"Green" policies are destroying this country

JRant

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119934212#Comment_119934212

He's the minister for press releases and junkets. Hasn't a notion what he's actually supposed to be doing in his day to day work though.

paddyisreal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119934373#Comment_119934373

as I thought the usual esri bullshit, they even admit themselves the sampling method is imperfect.

Although our sampling method (described in detail below) is imperfect, it sought to avoid strong selection biases associated with opting into environmental surveys

It was basically an online survey commissioned through red sea or one of them with leading questions and commissioned by the EPA.

For example

How important do you think it is to protect the environment? Who the **** is going to answer negatively .

KildareP

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119934456#Comment_119934456

For example How important do you think it is to protect the environment? Who the **** is going to answer negatively .

I thought that was a good one alright!

If you asked a large number of people - myself included - would you like to have a net-zero house? Absolutely, the answer in pretty much every case would be a guaranteed 100% yes!

Am I prepared to spend €100k+ out of my own money to get from my current B3 to an A1, rip out my perfectly good central heating system to put in a heat-pump, rip up my floors to put in underfloor heating to maximise a heat pumps efficiency, rip holes out of my ceilings to put in a MHRV system, rip up my garden to put in geo-thermal pipework, install a large array of solar panels and tens of kWh of battery storage, in order to achieve that?

Now my answer is 100% absolutely not.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119934007#Comment_119934007

Who said I'm a GP supporter? Someone's been telling you porkies.

As regards air travel, I've said many times it needs to be curtailed and aviation fuel taxed appropriately for the emissions it releases.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119934052#Comment_119934052

They're actually looking at bringing the voting age down to 16. Hope they do

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119934028#Comment_119934028

I think sometimes we have perhaps a misty eyed look back at the past and see a land of milk and honey that didn`t really exist. I`m as prone at times to doing that myself as anyone, so I`m not have a go at you, but on roadside hedges or even verges I`m not sure if letting them grow wild is a good idea or even if that was the case in the past. As I said before, I`m no chicken and as a young lad I remember my uncle who was employed by a county council along with teams of others trimming roadside hedges using billhooks.

Nowadays I have driven on national secondary roads that are overgrown and pose a danger to both motorists and cyclists having to move out to avoid them. One particular bugbear of mine in the last few year is the amount of ragwort that is being allowed to grow unhindered on motorway verges. I`m not sure if it is still classified as a noxious weed, but I remember when am farmer would be prosecuted for having it on his/her land for good reason. It spreads like wildfire and for cattle, and especially horses who are very susceptible, it is the animal version of arsenic for humans and results in very painful deaths.

Hedgerows I`m all in favour off. Great for nature and pleasing on the eye as well as far as i`m concerned, but being allowed to grow wild on roadsides not a great idea nor is the likes of ragwort imho.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119934373#Comment_119934373

Thanks for that. As with most things the devil is in the detail rather than the headline grabbing quotes.

When you look at that it gives a good indication of how much all over the place they are, but maybe not so much when it comes to something that will impact themselves.

The stats on air-travel being a stand-out example. 57% in fair of banning domestic flights, which as another poster has said the majority of that age group are unlikely to even use, while just half that number, 29%, favour annual flight limits, which to me at least suggests that flying abroad on holidays funded by the bank of mum and dad is not regarded a a problem. With just 33% in favour of fuel taxes, despite all the lofty figures on cycling and walking, it does not suggest that once they have the means to do otherwise they are that committed on following those modes.

Happy days, another 90 Dart carriages about to be ordered, due for delivery in 2026. This is on top of the 95 new ones due in 2025.

The continued ramp up in spending for public transport over roads is brilliant to see. According to the articles, this will allow for an increase from 250,000 to 600,000 daily users across the current and new lines.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/politics/arid-41017067.html

thinkabouit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119934771#Comment_119934771

So you’d rather we continue as we are destroying habitat and food & killing small animals?? Lay them hedges so that they grow into fields not out onto roads. Let them grow wild then. Road safety greatly improved. Once there layed properly they probably won’t have to be done again for year’s. How much money is spent on hedge cutting every year?? €50 p/h I think! And the results?

Laying hedges has far far more pros than cons.

Ragwort is only a mindset problem. How much money & technology has been spent trying to get rid of it?? And what’s the result? Still here I’m afraid. Its vital for pollinators. No pollinators, no food.

we are running out of options big time.

The govt is putting EV delivery vehicles into the hands of 200 businesses for 3 months to show how they can be a better option than ICE vehicles.

