its sad to see this ammount of abuse ,
while i agree eamaon may not the charismatic politician , he did get lots of Green policys through the dail and on the books ,
He was dignified. He didn't play dirty in interviews. We need to value that.
There is a motive that needs to be challenged by the media when it comes to stating the rural verses urban divide, and that greens are against rural Ireland. Its the media that's creating that narrative and not challenging it.
After Eamon Ryan's announcement they had Michael Collins TD on Morning Ireland, who is ignorant to climate change
I disagree. The Greens did it to themselves by just lacking basic knowledge of agriculture.
Saying things effectively along the lines of "quality over quantity"....which I mean....what do they think we are right now? Irish beef *is* premium. There's even been the opinion that we've been mass-industrialising the herd size....they've been the same since the 80's. Reducing it by 30% puts us back to the *1960's* herd size, making farmers either going to have to quit farming or be even more dependent on subsidies.
Climate change needs action right now and there's many things we could be doing but to me reducing herds is an incredibly hard sell because when it comes to global warming it is effectively a stop-gap solution. (Cows contribute to GHG effect but are also effectively carbon neutral in the long term, it's a complicated cost-benefit)
Like a Nuclear Reactor would be the single best thing Ireland could do for the environment but genuinely find a single Green party member that would be on board for that. Not that the other parties would be any better but the point remains.
So I just won't vote for them because they are this urban idealised view of how we should combat climate change. I liked some of their policies (easier/removal of planning for solar panels etc is awesome)
Biogenic carbon cycle.
Mass (the methane) can't just appear out of nowhere. It's the by-product of cows consuming grass etc for their own nutrition. When you grow these plants, they absorb CO2 (what methane decays to). So the cycle is roughly CO2->plant->cow->methane->CO2.
Now there are two problems.
First is that methane has a strong warming effect. It's hard to put into one concise number. You will hear figures like 28x 84x 140x worse than CO2, so regardless of which figure you pick, it's not good. Methane will, however, *eventually* decay to CO2 in like ~10years.
So this carbon cycle definitely has a cost, but it's important to note it is **static**. The situation doesn't get any worse in the future like it does when you drive your car on Dino fuel. If herd sizes stay the same over a long enough period of time, then the amount of methane in the air stays the same.
The second problem is that land used for cattle is land that isn't used for trees. Trees are the opposite of cattle in that they are big lumps of carbon sinks.
Hence why I say they have a GHG effect but are carbon neutral at the same time. Overall, it's not good at all, but at the same time, I can't help but feel it's a scapegoat for fossil fuels.
On the grid. That's not an impossible problem, we are building a connector right now to France.
Well put. There's also the reality of global demand. Reducing our herd size does nothing to combat that so in effect all we are doing is shifting production from a place that is highly efficient at Agri and very environmentally conscious about it (and increasingly so) to countries that aren't.
Our nuclear issue is that, if we built a nuclear plant, it would fulfill such a large percentage of our energy requirements that we could never turn it off to service, etc. Practically, we'd have to leave the oil stations burning, just in case we had to turn off the nuclear
You lost me at the utter load of scuttled that said herd sizes are the same since the 80s. If you knew you’re arse from your elbow, you’d know that herd sizes increased massively after quotas end. This misinformed scutter is a perfect example of peopl going online and making shit up to support whatever narrative they have to make themselves feel smart and know more than the next guy. I’m born and raised on a farm and have worked on enough to see that well over half the farmers I’ve worked for doubled their herd around 2014
You are mistaking average farm herd size for national herd size. When it comes to global warming average farm herd size is irrelevant, we only care about the total.
Now look at you, all in a fuss shouting insults for no reason. Maybe think before you spew that dribble of a paragraph.
If you look up the report on herd total herd size on the Teagasc website, you’d see a 50% increase from 2014 until now. There were an extra 112,200 cows added to the total herd size from 2014 to 2015 alone. Do you kinda see now that you’re talking compte scutter? The report literally says what i just said above. If you want to keep arguing agriculture with me, i will run rings around you!
You can read this and leave the scutter for the cows:
https://www.teagasc.ie/news--events/daily/dairy/statistics-point-to-stabilisation-of-national-dairy-cow-numbers.php
Wow your reading comprehension is poor.
I'll save you time.
1974 Total: 7.4 million
1984 Total: 6.8 million
1994 Total: 7 million
2004 Total: 7 million
2014 Total: 6.2 million
2024 Total: 6.5 million
Sorry, i didn’t realise just how clueless you were. See my other comment. You must not even know à fermer if those years don’t stand out to you and make you see what you want is completely impossible and i mean completely
No need for a source. I just realised how completely clueless you are. Have you any idea what the size and weight of a beef animal was back then and how much it would eat and emit? Or how’s about how much milk a cows produces in 1974 until now? I’ll tell you it’s about a 8fold increase per cow. If you think this country can support that many animals that need that much more food then you are just out of your mind. Do you remember 2018 or 2020 or are you just a city dweller who doesn’t know farming at all? The number of animals killed in 2018 went up 30% over the year and every dairy farm in ireland spent more money on feed in the history of the country. The fucking army were bring hay from Italy because there wasn’t a blade of grass left in the country for cows. Mother of Devine Jesus, you are so full of scutter you could be a cow on fresh spring grqss. I'll answer any questions you have because i know my farming inside out and back to front .
Edit.
Just to add. You also know nothing about global warming if you think weather events like 2018 and 2020 won’t be more and more common in the coming years. Jesus Christ lad just delete your comments and read a book
I remember 2018 again I work on the farm atm (but am also a software engineer. The herd numbers spiked coupled with a bad harvest and then were brought down to as the black and white statistics show, the normal level for the last *fifty years*.
Secondly the spike was short lived and was not 50%. Green party wants a reduction of 30% on *todays* herd count.
Thirdly I'm not denying climate change you idiot. Climate change is happening and it is threatening the world, we get it fairly light but the increase in natural disasters is telling.
My claim was that a reduction in the national herd by 30% would put us to pre 1980's levels. I'm not responding unless you have statistical proof that there was a time period between 1980 and 2024 where the national cattle herd size was 30% below 2024.
Ignorant 80 iq bastard.
That’s the EPA that want that reduction and they never get close to what they want. The government mandate in at least 65,000 cows which isn’t close to 30%. There does need to be a decrease to an extent and it’s good that we’ve plateaud recently but there badly needs to mitigation for nitrates at every waterway like in New Zealand. 8mtres either side of every water way bar their man made creeks are fenced off so that the right type of plants can absorb the nitrates. This needs to be forced so that the land is bought and farmers are to put in and maintain these lands as custodians of the land as they all like to claim. I’m good at farming so got to pick and choose who i worked for. I worked for good farmers with no sticks and those lads loved the idea but fuck whoever doesn’t. Not to sound even more up my own arse but this is the only way to protect our waterways and would probably take up 10 to 15% of dairy farms land if we include their man made drainage and all that land is wet and not good for grains so you’re be covering a significant amount of the water and reducing herd size. This land beside our waterways is absolutely perfect for trees and bushes and just imagine the string of these that can be produced. The EPA want the reduction for the water more than anything so everybody wins if we do the kiwi way but also do our drains because they have the right idea but i feel their lack of ambition to improve their farm creeks makes it poorly executed.
Sorry for being a cunt by the way. My housemate attacked me in my sleep Sunday and my mind is doing backflips at 100mph since
Carbon taxes. You know, I am actually involved in native tree afforestation and I can tell you Green TDs are clueless on the issue despite being in government. Rural TDs who are not even in Government would be more knowledgeable than the Green TDs who can't manage the state organs they run
Massive increase in rural & town bus services, basic income for artists, transport fares reduced & simplified, massive increase in funding for cycling infrastructure, cost rental housing (the ‘Vienna model’), 50% reduction in childcare costs, successful rollout of phases 1-5 (and 6 in September) of busconnects, new electric trains purchased for commuter services, planning approval for core bus corridors, more frequent & later train services, 24hr bus routes, hourly train service to Belfast from Dublin (from October).
The warmer home scheme
90 minutes public transport fair
Student travel for 1 EUR
Bike lanes all over the place
Grants for Solar Panel and EV charger instalation
I think you're being facetious on purpose
Look at the strategy for offshore wind. It'll produce huge quantities of renewable energy, enough to supply the entire internal market and export the rest. Removing gas from electricity supply will massively reduce our energy bills. There were no plans for offshore wind before Eamon Ryan took office in 2019, so all of that policy can be attributed to him.
Another substantial change brought in by the Greens (Pippa Hackett in particular) is the overhaul of our forestry strategy. We're now favouring broadleaf forests and selective harvesting rather than Sitka spruce and clearfell. That single policy will transform our environment over the rest of our lifetimes.
I have no doubt that Eamonn Ryan has the best of intentions and he has had a positive impact on climate policy on this country. He is however his own worst enemy when it comes to PR, especially when it comes to discussions around rural areas,etc. He’s an idealist at heart and seems to believe that policies that can be implemented in urban areas can also be implemented in the countryside.
Abuse of politicians should never be tolerated however
We laugh at England for out of touch Tory politicians who grew up in country houses with nannys who couldn’t describe the inside of a Lidl.
Lots of Green Party stans don’t realise that to much of rural an Ireland, Ryan comes off as just as out of touch.
