The 2122 People We Murray: Done? (and Anger Have Have Look Not) Anja In What At Will Of Back

Wed, 13 Apr, 2022 - 06:00

Anja Murray

I spent a lot of time thinking about what to say in the time capsule box for Census 2022. I’m still thinking about it, even though the census forms are now returned. The exercise prompted me to think about who will be reading this in 2122? What kind of world will they be living in?

I’d like to tell the people of 2122 about the cuckoo. How each spring this bird flies here all the way here from Africa, fond of Irish fields and the bounty of wild insects they contain. I would describe how the cuckoo calls out all through the day in May, a steady and uplifting soundtrack that always makes me smile. I’d tell them about how people get excited by the first annual arrival of the cuckoo and eagerly write to the newspapers to say when and where they heard the first cuckoo call of the year.

I’d like to tell the people of 2122 about beautiful tortoiseshell butterflies, a common and everyday sight to us here in 2022. I'd describe the stunning orange, black and gold wings, fringed with a shimmering ribbon of iridescent blue spots. How they fly about freely on sunny days, performing aerial courtship dances to attract a mate, dances that have evolved over millennia. How they land on wildflowers to extract sweet nectar for sugary sustenance.

There is no way we can know if cuckoos will still be singing over Irish fields in 2122 or tortoiseshell butterflies will still be flying about freely on sunny spring days. Will the dawn chorus be much the same, or will half the orchestra be absent by then? Will butterflies still be a common sight? Perhaps holographic videos of wildflower meadows in summertime, humming with life and colour, will be shown to disbelieving schoolchildren in history class.

Will cuckoos still be singing over Irish fields in 2122?

Based on current rates of decline, scenarios such as this are not at all unlikely. Insect populations are facing enormous challenges, and may well have diminished to such an extent in 2122 that many of our much-loved insect-eating songbirds will be no more. Butterflies have declined here in Ireland by 6% since 2008. If that rate continues for another 100 years, butterflies will be extremely rare indeed. According to scientists, one-third of native bee species are already classified as ‘threatened with extinction’ in Ireland. This is the science, and based on what we know at present, everyday experiences we take for granted today will be beyond what the people of 2122 can even imagine.

There is a high probability that the people of 2122 will be unable to do more than look back in anger at what we have done, and not done, to species that have been around for far longer than we humans. Today, species that were common until recently, such as salmon, eel, curlew, freshwater pearl mussel, and angel shark are threatened with extinction here. Based on current trajectories, they will almost certainly be gone from Irish rivers, fields and seas in 2122.

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But what the future holds depends on whether we chose to act on the advice of scientific experts now or if we chose to continue with policies developed to bolster short-term profit for influential domestic industries. To continue with business as usual, expanding output of products for international export markets, is to choose to allow the loss of so much of what we hold dear. If we instead choose to heed the warnings and advice of ecologists and climate scientists, we could still change the trajectory. It is possible to halt destructive practices, restore rivers, wetlands, pasture and woodlands. To do so now gives the option of being good ancestors.

But we are not in the habit of thinking much about the future. We are preoccupied by immediate to-do lists, bills to pay, errands to run, places to be. We are overwhelmed by crisis after crisis. It’s hard to break out of the short-term thinking that is so much part of our culture. For the decision-makers, elections take place every four years. For business leaders, there is no second thought given to throwing away other people’s future in order to make minor economic improvements in the present.

We have little training or opportunity to consider the consequences of current policies in 10, 50 or even 100 years. Yet this census time capsule has made many of us think about what things will be like in 100 years’ time, after we are long gone.

For most indigenous cultures, thinking about future people is an integral part of their values and decision-making. Intergenerational empathy is also known as ‘seven-generation thinking’. If we could all begin to think more about the rights of future generations, we could leave a different legacy.

It is still possible that people of 2122 will look back at this time and wonder how it ever came so close to collapse. 100 years from now they may celebrate the victories of scientists, campaigners and long-term thinkers who together fought for and succeeded in securing a liveable future. The billions of people not yet born, those who will be alive in 2122, could still have butterflies, bees, cuckoos, and the rich sounds of the dawn chorus. They might even be lucky enough to take them all for granted.