I am honoured to be here to formally open International Year of Planet Earth.
I was reading the Official United Nations direction or missive, I suppose we’d call it, earlier on and if you know the way that these international documents often go - they often start with a series of conditions / assumptions / a series of giving “this, this and this”.
(But this was different)
The first three in relation to the launch of the International Year of Planet Earth, I liked. The first was saying that we reaffirm the Agenda 21 strategy which we set out in Rio. The second one - and it could cause politicians a bit of discomfort - said, “that we note the wealth of untapped scientific information resources, which are available, which are unused by policy makers and decision makers”. And thirdly, it said, “that we convince that it is vital to use the tools of earth science information and technology, for the sustainable use of resources on our planet”.
I thought that was a nice introduction. Sometimes you read those that you think are a bit formulaic or a bit unnecessary, but I thought they were as good an introduction as any, for the International Year of Planet Earth.
I come from the Green Party, a party that goes across the world – there are almost 180 Green Parties spread through nearly every country in the world – a Party, I think, aimed at a way of thinking, a way of understanding about the earth, aimed at encouraging mankind to see the earth from a distance, and to realise what an incredible a planet we live on.
I became involved in the Green Party and one of the reasons was the inspirations British scientist James Lovelock, who wrote a book – the Gaia. I was fascinated recently reading his latest book, that he came to that theory by being asked by the US space programme to look to see, how you would decide that there was life on Mars.
The only way you could do that surely was to imagine yourself looking out and back first, to decide how you would know whether there was life on Earth. In doing that, looking at this remarkable balanced integrated system - perfect it would seem, for several billion years - for prospects of life on Earth.
And to me, reading that science – I am not from a scientific background, I’m a commerce student, so that’s a bit of a contradiction in terms – I was able for the first time to read science that was completely exciting, it opened up my mind to greater questions about issues like climate change and uses of the resources of the earth. So I think it is scientists that have lead to this whole environmental agenda directly. Tim Flannery’s book, “The Weathermakers”, is another book that I’ve read recently…and other books like this, bring science out to people in a way that is comprehensible.
I saw a presentation down the road in Trinity, by ( ) a geologist in Harvard, which actually brought climate change to my understanding. You actually have to look at it, I think, from a geological time perspective in order to gain a proper understanding of the forces that are at play.
More locally, I’ve been very inspired by a lot of scientists and in fact…. the Irish writer, John Moriarty – a mystic, I suppose you’d call him. But it’s very interesting… the journey that he has taken, the understanding that he is taking in terms of what a relationship is with Planet Earth.
And that was a journey, I suppose kind of typically for some people, growing from a kind of a Christian tradition, which was challenged when he read Darwin’s origins of species… and he said it shattered his previous understanding of the world, the universe, he lived in.
And he actually spent I think, thirty or forty years trying to put back the pieces of his understanding of our particular place on Planet Earth. He quotes Leach when he says, “I discovered for myself, that old human animal life, indeed the entire prehistory and past of all essential being, works on, loves on, hates on, thinks on [a mean]”. Or he quotes Hopkins, “The mind has mountains, cliffs that fall, frightful, sheer, no man fathomed…..”
But he constantly goes back to geological references…He says. “The raised up seabeds of the Grand canyon in Arizona are the still living, still active seabeds of human the human psyche”. It’s interesting – the grand interest in geology is actually the bedrock of our entire sense of being.
He quotes, if I could finish, Haldy, (an eminent British geneticist) and says, “It is my suspicion, that the universe isn’t only queerer than we suppose, it is queerer than can suppose”.
I think rather than being too narrow, too reductionist, that Moriarty steers us – and scientists as well – towards saying we need to bring back a sense of wonder, bring back a sense of questioning, a sense of the unknown. Rather than maybe trying to be over-confident with technologies, I think that’s a very interesting approach and a very valid approach in terms of where we go now in our science.
We’re here today thinking globally…but what we’re doing is acting locally, and I think that’s highly appropriate in marketing this international year in Ireland. I’m particularly pleased that Professor de Mulder, who is the director of the whole International Year of Planet Earth in the United Nations, is here marking our efforts and the start of our Year.
I am also very pleased with Professor Jim Slevin, President of the Royal Irish Academy and Professor David Fegan, for their support in the geoscience area, and for providing a hugely important independent scientific forum for our country – it is to be commended.
I very much welcome the support of the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland in this whole initiative, in the International Year of Planet Earth. And most importantly I want to thank our President of the Geological Survey of Ireland, Peadar McArdle and his staff, for the work that they are doing in this area.
There are a thousand and one ways I think…to say that this geoscience work is vital. Only today, we were talking to a wave energy company who were saying that exactly what we need is what we’ve been doing on the seabed survey to understand what the geology is out there, as we start to tap into those resources.
There are a thousand other ways in economic terms, that we could benefit from that. But I think we should set this Year slightly wider, beyond economics, towards instilling a sense of wonder about science, about our Planet Earth and our place within it. For I think, that now, is going to inspire young people to go into science…it will help us to use our resources in a way that protects our planet. Mote than anything else, we have to inspire young people, we have to engage them with a sense of wonder and a sense of excitement. I very much look forward to the presentation tonight, and indeed to all of the events throughout the year to do exactly that.
Thank you.