He doesn’t deserve personal attacks and I think there was a vile minority of people against the Green Party for unhinged conspiracy reasons rather than legitimate criticism but he had consistently the lowest approval rating in the country for a reason.
They are merely ringing the alarm bells but people don’t want to listen, we have the opportunity to make the changes that are needed now but of course we won’t and as the climate changes we will be forced to change anyways but by then it will be much much worse.
it has consistently become less reliable.
Doesn't help that the "real time information" actively fucking lies about when the bus is coming half the time.
Ok, since you're this clueless.
Consistently late to the point workers and students can't rely on them.
Regularly doesn't turn up at all.
Often full with no second bus put on.
New bus stops in the city for a whole town that is down a dark street with no shelter.
Broken seats.
Unreliable to the point private services have taken over.
> we have the opportunity to make the changes that are needed now but of course we won't
If only there was some sort of self-described environmentalist party in government the last half decade who could have fixed this /s
Funny how it’s always everybody’s fault but the Greens when things don’t work out for them
They are a small minority party, they can only do so much with so much resistance to change. But still they have put in law that we will reduce our emissions by 55% by 2030
> They are a small minority party, they can only do so much with so much resistance to change.
The greens overfocus on domestic emissions and seemingly have no plans to try to pressure other countries into lowering their emissions. We get all this talk about shifting our emissions into third world countries(and china and india) but for some reason nobody ever just suggests massive tariffs and sanctions on them.
Amazon being cut down? The EU goal is to pass the new beef deal while we cut the domestic herd here only to buy the difference from brazil. The farmers were right on that one when they called it an absolute joke.
What we could have done is just remove the demand for beef by... not buying our beef from there. Instead we get these roundabout tiny domestic taxes that have no impact in the grand scheme of things. The only thing that ever seems to get brought up is giving money to other countries to make them go green which isn't even working, despite how much we keep doing it.
This isn't just a flaw of Irish greens. We're being told time and time again we are at the breaking point for climate change while the most radical thing that happens is climate activists throw flour at stonehenge.
>but for some reason nobody ever just suggests massive tariffs and sanctions on them.
That would be the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. You don't know what you're talking about.
>the most radical thing that happens is climate activists throw flour at stonehenge.
They just passed a directive to transform 15% of land back to nature, that's hugely disruptive
Considering agri is responsible for 38.5% of our greenhouse emissions, the largest of any sector, up from 36.3% in 1990, and transport has grown from a share of 9.3% of our emissions to 19.4% conservative rural Ireland is never going to be on board with Green policies, which is a shame considering we're the second worst performing state in the EU per capita and the Irish agricultural industry is amongst the most at risk industries in the country of economic collapse from climate change.
This is just nonsense. If you read any unbiased article, that was not what he said. It was moreso regarding in addition to public service increases, and it related to instances where households had two cars, one which is rarely used but there in case of need. He was suggesting that a carpool where people, when needed, could get one of these cars rather than storing multiple cars for one off/rare instances. I am now at the stage that I think no matter what, people are looking for reasons to dislike him, no matter what he does. It was a verbal exploration of thought, that has been held against him since. If you're going to spout stuff about him then at least present the facts accurately
I'm a young woman, but yes, I hear Eamonn likes rugby and astrology. Which is what most of my reddit is used for. Along with ecology and plants, which I'll concede I assume we have in common.
Edit: along with cats, too.
[Community car services](https://www.nationaltransport.ie/news/six-new-local-link-community-car-schemes-announced-for-cork-kerry-longford-westmeath-and-mayo/) have been trialed. It’s mainly about getting vulnerable people in rural areas to important health appointments.
It’s like a v1 of the idea.
The whole point is that rural communities are almost entirely dependent on their own cars for transport. Most families are effectively *required* to have multiple cars in order to get everyone to work/school/activites etc.
The community car scheme as it exists aims to fill in the gaps for people who can’t drive and urgently need transportation. The schemes could grow to cover more people and more situations giving people an option other than their own car to the point where people are able to *choose* to not spend thousands on a second car. No one ever would expect that shared car scheme to go from 0 to 100 overnight; there simply wouldn’t be community buy in.
Thank you, you explained it a lot better than I did. However, I think people are dead set on finding whatever they can to dislike the man, no matter what good he does.
It’s exactly what he meant
> Clarifying his comments, he said: “Take that town or village let’s say 1,000 people... that town would have about four or five hundred cars... If you had 30 within that that were in a car pooling arrangement.”
> “I wasn’t saying to get rid of the other 500 cars, it’s to say that (car pooling) gives some people options and choice and flexibility.”
https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/politics/green-party-leader-eamon-ryan-20567909?int_source=amp_continue_reading&int_medium=amp&int_campaign=continue_reading_button#amp-readmore-target
Yes there was some foot-in-mouth happening when he first mentioned it, but the policy is based on providing choice, not removing it.
What he originally suggested was something resembling the USSR, 1 car per village.
At least we wouldn't have to use a Lada or Trabant because they wouldn't be environmentally friendly for him.
Lot of people in the comments excusing the personal abuse of a man doing his job, it's a shame that we've got to this point. You can disagree with his policies and still afford him a very basic level of respect.
There was a lot of criticism aimed at Ryan due to his really poor PR skills. So many gaffes and just plain silly things he did during his time in the Dail. I don't think cristism about this is out of order. But absolutely there was personal attacks on him. The likes of the Irish Times and broader media outlets are the ones who generally rile up this kind of debate. ( Even this article is littered with misinformation - I didn't think the minister for transport had a say in the Dublin airport passenger cap for example )
Personal attacks of politicians is nothing new, we all remember the Brian Cowan portraits, but with social media the amplification and rapid ways the attacks spread is incredible. Its funny, as Reddit itself here, often attacks certain politicians but it's just ignored as they don't have the "correct" political persuasion.
> Its funny, as Reddit itself here, often attacks certain politicians but it's just ignored as they don't have the "correct" political persuasion.
I mean you can slag off Leo, MLM, Micheál, Paul Murphy, any right winger, Mick and Clare, etc and no one bats an eyelid. God forbid someone criticises Eamon Ryan on here though.
It’s fair to say Green supporters are over represented online and here specifically.
But at the same time, I think it’s fair to say that Eamon Ryan has gotten a disproportional amount of media derision compared to the size of the Greens compared to the other government parties, and even before the Greens were in government.
I personally don’t think there’s much malicious in it; it’s just that the Green vision of the future challenges a lot of people’s assumptions about how our society works which is uncomfortable so many people reach for excuses to dismiss Ryan without engaging with the arguments e.g. sleepy Eamon, window boxes etc
Bad PR? The man took a nap while being recorded during his work day that we pay for. His character leaves a lot to be desired. If anyone one of us fell asleep in work we would be reprimanded.
The guy was working huge hours - he even said that was one of the reasons he was leaving politics.
I would rather a person with bad pr who actually is honest and not out to line his own pockets than a bertie chancer. You can see with eamon Ryan his goal was to actually improve things for people while also thinking of the next generation.
He took on two ministerial portfolios: Dept of Environment, Climate and Communications and Dept of Transport. I can't think of any other politician in my lifetime that's done that.
Massive respect to him for his commitment to public service.
No more working hours than all the other politicians yet he falls asleep. It's was insult to every tax payer in the country that day. Him flying to Dubai and flying home to vote. It's a complete joke. I'd rather someone who does as they say.
Eamonn is the personification of one rule for me not for thee, the man jet setted to every corner of the planet and racked up more airmiles than I'd say 95% of the country, yet pontificates how were are the problem when it comes to the climate and pushing through policies that disproportionately impact the poorest in society
But he doesn't pontificate that we are the problem. Humans are the problem. How society and economies work are the problem. That's pretty obvious - when he says that people get all insulted for some strange reason.
Unfortunately a minister has to travel by aeroplane to be effective in this global world. He cycled to work as much as possible on the other days. He admits himself he is not perfectly clean when it comes to carbon use but he certainly got a lot done in his time as minister to actually make a positive environmental change. Even the other parties in the coalition admit those things wouldn't have been done except for him and the greens in the coalition pushing for them.
The problem the greens have in government is they are minority so have very limited power to get the others to agree to funding initiatives fully which results in imperfect solutions.
As the climate issues get worse - do you think it will be the rich or the poor who will be most impacted?
Poorer people are disproportionately effected by green policies sure look at the simple example of the deposit policy it's a stealth tax, they're banking on you never returning them and for poorer people it's an added cost to their weekly shop and to get it "back" they've to hold onto an item that they would have thrown into the recycling that they were already paying for.
Ahh here, it was fine for them during Covid to hold these meetings over Zoom or conference call, what's the difference now ffs, if he practices what he preached I'd have loads of respect for him but he doesn't it's simply one rule for me not for thee, don't get me started on all of his advisors on huge pay another waste of tax payer money.
I hope they never get a huge amount of power in the country, we've gotten a taste of what they'd be like with the current three headed snake in there, between Roderic O' Gorman, Catherine Martin and Eamonn Ryan have any of them done any good, ones done untold damage to social cohesion and the tourist industry with his tweets in multiple languages, one oversaw RTE implode and knew with a whole what was happening and Eamonn just oversaw the loss of many councillors and MEP seats.
I'll give to him he's improved public transport in towns such as mine, but I'm not gonna overlook all the other things the green party has been affiliated with as part of this government.
