"Green" policies are destroying this country

First of all, the RCP 8.5 scenario is the emissions pathway we are currently the closest to, and we are seeing warming, and changes to the global climate very similar to what we would expect by now under RCP 8.5

The only reason it's seen as unlikely in the long term, is because it assumes the government's of the world will reign in fossil fuel use and everyone won't just take your 'why can't someone else to it?' position

Your opinion on 'The amount of spending being proposed' is exaggerated, and ignores the return on the investment that these expenditures will provide.

The costs of doing nothing are severe from a political and economic POV as well as an environmental one. These are all changes that we need to make eventually. We can begin investing now, or put them on the long finger and be forced to do them more expensively later on.

Failing to meet our agreed targets will eventually lead to large fines and expensive carbon offsetting, and continuing to rely on imported fossil fuels will be an anchor on the Irish economy and a burden on households and the exchequer through subsidies paid to help pay for the high and variable costs of fossil fuels.

We're looking down the barrel of another oil crisis if the Middle East continues to destabilise. Every kilowatt of electricity that goes into a BEV battery insulates us a little more from that instability while building infrastructure that connects us to the grids of our political and economic allies, reduces our need to pander to despotic states in Russia and the Middle East.

Apart from some controversial measures relating to the size of the national herd, what spending do you believe is actually harmful to the economy?

(also bearing in mind that the EU ultimately pays for every cow grazing on Irish pasture through the CAP so refusing to meet our EU targets could bring us into conflict with that down the line)

Your 'why can't someone else do it' strategy makes even less sense when faced with the reality that we are one of the wealthiest countries in the world with one of the highest emissions per capita, so if we're claiming we can't afford to take action, then you have to grant that no other country can either, in which case we're dooming the world to burning every last drop of proven oil reserves and the carnage that will result from that.

You can clearly see why people hold on to the dogma of 'overwhelming evidence' and worst case scenario modelling to keep the fear high in order to be able to put in the most stringent measures.

The laughable thing is that they then try to convince non believers by flaunting their ignorance in their face like an evangelical on a mission from God to save the souls of the infidels. Worse, actually as they claim to have ironclad proof of this w 'settled science'. As if you can't produce credible counter facts. There is a whole list of them after which one HAS to admit that the effect of Co2 on temperature is at least doubtful and questionable..

And added to that is the whole question of a slight warming being a bad or a good thing even if one accepts the effects of Co2.

But that is something this climate alarm house of cards cannot tolerate. Pathetic..

Alarmist alert: James Hansen sighting, Hansens track record courtesy of Tony Heller.

We should plan for the plausible worst case scenario

There are lots of uncertainties about how humans and the environment will react to increasing CO2 emissions, so it is extremely prudent to keep CO2 levels below a 'safe' increase

That safe increase was from 280ppm to 300ppm, but we crossed that threshold decades ago, so now we're into damage limitation. The next 'acceptable risk' threshold is 1.5c of warming. We're likely to exceed this this year although it will likely go under that again when the La Nina returns, but by the end of the decade, we're almost certainly to have exceeded the 'acceptable risk' level of warming

2c is then the target we are aiming for to 'have a chance' to avoid 'the worst consequences'

You can come on here and claim scaremongering or excessive vigilance if we were anywhere near close to meeting the targets to prevent dangerous climate change. But we're way off target.

The scientific community are expressing alarm at the speed that climate change is progressing, and many of of the worlds most highly respected scientists in the field are expressing concern that models and consensus projections have actually been too conservative in relation to how sensitive natural systems are to changes in temperature

"Beyond extreme weather events, have the impacts of our current level of warming been underestimated?Here the answer is clear: yes, they have. Compared with earlier assessments, the risks of serious impacts “increase to high and very high levels at lower global warming levels” states the 2022 IPCC report on climate impacts.This change is simply because the observed impacts so far are already more severe than expected. For instance, coral bleaching and die-off events have been more extensive, as have mass tree deaths.In fact, not only are the impacts worse, the report says, societies are also turning out to be more vulnerable to these effects than thought and adapting to a warmer world is proving harder than thought. “What we can do is limited,” says Forster. “There’s lots of evidence that when people have tried to adapt, this has been insufficient or has not been done in an appropriate way.”When it comes to future consequences, for sea level rise in particular, IPCC projections have got higher and higher over the years. The 2021 IPCC report says that a global rise of nearly 2 metres by 2100 can’t be ruled out if emissions are very high, whereas its 2007 report had 0.6 metres as the highest possible by 2100."

Proven charlatan, fraud and liar, blogger and youtuber, Tony Heller makes more false and misleading claims against one of the most highly experienced and respected climatologists in the world.

For example, his graph alluded that there was no decline in arctic sea ice in over a decade

It's wrong to blame farmers for all water pollution.

All sectors, local authorities, industry and households have to clean up their act too.

Fair play acknowledging the incorrect assumption.

Methane is a natural occurring thing with ruminant animals. And if animal numbers don't increase, methane doesn't increase as the methane is released, converted to CO2, captured by grasslands, etc, eaten and released out again as methane. All part of the biogenic cycle. Since 1973, cattle numbers in Ireland have risen by ~300k head, or 4%. If methane emissions have grown by more, then it's not the cattle that are responsible.

In Ireland, agriculture is pinpointed as the biggest carbon polluter. The UK, who have less regulations on things than here (they are up in arms over there now over new environmental regulations coming via Red Tractor, they don't have the same slurry requirements either) say that agriculture pollutes less of a % than here, even though both jurisdictions are working in the same climate (grass based predominately). The difference is the UK have oil and gas reserves they drill for, they have a bigger manufacturing sector. This means the percentages per sector differ. We do produce milk almost better than anyone in the world with less carbon emitted. Beef sector is in the worlds top 10. Ya don't hear this on the news and the direction of travel is to curtail production here when the FAO are predicting demand to continue growing. This means production moving to less sustainable areas, more rainforests cut down, more indoor housing for livestock resulting in more land used for animal feeds instead of people.

If we have slipped to the level of using James Henson as a reputable source it's time to pack up and go home.

Nope. I'd rather it spread out over a much longer timeframe. If the aim is 2050, why are we talking about spending €130bn in the next 7 years to achieve the same goals? The exchequer needs to fund a chunk of this, be that infrastructure, grids, grants, etc. Bear in mind that the exchequer gets money from more than the people so the cost per inhabitant/consumer would be lower.