Climate, Communities, and Capitalism: Critically Imagining and Co-Creating Pathways for a Sustainable Ireland

Abstract

Climate, Communities, and Capitalism: Critically Imagining and Co-Creating Pathways for a Sustainable Ireland Amanda Slevin (bio) Wildfires, droughts, floods, beloved species facing extinction – a selection of stark indicators of the accelerating climate and ecological emergency. Underpinned by human patterns of production, consumption, and associated environmental degradation, the ‘triple planetary crises’1 of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution pose an existential threat to human and non-human species. Consequently, socio-ecological and scientific imperatives for urgent, transformative action have become firmly established, yet with only a few years to 2030 (a landmark year for climate commitments) our shared island, encompassing people on both sides of Ireland’s politically constructed border, is woefully unprepared to tackle the massive difficulties we collectively face. To move towards a genuinely sustainable future profound socioeconomic, ideological, political, and environmental transformations across all levels of every society are essential. Unsurprisingly, major challenges abound, not least the deeply embedded structures, ideologies, and practices fundamental to capitalism, which lie at the core of destructive society– environment interactions. Against this backdrop, it is useful to reflect upon conditions that influence why, how, and when a populace embarks on pathways for transformative change. Prospects for socio-ecological change encompass myriad dimensions and reinvigorate age-old debates around ‘agency’ and ‘structure’, prompting questions of who and/or what shapes human behaviour, as a central feature of transformative, multi-level action. Such deliberations are particularly apt in an era when many people across our island feel disempowered and are struggling, following wave after wave of turmoil, such as the costs of living, energy, and housing crises; consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic; war in Ukraine; ongoing legacies of Northern Ireland’s ethno-nationalist conflict; and Brexit. [End Page 61] Therefore, in this article, I contemplate how we might better respond to socio-ecological threats to enable our collective transition move towards a healthier and fairer future for all that share our island. As a critical interface between structure and agency, I posit ‘community’ as a vital element of societal transformations towards a more sustainable Ireland by 2030, and I explore how diverse communities affect bottom-up and top-down change. To set the scene, I examine mandates for climate action by enunciating pressing socioecological crises in the Anthropocene, the current geological epoch in which humans have become the primary drivers of changes to our planet. While I identify evolving top-down legal and policy frameworks that currently shape climate action, I argue that bottom-up grassroots approaches by communities are core for a sustainable world. Alongside empirical examples of community climate action, I explore diverse understandings of ‘community’, spanning psychological, philosophical, and physical dimensions of human interactions, and recognise the multiplicity of interpretations and forms of community that exist, not all of which are conducive to positive social change, as evident in Northern Ireland. Key questions arise within this inquiry: in the midst of a planetary emergency can ‘community’ act as an impetus to reimagine our shared future? Furthermore, can ‘community’ serve as a locus to regain human agency while acting as a driver for collective climate action across all levels of society? Offering a hopeful perspective, I articulate mechanisms to aid development of a ‘community of communities’ for climate action, including socio-eco-logical imagination, transformative teaching and learning, and sustainability praxis, all of which can be fostered within communities, universities, and wider society. These, in turn, can inform socio-eco-logical awareness, agency, and activism within and beyond diverse communities, enabling critical collective imagining and co-creation of pathways for a sustainable Ireland. I. Socio-ecological emergencies: ‘Code Red’ for Planet Earth Irrefutable scientific evidence by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), among others, makes clear the ways in which our planet is experiencing an unprecedented climate catastrophe, driven by human activities.2 Anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change is defined as ‘a large-scale, long-term shift in the planet’s weather patterns and average temperatures’3 and is caused by burning fossil fuels like oil, gas, and coal; land-use change [End Page 62] such as cutting down forests; and farming livestock.4 Climate breakdown is part of the escalating planetary...