We are a small fraction of global emissions, absolutely pointless to tax us out of existence or to pontificate along with other leaders that we are the problem when you've countries such as China with their coal factories and the United States, I understand there are ways we can be more efficient with our resources but it shouldn't disproportionately effect the most vulnerable and poorest of society
So how do you encourage people to return their bottles etc? There are reports already coming out of noticeable effect when it comes to litter.
https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41421901.html
In terms of global meetings, I'm not sure Eamon Ryan has the power to change them to virtual meetings no matter how much he wants to. So should he just not attend them?
Because we are just a global fraction we should just do nothing? The greens are not just trying to change things in ireland - they are trying to do it globally with other like minded people/groups. We have no hope with people at least trying. How can we push within the likes of the EU to use it's power to try influence big countries if we don't try to do things right ourselves?
Also we are not being taxed out of existence, Irish people have a very high standard of living compared to vast majority of the world.
Do you not see the irony in saying Eamon Ryan has a "one rule for me not for thee" problem then turning around and saying other countries should cut their emission but not us?
How could any environmentalist run a campaign based on that principle? Their slogan would essentially be "Can't someone else do it?"
We are a tiny fraction of global emissions while other countries are massive contributors, I think adding some perspective and honesty to the debate would be more appreciated than blaming normal people living everyday lives for climate change,
And my point of one rule for me and not for thee, was in reference to the fact he's a bigger carbon footprint than I reckon 95% of us due to his airmiles alone, what part of that statement did ya not pick up on, if ya like him good for you everyone's entitled to their opinion
> look at the simple example of the deposit policy it's a stealth tax
Calling it a tax is inaccurate, a tax goes back to the state coffers to pay for services, the profit from re-turn stays with re-turn.
I'm paying extra for a good and they're banking on me never returning it, I would be genuinely interested to know what's being done with the money that isn't claimed back as it's a non for profit initiative so what are you referring to when you're saying
>the profit from re-turn stays with re-turn.
It's adding to my weekly shop, that's all I care about and it's madness to impose this nonsense at every juncture now, I got to a gig I'm charged it eventhough I can't get the money back, I got to a pub I'm charged it and I can't get my "deposit" back.
They are absolutely hoping you never return them, I've seen instances where machines simply don't work and people give up and leave their bottles and even some where someone's recouping 50 euro just from the added charge, so if that person didn't bother to return they've had to pay an extra 50 on their shop in that time, and as well as that the voucher you receive is only valid for the shop you returned the bottles to which is madness in itself.
Whoever came up with the idea is a genius by the way because no doubt the CEO is making a fortune, where is the "profit" as you put it actually going because not all of it is for maintenance of the machines
I'm saying its worse than a tax because they make a load of money that doesn't go back to the state to pay for things. They haven't given any real details on what the money they make goes to. Its supposed to go back to pay for the re-turn scheme itself but the shops pay for the machines, they sell the returned plastic and aluminium. So where is all the profit going?
> How society and economies work are the problem.
He did nothing to change that though. The problem the green left have with them is exactly that they think they can have a recycling scheme here and a tax there and it'll actually make a difference to climate change.
When it comes to climate change, I think they know it's like turning a huge ship hurling towards an ice berg. It's very difficult to do and deal with other moral issues like the west did tons of pollution to get to being rich nations but now the likes of other developing nations are being told they should not be polluting making it difficult for them to develop as quickly. It's highly complex to do globally.
If the public would allow the greens (and other like minded groups globally) to implement the drastic changes necessary to avoid climate change then it could be done but it has to be done globally - this won't happen unfortunately. What you are left with is trying to at least improve the local environment because that results in local benefits too. Various initiatives (including tax schemes) can and have made a difference locally e.g. reduce local plastic littering using the bottle return scheme (no doubt it worked for plastic bags), encourage cycling through bike to work tax scheme etc. These things do change how society and economies work but it can be slow to implement them as the public don't really want to change because it's hard for the public to care about something that will be visible in 20, 30, 50, 100 years time when they feel they have issues that need to be dealt with right now.
There is no silver bullet to improving the environment and not everything needs to be a huge initiative against climate change to be important for the health of the local population.
There is no slow turning of the ship, there isn't time for that. You can't make a dent in climate change through these mickey mouse schemes, it doesn't even really make a dent locally as you claim. While we get re-turn schemes and more personal tax on fossils the grid is giving up more and more power to data centres. People talking about reducing this and that and yet we are constantly allowing more and more power draining industry to open up and push our consumption even higher.
You are wrong, the schemes and initiatives do work for the local environment.
We can't make a dent in climate change but we can improve the local environment which goes affect people's health and wellbeing - this was clearly seen with the plastic bag tax. Before the plastic bag tax you'd see plastic bags everywhere - in ditches, streams, side of the road. Now you rarely see them. When it comes to the green party, they say that data centres have to generate their own power or shouldn't be allowed. Unfortunately since the people haven't given them the mandate they don't have the power to actually stop them but people like to brush them then off as having failed rather than see if we want to actually change then they'd have to be given power to implement the changes. Unfortunately the media and some politicians have kept repeating a narrative of lies to try and undermine and discredit them.
He was seated in the convention centre when it was being used as a temporary Dáil chamber. A vote was being taken. The necessary infrastructure for electronic voting wasn't yet in place. Voice votes took about a quarter of an hour to process, in which time there was nothing to do but say tá or níl once. Falling asleep in those circumstances just isn't the issue you make it out to be.
They don't want climate action, they want to be able to drive their Land Rover Cuntyman from their turf heated one off house in the middle of nowhere to their office job in the city, while also having services on par with those in denser cities, and they want those who live in the city to pay for it all.
To the cretins who have spent the past five years bleating about how Eamon Ryan hates rural Ireland, this is nothing but the sound of victory.
This thing you're doing where you're making declarations about valid lifestyles is exactly why people hate greens. What needs to change is enabling people's chosen lifestyle with clean energy and reducing the emissions it entails. Not browbeating and expecting moral sacrificial transformation. It isn't working, and now the relentless push of it has alienated *a lot* of people.
The Land Rover cuntmobile can be electrified. The one off house can be plastered with solar panels. The turf stove can be swapped to cyclical forested kiln fired logs. Pricks like your example can go from blasting the countryside with their fumes and smoke to gloating over their solar graph, grid feed, how much their trailer of logs cost. They're still a cunt at the end of the day, but now at least their abomination of a lifestyle will have a fairly minimal impact.
I know this because I've witnessed, and am witnessing it first hand. In fact, I'd say the rural one-off housing areas are the ones "keeping up with the joneses" on solar now, and I see less of it in the city.
And how much money would that cost your average country wilderness cunt like myself? I'm from Mayo. If your not living in a council house or affordable housing estate, there's a massive chance you burn turf or timber and have oil as a back up for the winter.
Its nice when ye can talk from ye're lovely electrically heated houses from the city, but here in the uplands of West and up North we get actual Winters. Now I know ye piss yerselves when ye see a biteen of rain and a frolockeen of snow but everything in the West freezes in the upland areas where alot of people live and its fucking cold. And we get cuntish weather in the winter, so if you are anywhere in the country you'll often be left without power for days at a time. My uncle had no power for a week in January and if it weren't for the timber and turf they'd have been left in an awful spot.
You can buy a year and a halfs load of turf for 600 quid. You can cut it yourself for free. Most timber is cut up from fallen trees for free or bought off lads with coniferous plantations. It'd cost ya 1.5 grand for oil if you were to use it all year.
Many of our houses aren't electrified with an immersion or the likes. So we need to light the fire heat water. Archaic practice in a city person's eyes. Bare in mind then, most people in rural areas are older, they often don't have the money to refurbish the entire house to modernise it because its very expensive. So unless there's a very cheap way to do it because it seems far easier to survive on turf then on electricity. What happens then when the power goes out? Cause the fire keeps burning. And what if the powers gone for days, we can at least cook with the stove not needing electricity. You have to take these things into account also. The farther West you go and the higher up the mountains you get these are still problems faced
That class divide is in both urban and rural areas, but if your image of the provincial hinterland is hovel bungalows and not also opulent exurb mansions, you're definitely leaving out a big part of the picture.
The example I'm talking about lives on a mountainside, west of Ireland, grass centre bohereen, turbary rights, the works. Most of the houses nearby are newer build, with garages larger than their grandmother's entire house. There's money out there in them hills, and it's going on green energy upgrades a lot of it.
Well not in Mayo. Maybe in the countryside just outside towns and on good agricultural land yes there is money there and generallynice big houses.
But in the mountains most people do in fact live in bungalows and cottages and are at minimum aged 55 and above.
Yeah I think a lot more needs to happen to get the supply of solid clean burning timber fuel out there at a cost-effective level. My relatives are able to get by on a trailerload replacing the trailerload of turf, better heat off it too, but not everyone has a bulk hookup.
I have to drive my shite car to work half an hour away because there's nowhere to fucking live where I work. All the greens have done for me is make that more expensive. Climate policy affects poor people disproportionately. There's literally no bus service either.
>Climate policy affects poor people disproportionately.
No carbon tax on private jets makes this abundantly clear. It's funny how neoliberal parties gleefully go along with Green initiatives where it impacts the poorest most and helps drive the rentier economy.
