All Ireland Tickets!

Tickets for the All-Ireland final will be frantically sought by one and all after Tipp’s great semi-final victory on Sunday. Well, just between you and me, we have a pair available at Cabragh Wetlands. All you need to do is invest a couple of euro in a ticket for our Open Day (August 29th 1-5) Raffle (or a book of 6 for €10) and you have as much chance of two Stand tickets at Croke Park as the next person. What a cost-effective way of giving yourself a fair crack at seeing the long-awaited toppling of Kilkenny! There are other great prizes available in the raffle – thanks to those who donated the Fuji Digital Camera and Dinner for Two at the Horse and Jockey.



Open Day preparations are going ahead well, and we hope to see a good turnout on the day. With talks and guided walks, animals and pond life to look at, wonderful pictures and cards to buy, cakes, teas and so much more, this will be a great family day out. Don’t forget the Children’s Fancy Dress Show, with entries on a theme of nature, please. This is a chance for real creativity and memorable fun for parents as well as children. We are still looking for donations of good quality items for an auction, so if you have something, please get in touch (0504-43879). As always we are immensely grateful for the support and generosity of the local community.



There should be plenty of stands for you to see, which as a whole will give a clear message about the great things being done in the Thurles area to create a less damaging and more sustainable way of life. We cannot continue to burn fossil fuels indefinitely, we cannot continue to foul our waterways, desecrate the countryside and damage the eco-systems and habitats that sustain the balance and variety of life on Earth. Cabragh Wetlands Open Day will give you and your children important ideas to reflect on, awareness of new technology and the chance to connect with local groups and individuals who are doing their bit to move us towards a better way of living. Do you want your grandchildren to live in a world where success is measured in terms of material prosperity, financial wealth and conquest of nature, or in a world where the natural biological wealth of our flora and fauna are healthy and resilient, where man and other species can live alongside each other in mutually beneficial harmony? At the basis of this must be a network of communities living good lives.



Dale Treadwell invites you to join him at Cabragh Wetlands this Sunday 22nd August from 3-5. The Den’s resident Bug Man will be explaining the wetlands to children and families – Let’s Explore Cabragh Wetlands! Entry is free, and thanks to Thurles Library for their work in setting up this event.

Severe Weather and Global Warming

by Fr. Seán McDonagh, SSC
Last week I wrote about severe weather events in Pakistan, China, Russia, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Poland. I could have included Africa where a severe drought is causing hunger and malnutrition in the eastern Sahel in west Africa. It is estimated that 10 million people are affected in four different countries. In Niger, the worst affected area, it is estimated that 7.1 million people are hungry and facing a bleak future as livestock have been lost and food prices are soaring. This catastrophe has received very little coverage in western media.
In Latin America in April 2010 heavy rains in the state of Rio de Janeiro caused floods and mudslides leading to the death of at least 212 people. In June, Brazil experienced severe floods once again, this time in the states of Alagoas and Pernambuco in the north eastern part of Brazil. At least 1,000 people died or were reported missing.
Another spectacular event happened on August 5, 2010, when a section of the Petermann Glacier on the north western coast of Greenland, measuring 97 square miles, broke off. While there is nothing new in icebergs ‘calving’ this is the largest break off since 1962. Robert Bindschadler, a Senior Research Science at MASA Goddard Space Flight Center, points out that changes in calving will happen as climate changes because the environment is changing.” Increases in temperature due to climate change are not uniform across the world. The increase in temperature in the Arctic region has been very significant and scientists are predicting that the Arctic Ocean could be free of summer ice within a decade or so.
Peter Scott who is head of climate monitoring and attribution at the Met Office has been sifting through the data on the extreme weather events during the past few months in Asia and Russia. He writes that, “ evidence, including in India and China, that periods of heavy rain are getting heavier, is absolutely consistent with our understanding of the physics of atmosphere in which warmer air hold more moisture. Our climate change predictions support the emerging trend in observation and show a clear intensification of extreme rainfall events in a warmer world.” Nevertheless, he concedes that it is problematic to state categorically that climate change is the cause of a particular climate event such as the hurricane Katrina. Extreme weather events happen once every 50 or 100 years. Peter Scott is now arguing that, as a result of global warming, these extreme events will happen much more frequently and “become considered the norm by the middle of this century.”
In the light of the deteriorating climate situation it was very disappointing that the recent climate change talks in Bonn ended so inconclusively. The 194 countries which attended the meeting failed to agree on a common target or method for reducing greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. It appeared that many of the gains which had been made in the UN climate conference in Nairobi, Bali, Poznans and even Copenhagen were beginning to unravel. In Bonn many so-called “developing” countries were retreating to positions which they held some years ago. They are insisting that while their attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would be done on a voluntary basis, “developed” countries must agree to reduce their greenhouse emission through legally binding treaties. China, which as a country, is now the number one greenhouse gas emitter in the world, refused any suggestion for monitoring its emissions by an international agency. The Chinese point out that their per capita emissions are much lower than either North America or Europe.
The Copenhagen Accord agreed that action needs to be taken on a global level to keep the average increase in global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius. This would give the world a “carbon budget” of 750 gigatons of emission by the year 2050. Poor countries suggest that this figure should be divided between countries on a basic of population and how much greenhouse gases that country has historically emitted. Rich countries have about 16% of the world’s population but they generate 74% of greenhouse gases. The bulk of the 750 gigatons should be allocated to poor countries with huge populations. In this way they would be able to develop their economies to meet the development needs of their people. Unless there is a credible solution soon, extreme weather events will increase dramatically.

