"Green" policies are destroying this country

Seriously. What evidence to you have for this? You're saying companies like Exxon are part of a cartel? How do they operate in the USA and fly under the radar of the DOJ antitrust investigators? How do countries harbour cartel members without falling foul of WTO rules? Would it be too much to ask for a bit of evidence here? OPEC is certainly a cartel (and does have run-ins with the WTO) but its members are governments, not oil companies.

You mean the price of oil was low when there was low demand, and high when there was high demand? Who'd have thunk it! It's almost as if prices are set according to supply and demand. OPEC (which is a cartel) tries to control supply, but its influence has been waning for decades (mostly due to the green bogeyman of fracking). In 2014 they explicitly set out to cripple American oil producers and failed.

The world's three biggest oil companies are state owned. The fourth (Exxon) is owned by pension funds and investment houses, and through them by the public. A two-second Google will show you the top shareholders. Your pals in the various green divestment lobbies clearly understand this, how come you don't? Nobody (certainly not me) is trying to claim that capitalism is a perfect allocator of resources, but simplistic leftwing rants do nothing to address the issue.

So-called "Big Oil" exists to satisfy big demand for the energy that sustains our planet (although the term is a misleading -- 90% of America's hydrocarbons are produced by small and independent companies). It's not a giant rightwing conspiracy. "Big Wind" is the same set of big investors out to make an easy buck although in that case there is plenty of evidence of misallocation. I don't call that a conspiracy either though. It's just capitalists doing what capitalists do, this time with a lot less scrutiny because they are the darlings of socialist greens.

This is five paragraphs of waffle from someone who doesn’t know what he’s talking about and apparently doesn’t even know what country has left the European Union despite extensive publicity and thinks that PM10 is a type of CO2.

You do not know what the Guarantees of Origin scheme is for or how it works. Guarantees of Origin have nothing to do with measurement for targets. Issuing a guarantee or not issuing one or not trading one makes no difference to the overall emissions

Why are we talking about PM10 emissions? PM10 emissions? What do they have to do with CO2 emissions being fake?

Then we listen to your waffle about creative accounting and fake emissions reductions. What is your specific allegation here because you haven’t stated it?

All you’ve done is waved your arms around.

You told us how you were able to find out the three biggest emitters from a table supplied by the EU. Congratulations on your acuity but so what? The EU publishes these figures, you accept them and then you say the measurement is a scam. Which is it?

Have you brought your specific allegation of a scam to the relevant authorities?

No,you haven’t of course, because if you did you’d be found out.

OPEC (and now OPEC+) sets the supply and controls the price. The private oil companies operate as price takers not price setters knowing that any attempt to engage in price competition will see OPEC drive them out of business.

OPEC couldn't drive the Shale producers out of business because the US government propped them up. It wasn't because Shale oil was so cheap to produce, it was a **** tonne of subsidies because US politics are captured by the Oil industry and will spend billions of tax payers dollers supporting 'strategic interests' in oil and gas but hardly anything on developing the domestic renewable energy sector or maintaining their electricity grid

https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/how-subsidies-aided-the-us-shale-oil-and-gas-boom.pdf

The price fell in 2020 because the pandemic was a global shock that was not predictable so it fucked up their pricing and production strategies and they ran out of storage for the excess oil. It was but a minor blip and they've all made that money back with interest already.

Which is not to say that the privately owned oil companies don't collude in other ways, but that's mainly through demand side and political lobbying (climate change disinformation campaigns through their shady 'think tanks' and AstroTurf campaigns)

If someone woke up from a 20 year coma and saw these headlines without having been drip fed the warnings for decades, they'd think we were already heading for the worst case scenario for climate change. And they'd be right

While some gobshites are posting from Australia saying 'its quite chilly here so it's all overblown"

When someone asks for evidence, and I provide links, suddenly I'm link dumping...

Can you guys get together and make up your minds, you spent last night asking for evidence, and when you got it, you react by saying someone is 'link dumping'.

We're nearly 10 years in to the 'we've had enough of experts' mindset which has massively influenced our societies.

Brexit, Trump, and the Covid response experiences all heavily manipulated by advocates of tin-foil hat wearing BS artists who were given equal or greater weight to people educated, experienced and working in their specific fields.

It's long past time to stop letting people 'both sides' such conversations without objective analysis. If the proponents of the above hadn't been so successful, I wouldn't give a sh*t. let them rant away within their own circles all they want. But as they've been able to dominate as they have done, it's necessary to call them out for what they are.

The climate impact has been an issue since before these recent events we've had to watch unfold. I was massively frustrated during them that we as a society were having to put so much effort in to dealing with them, (and still dealing with them) rather than the climate concern (given how impactfulthat is and how difficultit is to make meaningful changes), but that's what we had to do. So absolutely I'm going to call out the nonsense in blunter terms now, ye have been entertained for far too long.

P.S. I know I'm generalizing to a degree here, but you went their first with placing everything in to 2 sides, so here you go. Watching the various mouthpieces and influences on these topics over the years, it's not unreasonable to predict how people feel about the various points.

Interesting admin error...

