We also explore the essential ingredients required for leadership on climate action here in Ireland, and how we might impact internationally. Nothing short of a societal movement is now needed to ensure a livable planet for our children and future generations. Today I'm joined by Professor John Sweeney, one of Ireland's top climate scientists. John has been a member of the geography department at Maynooth University since 1978 and is a leader on climate action in Ireland. He's published over 100 scientific papers and has written extensively on many different aspects of climatology and climate change in Ireland. He has been involved in major international research projects and has led nationally funded research projects examining various aspects of climate change in Ireland. Professor Sweeney contributed to the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and as a COP veteran. In this episode, he brings home the latest climate science and his views on where we're headed, unless we take action now. Professor John Sweeney, very glad to be having a conversation with you today. Thanks for joining us.

John Sweeney 01:20

You're welcome, Jim.

Jim Scheer 01:21

You studied geography, climatology and air pollution in the University of Glasgow, where you got your PhD. And if I asked you to cast your mind back, as we have with other guests on the podcast, do you remember a moment or a period of time in your life where you first found your interest in the natural world?

John Sweeney 01:38

Well, I'm thinking at the moment about young students who are about to embark on the Leaving Cert. And I'm thinking back to my own stage there where like many of those students, I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I felt myself torn between the sciences and the arts. And that was the reason I actually went and studied Geography at the University of Glasgow. I also studied maths, physics and economics, which was that kind of rounding out if you like. And as I worked my way, through my undergraduate career in climate, I became more and more conscious of the role of climate and influencing the natural world, we've always had a debate in geography, about the role of climate, whether it determines the future and the fortunes of people, or whether it just acts as a background influence. But irrespective of that, it was quite clear to me that climate was a very important influence on what grew, what lived and how animals and organisms feared and as I became an undergraduate, and then later on a research student, I became more and more conscious of that. But I do recall at one stage in those days, studying climate was really not very fashionable. Climate was very much the poor relation of meteorology at that stage. And to some extent, it still is in some National Weather Centers where if you're told you're a climatologist, it's almost like being sent to Siberia, you're kind of consigned to working with averages and medians and things like that on data. But of course, over most of the world, now, that has become very different. And the whole course has changed. And when I graduated, I became much more interested then in the role of climate, to the extent that it influenced air pollution. I was conscious in Dublin in the late 1970s and early 1980s, that there was a really bad air pollution problem from smoke pollution over the city and I recalled standing many times on Killackey, looking down at that view of the city and seeing it's shrouded in smoke and fog and I began to notice that, you know, those were times when people were recording higher mortality in St. James's Hospital, for example. And after an episode, more people were admitted for various respiratory and cardiovascular reasons. And I studied that for a couple of years. And it became clear to me that climate was really very important because the frequency of those temperature inversions, which caused those air pollution episodes changed over time, and they were very influential in determining the wellbeing of people. So, I began to look at those. And as I did, I became conscious that, you know, managing air quality, even at a wider scale was very important and climate played a vital role in all of that.

Jim Scheer 04:54

And do I get a sense from you, John, that it started as an interest and has it become a cause or, you mentioned the 1970s, how have the narratives changed since you first got into this?

John Sweeney 05:04

Well, the narrative changed quite a lot, as I suppose this country got to grips with smoke pollution in the 1980s and 1990s, and effectively started banning smokey coal all over the place. And as that problem began to be solved, I began to look at other aspects of climate. And I began to look at rainfall in particular, which is such an important part of the Irish psyche. And what I started doing was looking at the way in which rainfall changed across Ireland with different wind directions and wind speeds. As I did that, I began to think, well suppose the frequency of those wind directions across Ireland changed, what would it mean for our rainfall? What would it mean for our temperature? And I began to just work the data on that. And it began to show up that, you know, if we took a very hot summer, if we took a very cold winter, if we took a very dry summer or dry winter, we got fundamental changes in our rainfall and temperature. And I began to look at the way in which those frequencies changed. And it led me into thinking, well, climate is not fixed as the old people used to think and it began to be quite clear to me at that stage, that climate was a Moveable Feast and was quite dynamic. And then, of course, along came computers, along came models. And they kind of corroborated a lot of the feelings that we had, that climate was actually changing and changing quite quickly.