What a brilliant initiative! Hopefully this will be an ongoing program so that every 3 months we'll see another 200 businesses trying them out.

Obviously there will be a handful of outliers where these may not suit, but they will work for the vast majority of businesses.

https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/ddd1a-200-businesses-set-to-take-part-in-a-free-commercial-fleet-trial-for-electric-cars-and-vans/

• • Fully electric vehicles will be loaned to 200 businesses free of charge for 3 months to show how an EV can work for their business, save money and emissions
• • 50 fully electric vehicles are available; 30 M1 passenger cars and 20 N1 light commercial vehicles (vans)
• • The innovative trial will encourage the drive towards ambitious targets set in Ireland’s Climate Action Plan and play a part in reducing our emissions

The Department of Transport and the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) have today announced the launch of a Commercial Fleet Trial. Businesses will be trialling a fully electric vehicle to see how they can work for their business to save money and emissions.

Two hundred businesses nationwide will have the use of an EV for three months at no cost to them, along with the option to install an EV charger. 14 business across Sligo, Limerick, Louth, Wexford, Dublin, Wexford, Cork, Waterford and Galway will receive their cars by the end of this month.

Minister for Transport, Eamon Ryan, said:

“Ireland’s Climate Action Plan sets down ambitious targets for Electric Vehicles on Irish roads by 2030 to help reduce our emissions. An important component in achieving this target is the electrification of the commercial fleet sector. Businesses up and down the country are already telling us that they are keen to make the switch to more sustainable practices, but they also need to know that the switches they want to make are going to be good for their bottom-line. The findings from this trial will give us real-world feedback and provide us with the evidence to encourage even more businesses to switch to electric. Innovative trials like this are more important than ever in finding solutions for reducing our emissions and ensuring that Irish business continues to thrive.”

William Walsh, CEO of SEAI, said:

“Electric vehicles are a great option for businesses across a wide range of industries. Given the increased costs of business they can help reduce fuel costs, have lower maintenance costs and lower tolls. They also allow businesses to operate with reduced emissions and show customers that they are contributing to a cleaner more sustainable environment. This trial will showcase the financial and emissions savings achieved by a variety of different businesses by switching to electric.”

Kincora2017

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119934771#Comment_119934771

leaving motorway verges grow wild is an example of exactly what we should be doing. You’re getting a wildlife corridor network across the country for free, which is good for insects and pollinators. You’re reducing the cost to the public of maintaining cut verges by letting them grow and they are far moser interesting visually than mown grass. Ragwort is actually an amazing plant for pollinators once it grows. Have a look at it covered in bees and hover flies during the summer, and on a roadside verge it is no harm to any animals.

Danno

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119935022#Comment_119935022

Any chance the SEAI could improve on the paltry number of 89 households upgraded instead of giving free cars to well connected businesses?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119935036#Comment_119935036

Oh its much worse than you think, Local councils are now starting to get electric bikes that their staff can borrow take for free for a month

https://www.dublincity.ie/residential/transportation/active-travel/european-mobility-week-2022/e-bike-loan-scheme-staff

That's before you consider the approx 300 specialised staff positions added to local councils for the provision of walking and cycling infrastructure.

I blame Big Bike

Some say they are the Illuminati

What do you reckon, can CAB investigate this or do you think we need the expertise of Scotland Yard?

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119933806#Comment_119933806

It's a load of bollix - just another tax like carbon tax. The spin about reducing littering is just that - spin. Far more effective to employ more litter wardens and bring in real fines that are collectable from state payments and/or by Revenue.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119935088#Comment_119935088

Be careful with those accusations against private businesses, you could land yourself and boards in trouble. Might want to run it past a mod before repeating it, especially as you offer no evidence to support your claim.

As for naming, no doubt the businesses in question will be promoting their participation as it'll be free publicity for them too

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119935123#Comment_119935123

As I said, you offer no evidence beyond your own psychosis.

Simply saying something does not make it true

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119935166#Comment_119935166

As I said, your personal psychosis is not evidence of anything 🤷‍♂️

If you have anything else, by all means go to the authorities otherwise I'll leave it there, I don't wish to encourage your delusions further

An excellent write up in the Irish Times. It lays out what I've said here many times, that the legal requirements for climate actions have been set in stone and future govts will not be able to avoid completing actions lest they fall foul of the courts

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2022/11/29/days-of-masterly-inactivity-on-climate-action-coming-to-an-end/

Some excerpts from it

The basis of legal action is the Government’s legislation of 2021 setting out binding emission reduction targets and the Supreme Court decision in 2020 striking down the previous government’s 2019 National Mitigation Plan. Essentially, that plan didn’t deliver on its legislative remit to “achieve the objective of transitioning to a low-carbon climate”. A plan that would comply with the law had to allow a “reasonable person” judge if it is “realistic” and to decide whether they agree with the policy options set out. In other words, for a plan to be legal it had to be credible.

