Stalker enjoyed one expert’s views on how we can go about helping to save the planet. Professor Jane Stout, who is professor of Botany in the School of Natural Sciences at Trinity College Dublin, has an informed view as to what it might take to save the sphere.
The whole thrust of her thinking on saving the environment seems to be that we all do less, consume less, work less. Stalker is all for that, but then again, it is hard to do. The economy and economic thinking to date is all set up for consumption.
Recent figures put a value of £761 billion on the natural capital of the UK - no doubt Ireland’s is regarded as a fraction of that. But as ever the economic way of looking at things misses the point that our lands and resources are priceless, and irreplaceable. You’d think doing and consuming less in order to help save our planet would be an easy thing to do?
It would involve though breaking a lot of habits - but as we know, habit is the chain that ties the dog to its vomit, as Samuel Beckett put it.