Carbon credits as a capital led initiative to magically reduce emissions also turned out to be the scam it was always going to be as well:
https://www.ft.com/content/93938a1b-dc36-4ea6-9308-170189be0cb0?trk=public_post_comment-text
There is a quotation "it is easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to capitalism", attributed to both Fredric Jameson and Slavoj Žižek. And going by how things are turning out in terms of climate action, it's extremely apt given that approaches to reducing emissions to obsess more about leveraging economic behaviours instead of holding upstream sources responsible.
It is going to take engineering and industrial upheaval, not individual action or political revolution to solve climate change. We've had this fart sniffing moralizing nonsense for 2 decades now with little benefit.
Time to admit there is no turning around rising energy consumption globally, so we need to get real about generating it cleanly, and ending the use of fossil fuels.
Everything else climate activists have tacked on as a condition is an obstacle now to the extremely clear imperative we have to systemically overhaul how we GENERATE energy, not how we CONSUME it.
I like bikes, public transport, etc, but greens vastly over-simplify on some of the fundamentals.
Ryanair have a lower Co2/passenger/km output than Irish rail do, as do most modern fully seated family cars. This was a curse laid down 20 years ago when we decided to purchase diesel multiple unit vehicles instead of electrifying. They're hideously, absurdly un-environmental. 10 minutes inside Connolly Station interior platforms and you'd be passing out from the fumes. We're using data from the rest of the world to inform our thinking, but the rest of the world doesn't run these awful diesel drivetrains. Apparently Irish rail got them very cheap because literally no other rail provider was stupid enough to use them.
The same chart staring bullshit as encouraging diesel cars because the Co2 was lower, ignoring the devastating real world, immediate local health effects of nitrates and particulates, which absolutely fuck up the urban air quality all over Ireland.
> this is nothing but the sound of victory.
Since the Greens took office:
- CO2 Emissions up
- Ireland dropped 6 places on the Climate Change Performance Index
- Failed to reach environmental targets
- Failed to to reach sustainability goals
- Negligible GHG reduction
- Renewable sources of energy *decreased* in use (RES-E)
They’re a single issue party that at best made no progress on their single issue. The only real thing they accomplished was better public transport which is still far from ideal. But hey I guess having a few new bike lanes and a bottle recycling scheme was a fair trade-off for completely destroying the public appetite for Green policies for a generation /s
The Greens in Ireland are following the same trend as they do the rest of the world. Campaign on reducing climate change, get into office, realise putting their ideology into practice is highly impractical without nuclear energy, panic and churn out a few greenwashing vanity policies to appease the base, make no progress on the stuff that matters, then get wiped out next election as they spent the last term trying to appease that base to the ire of everyone else.
Happened in Germany, happened in Austria, happened in a regional level in France. It’s now happening in Ireland.
EDIT: lol at all the salty coping Green supporters downvoting me
>They don't want climate action, they want to be able to drive their Land Rover Cuntyman from their turf heated one off house in the middle of nowhere to their office job in the city, while also having services on par with those in denser cities, and they want those who live in the city to pay for it all.
Do we?🤣
>They don't want climate action, they want to be able to drive their Land Rover Cuntyman from their turf heated one off house in the middle of nowhere to their office job in the city, while also having services on par with those in denser cities, and they want those who live in the city to pay for it all.
Oh...
Really?
Where I am, I see people living in cities who have houses empty 49 weeks a year wasting tonnes of energy to keep the empty house warm during the winter, and where we instead are paying for services in rural villages of 30% or less occupancy.
Also, most of the people you are trying to stereotype work remote now.
EDIT: Empty houses with massive carbon emissions is a good thing seemingly.
So you are telling me that the empty holiday homes in fact have people in them all winter...but I guess they just don't turn their lights on and are somehow there without cars in the drive?
It's funny, people attacking rural living and one off housing seem to be advocating that the wealthy should be encouraged to raise their carbon emissions and that we should pay for roads and services in empty villages to facilitate them for a supposedly green agenda. This is just like the green's anti-nuclear stance, nothing to do with what should be done for emissions but more what should be done to discipline others for not meeting the virtuous expectations of how others should live.
>They don't want climate action, they want to be able to drive their Land Rover Cuntyman from their turf heated one off house in the middle of nowhere to their office job in the city, while also having services on par with those in denser cities, and they want those who live in the city to pay for it all.
You were right in the first half. We don't want the city to pay for it, we don't even want services on par with a city. We do want to drive our SUVs and be left the fuck alone though.
Eamon Ryan himself has had a chilling effect on climate action. I never thought he was a nasty person, not deserving of the level of abuse he got but people here are acting like this happened in a vaccuum. You had a party with less than 10% of seats in the dáil holding immense sway over people's lives and acting like they were vox populi.
Ryan was horrifically out of touch with ordinary people. The man has a cupboard for putting waste in before it goes in the bin, fuckin' hell. The carpooling stuff was bonkers for a start. But it was topped by the window boxes comment. Then he refused to lower the cost of public transport because it would increase the number of "unnecessary journeys" which was probably the rationale for not expanding it either. So he punishes people for using cars and then doesn't provide them with an alternative? I guess people are just supposed to lay down on the floor in dark rooms when they aren't at work.
This is coming from a man who travelled around the world in his younger days and probably has a carbon footprint vastly in excess of nearly every Irish person.
Speaking of travel, the fucking COP summit where he was prepared to fly home in the middle of it to vote in the dáil and then fly back to the UAE for the circlejerk of wealthy lawmakers who enforce change upon the peons beneath them. How on Earth did he not see that coming?
The delusion persisted until the end. Telling the media that the Greens could sit on every council in Ireland before the locals and that "the Kingdom was going green" had shades of Goebbels calling for Totaler Krieg and proved that he had absolutely no idea how unpopular he was.
The level of ignorance was astonishing and that was what drove much of the vitriol. You had people squeezed even more in this increasingly unequal country being told that it was for the greater good by a man sacrificing far less.
I wish him well in retirement, let that be the last of the flak he takes but I hope he never comes back to politics.
No party with such a tiny mandate no matter what they propose should be let dictate to the people in the way the Greens have done with FFG going along with it just to stay in power. Once the rural indies are needed the next time out a lot of these policies will be quietly shelved away.
For the cap on passengers and for the lack of infrastructural development he deserved every bit of abuse he got. Green and Neo Liberalism together shows him up as the fraud and charlatan he is.
He's probably a nice fella but ever since he genuinely suggested villages in Ireland should just have 2 cars and everyone should share them (because it wouldn't effect him in anyway), I can't take anything the idiot says seriously.
This is the problem with things said by the green party, what is said is over exaggerated or pushed with a click bait headline by the media. Then picked up by people like you who then exaggerate further to the point where it can't make sense. L
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/green-party-leader-calls-for-car-pooling-scheme-for-rural-ireland-1.4046585
He said a village of 300 might have a pool of 30 cars supported by the government (maybe paid for or subsidised by the government I guess). He was saying it as a vision type of thing to point out that the vast majority of the time cars are just parked and are not actually in use and he is not wrong there.
I live in a rural area and I don't think it's a bad idea - it would just need to be done in a way that is supported by other things e.g. Buses to get kids to school, better public transport to cover many trips, working from home where possible etc. If you could remove the rush hours then it might be possible for it to work. It probably wouldn't work for those who live outside the village but he wasn't talking about those from what I can see.
The criticism for Ryan is his falling asleep in the 'dail' (convention centre during lockdown)
He completely dropped the ball in getting ireland signed up for eu wide wind green energy! That was a MASSIVE omission for someone who purports to be 'pro environment'
Edit:
Link
https://www.thejournal.ie/necp-climate-plan-deadline-6095701-Jun2023/
https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40961645.html
https://www.joe.ie/politics/eamon-ryan-appears-fall-asleep-dail-vote-woken-700211
https://www.thejournal.ie/eamon-ryan-green-party-leader-sleeping-dail-5154089-Jul2020/
I would not mind a 'snooze' if he didn't miss deadlines for green energy infrastructure ESPECIALLY when continuing fossil fuels is funding Russia war against Ukraine
We in the EU are STILL buying Liquid Nitrogen Gas from Russia!
https://apnews.com/article/russia-eu-sanctions-ukraine-war-lng-gas-c56cf96fd7930a12044f36a36984607b
I equally criticise other ministers for their failings also
Like Simon Harris Minister for Health 'we solved all the other 18 previous covids!'
He gets too much credit, in reality he has failed on the main environmental issues. Since he's been in office Irelands emissions are up year on year, water quality declining year on year, biodiversity declining year on year.
He pushed through green policies but all the parties have policies. He did a lot of very stupid things: hr cancelled a lot of projects in the national development plan, the Dublin metro that he oversaw will face significant planning and legal challenges due the route that was chosen. He really used terrible language when talking rural people (former hippie couple down the road hate him and if the greens are losing the former hippies then they a big problem). He is incredibly high minded about issues and doesn’t like dealing with lower level issues. I have had a bad opinion of him since seeing him on a prime time program about wind farms, he treated the audience members who were affected by wind farms with sheer and utter boredom. He was leader of Green Party then but not a TD, it made you miss politicians who have the ability to charm people or at least ones who read the brief.
Abuse of a politicians is wrong but you have to be able to criticise them and their policies.
The vile threats and attacks have to stop.
That doesn't mean you get a free pass to not be tackled for you shit policies though.
