"Green" policies are destroying this country

Shoog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121137448#Comment_121137448

It may have been ill judged in hindsight but at the time it was based upon the best available evidence.

An in spec diesel with functioning DPF and CAT is not a heavy pollutor. However these items fail and get bypassed.

I'd love to say I'm shocked at the results, but I'm not and its only going to get worse as we get into the winter

https://twitter.com/colmpbyrne/status/1704778977456386151

deholleboom

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121136863#Comment_121136863

You forgot to mention the billionaires on board with the green agenda that the poster conveniently took out of the equation.

So ok, how about: no big money allowed in any subsidies for any energy source? Then watch the Greens squirm..

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121137448#Comment_121137448

Is that why it's impossible to find any petrol cars post 2008 in Ireland

Oh wait. There are loads of them

The public went mad for a while buying Diesels that never really made much sense. Even at the time.

It was the Motor industry that led that and fleet managers.

I would argue the same thing is happening now with people buying petrol and diesel cars in 2023 when there are perfectly good BEVs available for the same price that can meet all of their needs. These same purchasers today will be regretting their decisions in 5 years time and will be looking for someone to blame when nobody wants to buy their 1 litre VW T-Roc that they paid 35k for new and then continued to pay more than 5 times the cost to fuel and service over the lifetime of the vehicle

And again, the harm caused by Diesels is massively overstated compared with petrol cars. Both are harmful, Petrol produces NOx too, and properly serviced Diesels with the DPFs installed were just as clean as petrol cars for the other types of emissions.

People got annoyed with diesels because they are expensive to service and the DPF filters are not suitable for short commutes where they can never go through the cleaning cycles.

This was not Eamon Ryan's fault. It was the Motor industry pushing these when they are not suitable for those types of journeys.

Larbre34

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121137637#Comment_121137637

The air in Ireland has never been cleaner and purer in my lifetime.

As a child of the 80's who suffered bronchitis, I recall well the smog that choked our people and destroyed our buildings. That is all long gone.

A clean air strategy is already in place to improve this. About the only thing that does need doing is to extend the ban on smokey domestic solid fuels to the whole island.

We also need to consider how excessively insulated and artificially heated domestic dwellings are contributing to respiratory conditions in our kids. Even in my youth, in those polluted 80's in Dublin, nowhere near the number of kids had respiratory sensitivities and other reactionary illnesses like eczema, as they do now. Kids' immunity is not being allowed to develop physiologically as it should.

More dirt, damp and fresh air required.

Shoog

The problem with many modern highly insulated houses is that they have woefully inadequate ventilation systems. Active ventilation is a must beyond a certain level of insulation which we are all expected to reach. Bad internal air, high humidity and the consequent black mould are the cause of much respiratory issues.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121137637#Comment_121137637

In Ennis, where I live, as soon as winter comes and the stoves and open fireplaces are kicked in, the town becomes choked with smog on any day when it's not windy.

People trying to save money for themselves by burning wood and turf and coal in an urban environment with no real consideration for the others who have to breath in the polluted air.

If it wasn't for the bans on the smokiest types of coal, the air quality would be even worse, of course, this doesn't stop many people from buying that coal from outside the restricted areas because they're convinced that the smokeless coal is worse and they don't care about the consequences for others around them.

These same people often burn rubbish in their gardens rather than dispose of them responsibly and see nothing wrong with it.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121137661#Comment_121137661

Yeah. That's a good idea. Spend 150 years subsidising the crap out of all of the fossil fuels infrastructure so that we're almost entirely dependent on burning these fuels

Then when we've finally accepted that the costs of the pollution are too great to continue on burning them, just expect the alternative sources of energy to compete without any supports

It's almost exactly the kind of proposal that someone would come up with if they wanted to keep people burning Coal Oil and Gas forever.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121137691#Comment_121137691

I wonder is that relatively clean air one of the "'Green' policies that are destroying our country"

There are many on this thread who oppose any attempts to regulate anything that leads to cleaner air and water

Looks like its a near certainty that we'll be getting an FSRU to provide a bit of short term storage for LNG for the country. Once we no longer need it, it'll be sent somewhere else.

I think thats a decent compromise. Hopefully we won't be leasing it for too long

https://www.thejournal.ie/energy-security-review-electricity-6173704-Sep2023/

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121137313#Comment_121137313

Do you realise that you started a post by saying 'You don't get to redefine words just to suit yourself'

And your very next sentence is 'You called them Nazis'

I never used the word Nazi. Nazi is not an equivalent word for 'Proto-Fascist'

This is extremely off topic, but this level of discourse is very frustrating. No wonder you hate environmentalists. You immediately leapt to the conclusion that I called 'all people who disagree with me a Nazi'

bluedex

Wow, I blocked only 2 posters and nearly the whole thread is full of blank boxes now!

