The idea of preparing for a rainy day, of having savings to pay for an unexpected setback such as repairing a much needed home appliance or buying your child a new pair of shoes is an intrinsic part of our culture. In fact, preparing for possible, if not inevitable, hard times seems to be a cross-cultural disposition. In Genesis chapter 41: 14 – 36, Joseph advises the Pharaoh to store surplus food during an expected seven years of plenty in preparation for seven years of famine that are thought will follow as foreseen in the Pharaoh’s dream.
The Pharaoh wisely took Joseph’s advice.
In a general sense people on this island, across Europe and most of the world have since the end of the second world war increasingly lived in an age of plenty, albeit with a terrible price paid by the biosphere in terms of loss of biodiversity, the rise in global temperature and pollution of soil, air and water. During these years of plenty and technological innovation governments have not acted with the wisdom of the Pharaoh and prepared their societies to cope with the predicted negative consequences of our irresponsible treatment of nonhuman nature.
There are, and have been, many Josephs who dedicated their lives to getting us to awaken to the folly of our consumer life-style. Among them are Rachel Carson (1907-1964) who is best known for her 1962 book Silent Spring, E.F. Schumacher (1911-1977) who crystalised his ideas of living within ecological limits in Small is Beautiful (1973). In our own time there is the Irish author and film maker Manchan Magan (1970 – 2025) who is perhaps best known for his book Thirty-Two Words for Field. A climate and human rights campaigner who is known internationally is Greta Thunberg who was Time magazine’s 2019 Person of the Year.
In addition to dedicated individuals there are organisations a plenty in Ireland and elsewhere who, on the basis of rigorous research and sound evidence, inform us that the rainy day we should have prepared for has arrived. We have been urged for decades to radically change our approach to organising the business of living whilst simultaneously preparing for the consequences of our historic abuse of the biosphere. The warnings have largely being ignored with tragic consequences in the form of life-inflicting and property destroying floods, droughts, storms, wild fires and the poisoning of waterways.
A major warning was given over 50 – years ago in the landmark report on the consequences of continuous economic growth titled The Limits To Growth (1972). It was produced by an international team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the think tank The Club of Rome. Thirty million copies were published and the report’s findings were widely debated but the transition to “a stable state society” was never undertaken.
An equally important warning was given in Our Common Future (1987), also known as The Brundtland Report, published by the UN. It had more success in getting society and governments to recognise the serious plight the biosphere was in due to our inconsiderate behaviour. It coined what is now a classic definition of sustainable development. This is: “development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.”
The report led to the first Earth Summit in Brazil in 1992 out of which came the Commission on Sustainable Development and in time the annual Conference of the Parties, better known as COPs, to address climate breakdown. They have been held annually since 1995. The most successful COP to date was the one held in Paris in 2015 in which agreement was reached by the governments of the world to limit global warming to 1.5 Celsius.
In spite of all the conferences, declarations, uncountable scientific reports on the ecological unsustainability of our economic order and the many successful nature conservation projects such as the RSPB’s Curlew protection programme on Upper and Lower Lough Erne, the protection of puffins on Rathlin Island and the Isle of Muck we are metaphorically clinging to the side of the life-boat.
Worryingly New Scientist, 14 March 2026, reports that the average global temperature is rising, sea levels are much higher than previously thought which if the trend continues will lead to the displacement of hundreds of millions of people, the loss of civil infrastructure, agricultural lands and habitat.
Just as disruptive, and unwelcomed by people who find prolonged cold weather insufferable, is the weakening of the ocean current which accounts for our mild climate. There has already been a measurable shift northward and as the New Scientist reports “any abrupt shift in the Gulf Stream could signal an imminent, catastrophic collapse in the ocean current.” If this were to happen the winter temperature in Ireland could at times drop to -20 Celsius.
Our ignoring the warnings of ecological catastrophe has led to the exceedingly poor ecological health of most lakes and rivers across the island including Lough Neagh, Lough Erne and Belfast Lough. The Guardian recently reported that genes capable of creating superbugs resistant to antibiotics have been detected in Lough Neagh and that a study found E coli bacteria in every sample of cattle manure tested in the Lough Neagh catchment area.
Genes capable of creating superbugs resistant to antibiotics could exist in other bodies of water. The existence of such genes is something the health and water authorities should take very seriously as the World Health Organisation describes antimicrobial resistance as “one of the most urgent, complex and frightening health challenges of our time”.
This situation alone highlights the case that if we value our health, which is not separate from the health of others, we need to embrace the credo of the likes of Rachel Carson, E.F. Schumacher and Manchan Magan and be cognisant that the technosphere is wholly dependent on the ecosphere and cease to be blasé about how we treat the only home we have.