Jim Scheer 06:45

What the experience of making that discovery yourself in the data? So, when you're pouring through it, do you think, versus =someone who just reads about those findings?

John Sweeney 06:55

Well, I think as an academic, you began to speculate that this means something for water supply in Waterford or this means something for what you can grow in Donegal. We began to question first of all, what kind of impacts a changing climate in Ireland might have? So I began to work in areas like agriculture, like biodiversity and like hydrology, where we were now beginning to get the tools to model what would happen in the "what if" situations, and they began to reveal quite serious implications for what we could and couldn't do and how many practices might change down the road in Ireland. I guess, by the end of the 90s and the beginning of the turn of the century, we were beginning to see global corroboration, then coming through, in terms of IPCC reports, in terms of people getting concerned about what might lie down the road in the future.

Jim Scheer 07:59

Can you tell us a little bit about what you're up to today?

John Sweeney 08:03

What I do today is I suppose as my career progressed, I got a bit concerned that the science message that was coming out of climate studies, was not really getting through to the public, and especially to policymakers. You know, despite what we read in the papers, despite what we see in the television, despite the constant urgings of people, like the EPA, and the IPCC, the message of slow change, the message of slow onset events, is something that the public don't really grasp very well. We react very well to extreme events, we react quickly and very successfully to floods to droughts, and then we forget about them very quickly. We don't recall them, and we don't put them into that longer context. So, we don't have that sort of perspective of appreciating what's coming down the line. And that's the important message that I've been trying to get across for the past decade or so.

Jim Scheer 09:14

Yeah, you're doing something right, John, and scientists are - the latest EPA study called "Climate Change in the Irish Mind" found that 94% of Irish people trust scientists as a source of information about climate change. 96% of Irish people believe it's happening. And then when you look at the climate related behavior side of things, the numbers are lower. So just over half of people would definitely or probably join a Citizens Campaign, less than half of punish companies that aren't operating in line with climate action. So, there's sort of this understanding-to-action gap. What could you say about that? I mean, it sounds like you've done some work on the messaging over the years and the messaging is landing in terms of, you know, it's happening. We need to do something about it, but taking the actions seems to be something that's coming on more slowly.

John Sweeney 10:01

Yeah, there's a gulf there, which is very hard to fill. You know, we all want to be good, but we all want to start tomorrow. We all feel that initially, something that's five or 10 years away, which is the perception, is something that we don't need to worry about today. We have pressing problems; how will we pay the mortgage? How will we pay the rent? How will we pay the electricity bill? These are the things which occupy people's minds, especially at the moment, the way things are economically. So, we tend to shove those medium-term concerns to the back of our mind. And we don't really grasp them all that well. I mean, if you were to think back, when was our last drought? When was our last big flood? We've forgotten the essentials of that already. And yet at the time, they were really crucial and really damaging to our economy. So, I think you know that message, how do you get it across? Well, you don't get it across by simply spouting figures I've discovered, you know, the figures are lost on most people, once they hear them a few times, they become very blasé about them. The way to get them across in the future is through a narrative type of operation, where you can relate to individual experience, where you can relate to perhaps what has gone before in terms of a storyline. And you can get the sense of I suppose of honesty, across to people in a way and the urgency of the problem across to people in a way which simply doesn't work by many scientists. I mean, scientists, if you think about how scientists get their message across, you know, we write a paper, we write an abstract, we distill everything down to a few paragraphs, the richness of the arguments, and the implications of the argument on people is often lost. And I think this was one of the lessons of the early schemes and say, the UNFCCC, the IGBP, where they kind of assumed that people were like little boxes with arrows coming into them and going out of them. And if you changed something, you would change people, but people are irrational. People do not behave in a way that computer models predict they will behave. And you have to take this into account in communicating the message to them. And I found that over the years, you know, that there is an innate appreciation of the problem of climate. But there is also a kind of, I suppose, indifference to the next few years, and the next few months, especially, that creates the problem.

Jim Scheer 12:48

I mean, there's a lot in the press about some of the more extreme impacts of climate change that are happening now. But perhaps happening in other countries, like Sub Saharan Africa, up in the Poles where the ice caps are melting, you know, these kinds of things seem somehow removed from Ireland. Can you say a little bit about what you're seeing happening here in Ireland as a result of climate change? And that's already unfolding here that perhaps we need to expect more of?

