"Green" policies are destroying this country

Windfall taxes are a reasonable approach to address the increased cost of energy due to the geopolitics of the moment, this can be done while maintaining the current pricing policy and the revenue from the windfall taxes could used to subsidise energy costs

These are options that are available to governments within the EU.

I don't particularly care if we use the Marginal Pricing Policy and tax profits, or if we abandon it and then subsidise new generation capacity. As long as the overall goal is to wind down fossil fuels, and ramp up renewables as quickly as possible

The Netherlands also has the tallest population in Europe. As a population we are small enough, and being from Ulster where we traditionally suffer from having smallish GAA footballers, I would look at coastal defenses similar to the Netherlands as money well spent as it looks to have given evolution a gee-up.

Obviously those defense would exclude Dublin. There tall enough already.😎

Windfall taxes are not going to lower the unit price of electricity for householders. Far as I know Spain considered it and dropped the idea. Not surprised as legally the E.U. while suggesting countries follow that approach would not have left them a leg to stand on legally by following that suggestion as it was, and still is, the E.U. whose marginal pricing policy are the cause of those excess profits.

Not much point in greens attempting to tell us that the increase in electricity prices is entirely down to the price of fossil fuels while supporting a marginal pricing policy that will have us paying the unit price for gas even if we have 99% renewable energy.

All it is doing is taking money out of peoples pockets and handing it over to energy renewable companies to excessively benefit their shareholders. It would be interesting to see how many dedicated green warriors are actual shareholders in these companies.

As opposed to 'Snorkles for All'?

Well to be fair the only 'snark' was yours, where you ignored that I'd already linked to the other posters EPA's source of that estimate. But don't change Akrasia.

Btw where you say "And the EEA and EPA specifically identified pollution from solid fuel heating as the primary cause for these deaths, not just 'all deaths due to poor air quality'"

I was quoting your previous comment to that where you stated that

"The 1300 people a year is an estimate of how many premature deaths are caused by poor air quality in ireland each year."

But that's the thing about estimates like this one - they're estimates. Its also worth pointing out that the EPA report isn't a scientific paper, hence the figure seems to be at best what is called colloquially a "guesstimate" especially considering the epa doesn't list any "valid scientific methods" which can be verified one way or the other. The other thing is the graphic you clipped detailing "poor air quality sources" shows an approx 50/50 split between transport and solid fuels but then the same graphic oddly enough goes on to detail that "Ireland was above World Health Organisation guidelines for air quality mostly due to the burning of solid fuels in cities towns and villages" Those two bits don't seem to add up.

With regard to the estimate of "1300 deaths" - that first bit section details "1300 premature deaths in Ireland due to P25 air pollution".

It is a known fact that sources of P2.5 air pollution comes from all types of combustion including car engines, fireplaces, coal or natural gas fired power plants and not just people burning solid fuel.

Oddly the infographic then seems to ignore those other sources and moves from the initial claim of "1300 premature deaths in Ireland due to P25 air pollution" to laying all blame solely on just one source of particulates where "particulate matter from the burning of solid fuel is estimated to cause premature 1300 deaths per year"

Doesn't seem to add up one way or the other tbh.

The conclusion of the report however although still using the same estimate, does seem to be a bit clearer stating that:

Air pollution is a major environmental health risk (WHO 2018). The European Environment Agency estimates that there were 1,300 premature deaths in Ireland due to fine dust particles (PM2.5) air pollution in 2017 . Air quality in Ireland is generally good, however there are localised issues across the country with several air pollutants, in particular fine particulate matter.

So I checked the above two contradictory statements with another EPA study undertaken in the greater Dublin area which indeed showed that Sources of PM 2.5 are highly variable.

"Finer particles are released from the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels, especially from diesel motor vehicles, electricity power stations and industrial operations. These particles are known as primary PM because they are emitted directly to the air as particles or in the form of vapours that rapidly condense to form ultrafine particles. Particulate air pollution in the urban atmosphere is known to originate from sources such as sea salt, petrol and diesel vehicles, biomass burning, soil, secondary nitrate and sulfate, and industrial sources (Hasheminassab et al., 2014). Major sources of BC include vehicles (particularly diesel-powered road vehicles), non-road mobile machinery (e.g. forest machines), ships, residential heating (e.g. small coal or wood burning stoves) and open biomass burning (e.g. forest fires or burning of agricultural waste) (EEA, 2013).

