"Green" policies are destroying this country

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118024656#Comment_118024656

That’s nonsense. the isolated rural dwellers that you describe likely have a septic tank and a private well and treatment system. I’ve an eco pellet boiler. And who gets mail these days - all my bills are online and packages are couriered. Fast forward to an era of electric cars and it’s going to be far easier for me to charge mine in my rural driveway that some apartment dweller who has to stick with petrol due to no charging point.

so certainly not a ‘massive eco footprint’ compared to my former city apartment life.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118026974#Comment_118026974

I think it's fairly obvious that he meant people taking their international vacation in 1 week long or 2 week long trip is less harmful than people taking multiple weekend trips in a year

If there is a limited carbon budget while we find sustainable ways of travelling then these kinds of discretionary travel should be rationed in some way.

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118027465#Comment_118027465

You mean the isolated rural dwellers most likely have a septic tank leaking shite all over our landscape

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/nearly-half-of-all-septic-tanks-are-faulty-epa-inspections-show-1.3944147

Also many of these apartment dwellers won't need a car, electric or not.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118027404#Comment_118027404

Yeah, the wealthiest are by far the biggest emitters of C02

And this is yet another reason why increases in taxation should be focussed on the highest income households and why regulations should be focused on forcing businesses and commercial property owners to become carbon neutral and severely punish wasteful consumption of energy.

It's galling to have me putting on extra jumpers to keep my heating emissions low, while every single hotel and commercial apartment building has the heat up so high that people have to leave the windows open to comfortably sleep at night

Individuals cannot stop climate change. It has to be top down regulations on how the economy is allowed to operate with a reducing carbon budget

magicbastarder

And who gets mail these days - all my bills are online and packages are couriered.

this is not quite the gotcha i think it was intended to be.

Nermal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118027486#Comment_118027486

I look forward to these new 'honest' slogans from the green movement.

'Rationing: was it really so bad?'

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118027521#Comment_118027521

I get a package once in a while and no mail. Anyone that gets bills in the post these days has to take a look at themselves. What a carbon footprint that occasional package must be!

as for the septic tank comment, mine is fully serviced, thanks. (There is also a national plan to upgrade every septic tank in the country)

and as for the “apartment owners don’t need cars” comment…..I) the car park at mine was certainly jammed and 2) your dystopian future in which everyone lives in a shoebox apartment sounds pretty awful to me

I fail to see how I have (and I quote) a “massive carbon footprint compared to an apartment dweller”

RandomViewer

A lot of this Green stuff is thinly veiled selling of white goods,you've a perfectly serviceable appliance ,cooker, dryer, whatever but they say that's too sore on energy, buy new and buy often

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118027518#Comment_118027518

unfortunately we re not truly ready to accept the full extent of whats needed to be changed, our public and state bodies are continually defaulting to their preferred political and economic ideologies, and this simply wont work, we re quickly running out of time on this one, we may have only a few years to truly do this, and our states arent truly responding.......

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118027562#Comment_118027562

Everything is rationed already, it's just some people get much more rations than others

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118027626#Comment_118027626

And why aren't we limiting or rationing how much we consume of certain things?

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118027594#Comment_118027594

Appliance manufacturers trying to sell more appliances shocker...

RandomViewer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118027632#Comment_118027632

You ration the supply of anything people will get it elsewhere and make yourself even more despised, Green movement is moving towards a form of totalitarianism which will only provoke an equally dangerous response, people are sick of being preached at .

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118027632#Comment_118027632

We do, rationing by price is very common for limited availability items. And there are often restrictions on how many items one can purchase, eg 2 tickets per person when booking an event. Things like electricity supply uses price rationing to get people to switch their usage to off peak demand

Anything that involves a queue or waiting list is also rationed, so that's many services right there.

And we regularly limit consumption of dangerous or polluting products

you can't go into a pharmacy and buy a kilo of morphine tablets you can't buy many items or chemicals without a license.

We ration immigration through visa systems..

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118027682#Comment_118027682

i like steve keens idea of dual pricing of goods and services, it includes a carbon tax, based in your overall wealth, the wealthier you are, the more you pay, probably wont fly though, but interesting all the same

RandomViewer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118027679#Comment_118027679

When you've the permanently befuddled Green party leader pushing stuff he knows nothing or is incapable of understanding just because someone has stuck an eco-friendly label on it,

magicbastarder

Give me an example. This is a person who held onto am old car for far longer than most people would because replacing it would not have been environmentally sound.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118027746#Comment_118027746

What would Eamon need a car for and him Living up in the City?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118027510#Comment_118027510

Not really any different to the city

https://extra.ie/2019/07/31/news/irish-news/raw-sewage-leaks-into-liffey-after-heavy-rain

https://www.dublinlive.ie/news/news-opinion/we-need-kick-up-stink-18460149

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/state-of-dublin-sewerage-system-1.484976

And the only thing worse than apartment living is apartment living without a car to escape the city.

https://www.livescience.com/12-years-to-stop-climate-change.html

If we are running out of time to tackle it and if tackling it requires the mass migration of the vast population of rural Ireland in the the cities then its just not happening. If it requires the vast majority of people ditching private transport then its not happening.