Climate Change and Extreme Weather

Article by Fr. Seán McDonagh
Extreme weather is one of the clearest signals that climate change is happening. During the first part of August 2010, news of extreme weather in various parts of the world was seldom off the headlines.
Pakistan suffered its worst monsoon-related floods in 80 years. More than 1,600 people were reported dead, though the real number is probably a multiple of that figure. Rivers burst their banks sweeping away houses, food crops, roads and bridges, leaving areas such as Gilgit Baltistan cut off from the rest of because the Karakurram road has been swept away. The extreme flooding in the Swat valley was partly due to the fact that since the Taliban took over that area forests had been chopped down at an alarming rate.
By the end of the first week of August it was estimated that around 12 million people have been affected by the flood waters in Pakistan. Because the rains had not stopped, rescue operations were difficult to mount. Some charities reported that the only way they could reach the victims was by loading the supplies on donkeys.
The tens of thousands of people, fleeing from the floods by whatever means they could, were often without food, potable water, medicines, dry clothes or rainproof tents. The Pakistani authorities are worried that the death toll will rise dramatically as people suffer from malnutrition and water borne diseases such as typhoid, cholera and malaria. The elderly and the very young are most at risk.
Further east 127 people died and almost 2,000 were reported missing on August 8th after mudslides in north-western China. At least one village in Gansu province was buried entirely in mud forcing 45,000 people to evacuate. One half of Zhouque country was submerged by flood waters which forced 50,000 to flee their homes. The flood waters swept away cars, trucks and even houses. According to figures issued by the Chinese government the number of people who have died in flooding in the first seven months of 2010 stood at more than 2,000. The number of people forced out of their homes by the recent flooding has reached 12 million.
Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic have also been hit by extreme weather events. On August 7th 2010, torrential rain caused rivers to burst their banks in south western Poland, submerging towns and causing at least 3 fatalities. In the town of Goerlitz close to the Germany Polish border, 1,400 were evacuated as flood waters cascaded through the main street. At one point the flood waters topped the seven metre mark. Three people were killed by flood waters in the northern part of the Czech Republic. The Mayor of Bogatynia in the Czech Republic said that the there was little warning. Within an hour the town was totally submerged. Many houses collapsed and the inhabitants were cut off from the rest of the country. Storms and high winds left many communities without electric power in eastern Slovakia.
Further east in Russia the problem is not excessive rain or floods, but the opposite, a prolonged heatwave with temperatures at record levels of 38 degrees Celsius. These have led to numerous forest and peat fires right across the country. A government minister, Sergei Shoigi told the media that there were more than 550 fires covering 17,000 hectares burning across Russia. As a consequence Moscow and its many landmarks such as the Kremlin have been shrouded in a toxic smog for weeks. Flights into Moscow’s southern airport were severely delayed and car drivers used fog lights. The air monitoring service reported that carbon dioxide levels were more than six times higher than they should be. Many people wore gas masks in an effort to protect themselves from the toxic fumes. Despite such initiatives, the mortality rate has doubled in recent weeks according to Andrei Seltsovsky, the head of the Moscow’s health department. Normally there are about 360 to 380 deaths per day in Moscow. In late July and early August 2010, it was double that number. ` Further south there are fears that the fires could release radioactive nuclides from the land contaminated by the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
Yet, despite this extreme weather, global efforts to tackle climate change seem to be unravelling.