John Sweeney 13:14

Well, I've been to Antarctica, I've been to Sub Saharan Africa and for them, especially in Sub Saharan Africa, it's a matter of life and death, where you have people living on the margins of just wondering will the rains reach us before they withdraw again? Where you have people living in small island states, where they're wondering, is their culture going to be subsumed by water? Where you have people in the mega deltas wondering, you know, how long have they got as their land subsides while climate change causes the sea level to rise? These are really critical issues. And they will pose really acute problems for us in the developed world in the years ahead. In terms of displacement of people, displacement of people is going to be a big problem. So, we may think we're immune from those problems here in Ireland, but in fact, they will come home to roost on us. And we're a midlatitude country. So, we're going to experience the global average changes in temperature. For example, sooner or later, we may get a little respite from the ocean for a few years, but we will experience the average and what it means for us here in Ireland. Well, I think if it's too serious implications for us, first of all as the ocean around us warms, and as the air warms, it will hold more water vapor and more moisture. Therefore, we can expect especially in wintertime, when the ocean is warmer than the land, we can expect a lot more in terms of rainfall, especially in western Ireland. So, we have an incipient flood problem, which we know is going to be our major difficulty in the years ahead. So, all of the calculations in which we have based our flood protection, which have not taken into account changes in winter rainfall, are going to be outdated very quickly indeed. And secondly, then in summer, we know that the movement north of the jet stream, the movement of the climate belts Pole-wards will mean that we're going to get a bit more in the way of anti-cyclonic activity in the summer, and therefore more in the way of dry weather, especially in those parts of Ireland which are already dry in the East. And this poses a big problem in terms of water supply in the future, in terms of water scarcity, in terms of supplying the needs of our towns and cities, which are mostly in the eastern part of the country, and also the needs of agriculture. So, we have, if you like, forward planning difficulties, especially in rainfall. We know also, of course, that our springs are getting earlier as our temperature has warmed up by a half a degree or so in the past 30 years on the models that we've done at Maynooth suggests that we're in for another half degree, at least in the next 20 to 30 years. So spring is getting earlier, which means that, you know, the rhythm of the seasons is changing for agriculture, the rhythm of the seasons is changing for biodiversity. It's changing for migratory birds, for example, and that there may be a synchronous in that where, you know, we get migrants arriving where the insects are not available for them to feed off. We may have problems where farmers may have grass growing in their fields, but it's too wet to put the cattle out on after the wet winter. And we may have problems in what crops we can and can't grow in that changed Irish climate. So, adaptation to all of this is necessary and adaptation means effectively that we anticipate what's coming down the line, and we try and minimize the adverse effects. And I think you know; we're going to be spending a lot of taxpayers’ money on that in the years ahead. In terms of adapting to floods, in particular, in terms of changing our water supply sources for Eastern Ireland. And it's a case of, well, let's be realistic about this. Because if we're going to remain in an economically competitive country, we have to look after these long-term issues now, and not leave them to reach crisis point in 20 years’ time,

Jim Scheer 17:29

You talked about adaptation in that answer. And I think we probably spend a lot of time in different circles talking about mitigation, but adaptation is becoming a more common conversation. Is this linked to the science and what it's telling us about how much time we have left? Or why do you think adaptation is becoming a more important conversation to have?

John Sweeney 17:47

Well, I think for the developing countries, in particular, they have contributed very little to the problem of climate change and yet they will be suffering the brunt of the impact. So, for them, the question is, how do we adapt to those impacts? I mean, I've spoken to a lot of the small island developing states and to people in Sub Saharan Africa. And for them, they're saying, well, look, mitigation, you know, there's not a lot of production of CO2 in my country, we really are getting the brunt of the problem that you're creating in the developed world. So, I think it's likely to become more of a problem, and it will be linked to loss and damage in those developing countries, as well. But I think it's becoming more and more to the fore. Also, because adaptation has changed philosophically in the past 10 years, it used to be a very much a top-down process. It's now much more a bottom-up process where communities will say, "this is the risk we want to live with. This is the risk we can cope with. Anymore, we will have to take more drastic steps to protect ourselves against." And that's becoming a more common phenomenon in many, not just communities in Ireland, but communities across the world. So, it means that adaptation is vital, and it requires, of course, leadership from government and local government sources to put in the necessary infrastructure to ensure that those assets, which communities want to keep intact and preserve, that they are protected as much as possible for what may come down the road. Now, there's a limit to adaptation. If you haven't got the mitigation, then you will quickly breach adaptation limits. And that's very clear, for example, with sea level rise and the cost of building protective walls on our coastline. But I think there's an intermediate phase where we can do what we can in terms of offering our own mitigation options on an international stage, and at the same time, adapting to what is inevitably coming down the road far as in terms of the global changes, which we can't really expect to have a very strong influence on, given the size of Ireland and its emissions quota.

