Next 20 years will see rapid changes - Sargent

FORMER GREEN Party leader and Minister of State for Food Trevor Sargent has said people will face more change over the next two decades than has occurred in the last century.

Mr Sargent was speaking on the theme of Ireland in 2020, at an event organised by the University of Limerick branch of the Green Party earlier this week. His speech was reported on yesterday in the Limerick Leader.

Mr Sargent said in an aside: “We probably are the most useless generation ever to have strode the face of the earth” because of many people’s inability to do practical tasks such as mending a broken tyre.

Mr Sargent said the world would have to rely less on oil as an energy source, and he urged people “to adopt a World War two-lifestyle and approach to consumption in the current climate”.

Regarding the approach of peak oil production, he said: “Remember what we were told about the economy and how we were going to have a soft landing? All promises of a soft landing are not to be taken seriously.

“We don’t need oil. We have to get that into our heads. As soon as we do that we’ll realise that we’ll be able to use our imagination about what we can do, instead of what we can’t do.

“We need to drop that energy demand or else we drop people and that’s a pretty stark choice. Our global village depends on a sea of oil and in 2020 that will not be possible to depend on.”

He went on: “The next 12 or 20 years will probably contain more change than has been the case in the last 100 years. But, hopefully, it will be voluntary change.

“Life will be busier but less stressful and we will probably be healthier and lead more useful lives.”

Food will have to be grown locally because transport costs and water shortages will hamper exports. “Can organic food feed the world? That is a question that has not been answered properly.

“Today, nine out of 10 people have water supplies, even if the quality is often poor. By 2020, however, just two-thirds will have access to enough.”