Blarney This And Blarney That

The Irish agree that global climate change is a serious issue. 82% think it's almost as serious an issue as poverty, and something needs to be done.

Just not something done by the Irish people.

They talk a good game about the use of alternative fuels, but when it comes time to pay the higher price, they're steadfastly against it. They complain about the government and private industry not doing more to combat climate change, but they aren't willing to meet the financial demands that are required to lower the carbon footprint of the Emerald Isle.

It's not that the Irish invented blarney. They're probably aware of a new study that shows we're all in for another ice age, and it's the melting Greenland ice sheets that spell our doom.

How do scientists know this? Geologic evidence points to a past incident of melting that dumped millions of gallons of fresh water into the oceans, thus disrupting the flow of warmer waters into the North Atlantic, leading to an ice age 12,000 years ago.

Perhaps the Irish aren't so keen to dig deeper into their pockets because they understand that this melting was not caused by man at all. No carbon dumped into the atmosphere, no fossil fuels causing havoc with the climate. It happened because that's just what the earth and the sun do when they get together.

So, without any human influence, the northern ice sheets melted and diluted the North Atlantic current and created a massive freeze...in the span of a few months.

And it might happen again. No reason not to think it couldn't, when it's happened before. And if it does happen again? There's not a thing man could do about it.

Risk financial meltdown because the earth is warming and a group of scientists say man is causing it? Or accept the scientific fact that the climate changes, has changed in the past and will change in the future, and it's not homo sapiens, the mightiest of the beasts at the top of the food chain, who can control the climate.

Little wonder that the average person isn't entirely buying into the urgent need to change lifestyles and make great sacrifices. All that effort, the sun holidays cancelled or the thermostat lowered to near freezing in the house, and will it really, truly make a difference? It's the element of doubt and the desire to be warm and comfy that leads to all that blarney about doing something to stop a phenomenon that looks to be perfectly normal and unstoppable.