John Sweeney 17:55

Yeah, we really need to get moving. Can we talk a little bit more about the actions that we're taking to address the climate and biodiversity crisis? And if we could start with a wide lens, you've been involved in the COP process, Conference of the Parties, internationally for a number of years. And the IPCC scientific reporting process as well. You've been referred to as a COP veteran, I've been reading. What do you see about the COP process that you would say is a positive part of that international communication?

John Sweeney 20:43

Well, I think this is a problem which can only be solved by multilateral action. And in the end of the day, unless we get that multilateral action, then we won't get anywhere. Countries are rather like individuals, and they act in their own self-interest primarily. And following the various COPs that I've been to, about 10 at this stage, I come away from each one disappointed. I come away thinking, "well, here's an opportunity, which has now been lost through individual self-interest reaching paramount priority at this stage," and it's a process of course, because it's the United Nations process. It's a process which requires unanimity and unanimity among 197 countries is something that is going to be always very difficult to attain. There's an argument that says, and I've been reading it recently, that the whole IPCC process has placed, and COP, has placed an intermediate barrier between the public and the policymaker. And that without that the public access to pressurize the policymaker would have been stronger. I'm not sure I agree with it completely. But there are elements about it, which are probably true, in that the National delegates, the National negotiators can quietly respond to other interests apart from the interests of their electorate, in that process, and we've seen evidence of that over the years in COP, where you know, there's quite clearly a lot of pressures coming on a national government to not take action in certain key areas, and they respond to that. And they point then, when they go home, they point to other countries as being really bad. And what about them? And what about us? So, I think, you know, I'm disappointed a little. But at the end of the day, we proved with multilateral action, we could solve the ozone problem. Now, it didn't take much to solve the ozone problem. It's not solved completely, but it's heading in the right direction. But that was a multilateral action, which involve minimal changes to our lifestyle, you know, we changed the propellant and aerosols. That wasn't too bad. But this particular problem of climate change involves changing our way of life, changing the way society has organized, and that's a much bigger ask in many respects than other areas of multilateral action. So, I think the COP process. the UNFCCC, you know, it's not gotten very far in 20-odd years, we are now in COP27. And I've seen young people going around the COP with T-shirts that says, "You've been negotiating since before I was born." And that's quite true. But you know, there are enormous obstacles in terms of getting that unanimity among 197 people. And the risk is, you go down to the lowest common denominator, and you end up with weak agreements or agreements, which are capable of having holes punched in them all over the place. So, we've seen that over the past few years, everything from Kyoto onwards has been unpicked by people when it suited them to do it. And I hope that that's not going to be the case in Ireland because we now have agreement and a law, which for the first time we're not looking at targets anymore. In Ireland, we're looking at legally binding limits. And that gives me hope, that in the future, we may actually be able to enforce things and it may be that it has to go through the courts to get those things enforced, rather than requiring the changing fortunes of political parties to enter the mix too much.

Jim Scheer 24:49

Got it. So that's a welcome development from your point of view that we now have legally binding targets and sectoral ceilings coming down the track too.

John Sweeney 24:58

Oh, very much I mean, over the years, I followed the National Climate Change strategies which have been produced and have looked great on paper. Some of them have even tanagers attached to them. Others were desperate in terms of having just aspirations attached to them. But in each case, you know, a politician could point to Europe and say, "Oh, they made me do it. I was acting under the behest of Europe." But now it's very much down to the local level. The law requires me to do this. And so, you know, for the next few years, both our national carbon budgets, and sectoral carbon budgets are going to be the vehicles whereby we either make or break this problem. And I think in Ireland it's going to be a traumatic few years, if we take this problem seriously. It's so important at this stage that we have leadership in this area, the people have made their choices clear in the climate assembly, for example. They've made their choices clear in the joint Oireachtas committees, they've made their choices clear in voting for the climate law that the legislature passed, it's now up to leadership to say, well, we're going to do this. And we're going to be hung, drawn and quartered. If we don't.