Catherine Martin says high mileage claim was made in error (ontheditch.com)

Green party minister arts minister Catherine Martin says her unusually high, tax-free, ministerial driving expenses claim for August 2021, a month when the Dáil wasn’t sitting and her diary showed only a handful of ministerial engagements, has been "rectified".

Martin’s ministerial diary for the month suggests just less than 200 kilometres of driving while her mileage claim was for almost 4,500 kilometres.

Her party leader and environment minister, Eamon Ryan, didn’t claim any ministerial mileage expenses in the same period.

Though Martin claimed more than €2,300 for ministerial driving expenses for August 2021 alone, all but seven days in her diary for the month had no entries for events or meetings related to her office.

When questioned by The Ditch, a spokesperson in Martin's department said this was down to "an administrative error", which has now "been rectified".

You really should make at least the occassional effort to read what is posted rather than go off on one of your little rants when reality carches up with your opinion.

Your opinion is that the E.U. will have no problem reaching its targets. Reality is that it makes it much easier to reach your target if you are using dodgy accountancy practices and continue to use them when made aware of them.

The Guarantee of Origin is a E.U. backed certification scheme, legalised here, that has been pointed out by many over the years as fraudulent with the multiple trading of the same certificate and the E.U has refused to do anything about that. Why is that ? It`s not as if they were unaware of what has been going on, and other than it playing into the narrative that this energy greening process is flying it with electricity suppliers using these GO`s fraudulently claiming they are providing much more green energy than they actually are, then I fail to see why.

It`s an E.U. legalised accounting scam that it took a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland to expose just how much of a scam it is. It was pefectly legal under E.U. and Irish law for our "100% green energy" companies to make that claim based on nothing other than ownership of a few pieces of paper from Norway, a country that it is physically impossible for use to get electricity from. Yet you are perfectly happy with this E.U. legalised accounting scam ?

You now appear to have joined the ranks of those that believe that somehow when you are a member state of the E.U.you are in a completely separate biosphere from the rest of Europe as well as the rest of the world. Btw,it would help if you at least made an attempt to read what was posted.I did not say that the Dax biomass plant was identified by the E.U. as being the 3rd highest energy plant emitter of CO2 in Europe.

I said that biomass, which provides 60% of the E.U. "green energy" is accounted by the E.U as carbon neutral. The finding of the Dax plant being the 3rd higest emitter of CO2 and in the top 5 for air pollution were by Ember a global think tank promoting clean electricity and also the finding of The Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the largest environmental activist organisations in the U.S.

While you are capable of posting long tirades, like a few others here, answereing what you are asked appears to be beyond you. As these Gaurantees of Origin have been shown as an accountancy scam, then why has the E.U. which endoses them not done something about that ? And why do you see no problem with 60% of E.U. green energy from biomass being placed in the carbon neutral accountancy column when two advocacy groups have identified the U.K. Dax plant as being in the top three of the largest CO2 energy plant eimitters in Europe ?

Is E.U. biomass sprinkled with magic dust that automatically makes it carbon neutral in the E.U. or have you a cohert answer. That you have no problem with biomass being a major air pollutant is a mystery as well, but no matter.

Technically that is true, however, Norway is reaching it's generation limits and there is a political consideration, it's domestic customers are unhappy the electricity prices that used to be cheap and now being bid up by Denmark, Germany and the UK.

That is true, but it is much easier when you do not have too and a piece of paper will legally do the same without any impedance.

Whether that piece of paper was used before and that electricity used elsewhere is also a consideration. Or if our so called 100% green energy provider, having only used it for accountancy purposes, then sold it on, (perfectly legal under E.U.and Irish legislation) is also questionable.

It`s an accountancy scam sanctioned by the E.U. who have failed to do anything to correct. Like the cost of this offshore plan it`s another of these myseries that nobody has an answer to.

I have not been the one posting personalised tirades, and as per usual you have again refused to answer anything you were asked.

That is not challenging anything. It`s running away with nothing other than a load of waffle.

I did not have to bring these examples of E.U sactioned scams to anyone, particularly the E.U. who have been made well aware of them on many occassions. Even by green electricity advocacy groups, yet still have failed to act.

If you wish to look on air pollution as an irrelevant tangent then that is up to you

Is it not incongruous that it took the ASIA to act on foot of a complaint to show these 100% green energy scams for what they are rather than the CRU or the E.U. who have sactioned these dodgy Guarantee of Origin certificates ?

Tangent tangent tangent. And you don’t even consider it an important one. It’s just a talking point for you to avoid dealing with facts and continuing your carastrophising

Why do you keep asking me irrelevant questions?

Do you accept that the EU is on track to meet its 2030 target, or not?

What are you on about now ?

You are the one that finds air pollution as an irrelevant tangent.

I have given you the facts on both Guarantee of Origin certificates, and on biomass that provides 60% of E.U. green energy is credited as being carbon neutral. Facts that you continually ignore in favour of personalises jibes.

Which track. The accountancy track of biomass being carbon neutral, or the reality of treating biomass for what it is, a contributor to CO2 emissions and air pollurion ?