I mentioned here recently that the smoking ban was Irish legislation's Riverdance, writes Frank McNally
The rest of Europe considered it something of a novelty act when it first appeared in 2004. But its huge success with domestic audiences has since been replicated around the globe. Versions of the law are now running in countries as far away as Singapore and Cuba while, closer to home, even England has finally succumbed. The ban opens there in July for what is expected to be an extended run.
But there is a slight problem. It turns out that, as well as providing healthier workplaces and more pleasant bars and restaurants, the smoking ban is also destroying the planet. This unexpected side-effect arises because, in colder countries, smokers forced to stand outside at night run the risk of hypothermia, which is apparently considered a bad thing. Consequently, there has been a big increase in the use by bars and cafés of patio heaters.
The patio heater is an environmentalist's nightmare. If you were asked to design a device that maximised carbon emissions while minimising usefulness to humanity, you would be hard put to improve on this gas-fired monster. Niggardly in dispensing warmth outwards, so that you have to huddle underneath to benefit, the patio heater is contrastingly generous in dispersing it upwards. It has been calculated that an average heater produces as much CO2 as one-and-a-half cars.
Yet the devices are so insidious that, according to the Financial Times, they were used at a recent high-powered gathering on the banks of the river Rhine, where a group of individuals was spotted sipping cocktails under their unsustainable glow. The event? A meeting of the International Emissions Trading Association, attended by carbon traders, eco-journalists, and the World Bank's advisers on climate change.
The obvious solution to the problem would be another prohibition: something with which Ireland could again lead the way. But such a measure would probably look draconian and might diminish the international prestige engendered by our original ban. It would be preferable if we could adapt Irish social life in some positive way to offset the patio heater evil. And this is why recent developments in Holland are so exciting.
On the rare occasions when they're not worrying about the future of the planet, it seems, the Dutch love to dance. Which has given environmentalists in Rotterdam the idea of harnessing energy from dancers to create the world's first fully sustainable night-clubs. The city is already at the forefront of "green clubbing", in fact: using recycled furniture, collecting rain-water, and so on. The plan now is just to take the concept of renewable energy to its logical conclusion.
One recent innovation involves trapping the warm air that rises from perspiring clubbers, condensing it in coolers, and using the water to flush toilets. But the latest and most radical idea is to adapt the dance floor itself in such a way that the people using it generate electricity. The first prototype floor, due for completion shortly, will generate voltage sufficient only to light up the floor itself. Later versions are expected to power the clubs' sound systems and air conditioning.
The only problem, reports the London Independent, is that the higher-yielding technologies depend on vibration - from which sound waves can also be harnessed - or on dancers targeting certain pressure points. And not only are these techniques prohibitively expensive, they lose efficiency unless "unless you can predict where those dancing feet will fall".
Ironically, therefore, in attempting to reduce the carbon footprint of clubbing, environmentalists are held back by the shortcomings of clubbers' actual footprints. Frenzied thrashing may produce enough sweat to flush the toilets, but for electricity production you need something more disciplined. And such is the nature of modern dance that the fiction between bodies is often greater than the friction on the floor. Many clubbers prefer to groove with their shoes off, after all.
This, surely, is where Riverdancecomes in - and not just Riverdance, but the whole Irish dancing movement, which - it must now be clear - is a massive renewable energy project waiting to happen.
After all, targeting pressure points on a floor is no problem to Irish dancers who, before Michael Flatley came along, had been trained down the decades to remain ram-rod straight at all times, with a minimum of hip movement. Producing feet-to-floor friction is no challenge either. Anyone who has ever seen a room full of set-dancers at work will know they can knock sparks off the most fire-retardant floor.
As for the production of sound waves, parents of junior Jean Butlers will be well aware that the hard-shoe form of Irish dancing generates noise out of all proportion to the size of the shoe-wearer. My eight-year-old daughter is only a little slip of a thing. But when she practices her hard-shoe reel at home, it sounds like someone has let a horse loose in the living room.
With proper funding, the dance schools of Ireland could become laboratories for floor-based electricity production. Instead of littering the countryside with unsightly wind turbines, the Government could encourage the growth of mass rave-style ceilis. As the technology was refined, it could be fed through to Riverdance, which would become the industry's international showpiece.
At first, perhaps only the big chorus-line numbers would be carbon-neutral, powering the stage lights and the theatre's heating. But by and by, the whole production would become fully sustainable, perhaps even generating a surplus of energy that could be donated to the host country's national grid. Irish dancing would soon be synonymous with the fight to save the planet. And maybe then we wouldn't feel so guilty about patio heaters.