If it requires massive public transport infrastructure upgrades, which I would welcome, all to be done within 12 years then that it not going to happen either.

And one of the biggest elephants in the room is the use of mass migration from low carbon countries of origin to high carbon countries to keep the current economic model ticking along.

No one, except the brainwashed, is going to totally upend the way they live, to their own detriment, while the rich continue on their cruises and the royals, the celebrities and bloody greens jet set around telling us how evil we are for lighting a fire on a winters night.

Like covid, learn to live with it

RandomViewer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118027803#Comment_118027803

Possibly drives around rolling coal at pedestrians, then roars out the window " now yer sucking diesel",

RandomViewer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118027746#Comment_118027746

More likely he can't show his face in any dealership for fear of being lynched,

hierro

Haven't read the entire thread yet but it doesn't surprise me that all eyes are on China here.

Ireland hasn't the population to effect change in any meaningful way. Being green though will be good for our international reputation. It will keep FDI in the coming years because international pressure will keep Multinationals environmentally honest in the future.

Let's be honest though, we export our waste, import our cars, our cheap plastic, our metal, our timber (mostly) and loads of other items. We're against corporations paying meaningful tax where the real income is earned and we sure as fcuk would be against paying a real carbon tax on products from high carbon economies.

We're a boil on the arse of world commerce.

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118029503#Comment_118029503

we are part of the EU though and we import crazy amounts of stuff from China. The EU is a massive block of polluters, and importers from China, why should we get away with changing?

magicbastarder

yeah, it's really kinda funny about the number of people who respond 'but china' when the topic of CO2 emissions comes up, who ignore the fact that china's CO2 emissions are so high because of the amount of stuff they make for the western world.

if you think china's output is too high, i hope you've stopped buying goods made in china.

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118030650#Comment_118030650

yeah but it's all but China but China, here and on the journal.ie articles.

Lots of our building materials, clothes, all the plastic, everything, comes from China. They are purely fuelling the globalised market of which we are all a part, it's not fair to point at them while continuing to live how we do.

magicbastarder

https://twitter.com/IrelandsFarmers/status/1449443098401153025

..

China skips alot of the health safety and environmental regulations that the Western world abides by. Helps them be cheap.

It is 100% right to call out the hypocrisy of the consumer economies that have arisen off the back of this.

To make it worse the EU wants to clear the Amazon basin for cheap agriculture. How such a trade deal could even be considered when the world is supposedly on the brink is telling. No matter what they say on the issue, actions speak louder than words.

It's all part of the race to the bottom/endless growth school of economics. It's madness.

I suspect all of the above will be ignored, because it is being ignored, but the average Joe will still get hammered. And this is why the average Joe will have feck all appetite for things like carbon taxes etc

iColdFusion

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118024656#Comment_118024656

My in no way detailed research has found a direct correlation between people who think rural housing is unsustainable and who also think 20 restaurants, 30 pubs and 40 coffee shops within 1km of each other is a fantastic idea.

John_Rambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118034881#Comment_118034881

20 restaurants, 30 pubs and 40 coffee shops serving hundreds and thousands of people accessing them via bus, DART, LUAS & by walking is actually better than people travelling miles from everywhere to various different places in diesel cars to dine out. We'd be much better breathing life in to rural towns and villages and supporting them by populating them.

Whilst all your anecdotes and stories are fascinating, if you live rurally in a one of house you have a very large negative impact on the environment compared to urban dwellers. You're also very expensive to maintain and service, one-off housing waters down the energy that will be necessary for widescale rural rejuvenation, bad for rural Ireland.

iColdFusion

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118035884#Comment_118035884

There are other cities in Ireland that arn't Dublin and they don't have an €800million Luas BTW

Lets just say I strongly disagree with what you are saying; China building 43 new coal fired power stations and Americans buying 2million new pickup trucks every year are what id classify as having a very large negative impact on the environment, not a new energy efficient home in the countryside.

You should start a petition to turn off all the street lights in cities, get rid of all the fountains and return all the parks to nature, seems like all these are having a very large negative impact on the environment.