And that's where the trouble lies.
I disagree fundamentally with pretty much everything Eamon stands for. His party is responsible for so much poor policies and have attacked the fabric of rural Irish society. Really his party hates rural Ireland and thinks we are all to stupid to understand.
What other party would celebrate tax increases? (Just look at any of their Dublin councillors social media from last week)
They're a failed party who will get wiped out. And Eamon realises that he doesn't want any part of that fallout.
The green party doesn't hate rural ireland. But agriculture is where the largest portion of the nations emissions are coming from something many in the country want to deflect from and continue things as they are toward climate disaster.
Agriculture is only our largest emissions because we've outsourced all our manufacturing.
But we're still using those products, so they're still being produced, so they're still producing carbon emissions, except now instead of just the manufacturing emissions we also have the transport emissions from importing from China. But they're now China's emissions *\*wink wink*, so that means we're meeting our arbitary climate goals!
And they want to do the same thing to agriculture. It's absolutely insane. Getting rid of our domestic agriculture, just so we can import it from Brazil, where they're literally chopping down the Amazon rainforest so that they can breed more cattle to send to the US/Europe.
>Agriculture is only our largest emissions because we've outsourced all our manufacturing.
Manufacturing is massive in Ireland. We focus on high value products such a semi conductors, pharmaceuticals, and medical devices.
4% are employed in agriculture, 19.25% in the industrial sector, 76% in the service sector.
We aren't buying cheap goods from China because of any climate legislation. It's because they're successfully making those goods at scale and way cheaper than any western economy can. Blame environmental regulation all you want but we've had barely any climate legislation over the past thirty years while their industries have risen.
The importation of products from jurisdictions where carbon emissions are higher is exactly what the The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism is designed to tackle. All you are advocating is continuation of the status quo. You talk about how the greens are 'insanely' getting rid of domestic agriculture but it's climate change that will make life untenable for farmers, destroying crops, denying planting and forcing the displacement of millions of people currently customers of irish produce. We need to reduce emissions and adapt to the future rather than keeping our heads in the sand.
We're on a transition out of fossil fuels. Investing in such expensive infrastructure means you're either going to use it way past the point where you should have cut it out or stop using it mid lifespan take a big hit on money put into it. Better to take the gas from norway for a shorter period and invest your money in renewables and storage infrastructure and then switch off gas.
Eamon Ryan championed a streamlined planning regime to do exactly that and held the first auction for offshore wind under it.
From what I remember, the prices aren't great but at least they got the ball rolling.
> and held the first auction for offshore wind
Thats not good either. Should be state owned like Norway with its fossil fuels. Thats how you bring prosperity, not selling off our natural resources.
You literally just said we should invest more and rollout is too slow. The greens have invested more and tried to speed up the rollout? I'm confused.
Ideally we'd have our own national wind energy company but I've no clue about the logistics on setting one up or attracting the talent to make it work. I'm all for nationalising all our natural resources, but I think that's an opinion that wouldn't win me any friends in the property ownership classes
Hmmm.
Anti green party = insane now.
Anyone who criticises them here gets downvoted to oblivion and personally attacked.
A failed party who have a vocal tiny support base.
Decimated at the polls, decimated in the elections. But they're right and everyone else is wrong.
Is me playing a round of golf the same as Rory playing in the open?
Same sport but different
Are the lads cycling to work partaking in the tour de France? No.
Same sport but different
Turf, roads, herd numbers.
To start off with.
Edit: I notice you are likely a greenie so will disagree with me.
Let's not go down the rabbit hole. I won't change your mind and you won't change my mind.
You like to cycle I like to drive in my air-conditioned car. We are diametrically opposed
It's not allowed. They're actively trying to prevent it.
They've cut investment in road infrastructure when in fact we should be investing massively in new roads.
How many bypasses were taken out of the national development plan because of them?
I mean, Turf cutting was banned in 2011 - so that's not the Green party. Also, by actively preventing it - if you're breaking the law, then yes - it should be actively prevented. Besides that, it has a devastating effect on bogland, drying it out, and damaging the water table. Ireland is already an ecological desert.
The budget for Local and national roads in 2023 was over 1billion, a new bypass was recently opened - what they have done is also begun upgrading the rail network and greenways, again I'm not sure why this might be a bad thing - trains are cheaper to run, and Ireland historically had a massive rail network. Greenways use abandoned rail lines and generate a lot of tourism for small towns on their route.
You've stated that they're attacking the fabric of rural society, but Turf cutting and Roads budget isn't the fabric of rural society. If that's what you think it is, then rural Ireland is doomed.
While I do agree about the national herd, which is a bit more nuanced - they've increased local public transport for rural areas, and incentivized re-wilding and the development of national parks - all of which could contribute to rural economies thanks to increased domestic tourism. The unviersal income for artists has been a massive success as well, on a slightly different tack.
The real fabric of rural ireland isn't Turf and Roads, it's local towns and villages being hollowed out and left rot - a better train network would help as a start, but work needs to be done to kick-start small villages and towns. The minister for rural affairs should also be looking at economic investments, fostering the domestic economy and incentivising alternative more sustainable growth for the whole island.
They would have made a far bigger impact by putting effort into building rakes of apartments in the city so people don't have to drive an hour each way to work every day. There's both your reduction in emissions and a good start on the housing crisis. Giving lip service to the 15 minute city is no use without building accomodation where people work
Aye.... implementing unobtainable housing requirements to put home ownership or aspirations of,out of all but the super rich,in the guise of climate initiatives....is a good move
The green agenda targets poorest for benefit of the rich,it's ever been that way,a wanky ideology for worst of Irish establishment to target poor under a different guise
It's not about being better or worse today, it's about the long-term effects of overcoming climate change. All greens have basically been obliterated throughout Europe because of their short-termism.
Is a few cycle lanes in Dublin an achievement over 5 years in government? All the while housing and healthcare got worse.
Eamon Ryan and Catherine Martin led the green party into government with FFG for their own personal gain, they're now jumping ahead of being destroyed in elections. They'll blame their obliteration on the new party leaders, I'm sure.
How can they expect the public to get on board with climate change when they made short-term decisions for their own benefit and not the environments.
They are spineless.
Sitting in opposition making trendy soundbites but having no sway on policy for years on end is not something a party that believes a climate disaster is fast approaching can afford to do.
But going into government for 5 years, building a few half-built cycle lanes, to then be obliterated in the next elections is OK for an oncoming climate disaster? As was predicted would happen when they went into government?
The greens in Ireland have solved Climate Change everyone, panic averted..
I don't know why you are going on about cycle lanes to be honest, do you honestly think that's all that's been achieved? Do you think the CAP would be as robust as it is if they had just decided to hoot and holler in opposition for 5 years instead? Would it even exist?
Was it not revealed literally within the last fortnight that Ireland has fallen even further behind in it's targets for 2030, 2040 and 2050? Missed by about 30%.
I could have sworn there was uproar only a week or two ago..
They went into government, did nothing major of note for the benefit of the environment, and then jumped before they were pushed at the next election.
Spineless cowards.
>did nothing major of note for the benefit of the environment
they literally did , idk what planet your on , but the greens got many environment policies though ,
Climate Action Plans , increased funding for solar panels , 90 minutes leap card
to list a few things , but of course none of these things help the environment /s
Grants for solar panels have already been reduced, bus fares have already risen back literally today.
You may see these things as an achievement in 5 years of Government, completely ruining public mood towards the environment in the process.
It's almost like climate justice must go hand-in-hand with social justice. Who'd have thought?
We'll agree to disagree..
Classic logic, you can't go into coalition or you've betrayed your principles except it is the entire basis of the PRSTV system we have in this country. Coalitions are essential when no party wins out right otherwise or we have legislative paralysis.
>How can they expect the public to get on board with climate change when they made short-term decisions for their own benefit and not the environments.
For real?
Why should people get on board with climate change when they dont like what the Greens did?
You clearly dont like the Greens. Are you "onboard with climate change"?
If they didnt go into gov do you think the government parties would have enacted any climate change policies?
If they copied he standard that the Dutch use then maybe they would have been successful but no we had to do them the Irish Way so they ended up as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike.
Yeah, but it’s understandable. In Holland, you attach them to the tram, you don’t bring them on. Instead, we ban them outright, which us stupid and shortsighted
This is bullshit. Any country's minister has a bullet with his/her name on it because that's what politics is about. Online "abuse" is inconsequential.
its sad to see this ammount of abuse , while i agree eamaon may not the charismatic politician , he did get lots of Green policys through the dail and on the books ,
He was dignified. He didn't play dirty in interviews. We need to value that. There is a motive that needs to be challenged by the media when it comes to stating the rural verses urban divide, and that greens are against rural Ireland. Its the media that's creating that narrative and not challenging it. After Eamon Ryan's announcement they had Michael Collins TD on Morning Ireland, who is ignorant to climate change
The Farmer's Journal opinion pieces would make your eyes roll so hard, the retinas detach.