Jim Scheer 26:22

I got it. So, there's a clear recommendation or a warning sign there about one of the ingredients that's needed to win here in Ireland on what we're up to. But you did make the point there that this needs to happen globally for us to really solve the problem at a human level. What role do you think Ireland plays in that context?

John Sweeney 26:42

Well, Ireland is a country that we all claim kicks above its weight or punches above its weight. And I think it is a country that is looked upon at these international meetings as a country that doesn't have a vested interest in the fight too much. You know, we're not a former colonial power, for example. We're a country that has emerged from colonialism. So, we share a lot of sympathy from the developing world. Yet, we're a developed country, which has made a relatively affluent society at the same time. So, I think Ireland is looked upon very favorably. And I think that's a leverage position that we should be using. And I think there was a lot of signs of that working at COP26 in Glasgow last November. A lot of very positive things came out from Ireland's involvement as an active player in the climate negotiations, which I hadn't seen much evidence of before, where we tended to shelter behind some of the more intransigent countries in the EU when it came to the crunch. So, I think Ireland has a very important role to play. But the really important role to play is as an exemplar. If we can't prove that we can do it, that we can deliver the goods, that we can stand up and meet our own obligations. We can't lecture any country in the world on theirs. And I think that's the message that I think is so important for us. Yes, we have tiny emissions compared to China or India. And yes, whatever we do, will not change the direction fundamentally of global temperature. But I'm always reminded of a citizen that says, "What difference does it make if I throw my crisp bag down in O'Connell Street?" Because there's loads of Chris bags there already? You know, there's an element of ethics here, which we have to stand up and be counted for. And I think, you know, we can't run away from the fact that we're a country, which historically has contributed more to the problem than many other countries over time and are still contributing, even within the European Union. We're contributing more on a per capita basis than 25 other countries. So, you know, if we don't accept our responsibilities to change, then pointing the finger, it just doesn't work with other countries.

Jim Scheer 29:12

Got it. So really clear, it's going to take something massive to win here in Ireland to get done what we need to get done to meet those legally binding targets. So, John, a big, big part of this is going to be getting to people's hearts and minds so we can come together to solve this. What have you seen happening around the place that you think captures the hearts and the minds?

John Sweeney 29:31

Well, I was very struck by what Ireland achieved to solve the domestic air pollution problem, in terms of how individual events such as excess deaths, changed the whole political consciousness and the whole community consciousness in such a way that the problem was tackled effectively. And I think, you know, with climate, it may well be that we need the catalytic event of a flood or a drought to actually get people to realize that, you know, this is something that's not just a third world problem, this is a problem for us. And for the next generation, it may well also come in energy. And I think, you know, I'm quite conscious of the fact that energy rationing may be a reality in 10 years’ time. And that may well be also a catalytic event in changing people's approach to what we can and can't do in terms of controlling climate. So, I think, the way society changes overnight is through catalytic events like that. And it may well be that we have to await some of those unfortunate events to actually get us through that.

Jim Scheer 30:43

You've talked also about the systems that need to change. So, beyond the technologies, I suppose and the behaviors, what view do you have on the current economic and political systems and how they're geared to attack the climate crisis here in Ireland?

