"Green" policies are destroying this country

Must be about a month ago, he was on something RTE or VM1, anyway he made a throwaway remark that food should cost 40% of income and it was let pass by the presenter and other panelists, have we become so afraid of minorities that when they are spouting complete dung they can't be called up on it for fear you'll be accused of some 'ist.

Of the current predicaments and circumstances we find ourselves adapting absolutely NONE are caused by climate change. Zero!

The wars that began 2 decades ago in the middle east (Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen) and now the Ukraine are all man made, wars have many layers to them, control of natural resources is always there. Climate change is NOT the cause of these conflicts.

The virus origin has nothing to do with climate change and is very likely man made. Unlike SARSv1 where the source was quickly traced, no natural source has been found to date. That opens the probability that inadequate control procedures among scientists carrying out gain of function research in one jurisdiction to circumvent restrictions on such research in another led to a lab escape. We may never know the truth. I subscribe to the Hanlons razor theory of its origin in the lab.

It took ~30 years (post-1989 Berlin wall fall) to build up todays supply chain infrastructure. Both the creation and recent disruption of these supply chains can be traced to the implementation of American foreign policy (Pax Americana). The change in orientation away from China during the Trump administration started the process of re-routing the supply chains.  The lockdowns of the past 2 years seriously disrupted said supply chains and now its compounded by the redrawing of geopolitical alliances means those supply chains need to be rebuilt in a process that will take several years to complete.

Inflation, supply chain problems, and shortages of energy, food, raw materials and labour were already issues that the Ukraine war and sanctions have now accelerated.  On top of this debt collapse is only a matter of time for several European countries and banks, the resources are not immediately available and monetary expansion cannot resolve this. Those who get the new money first can outbid those at the end of the monetary distribution. Aside from weapons Ukraine is looking for $7 billion a month and all surrounding countries (including Russia) have the cost to support the millions of refugees from the warzone.

In Ireland on an individual basis we must face the fact that we must now prepare for Winter and have maybe 3 months to be ready. We must build our energy & food reserves and savings today to meet next Winters bills. For many of us that will mean putting money aside now for warm clothes, electricity and gas bills and forgoing expensive holidays and other luxuries (seen in the Netflix cancellations) in order to pay the increased electricity bills and taxation during the Winter.  It's back to the 70s & 80's except we are the parents scolding our children for not turning off the lights (or unplugging the xbox).  Don't be surprised to find more common gaps in the shelves over the course of the year, simply because of the delays and bottlenecks in the supply chain, even getting spare parts for equipment is already causing problems and that was because of the lockdowns.

Green policies pursued over the past 2 decades have played their part in creating the current energy crisis, politicians may be dumb, but they are not all stupid and they realise this is going to take several years to resolve. Green policies are now a political liability and they are being readjusted. Lets see how long the turf war in Ireland goes.

• Netherlands, Germany to begin drilling for natural gas in Wadden Islands
• Germany and Austria take step towards gas rationing
• MEPs set to block plan deeming nuclear and gas energy ‘green’

Politically there is a very real chance that the energy crisis will fracture the EU.

Who says Eamon Ryan and the Greens are out of touch...

Eamon Ryan says the “keeping up with the Joneses” effect will make homeowners pay for expensive energy-efficient retrofits.

That's easy to say I guess when you're a Minister and can afford a 1.3m place in the leafy southside suburbs.

What's even more distasteful is this was all done in the midst of the financial crisis from what I can see with planning permission granted in October 2008 according to the article .

As I've said before, the problems started when they started pushing for this notion of a USofE. As a trade bloc (the EEC) it worked pretty well.

There IS no common European sense of identity, just a collection of economic and culturally diverse nations with their own priorities and values that often clash with their neighbours - never forget that it wasn't all that long ago that one half was at war with the other (not forgetting the decades long East/West Cold War) - and the financial crisis, and particularly the response from the EU leadership, really exposed just how unequal the bloc is.