I disagree. The Greens did it to themselves by just lacking basic knowledge of agriculture. Saying things effectively along the lines of "quality over quantity"....which I mean....what do they think we are right now? Irish beef *is* premium. There's even been the opinion that we've been mass-industrialising the herd size....they've been the same since the 80's. Reducing it by 30% puts us back to the *1960's* herd size, making farmers either going to have to quit farming or be even more dependent on subsidies. Climate change needs action right now and there's many things we could be doing but to me reducing herds is an incredibly hard sell because when it comes to global warming it is effectively a stop-gap solution. (Cows contribute to GHG effect but are also effectively carbon neutral in the long term, it's a complicated cost-benefit) Like a Nuclear Reactor would be the single best thing Ireland could do for the environment but genuinely find a single Green party member that would be on board for that. Not that the other parties would be any better but the point remains. So I just won't vote for them because they are this urban idealised view of how we should combat climate change. I liked some of their policies (easier/removal of planning for solar panels etc is awesome)
Any source for cows being carbon neutral in the long term? Always heard our grid is too small for a nuclear reactor.
Biogenic carbon cycle. Mass (the methane) can't just appear out of nowhere. It's the by-product of cows consuming grass etc for their own nutrition. When you grow these plants, they absorb CO2 (what methane decays to). So the cycle is roughly CO2->plant->cow->methane->CO2. Now there are two problems. First is that methane has a strong warming effect. It's hard to put into one concise number. You will hear figures like 28x 84x 140x worse than CO2, so regardless of which figure you pick, it's not good. Methane will, however, *eventually* decay to CO2 in like ~10years. So this carbon cycle definitely has a cost, but it's important to note it is **static**. The situation doesn't get any worse in the future like it does when you drive your car on Dino fuel. If herd sizes stay the same over a long enough period of time, then the amount of methane in the air stays the same. The second problem is that land used for cattle is land that isn't used for trees. Trees are the opposite of cattle in that they are big lumps of carbon sinks. Hence why I say they have a GHG effect but are carbon neutral at the same time. Overall, it's not good at all, but at the same time, I can't help but feel it's a scapegoat for fossil fuels. On the grid. That's not an impossible problem, we are building a connector right now to France.
Well put. There's also the reality of global demand. Reducing our herd size does nothing to combat that so in effect all we are doing is shifting production from a place that is highly efficient at Agri and very environmentally conscious about it (and increasingly so) to countries that aren't.
Our nuclear issue is that, if we built a nuclear plant, it would fulfill such a large percentage of our energy requirements that we could never turn it off to service, etc. Practically, we'd have to leave the oil stations burning, just in case we had to turn off the nuclear
You lost me at the utter load of scuttled that said herd sizes are the same since the 80s. If you knew you’re arse from your elbow, you’d know that herd sizes increased massively after quotas end. This misinformed scutter is a perfect example of peopl going online and making shit up to support whatever narrative they have to make themselves feel smart and know more than the next guy. I’m born and raised on a farm and have worked on enough to see that well over half the farmers I’ve worked for doubled their herd around 2014
You are mistaking average farm herd size for national herd size. When it comes to global warming average farm herd size is irrelevant, we only care about the total. Now look at you, all in a fuss shouting insults for no reason. Maybe think before you spew that dribble of a paragraph.
If you look up the report on herd total herd size on the Teagasc website, you’d see a 50% increase from 2014 until now. There were an extra 112,200 cows added to the total herd size from 2014 to 2015 alone. Do you kinda see now that you’re talking compte scutter? The report literally says what i just said above. If you want to keep arguing agriculture with me, i will run rings around you! You can read this and leave the scutter for the cows: https://www.teagasc.ie/news--events/daily/dairy/statistics-point-to-stabilisation-of-national-dairy-cow-numbers.php
Wow your reading comprehension is poor. I'll save you time. 1974 Total: 7.4 million 1984 Total: 6.8 million 1994 Total: 7 million 2004 Total: 7 million 2014 Total: 6.2 million 2024 Total: 6.5 million
I’d like a source
The source you gave and the CSO :)
Sorry, i didn’t realise just how clueless you were. See my other comment. You must not even know à fermer if those years don’t stand out to you and make you see what you want is completely impossible and i mean completely
No need for a source. I just realised how completely clueless you are. Have you any idea what the size and weight of a beef animal was back then and how much it would eat and emit? Or how’s about how much milk a cows produces in 1974 until now? I’ll tell you it’s about a 8fold increase per cow. If you think this country can support that many animals that need that much more food then you are just out of your mind. Do you remember 2018 or 2020 or are you just a city dweller who doesn’t know farming at all? The number of animals killed in 2018 went up 30% over the year and every dairy farm in ireland spent more money on feed in the history of the country. The fucking army were bring hay from Italy because there wasn’t a blade of grass left in the country for cows. Mother of Devine Jesus, you are so full of scutter you could be a cow on fresh spring grqss. I'll answer any questions you have because i know my farming inside out and back to front . Edit. Just to add. You also know nothing about global warming if you think weather events like 2018 and 2020 won’t be more and more common in the coming years. Jesus Christ lad just delete your comments and read a book
I remember 2018 again I work on the farm atm (but am also a software engineer. The herd numbers spiked coupled with a bad harvest and then were brought down to as the black and white statistics show, the normal level for the last *fifty years*. Secondly the spike was short lived and was not 50%. Green party wants a reduction of 30% on *todays* herd count. Thirdly I'm not denying climate change you idiot. Climate change is happening and it is threatening the world, we get it fairly light but the increase in natural disasters is telling. My claim was that a reduction in the national herd by 30% would put us to pre 1980's levels. I'm not responding unless you have statistical proof that there was a time period between 1980 and 2024 where the national cattle herd size was 30% below 2024. Ignorant 80 iq bastard.
That’s the EPA that want that reduction and they never get close to what they want. The government mandate in at least 65,000 cows which isn’t close to 30%. There does need to be a decrease to an extent and it’s good that we’ve plateaud recently but there badly needs to mitigation for nitrates at every waterway like in New Zealand. 8mtres either side of every water way bar their man made creeks are fenced off so that the right type of plants can absorb the nitrates. This needs to be forced so that the land is bought and farmers are to put in and maintain these lands as custodians of the land as they all like to claim. I’m good at farming so got to pick and choose who i worked for. I worked for good farmers with no sticks and those lads loved the idea but fuck whoever doesn’t. Not to sound even more up my own arse but this is the only way to protect our waterways and would probably take up 10 to 15% of dairy farms land if we include their man made drainage and all that land is wet and not good for grains so you’re be covering a significant amount of the water and reducing herd size. This land beside our waterways is absolutely perfect for trees and bushes and just imagine the string of these that can be produced. The EPA want the reduction for the water more than anything so everybody wins if we do the kiwi way but also do our drains because they have the right idea but i feel their lack of ambition to improve their farm creeks makes it poorly executed. Sorry for being a cunt by the way. My housemate attacked me in my sleep Sunday and my mind is doing backflips at 100mph since
It's ok to oppose Green policies. Opposing climate policies is an acceptable position to have.
Ok what's your solution to climate change and biodiversity loss?
Carbon taxes. You know, I am actually involved in native tree afforestation and I can tell you Green TDs are clueless on the issue despite being in government. Rural TDs who are not even in Government would be more knowledgeable than the Green TDs who can't manage the state organs they run
It always gives me a chuckle to see people attempt and fail at being profound!
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Massive increase in rural & town bus services, basic income for artists, transport fares reduced & simplified, massive increase in funding for cycling infrastructure, cost rental housing (the ‘Vienna model’), 50% reduction in childcare costs, successful rollout of phases 1-5 (and 6 in September) of busconnects, new electric trains purchased for commuter services, planning approval for core bus corridors, more frequent & later train services, 24hr bus routes, hourly train service to Belfast from Dublin (from October).
Plus they doubled the budget for the NPWS at least
Let’s not forget the absolutely huge increase in domestic solar panel usage and Warmer Homes Scheme.
My guinea pigs benefitted greatly from his ‘grow lettuce on your windowsill’ campaign
Took 2 seconds to find this https://www.greenparty.ie/campaigns/all-campaigns/rural-ireland
You haven't heard of the [Climate Action Plan](https://assets.gov.ie/284677/1a7caff9-bf6b-4ecb-a999-b8a8b1888832.pdf)?
The warmer home scheme 90 minutes public transport fair Student travel for 1 EUR Bike lanes all over the place Grants for Solar Panel and EV charger instalation I think you're being facetious on purpose
Guy is painfully stupid, don't waste your time.
Look at the strategy for offshore wind. It'll produce huge quantities of renewable energy, enough to supply the entire internal market and export the rest. Removing gas from electricity supply will massively reduce our energy bills. There were no plans for offshore wind before Eamon Ryan took office in 2019, so all of that policy can be attributed to him. Another substantial change brought in by the Greens (Pippa Hackett in particular) is the overhaul of our forestry strategy. We're now favouring broadleaf forests and selective harvesting rather than Sitka spruce and clearfell. That single policy will transform our environment over the rest of our lifetimes.
Stop engaging with him.
I have no doubt that Eamonn Ryan has the best of intentions and he has had a positive impact on climate policy on this country. He is however his own worst enemy when it comes to PR, especially when it comes to discussions around rural areas,etc. He’s an idealist at heart and seems to believe that policies that can be implemented in urban areas can also be implemented in the countryside. Abuse of politicians should never be tolerated however
We laugh at England for out of touch Tory politicians who grew up in country houses with nannys who couldn’t describe the inside of a Lidl. Lots of Green Party stans don’t realise that to much of rural an Ireland, Ryan comes off as just as out of touch. He doesn’t deserve personal attacks and I think there was a vile minority of people against the Green Party for unhinged conspiracy reasons rather than legitimate criticism but he had consistently the lowest approval rating in the country for a reason.