John Sweeney 30:57

I think the first thing to be said there is that it's a David and Goliath-type operation. That, you know, behind the scenes, the vested interest groups are extremely powerful. And they have a much louder advice, and a much greater influence than, for example, underfunded NGOs, or private citizens have in influencing politicians. And I'm always a bit annoyed at the access that some of these vested interest groups have to decision makers vis-à-vis the ordinary Joe Soap on the street, for example. But I think what I'm encouraged about is that I see signs of change happening, especially in the private sector in Ireland, where I see companies now in whatever field, be it agriculture, or be it commercial, be it retail, beginning to respond to pressures coming from below. Beginning to respond to consumer pressures, and beginning to take pledges, which are pretty ineffectual so far, to be honest, but the beginnings I think of commitments, which will become more severe as time goes on. And as they respond to shareholder concerns. I'm always torn between saying that the system as it stands is so biased against climate change activity, that it needs to be overthrown, or radically changed. But also, that there is the possibility of change from within. And I think, you know, with leadership and with regulation, which I think is so essential, the system can be made more productive, more progressive, even by not overthrowing the whole system at this stage. But it's fair to say that the history of climate change has been a history which has been peppered by efforts by vested interest groups to denigrate climate scientists, to denigrate the whole principle and science of climate change. And I think we're emerging from that now. But we're emerging into a new battleground zone, where there's a lot of greenwashing going on, for companies and private sector areas will pretend that they're doing things on climate change. And really, when you scratch under the surface, you find that it's pretty minimal, if the truth be known.

Jim Scheer 33:23

Yeah. As I say, it sounds like you're starting to talk about the climate action movement as a movement. Are you suggesting that it's led by politics? Or if the people change, does that change it? Or where does that start? Like, we have a lot of people working in community groups around Ireland on sustainable energy, for example, and we see them as the heroes really and part of that movement. So, is it the people? Is it bottom up? Are we waiting for something from top down? Or what do you think's going to really kick it off?

John Sweeney 33:49

I think that you know that those people are champions, those people are terrific, and when you scratch under the surface with them, and you find their commitment to doing really good things in their community, be it decarbonisation of town centers, be it sustainable energy, be it even tidy towns, biodiversity projects. Those are the people that are the salt of the earth in this problem. And really, what motivates me is that all they want is a bit of leadership from above, a bit of commitment, from above to say, you're doing your bit now we'll do our bit. And I think that's the missing ingredient so far that we get commitments, so we get plans. And in Ireland, we're really good at making plans but really poor at implemented plans. And that's where I think we really need to go from here. I think, you know, the other thing that's very important here in terms of change is the attitude of young people. You know, I'm really heartened by what I hear and see coming out of our schools and colleges now. We've had a long period now of encouraging Green Schools, for example. The An Taisce Green School system has been a really successful school system, which is now encapsulating I think about 96% of Irish primary schools. But that kind of movement has created a generation of young people who have a great ability, which scientists don't have. And that is to see through the fog very clearly. And you know, as you get older, you become conscious of all the counterbalancing arguments, but a young person sees through them and sees what the priority is very much more clearly, and goes for the jugular, and goes for the jugular with our politicians, which I think is good. And I think it's the right way to proceed. And I've been really encouraged over the past few years, in particular, by what I've seen in terms of the Fridays for Future movement, in terms of young people getting to grips with politicians directly. And that is the great hope, because after all, we're talking about intergenerational equity here. We're talking about old geezers, like me, mortgaging their future in order to be comfortable in this current generation. And that's the reality of what we're doing at the moment. And that's why I think young people need a voice. Maybe we need a young person's commissioner, an intergenerational commissioner of some kind to look at the future options that they will have as a result of the disastrous performance that my generation has given them.

Jim Scheer 36:40

Yeah, I was gonna ask you, how and if we can make up for that, because you're talking about another group of heroes there in the youth movement, and I guess, I mean, we need to honor that and do more as older generations. Are you seeing any signs that we're keeping up or we're waking up to that simple message that they see that we do this, or we don't survive?

John Sweeney 36:58

I'm always reminded of a statement that Bishop Tutu made many years ago, where he said he was a prisoner of hope. And I think we have to be a prisoner of hope in this problem. I've oscillated a bit between optimism and pessimism, whether I'm a glass half full, or a glass half empty person on this problem. But what I've seen in the past year or so has driven me more towards the pessimistic side. The IPCC report, if you recall, it was five scenarios for the future, only one of which avoided that tipping point of 1.5 degrees. And more recently, the World Meteorological Organization said we only have a 50/50 chance of avoiding 1.5 degrees at least once in the next five or six years. So, you know, it looks like we haven't learned our lesson, we're on the track towards reaching some of those rather dangerous tipping points. The 1.5 degrees will mean that the young generation we're talking about will probably see the end of coral reefs, the younger generation will probably see the end of alpine glaciers, they may well see the beginnings of the irrevocable melting out of Greenland and even West Antarctica. So those are the kinds of tragic things which may not be recoverable for the next generation. And I'm quite worried about that for the future, because, okay, you may say, well, the world will go on without coral reefs. But if we go further, and we start messing with the Gulf Stream, for example, the world will change very, very radically, indeed, especially places like Ireland. So, I think we have to be conscious of those possible pitfalls down the road that we're now rushing towards, like lemmings in many ways. And for that reason, that I think having those champions, having those young people as champions is vital. I'd given them more political power at this stage.