As for solid fuel and P2.5 particulates. Sampling undertaken as part of the study showed that solid fuel burning contributed approx 46-50% of the total mass of particulates recorded. The 2nd largest contributor at a roadside site was diesel vehicle emissions (22%) followed closely by road dust (19%). The 2nd largest source at a suburban site was soil (20%) followed closely by sea spray (14%).

So from that it would seem to be incorrect to try and claim that solid fuel is the sole cause of the (estimated) 1,300 premature deaths in Ireland due to P2.5 air pollution viz

"particulate matter from the burning of solid fuel is estimated to cause premature 1300 deaths per year"

Where the first EPA statement (from the report you linked) ie

"1300 premature deaths in Ireland due to P25 air pollution"

better matches the EPAs own data that solid fuel is the source of only half of airborne P 2.5 particulates.

Don't particularly "hate" anyone Akrasia. The things I generally don't like are poorly written reports, the use of estimates like the one above used out of context and politicians who talk bollox regardless of whether they're green, orange or otherwise.

You linked, several pages back to a press release, which wasn't the source of the figure, and you then went on to speculate about where the actual 1300 deaths figure came from. , which I linked to and included some details for how they use that 1300 deaths figure. The figure actually came from an EEA Air Quality report that assessed 400k excess deaths in Europe due to air qualty issues and then broke those deaths down into the different types of pollution and what amounts of deaths they contributed to

The figures can also be seen here https://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/air/country-fact-sheets/2021-country-fact-sheets/ireland

Its a fairly comprehensive analysis that you simply hand wave away as a 'Guestimate'

Do you accept that it is a legitimate claim for Eamon Ryan to quote this figure as support for the need for Ireland to pollution from PM2.5 pollutants (Which i already showed relate mostly to solid fuel heating in urban Ireland and in residential settings

As for the rest of your post, the excerpts that I posted are not the entire report. If you read it, you'll see analysis that attributes most of the PM2.5 pollution to solid fuel burning with only a few isolated parts of the road network that exceed the EEA limits

No! Never in the history of the Internet has that nugget of bs been dredged up before! 😅

And anyone trying that much used and abused ad-hominem can only be referring to their own contributions hillariously enough

Coming back to the NZ sea levels, and the RTE climate story, if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases would the land stop sinking ?

Sea levels are measured from space and the average sea level rise globally is about 2mm per year (and rising)

Some places are below this average other places are higher

Rural ireland is starting to have enough of this shite.

Wonder would they build them on the top of dalkey hill

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/munster/arid-40863578.html

Theres more to it than just linking to a thing that links to a source. You have not demonstrated any understanding of how the figure was derived, and the more you talk about it, the more obvious it is that you haven't properly read or understood any of the sources. I specifically posted a graphic from the EPA stating that the relevant pollution is Mostly from burning solid fuels. (which is detailed in full in the actual report, and in the EEA report that the EPA are basing their figures on)

The images I posted were only a small portion of the report, if you read the report, you'll see where they break down the different types of pollution, their sources, and their impact on excess deaths.

Your insistence that this figure is a 'guestimate' betrays a complete dismissal of how statistics and science works and its yet another red herring.

The exact number of people who die as a result of solid fuel heating in Ireland is not a number that we can know, but we can know the scale of the problem, and it's about 1300 people per year.

All of this came from you claiming that Ryan is scaremongering or disengenuous when using this figure to support his position on Turf sales

That figure is perfectly legitimate to use when supporting a policy aimed at reducing PM 2.5 pollution

yup, off shore is the way to go with this one, far less problematic, far more costly though, but costs are dropping like a stone, so now is the time to pull the trigger!

No, the land is sinking for reasons unrelated to CO2 emissions, this is a separate problem but it is Compounded by rising seas caused by climate change