An Irish community group has pulled out all the stops in its pursuit of the greenest publication possible.

It wasn’t too long ago that many pundits were predicting the imminent demise of newspapers and magazines. Within a few years, they assured us, we’d all be carrying electronic readers around, and print would go the way of the eight-track cassette.

However, print is still with us (thankfully!), though it is changing. One publication to the forefront of that change is a magazine based in Moyross in Limerick.

The city was in the news for all the wrong reasons again last week. But as tragic and senseless as the recent events have been, some good is happening on the ground. Changing Ireland is a quarterly magazine produced by the Community Development Programme (CDP), funded by the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs.

There are 180 CDPs operating throughout the country, and Changing Ireland is distributed nationally. Editor Allen Meagher has taken his publication completely green - not by confining himself to the internet, although it can be read electronically - but by producing his paper version as sustainably as possible.

‘‘This ink once belonged to a vegetable,” his autumn editorial proclaims. Vegetable-based ink, as well as recycled paper, was used throughout, and the printers [the Print Factory in Birr, Co Offaly] used chemical-free, alcohol-free and low-energy processes for the autumn run of 5,000 copies.

Meagher says that growing demand has made recycled paper almost as cheap as the virgin stuff. Changing Ireland is run by a small team, and managed and distributed by 20 adults and teenagers from Moyross. The current issue features a variety of articles, mostly on sustainable issues. A piece about an organic community garden in Ballybane, Co Galway, highlights a phrase that will stay with me: ‘‘There’s no such thing as a derelict site.” Quite right.

Meagher also cites the example of Knockanrawley estate in Tipperary town, where locals are trying to persuade the council to turn over disused land to them so they can expand their market gardening. As I mentioned in a piece about old country houses last week, this is exactly what we should be doing; growing more of our own food in allotment-style urban holdings.

As well as an absorbing, in-depth feature about community and sustainability issues on Ireland’s offshore islands, a short item about Sunflower Recycling and Busybees, who restore and sell old furniture in Dublin, caught my eye.

‘‘There’s no such thing as a derelict site.” I use the phrase again because it says so much. The economic downturn we’re heading into could last longer than we imagine. We’re still in denial after the intoxication of the boom. But for many parts of the country, the boom was something that happened somewhere else.

Places like Moyross have had to pull themselves up by the bootstraps, regardless. More and more, I suspect, the rest of us will need to re-learn that sort of self-reliance, determination and courage.

‘‘In spite of the bad publicity,’’ Meagher says, ‘‘things have been getting better in Moyross. Over the past year, crime has been going down and locals are taking more pride [in their community] – from things like demolishing derelict houses to cutting the grassy areas and preventing illegal dumping.”

The biggest regeneration scheme in Ireland was promised for the area last January. Meagher hopes this will be delivered in spite of the downturn. Many of the thousand or so houses on the estate are scheduled to be completely rebuilt to high eco-standards.

Regenerating areas like Moyross along greener principles would be a good way for the government to restart the economy along the more modest and sustainable track it needs to be taking, instead of praying that we can magically revive the fiscal fairytale of being closer to Boston than Berlin.

How much longer will the US allow the international operations of its wealthiest corporations to pay tax everywhere except the US?

Whatever about commercial newspapers and magazines, official bodies regularly issue all sorts of reports and publications that could, and should, try to follow the lead set by Changing Ireland. The more commonplace green print production methods become, the cheaper they’ll be.

But there’s a wider lesson, too, in the magazine’s quality, optimism and can do mentality that reminds us that initiative, intelligence and a sense of shared humanity are of vital importance to communities.

For more information, visit www.changingireland.ie

Earthly remains
Environment minister John Gormley says all economic sectors must cut greenhouse gas emissions. Minister for Agriculture Brendan Smith says climate change targets cannot be allowed to damage Irish agriculture.

While it’s hard to know what century Smith is living in, it is worth pointing out that emissions from agriculture have been slowly declining since 1998, thanks to falling livestock numbers and less use of fertiliser. However, agriculture still accounted for over a quarter of Ireland’s emissions last year.

A parallel problem is the growth in road transport – from 2006-07, emissions grew by 650,000 tonnes, all but cancelling out the 740,000 tonnes that agriculture saved in the same period. So here’s a suggestion: Ireland should re-examine its policy on bio-fuels, which is half-baked, ill-informed and close to useless. Irish agriculture could reduce its over-dependency on beef, while helping to boost the production of crops that will go some way towards mitigating transport pollution and oil dependency.

Other measures are needed to tackle transport, but the argument that we shouldn’t put fuel crops on arable land does not stand up. The vast bulk of Irish beef is exported – at prices protected by high EU trade tariffs that won’t last forever. Livestock production is also much more polluting and much less resource-efficient than arable or fuel crop farming.

With sensible management, it should be possible for Irish agriculture to reduce emissions quicker, without anyone losing money. In fact, it stands to reason that a strong domestic market for agricultural products that we actually need would be more stable than a grossly over-subsidised export market for meat – which is a product we don’t need in vast quantities. We should be managing change, rather than fearfully waiting for it to be forced upon us.

* A footnote on the subject of recycled paper: the British paper recycling industry collects nearly nine million tonnes of scrap paper every year, but only has capacity for processing four million. It usually sells the surplus off to the Far East, but looming recessions in Asian economies means demand has fallen off sharply, leading to a price collapse in scrap paper.

So British-sourced recycled paper is set to become cheaper than ever – a good time, surely, for any Irish groups that use a lot of paper to make the switch – as they ought to be able to negotiate favourable, long-term deals.

eco@sbpost.ie