The notion that anyone would want to leave this club is unfathomable to its leadership and this was reflected in the handling of Brexit which whether you agree with it or not, was the democratic choice of the UK electorate, but the response to other member states who questioned or refused Merkel's policy on non-EU immigration was telling too.

But the way things are going now economically and with Putin still driving through Ukraine and the pressure that's causing (not least here at home) will soon lead to further divisions just as it did a decade ago - not from Ireland though. Here our obsequious and sycophantic weak leadership will continue to do what they're told by their "betters" regardless of the consequences domestically, just as they always do.

I would not say getting shut of turf would be a bad move long term, but not at all for now. I still maintain an LPG plant would go a long way to giving the public more confidence with gas when it comes to planning home heating. I myself have a wood stove and use it accordingly. I do use turf in it from time to time but it stinks badly when the stove is cold.

I do think an alternative for home heating would be electric radiators if only they did not need so much power/electricity to work.

That's my two pennies worth on that matter.

An interesting overview of the house here and its "eco upgrade" completed back in 2010 or thereabouts.

Some of the comments did make me laugh with aesthetic considerations being high on the priority list ...

"the estate the house is in has an "arts and crafts" design style, and maintaining the look of the house was essential ... — this ruled out external insulation, and meant the front of the house got period-look double- glazed windows – ponderosa pine casement windows from Marvin Architectural – rather than triple-glazing. "It was going to be impossible to get a period look with a triple-glazed window,"... "The windows are the eyes of the house. They're more important than anything in terms of the look of it."

The eco upgrade involved the installation of a Gasifying Log Boiler and a wood stove as backup. Both which apparently use wood sourced from forest thinnings in County Wicklow

That and the fact that the open fireplaces were retained means Eamon wouldn't have been worrying about home heating oil or gas prices.

Though with Eamon now trying also to increasingly restrict / tax the use of wood as a fuel source with the general line that burning anything will kill you, your family and neighbours stone dead, it would make you wonder.

Maybe he's upgraded to all electric. Who knows.

Passive homes are possible for a lot less than 1.3 million

You can build lovely, comfortable 4 bed passive home for 200k plus the site costs

The fact that a wealthy politician built an expensive house in a fancy and expensive part of one of the most expensive cities in europe does nothing to defeat his arguments that we should all be aiming for passive standard for new builds and to bring the existing housing stock to higher energy efficiency standards

Did you read those figures for China before you posted ?

For 2021 67% of electricity in China was generated from a combination of coal, oil and gas.

2019 62% was from coal alone, and with them having increased their GWh year on year from coal, plus them building over 30 new coal fired plants, I doubt that 62% has dropped.

For 2021 their total electricity generation from renewables was 27.7%. Of that figure only 7.8% was wind generated and just 4.5% from solar. The rest was from hydro, higher than wind and solar combined.

The remainder was from nuclear at 5% and unspecified bits and pieces. Doesn`t say much for the worlds largest producers of solar panels that just 4.5% was generated by solar, or indeed wind either at just 7.8% now does it ?

It's more that he did so in the middle of a financial crisis when the ordinary citizens were struggling to pay the bills and keep a roof over their heads or losing their jobs outright that's distasteful about it. Especially when he was part of the Government that presided over it.

Doubly so the quote that he reckons that the "keeping up with the Joneses" effect will spur people on now (which was part of the problem that led to the financial crisis) when we're in the middle of another economic and housing crisis.

It all goes to show just how tone deaf and disconnected the guy and his merry band are.

5million Gwh increase in usage in 10 years, while Ireland has been falling since 2000.

Don't think he read the page ,just the headline

Yes you can

https://www.scanhome.ie/archive/pricelist/Atlanticas.pdf

Not gonna bother entertaining this complete red herring argument. My point was that people can build passive houses for much less than 1.3 million.

Scanhomes are a perfectly legitimate construction company and are fully compliant with all of our planning regulations

The houses are perfectly comfortable and suitable for the average family. They may not be as big as a house you could build for the same price if you cut corners on energy efficiency but the trend for McMansions is ridiculous IMO