"Green" policies are destroying this country

The article and tone of the post was that it was a sign of the collapse of fossil fuel generation. We can't be 100% reliant on renewable generation, therefore it is prudent to make the most of solar during the summer months. Save the fossil fuels for winter when the others are lagging behind. We have to embrace a hybrid of all generation types, putting our eggs in one basket is foolish.

I am sympathetic to the idea of an area in which facilities are nearby, where small shops are not eaten up by corporates, where you can walk or cycle (i'm dutch) everywhere. To some extend a lot of cities are already going there with pedestrian areas etc banning cars from city centres. Im always relieved to get back to Holland and be able to cycle everywhere even to city centres without a problem (and no helmets!).

I grew up in a newly created neighbourhood built in the 1920s on the edge of a city for working class people away from cramped city centres. Small shop owners lived above their premises. Butcher, baker, milkman, habedashery, veg man, fish monger, hair dresser, bank. Lots of trees around, close to the broad dunes and i had a wonderful youth. It is about as far from urban sprawl as you can get. I long for that world. Ive seen what the corporate world can do including gentrification. My old patch has now real estate shops, horse riding, fancy pancy shops for people with too much money. The rather small houses in the neighbourhood now go for between 500.000 and 1 million euro.

So, urban planning to make this a reality has my support. However, many people including me feel that the concept of 15 minute cities will be used to make people comply to ever more stringent rules about just about everything, the house, the heating system, your transportation rights, tracking, carbon/social credit system like they have in China. They (and me) simply don't trust those in power to engineer a good living environment. You need a certain amount of freedom.

And like you said, you can simply move to a town like i have. 5 min away from basic shops. So, i would suggest, create 15 min small to medium towns, support small shops, ban corporates and franchises and give sensible rates for those small businesses. I think a 15 min CITY however is a flawed concept.

I think political affiliation does not really count here..

 However, many people including me feel that the concept of 15 minute cities will be used to make people comply to ever more stringent rules about just about everything, the house, the heating system, your transportation rights, tracking, carbon/social credit system like they have in China. 

That is a logical chasm from reality.

15 minute city is not in anyway about keeping people within 15 minutes of their home. Its about putting the infrastructure in place to allow most people to have the necessities for day to day life within 15 minutes of their home. This is a positive thing.

Where is the evidence that anyone outside a repressive authoritarian regime is planning anything like you suggest? At the moment the evidence seems to be "in China they do A,B, C and D. China is a repressive regime. What some people are proposing is a little bit like A when you make some strange logical leaps. Therefore what they actually want is to be exactly like China."

Large sections of Manhattan and Brooklyn would be quite a bit down the road to 15 minute cities. Many neighbourhoods in those cities have the necessities for daily life within 15 minutes. The cities are far bigger than the 15 minute neighbourhoods. But within neighbourhoods you can life a reasonable 15 minute life. Within the broader structure of the city, and not restricted to any one area. The necessities with the 15 minute neighbourhoods and PT connections between them.

We are back to the silly little childish games again are we ?

Your reply to a post was, "There was nobody, anywhere, proposing a grid of only 1-2 sources".

That is exactly what you and greens are proposing. With you being on here day and night doing so.

Without nuclear, fossil fuels, biomass and bio-fuels, (in your own words both cons) then you are left with only 2 sources, of not just grid energy generation, but any energy generation. Wind and solar.

In the green world where the majority of our power is from wind and solar (no bad thing of course), when we need extra and we bring it in via interconnectors, is that counted as our emissions or somewhere else (or even double counting?) Like if the interconnector is to France and it's nucleur generated welectricity. Or coal generated? Or LNG from the UK or something. Where are the emissions attributed to?

You`ll leave me off ? 😅

Truth is you made yet another of your grandiose statement that turns out to be horse manure.

That would screw Ireland over bigtime given how much of the global leased stock is Irish flagged.

From memory there was at least in the past something in civil aviation treaties that prohibited certain categories of fuel tax, probably to reduce headaches with extra-territoriality and overfly fees. What carbon taxes I have seen on avaiation all seem to be attached to landing fees.

This is just a graph for illustration. In terms of binding targets and quotas, aviation isn’t assigned to any country. It’s in the Emissions Trading System/Cap and Trade for intra-EU flights. (Other flights are a bit different.)

it’s the same for electricity generation and industrial emissions.

building heating, transport and land use are the ones with agreed binding national targets (‘effort sharing’)