This legal context changes the balance of power. Climate action has long been holy writ, but not a priority for Government departments. Politicians are signed up to the principles, with varying degrees of enthusiasm. It was a box-ticking exercise in departments that got on with the day job of delivering for their sectors. Now there is inbuilt legal pressure on civil servants and State agencies to ensure that carbon reduction is intrinsic to plans and budgets. Anyone caught greenwashing risks ending up in court and departmental plans on anything from roads to house building being set aside. Masterly inactivity may be off the menu.

Embedding decarbonisation in legislation is an attempt to avoid repetition of what happened after 2011. The Green Party was kicked out of national politics and most of its achievements over the previous four years, washed away. Two survived. One was the drive towards renewable electricity and the other was a carbon tax, albeit mothballed at low levels. Ironically, carbon tax is the lone attempt to broaden the tax base and sustainably support the larger state that all parties, including those who talk about lower taxes, are intent upon creating.

There's hope for the future yet

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119934992#Comment_119934992

If you lay a hedge on a roadside it`s not going to just grow inwards, that is not how hedges grow. They also grow outwards and were never allowed to do so i my memory to the extent they were a danger to road users. They were always trimmed back and it is reckless imo to advocate not doing that now or in the future. I have no problem with internal hedgerows, I find them both good for nature and pleasing to the eye, nor have i any problem with headlands of fields being left to grow wild for the sake of pollinators but not ragwort.

We will never eliminate it but allowing it to grow unchecked is not an answer. Doing that allows it to multiply exponentially and it is lethal for animals should they digest it, especially horses, where it builds up in the system like arsenic in humans destroying the liver and when detected is to late to do anything about which leads to slow agonising deaths if the animal is not put out of its misery. If you ever witnessed an animal suffering from its effects I`m not sure you would be quite so fond of it.

Far as I`m concerned with ragwort we should go back to those misty eyed days you favoured when farmers were penalised for having it growing on their land and apply that to local authorities as well. Far as I know the Dept of Agriculture can still penalise farmers for having it on their land.

JRant

It's all Fugazi. Having a referendum to get biodiversity and environment added to the constitution is fecking daft and a complete waste of money. Handing free electric bikes to council staff, another waste of money. Giving companies access to a fleet of electric vehicles, yet another waste of money.

Is there anything these folks love more than spending other people's money of frivolous vanity projects.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119935056#Comment_119935056

I would have no problem with ragwort if it just grew on motorway verges but that unfortunately is not how it works. Each plant produces between 50,000 and 200,00 seeds annually which are mainly disperse by wind and can survive in the ground for up to ten years. Failure to stop the spread of ragwort is still an offense under the 1936 Noxious Weeds Act as far as I know.

thinkabouit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119935248#Comment_119935248

We have no other option. If done properly it would need min maintenance I reckon. Definitely wouldn’t need cutting every year out too obviously depending on the type of hedge. And would be still a better job than what we’re doing at the moment. Technology, chemicals and fire won’t work.

what do you suggest we do to eliminate ragwort? Or weeds in general? Weeds are a part of nature & natural cycle, it’s just filling in a gap.

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119935332#Comment_119935332

Apparently we cannot write a wording for a promised referendum on ensuring water services would never be privatised so how in hell`s name could anyone word a referendum based on that proposal.

It`s just headline grabbing nonsense where as per usual with these green propaganda pieces our mainline media just repeats without question

charlie14

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119935377#Comment_119935377

Even if done properly hedges do not just grow out in one direction, and leaving roadside hedges as they are to just grow unhindered would be reckless and dangerous for both motorists, cyclist, and even pedestrian.

You are never going to eliminate ragwort totally, but it is one of the more noxious weeds that is very good at filling any of those gaps when left to it`s own devious so I really do not see a case for simply letting it do that unhindered being overall beneficial. Certainly not for cattle or especially horses.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119933447#Comment_119933447

The Greens got a right kicking from the public when the incandescent light bulb ban came in and this scheme has all the hallmarks of being worse for them. In fairness DaCor says they are not a Green Party member, though they seem to be hugely in favour of everything that drops from their mouths. Given their profligacy, maybe they are paid PR.