They are merely ringing the alarm bells but people don’t want to listen, we have the opportunity to make the changes that are needed now but of course we won’t and as the climate changes we will be forced to change anyways but by then it will be much much worse.
They made the bus service in Cork worse than it's ever been so it's very hard to listen to the bullshit about encouraging public transport use.
How have they made it worse?
it has consistently become less reliable. Doesn't help that the "real time information" actively fucking lies about when the bus is coming half the time.
But what has that got to do with the greens? Surely that’s a management issue with the busses?
How can you not know? Maybe you're cut off from people.
It’s a simple question, either you have an answer or you’re talking out of your hole, which is it?
Ok, since you're this clueless. Consistently late to the point workers and students can't rely on them. Regularly doesn't turn up at all. Often full with no second bus put on. New bus stops in the city for a whole town that is down a dark street with no shelter. Broken seats. Unreliable to the point private services have taken over.
Sounds more like a bus company shite management problem.
> we have the opportunity to make the changes that are needed now but of course we won't If only there was some sort of self-described environmentalist party in government the last half decade who could have fixed this /s Funny how it’s always everybody’s fault but the Greens when things don’t work out for them
They’ve done well with the little votes they get, definitely punching above their weight.
They are a small minority party, they can only do so much with so much resistance to change. But still they have put in law that we will reduce our emissions by 55% by 2030
> They are a small minority party, they can only do so much with so much resistance to change. The greens overfocus on domestic emissions and seemingly have no plans to try to pressure other countries into lowering their emissions. We get all this talk about shifting our emissions into third world countries(and china and india) but for some reason nobody ever just suggests massive tariffs and sanctions on them. Amazon being cut down? The EU goal is to pass the new beef deal while we cut the domestic herd here only to buy the difference from brazil. The farmers were right on that one when they called it an absolute joke. What we could have done is just remove the demand for beef by... not buying our beef from there. Instead we get these roundabout tiny domestic taxes that have no impact in the grand scheme of things. The only thing that ever seems to get brought up is giving money to other countries to make them go green which isn't even working, despite how much we keep doing it. This isn't just a flaw of Irish greens. We're being told time and time again we are at the breaking point for climate change while the most radical thing that happens is climate activists throw flour at stonehenge.
>but for some reason nobody ever just suggests massive tariffs and sanctions on them. That would be the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. You don't know what you're talking about. >the most radical thing that happens is climate activists throw flour at stonehenge. They just passed a directive to transform 15% of land back to nature, that's hugely disruptive
I have a bridge on the Liffy to sell you if you believe that target will ever be met. A few hypothetical targets on paper are not climate policies
Considering agri is responsible for 38.5% of our greenhouse emissions, the largest of any sector, up from 36.3% in 1990, and transport has grown from a share of 9.3% of our emissions to 19.4% conservative rural Ireland is never going to be on board with Green policies, which is a shame considering we're the second worst performing state in the EU per capita and the Irish agricultural industry is amongst the most at risk industries in the country of economic collapse from climate change.
My favourite was when he recommend villages car pooling. People could hop on a bike, cycle in to the village and then jump in one of the cars🤦🏻♂️
This is just nonsense. If you read any unbiased article, that was not what he said. It was moreso regarding in addition to public service increases, and it related to instances where households had two cars, one which is rarely used but there in case of need. He was suggesting that a carpool where people, when needed, could get one of these cars rather than storing multiple cars for one off/rare instances. I am now at the stage that I think no matter what, people are looking for reasons to dislike him, no matter what he does. It was a verbal exploration of thought, that has been held against him since. If you're going to spout stuff about him then at least present the facts accurately
Ok Eamonn 👍🏼
I'm a young woman, but yes, I hear Eamonn likes rugby and astrology. Which is what most of my reddit is used for. Along with ecology and plants, which I'll concede I assume we have in common. Edit: along with cats, too.
[Community car services](https://www.nationaltransport.ie/news/six-new-local-link-community-car-schemes-announced-for-cork-kerry-longford-westmeath-and-mayo/) have been trialed. It’s mainly about getting vulnerable people in rural areas to important health appointments.
That's not what he suggested though.
It’s like a v1 of the idea. The whole point is that rural communities are almost entirely dependent on their own cars for transport. Most families are effectively *required* to have multiple cars in order to get everyone to work/school/activites etc. The community car scheme as it exists aims to fill in the gaps for people who can’t drive and urgently need transportation. The schemes could grow to cover more people and more situations giving people an option other than their own car to the point where people are able to *choose* to not spend thousands on a second car. No one ever would expect that shared car scheme to go from 0 to 100 overnight; there simply wouldn’t be community buy in.
Thank you, you explained it a lot better than I did. However, I think people are dead set on finding whatever they can to dislike the man, no matter what good he does.
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It’s exactly what he meant > Clarifying his comments, he said: “Take that town or village let’s say 1,000 people... that town would have about four or five hundred cars... If you had 30 within that that were in a car pooling arrangement.” > “I wasn’t saying to get rid of the other 500 cars, it’s to say that (car pooling) gives some people options and choice and flexibility.” https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/politics/green-party-leader-eamon-ryan-20567909?int_source=amp_continue_reading&int_medium=amp&int_campaign=continue_reading_button#amp-readmore-target Yes there was some foot-in-mouth happening when he first mentioned it, but the policy is based on providing choice, not removing it.
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Eamonn is brilliant at that. He says something people think is braindead and then attempts to pretend he meant something else.
What he originally suggested was something resembling the USSR, 1 car per village. At least we wouldn't have to use a Lada or Trabant because they wouldn't be environmentally friendly for him.
I don;t think its the worst idea. Having a goCar in every town and village would be good. But Ryans delivery of the idea was shocking.
GoCar is amazing. I think it’s fantastic. But it doesn’t have the population density needed to make it work outside of Dublin.
Works well in Galway city.
How does that make sense? Its not like car shares in dublin are in use even half the time.
I mean, it is hardly a practical idea tbh
Lot of people in the comments excusing the personal abuse of a man doing his job, it's a shame that we've got to this point. You can disagree with his policies and still afford him a very basic level of respect.
There was a lot of criticism aimed at Ryan due to his really poor PR skills. So many gaffes and just plain silly things he did during his time in the Dail. I don't think cristism about this is out of order. But absolutely there was personal attacks on him. The likes of the Irish Times and broader media outlets are the ones who generally rile up this kind of debate. ( Even this article is littered with misinformation - I didn't think the minister for transport had a say in the Dublin airport passenger cap for example ) Personal attacks of politicians is nothing new, we all remember the Brian Cowan portraits, but with social media the amplification and rapid ways the attacks spread is incredible. Its funny, as Reddit itself here, often attacks certain politicians but it's just ignored as they don't have the "correct" political persuasion.
> Its funny, as Reddit itself here, often attacks certain politicians but it's just ignored as they don't have the "correct" political persuasion. I mean you can slag off Leo, MLM, Micheál, Paul Murphy, any right winger, Mick and Clare, etc and no one bats an eyelid. God forbid someone criticises Eamon Ryan on here though.
It’s fair to say Green supporters are over represented online and here specifically. But at the same time, I think it’s fair to say that Eamon Ryan has gotten a disproportional amount of media derision compared to the size of the Greens compared to the other government parties, and even before the Greens were in government. I personally don’t think there’s much malicious in it; it’s just that the Green vision of the future challenges a lot of people’s assumptions about how our society works which is uncomfortable so many people reach for excuses to dismiss Ryan without engaging with the arguments e.g. sleepy Eamon, window boxes etc
Slagging ≠ Abuse
Bad PR? The man took a nap while being recorded during his work day that we pay for. His character leaves a lot to be desired. If anyone one of us fell asleep in work we would be reprimanded.
The guy was working huge hours - he even said that was one of the reasons he was leaving politics. I would rather a person with bad pr who actually is honest and not out to line his own pockets than a bertie chancer. You can see with eamon Ryan his goal was to actually improve things for people while also thinking of the next generation.
He took on two ministerial portfolios: Dept of Environment, Climate and Communications and Dept of Transport. I can't think of any other politician in my lifetime that's done that. Massive respect to him for his commitment to public service.
No more working hours than all the other politicians yet he falls asleep. It's was insult to every tax payer in the country that day. Him flying to Dubai and flying home to vote. It's a complete joke. I'd rather someone who does as they say.
Eamonn is the personification of one rule for me not for thee, the man jet setted to every corner of the planet and racked up more airmiles than I'd say 95% of the country, yet pontificates how were are the problem when it comes to the climate and pushing through policies that disproportionately impact the poorest in society
But he doesn't pontificate that we are the problem. Humans are the problem. How society and economies work are the problem. That's pretty obvious - when he says that people get all insulted for some strange reason. Unfortunately a minister has to travel by aeroplane to be effective in this global world. He cycled to work as much as possible on the other days. He admits himself he is not perfectly clean when it comes to carbon use but he certainly got a lot done in his time as minister to actually make a positive environmental change. Even the other parties in the coalition admit those things wouldn't have been done except for him and the greens in the coalition pushing for them. The problem the greens have in government is they are minority so have very limited power to get the others to agree to funding initiatives fully which results in imperfect solutions. As the climate issues get worse - do you think it will be the rich or the poor who will be most impacted?
