Dr Ciaran O’Carroll The time to act is NOW

In the first of our mini podcasts live from the Irish extinction Rebellion week camp, we chat to dr Ciaran O’Carroll about the XR mission. He calls for immediate action by us the people, to come out of our houses and support protests, join the XR meetings, and petition the government to ban the burning of fossil fuels. He makes it clear that people are dying from climate change NOW and this isn’t a problem that lies in the hands of others but rather sits on our very own doorstep. He urges that we need to acknowledge this fact and start to make changes on a personal level, as well as a government level with immediate effect.

Ciaran argues that climate delayers are just as bad as climate deniers at this stage, because they both end us up in the same place; whilst efforts are undoubtedly being taken across the world in order to make steps in the right direction, it is all too little and all too slow. He points out that despite the fact that we declared a Climate Emergency over a year ago, in the latest budget that came out in Ireland, the government gave only 9 million to support cycling  but 16 million was given to greyhound racing, which shows where their priorities lie, and that the sense of urgency with which the XR movement feel we need to be acting hasn’t been taken on.