Published in the Sunday Independent. and on the 2050 blog.
THE decisions you take in the coming days, weeks and years will affect the choices that your children will be able to make when they become adults and take up the reins of Irish society in the coming decades. So the answers you give to the question of what kind of Ireland you want to see are important. How you behave today, and what you expect of tomorrow, affects your tomorrows as an individual. So it is with Ireland as a nation.
Ireland’s recent economic misfortune has blinded us to the long-term threats and opportunities our society faces. We must place these issues in their proper context for this reason: however bad today’s troubles are, and they are very serious, they are just an episode — they will pass.
What kind of Ireland are we likely to see? More jobs and more opportunities for new businesses will open up to us if we change the way we educate our children. The world does not need the gifted list-learners the Leaving Certificate produces; it needs original minds capable of producing new ideas within a supportive business culture that allows them to prosper (and fail) easily. New ideas that lead to new businesses and new products create new, high-wage jobs which will enrich the nation.
Ireland’s farmers will have to change the way they do business. Climate change will force a substitution of the crops they can produce profitably, and this will change the composition of Irish agriculture, and the type of livelihoods the farmers will be able to make from their land.
Ireland’s power needs will only grow as our economy matures and develops. Solar, wind, wave, and other types of renewable energies probably won’t be advanced enough to allow a smooth transition from the fossil fuels we use today, especially in industry and agriculture. A nuclear option should be considered until the renewable power resources are advanced enough to take the increased load of electricity generation we’ll need to have by 2050.
The family as the primary unit within Irish society won’t change that much.
But we will see spikes in the divorce rate as the influence of the Catholic Church wanes further.
There will still be very poor people in Ireland in 40 years. The pace of development, however swift, does not allow everyone’s living standards to increase at the same pace.
Expect taxes and prices to go up over the next 40 years for basic goods, but wages may not keep pace. So those who are born to the middle classes today may find themselves at a much lower level than they envisaged.
Older people will have the financial and political clout to get what they want from a competitive marketplace and a government that needs the majority of older voters on its side. Fashion and culture will change to service the tastes and whims of a richer, older population. Older workers will demand, and receive, their due from the market place. The future’s bright for them.
Tags: Agriculture, An Inconvenient Truth, Climate change, Electricity generation, Environment, Fossil fuel, Ireland, Renewable energy
