I suppose that most people who deliberately go and live on islands are familiar with the reproach of being ‘drop-outs’, though of course they’re not the only ones to be so accused. I generally responded by saying that actually I was trying to ‘drop in’; out of boredom, artificiality, waste, pollution and general alienation; into, hopefully, a more self-sufficient, sustainable, authentic, rooted, satisfying and healthy way of life, in fact into more real relationship with other people and the natural world.

Noone expects islands just to make all these wonderful things happen, but they might just help. They offer a disconnection with ‘the Consumer Society’, or the ‘Affluent Society’, which in the mouth of a Kiwi friend of mine became, according to my father and to his great amusement, ‘the Effluent Society’. That the old man should jump on this joke with glee, while remaining full of exasperation at my carry-on, says a lot about the contradictions that bedevilled both him and the culture that I grew up in.

As a young officer in the Indian army, he had patrolled the Northwest frontier of the Raj. I recall him saying how foolish the Russians were to get involved with “that lot – you couldn’t get the better of those maniacs in their hills.” How astonished he would have been to hear of the British going there again, for all his being very conservative in his old age!

I cannot but wonder how I would react if I had the misfortune to find myself in the middle of a firefight there? I imagine that, simply because of cultural kinship and language, I would skitter off to the shelter of the nearest NATO armour. But like most Irishmen, would I not have a suspicion I might perhaps be on the wrong side? Who there is fighting with real conviction, in and for their own country, pitting themselves with their resourcefulness and local knowledge against massive technological superiority? Where is the fairness in this fight? Who is the bully?

President Obama claims it is about making the streets of America safe. Is this credible? One of the first people I spoke to after the 9/11 attacks was a Mayo fisherman who had also been a New York taxi-driver. His comment was “there’ll have to be arse kicked about this!” Yes, such an affront to the American Dream called for a Repost, so along with securing access to important oil reserves, and making massive money for the elite that is supplying the war effort, we got this terrifying ‘War on Terror’.... Well, it was a relief to find an Enemy again, wasn’t it – the communists having rather let some people down! Small wonder that I hear much scepticism from the Americans and British who find their way to Horseshoe Cottage.

Personally I find the depth of cynicism amazing, with some guys such as our wwoofer Matt Cairns, whom I regard as exceptionally intelligent, convinced that the US Government was actually complicit in 9/11. Indeed little matters like the Government’s failure to attend to the warnings, while apparently a lot of money was made by insider trading with foreknowledge of the attacks, do continue to niggle. But anyway there have to be cheaper, easier and more effective ways of securing America’s security than all these wars, quite apart from considerations of justice!

There are also other more serious threats, if the predictions of scientists about global warming are anything to go by, and yet they don’t appear to be taken nearly so seriously by the Americans. The Bush administration couldn’t even react effectively after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, but now that Obama is buying into the science of climate change, I’m looking forward to hearing of someone figuring out the carbon footprint of the War in Iraq and Afganistan, and what effects this might be expected to have in terms of human suffering and mayhem.

It may not be much good us giving up Ryanair flights, while governments insist on prosecuting unwinnable wars half-way round the world; but the fact remains that taking fossilized carbon out of the ground, where it has been safely sequestered over millions of years, and suddenly injecting it into the upper atmosphere, is a bad idea, a lot worse even than CO2 pollution at ground level. How to escape from the alienation and despair that all these considerations evoke?

Somehow we need to figure out a way of life that actually doesn’t need to gobble an unsustainable share of the Earth’s resources, and pollute it in the process; that is indeed such fun that we won’t need to spend half our time wishing we were somewhere else. The hardest part is getting through the inertia of our Effluent Society, and breaking down the interests that need to keep us dependent on ever-lasting consumption. Perhaps an astonishing fundamental reconnection might come to our aid, through the proclamation that began with a man in the wilderness saying, ‘The axe is laid to the roots of the trees!’, along with giving off about a certain ‘brood of vipers’.

The big practical opportunity to make more progress here on Sherkin is in producing our own electricity from the abundant resources of wind, waves and tide, instead of depending on that very wasteful and polluting national grid. Those big chimneys at Moneypoint are also worse than a huge amount of flying, and between the inefficiencies of coal-fired steam turbines, and the far-flung distribution involved, something in the region of half the energy is wasted. Here is another big disconnection called for, and reconnection with what is all around us! Wouldn’t it be great to have a credible date for a carbon neutral island? Copenhagen reckons to be so by 2025; it should be easier to do it here!

Happy Christmas,

Joe Aston,

8th December 2009.

Winter quarters on the Ilen River

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West Cork Sustainable Fisheries Group Launch

Tuna Trip 2007
On launching Wavedancing - 19 April 2006