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If I could afford it, I would buy an electric car tomorrow, although I can get away without owning a car living in suburban Dublin.
I live in a new apartment which is energy efficient so I am using energy sparingly.
But for most people, living in a house which is not energy efficient and who absolutely need a car, they would need a good few bob to buy an electric car and retrofit their home.
It is not a popular point to make, but in order for us to become more energy efficient and environmentally friendly, we need to be pretty wealthy in the first place.
I wasn’t taking into account the real cost of climate change
I put this point to Green Party deputy leader Catherine Martin in a recent radio interview and it didn’t go down well with a couple of environmental campaigners who felt that I wasn’t taking into account the real cost of climate change.
Like everything in life it is easy for people who are well off to dictate to the rest of us the importance of changing our ways. And when it comes to the climate emergency we all must play our part in reducing our individual carbon footprint. But it is much easier for those well-heeled middle-class people to do so. They can afford to retrofit their homes – which will cost at the very minimum €14,000 and up to three times that – or to buy a good electric car costing at least €20,000 and switch to a more expensive vegan diet.
Anybody with an ounce of sense will realise that the planet is under serious stress due to climate chaos
Government is pledging to increase grants relating to electric car purchases and retrofit homes. Anybody with an ounce of sense will realise that the planet is under serious stress due to climate chaos and so we make adjustments to our lifestyle in lieu, but there needs to be an understanding from full-time environmentalist advocates that it is just not that easy for everybody to transition to a carbon zero existence.
The Government cannot hand out 100% grants to everybody to do the right thing. So there needs to be an understanding from environmental academics and campaigners that maybe the last thing on the mind of the squeezed middle is finding a way to finance a reduction in their carbon footprint.
Of course we need to wake up to the seriousness of the climate emergency, but if you are living week to week on a tight budget as most of us are, then unfortunately the electric car and the solar roof panel do not take priority. It’s a really tough square to circle. It is a pity that those who lambasts journalists for daring to mention this financial dilemma which so many families experience, do not appreciate that it does not mean that they are not willing to do their best to reduce their carbon footprint.
We can all do little things to play our part
They simply do not have the income to co-fund environmentally friendly measures such as retrofitting and changing to greener transport.
Neither should this lack of financial wherewithal be used by us as a cop out. We can all do little things to play our part without needing to spend tens of thousands of euro. We can reassess simple transport, dietary and energy consumption ways to contribute to healing the planets ills. But just because we cannot live the perfect carbon zero life that others enjoy should not be interpreted by critics as being in denial of climate change.
Climate shaming is the last thing we need especially in situations where people for example cannot afford to change their diesel cars or jeeps.
As we near the end of the year, we think about the wonderful sporting highlights of 2021. Let the rows begin. It’s all subjective. But Limerick’s All-Ireland final display is difficult to top.
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