Jim Scheer 37:21

Yeah, it's a great idea. And you're looking at the science a lot, and you're creating a lot of it for us and pointing to the warning signs, and I think for a lot of people that can get overwhelming and I could really feel the gravity of what you're saying there about these ecosystems being wiped out for the next generation, that they're not getting to experience it. When you're having those pessimistic moments, what gets you out of bed to go and do another day's work?

John Sweeney 39:27

I think, you know, a sense of injustice is the first thing that you find a sense of anger, a sense that you really don't see the response being adequate to the threat being posed. I think that's what most environmental people would get worked up about at the moment. That the writing is on the wall. That the science is clear, that the direction we need to travel has been laid out very carefully and very skillfully by the IPCC by other scientists, and yet, we're procrastinating on taking the radical action necessary. I think that's what really is difficult to stomach. And of course, the political cycle is something that's also a most annoying thing, where the change every five years, the change every four years may change radically the approach to this problem. We saw that in the United States, with Trump and Biden, for example. And of course, there's always a tendency for a politician to kick for touch down the road to the next government, or the next administration, and leave those problems for them to solve, and not actually grasp the nettle. So those are the kinds of things that annoy most environmentalists, I think, most of all, and also, even petty things like how we plan our towns and cities, and how we plan our transport systems, how we often ignore the imperative of being more sustainable, in favor of economic short-term returns. Those are the things that really annoy people.

Jim Scheer 41:09

Yeah, and without asking you to come up with all solutions for all of those, there's a lot of people thinking about instead, I think, finally, what I'll ask you to do, John for us is maybe look into the future, and tell us what you see in say, 2050 here in Ireland,

John Sweeney 41:23

Well, we'll still be here, and we'll still be growing food, and we still will have a society, which may not be as productive as the present society unfortunately. I see our biodiversity being diminished. And that's something that I think happens so slowly that people don't actually appreciate what's going on, until it's too late. I see us still being able to grow grass and grow green fields and be a green island. But I'm pessimistic about our place in the future world where the future world has become destabilized. And where we may be a beacon of stability to some extent in another ways ravaged world by climate change. It's a pessimistic view, I know. And, as I say, I've wavered between optimism and pessimism over the past few years but the way things are going, I've looked, for example, at some of the pledges made by countries in the COP, and the weasel words that you see come out and don't give you grounds for optimism that their heart is actually in the right place in terms of reducing their emissions. And it's on that basis, I think that we're going to have those big difficulties down the road, which will have knock on effects in Ireland, undoubtedly.

Jim Scheer 42:46

John, thanks for sharing that view. It's one that I think a lot of people don't tend to stay stuck on. And I'm thinking "I need to ask him something, so we end this thing on a hopeful note."

John Sweeney 42:55

Yeah.

Jim Scheer 42:56

I think that's a trap that we could fall into, too. Because you're really pointing that the reality of what's locked in and what's coming.

John Sweeney 43:03

Yeah, but remember, the human species is the most adaptable species on the planet. We are the dominant species, because we can react to change, and Ireland is a small country. It's a nimble country. And if we get our act together, we can do wonderful things in this country. So, you know, I don't want to be a doom and gloom merchant to finish. I think we have to have hope in the future. And you know, we have to be prisoners of hope. And that's the most optimistic thing I think we can have.

Jim Scheer 43:34

Professor John Sweeney, thanks for joining us today on 180 Degrees. Thank you. Thank you for listening to today's podcast. We hope you enjoyed our conversation, and it's left you in action and hopeful for our future. Please visit seai.ie/podcast for information on each of our guests this season and links to further relevant material to support you around your own climate actions, or resources if you are suffering from any climate anxiety. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to 180 Degrees and rate the podcast to help us spread the word.