I was a member of the Greens once and canvassed for them. But not for many years and I'd be embarrassed now to go knocking on doors with the stuff they come out with.

JRant

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119935420#Comment_119935420

It is pure nonsense as you say. Would never be able to coherently write a proposal to add this to the constitution, "we the people, love biodiversity", absolute numpties at these assemblies.

Although the Friends of Ireland would be pulling the stomachs off themselves if they did bring this in. You wouldn't be able to get a driveway built if this was implemented with the amount of objections they'd bring in.

Danno

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119935502#Comment_119935502

I was a member of the Greens once and canvassed for them. But not for many years and I'd be embarrassed now to go knocking on doors with the stuff they come out with.

Never a member but admired them at a younger age and bemoaned they had no candidates in my region. Then real life kicked in.

It's no wonder many of them and cohorts on the hard-left want voting ages reduced to 16.

It's only an immature mindset could waste their vote on them.

Many worry about the "green influence" when maybe they should be more worried about the influence oil producers are having

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/2022/11/25/how-saudi-arabia-plans-to-keep-us-all-addicted-to-oil/

• Saudi Arabia's oil production accounts for 1 in 10 barrels of oil produced
• Saudi Aramco has become a prolific funder of research into critical energy issues, financing almost 500 studies over the past five years, including research aimed at keeping gasoline cars competitive or casting doubt on electric vehicles, according to the Crossref database, which tracks academic publications.
• Aramco has collaborated with the United States department of energy on high-profile research projects, including a six-year effort to develop more efficient gasoline and engines, as well as studies on enhanced oil recovery and other methods to bolster oil production.
• Aramco also runs a global network of research centres including a lab near Detroit where it is developing a mobile “carbon capture” device — equipment designed to be attached to a gasoline-burning car, trapping greenhouse gases before they escape the tailpipe. 
• More widely, Saudi Arabia has poured $2.5 billion (€2.4 billion) into American universities over the past decade, making the kingdom one of the nation’s top contributors to higher education.
• Saudi interests have spent close to $140 million since 2016 on lobbyists and others to influence US policy and public opinion, making it one of the top countries spending on US lobbying, according to disclosures to the department of justice tallied by the Center for Responsive Politics.
• In March, at a UN meeting with climate scientists, Saudi Arabia, together with Russia, pushed to delete a reference to “human-induced climate change” from an official document, in effect disputing the scientifically established fact that the burning of fossil fuels by humans is the main driver of the climate crisis.

A shocking state of affairs. Thankfully airing information such as this makes it more difficult for them to keep doing what they are doing as focus shifts to the politicians and groups who get into bed with them who find it impossible to justify such partnerships once challenged on them

KildareP

Shocking? Quite the opposite I'd have thought.

It's heartening to see oil companies prepared to put the vast sums of money back into research to ensure that we can minimise the amount of pollution we emit into the environment by unavoidably using oil and gas in the short-medium term.

When the renewable technologies are ready to work at scale, in a reliable, predictable and realistically costed manner, then oil and gas will naturally die away through natural evolution, just like coal and steam engines powering the industry and transport systems of yesteryear.

These advancements give us the time to get them right without wrecking our quality of life and economies while also minimising how much damage is unavoidably done in the meantime.

Surely a great day of news for any true climate activist! Minimise damage while we have to continue using oil and gas, with a climate aware youth who remain fully open minded to exploring all options to reducing climate damage, including nuclear.

Fred Cryton

Honestly in many ways Green ideology is worse than communism. At least under communism, the goal was to improve the standard of living and expand the range of goods & services on offer to make life easier and better. The theory of communism was obviously stupid and flawed and left most people worse off, but at least the goal was improvement.

What we have here with Green ideology is something more sinister and insidious. The Green movement want us to shrink in every dimension materially, so we have fewer possessions, smaller homes, fewer jobs (due to high energy costs), fewer choices, fewer options and make fewer movements. A 15 minute city sounds like a 15 minute prison. I want to travel and work wherever i like, thanks very much.

They want us living in little shoe-box apartments beside a main road, only turning on the heat sparingly due to very expensive energy, and no car ownership so we are constrained by rubbish public transport.

It is the opposite of freedom and prosperity. It is shrinking and hiding like an old man. And they have indoctrinated the young - which is actually EVIL when you think about it. How can we stop this?