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121137389#Comment_121137389

Part of BJ's election manifesto was all of these net zero commitments.

By Sunak rolling back on them, he is breaking he mandate that his party got elected on. It's completely anti democratic.

If he wants to change the manifesto. He should announce a new election and campaign based on these new policies

The days of cheap flights could be coming to an end

https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/09/20/that-doesnt-reflect-the-price-for-the-planet-france-wants-to-put-a-stop-to-mega-low-airfar

Shoog

The thrust of the complaints seems to be Green equals bad. Not much more nuance than that really.

Red Silurian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121138072#Comment_121138072

France have a huge problem at the moment where flights are so cheap that it's sometimes cheaper but slower to take a domestic flight than a train... The logical solution is of course to drop rail ticket prices along the TGF but they're being French about it

machiavellianme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121138111#Comment_121138111

I don't think anyone has ever said that green equals bad. Most people just want to see some thought put into the decisions being made and a cost benefit analysis done first rather than jump headlong into the latest green fad regardless of other unintended repercussions or costs.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121138548#Comment_121138548

Are there CBA's showing we should continue as-is? I'd love to see those

Markus Antonius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121137637#Comment_121137637

So why is air quality worse now than say before catalytic converters or tightened car emissions or before the closing of peat burning plants? Does this not tell you that climate action so far has been a pointless and costly endeavor?

Or if your argument is that the air quality has improved since the introduction of the above, why aren't they showing us a nice blue schematic showing how much cleaner our air is rather than shoving fearmongery Bullsh*t down our throats?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121138696#Comment_121138696

Are you sure you read the right article? Your points are either talking about a different one or you have a fundamental lack of understanding of what is being presented in that article, not sure which

So why is air quality worse now than say before catalytic converters or tightened car emissions or before the closing of peat burning plants? 

and

Or if your argument is that the air quality has improved since the introduction of the above, why aren't they showing us a nice blue schematic showing how much cleaner our air is rather than shoving fearmongery Bullsh*t down our throats?

I'll respond to both of these together. The article is an illustration of the current situation only, not a trend over time or a comparison to a previous point in time

Does this not tell you that climate action so far has been a pointless and costly endeavor?

The data is measuring pollution particulates in the air i.e. the crap you really don't want to be breathing in

Markus Antonius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121138780#Comment_121138780

How do they link the deathcount to the PM2.5? Because WHO said so?

Ireland is a nice white yellowish colour so seems like we've done enough climate activism for a good few decades to come.

Next generation, you're welcome. 👍️

Shoog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121138821#Comment_121138821

Its called science - the correllation between 2.5 particulates and health outcomes is well established at this stage and evidence based.Here's the kicker though - its almost unheard of for European countries to burn coal within built up areas - but you wander into any decent sized town in Ireland of a winters evening and you would imagine that you were back in London in the time of the great smogs, its horrendously bad.

Ireland as usual is not enforcing its own laws with regard to burning smokey coal.

ginger22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121139044#Comment_121139044

Yet Irish people are living longer than ever.

Blut2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121137573#Comment_121137573

Its not just in hindsight. A diesel with a functioning DPF and CAT still emmits 30%+ more localised pollution than a similar petrol car, and this was well known at the time. The science was exceptionally clear on this, its not new information.

The Green party prioritised the international virtue signalling of trying to reduce Ireland's headline co2 figure over the health of their constituents.

Shoog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121139074#Comment_121139074

Depends if you have asthma or not.

ginger22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121139118#Comment_121139118

We probably have the best air quality in Europe and the best water quality too, at least we would have if we didn't have incompetent "Irish Water" in charge of it, pumping it through rotten, dirty pipes.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121137762#Comment_121137762

Who are we to complain about 'People trying to save money for themselves by burning wood and turf'... when the government is loading taxes (carbon, excise & VAT) onto oil, coal, gas etc.

Every action has a result.

Markus Antonius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121139158#Comment_121139158

And this is exactly what "climate activism" is all about - funnelling everyone down the draconian tax regime

Shoog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121139132#Comment_121139132

You must live in that alternative Ireland somewhere over the rainbow with the leprechauns.

I live in the Ireland where before Irish water the local Roscommon residents lived with virtually perpetual boil notices on their water (common throughout Ireland at the time) and where the town air is still thick with coal smog. Funny how those rose tinted glasses work on those so inclined.

The only real problem with Irish water is that they didn't get the usage fees to allow them to sort out things that much quicker.

kabakuyu

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121137762#Comment_121137762

Was'nt it the greenies that advocated the installation of stoves, told us all that it was sustainable and eco friendly (just like diesel back in 2008).Moral of the story" the greens cant be taken seriously".

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/01/avoid-using-wood-burning-stoves-if-possible-warn-health-experts