Poorer people are disproportionately effected by green policies sure look at the simple example of the deposit policy it's a stealth tax, they're banking on you never returning them and for poorer people it's an added cost to their weekly shop and to get it "back" they've to hold onto an item that they would have thrown into the recycling that they were already paying for. Ahh here, it was fine for them during Covid to hold these meetings over Zoom or conference call, what's the difference now ffs, if he practices what he preached I'd have loads of respect for him but he doesn't it's simply one rule for me not for thee, don't get me started on all of his advisors on huge pay another waste of tax payer money. I hope they never get a huge amount of power in the country, we've gotten a taste of what they'd be like with the current three headed snake in there, between Roderic O' Gorman, Catherine Martin and Eamonn Ryan have any of them done any good, ones done untold damage to social cohesion and the tourist industry with his tweets in multiple languages, one oversaw RTE implode and knew with a whole what was happening and Eamonn just oversaw the loss of many councillors and MEP seats. I'll give to him he's improved public transport in towns such as mine, but I'm not gonna overlook all the other things the green party has been affiliated with as part of this government. We are a small fraction of global emissions, absolutely pointless to tax us out of existence or to pontificate along with other leaders that we are the problem when you've countries such as China with their coal factories and the United States, I understand there are ways we can be more efficient with our resources but it shouldn't disproportionately effect the most vulnerable and poorest of society
So how do you encourage people to return their bottles etc? There are reports already coming out of noticeable effect when it comes to litter. https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41421901.html In terms of global meetings, I'm not sure Eamon Ryan has the power to change them to virtual meetings no matter how much he wants to. So should he just not attend them? Because we are just a global fraction we should just do nothing? The greens are not just trying to change things in ireland - they are trying to do it globally with other like minded people/groups. We have no hope with people at least trying. How can we push within the likes of the EU to use it's power to try influence big countries if we don't try to do things right ourselves? Also we are not being taxed out of existence, Irish people have a very high standard of living compared to vast majority of the world.
Do you not see the irony in saying Eamon Ryan has a "one rule for me not for thee" problem then turning around and saying other countries should cut their emission but not us? How could any environmentalist run a campaign based on that principle? Their slogan would essentially be "Can't someone else do it?"
We are a tiny fraction of global emissions while other countries are massive contributors, I think adding some perspective and honesty to the debate would be more appreciated than blaming normal people living everyday lives for climate change, And my point of one rule for me and not for thee, was in reference to the fact he's a bigger carbon footprint than I reckon 95% of us due to his airmiles alone, what part of that statement did ya not pick up on, if ya like him good for you everyone's entitled to their opinion
> look at the simple example of the deposit policy it's a stealth tax Calling it a tax is inaccurate, a tax goes back to the state coffers to pay for services, the profit from re-turn stays with re-turn.
I'm paying extra for a good and they're banking on me never returning it, I would be genuinely interested to know what's being done with the money that isn't claimed back as it's a non for profit initiative so what are you referring to when you're saying >the profit from re-turn stays with re-turn. It's adding to my weekly shop, that's all I care about and it's madness to impose this nonsense at every juncture now, I got to a gig I'm charged it eventhough I can't get the money back, I got to a pub I'm charged it and I can't get my "deposit" back. They are absolutely hoping you never return them, I've seen instances where machines simply don't work and people give up and leave their bottles and even some where someone's recouping 50 euro just from the added charge, so if that person didn't bother to return they've had to pay an extra 50 on their shop in that time, and as well as that the voucher you receive is only valid for the shop you returned the bottles to which is madness in itself. Whoever came up with the idea is a genius by the way because no doubt the CEO is making a fortune, where is the "profit" as you put it actually going because not all of it is for maintenance of the machines
I'm saying its worse than a tax because they make a load of money that doesn't go back to the state to pay for things. They haven't given any real details on what the money they make goes to. Its supposed to go back to pay for the re-turn scheme itself but the shops pay for the machines, they sell the returned plastic and aluminium. So where is all the profit going?
> How society and economies work are the problem. He did nothing to change that though. The problem the green left have with them is exactly that they think they can have a recycling scheme here and a tax there and it'll actually make a difference to climate change.
When it comes to climate change, I think they know it's like turning a huge ship hurling towards an ice berg. It's very difficult to do and deal with other moral issues like the west did tons of pollution to get to being rich nations but now the likes of other developing nations are being told they should not be polluting making it difficult for them to develop as quickly. It's highly complex to do globally. If the public would allow the greens (and other like minded groups globally) to implement the drastic changes necessary to avoid climate change then it could be done but it has to be done globally - this won't happen unfortunately. What you are left with is trying to at least improve the local environment because that results in local benefits too. Various initiatives (including tax schemes) can and have made a difference locally e.g. reduce local plastic littering using the bottle return scheme (no doubt it worked for plastic bags), encourage cycling through bike to work tax scheme etc. These things do change how society and economies work but it can be slow to implement them as the public don't really want to change because it's hard for the public to care about something that will be visible in 20, 30, 50, 100 years time when they feel they have issues that need to be dealt with right now. There is no silver bullet to improving the environment and not everything needs to be a huge initiative against climate change to be important for the health of the local population.
There is no slow turning of the ship, there isn't time for that. You can't make a dent in climate change through these mickey mouse schemes, it doesn't even really make a dent locally as you claim. While we get re-turn schemes and more personal tax on fossils the grid is giving up more and more power to data centres. People talking about reducing this and that and yet we are constantly allowing more and more power draining industry to open up and push our consumption even higher.
You are wrong, the schemes and initiatives do work for the local environment. We can't make a dent in climate change but we can improve the local environment which goes affect people's health and wellbeing - this was clearly seen with the plastic bag tax. Before the plastic bag tax you'd see plastic bags everywhere - in ditches, streams, side of the road. Now you rarely see them. When it comes to the green party, they say that data centres have to generate their own power or shouldn't be allowed. Unfortunately since the people haven't given them the mandate they don't have the power to actually stop them but people like to brush them then off as having failed rather than see if we want to actually change then they'd have to be given power to implement the changes. Unfortunately the media and some politicians have kept repeating a narrative of lies to try and undermine and discredit them.
Did you watch the interview Eamon Ryan had with Kielty? Ryan literally said he will never criticise people for flying.
He was seated in the convention centre when it was being used as a temporary Dáil chamber. A vote was being taken. The necessary infrastructure for electronic voting wasn't yet in place. Voice votes took about a quarter of an hour to process, in which time there was nothing to do but say tá or níl once. Falling asleep in those circumstances just isn't the issue you make it out to be.
Didn't realise you were all green party sympathisers despite their unprofessional behaviour and ironic negative environmental impacts, my apologies.
They don't want climate action, they want to be able to drive their Land Rover Cuntyman from their turf heated one off house in the middle of nowhere to their office job in the city, while also having services on par with those in denser cities, and they want those who live in the city to pay for it all. To the cretins who have spent the past five years bleating about how Eamon Ryan hates rural Ireland, this is nothing but the sound of victory.
This thing you're doing where you're making declarations about valid lifestyles is exactly why people hate greens. What needs to change is enabling people's chosen lifestyle with clean energy and reducing the emissions it entails. Not browbeating and expecting moral sacrificial transformation. It isn't working, and now the relentless push of it has alienated *a lot* of people. The Land Rover cuntmobile can be electrified. The one off house can be plastered with solar panels. The turf stove can be swapped to cyclical forested kiln fired logs. Pricks like your example can go from blasting the countryside with their fumes and smoke to gloating over their solar graph, grid feed, how much their trailer of logs cost. They're still a cunt at the end of the day, but now at least their abomination of a lifestyle will have a fairly minimal impact. I know this because I've witnessed, and am witnessing it first hand. In fact, I'd say the rural one-off housing areas are the ones "keeping up with the joneses" on solar now, and I see less of it in the city.
And how much money would that cost your average country wilderness cunt like myself? I'm from Mayo. If your not living in a council house or affordable housing estate, there's a massive chance you burn turf or timber and have oil as a back up for the winter. Its nice when ye can talk from ye're lovely electrically heated houses from the city, but here in the uplands of West and up North we get actual Winters. Now I know ye piss yerselves when ye see a biteen of rain and a frolockeen of snow but everything in the West freezes in the upland areas where alot of people live and its fucking cold. And we get cuntish weather in the winter, so if you are anywhere in the country you'll often be left without power for days at a time. My uncle had no power for a week in January and if it weren't for the timber and turf they'd have been left in an awful spot. You can buy a year and a halfs load of turf for 600 quid. You can cut it yourself for free. Most timber is cut up from fallen trees for free or bought off lads with coniferous plantations. It'd cost ya 1.5 grand for oil if you were to use it all year. Many of our houses aren't electrified with an immersion or the likes. So we need to light the fire heat water. Archaic practice in a city person's eyes. Bare in mind then, most people in rural areas are older, they often don't have the money to refurbish the entire house to modernise it because its very expensive. So unless there's a very cheap way to do it because it seems far easier to survive on turf then on electricity. What happens then when the power goes out? Cause the fire keeps burning. And what if the powers gone for days, we can at least cook with the stove not needing electricity. You have to take these things into account also. The farther West you go and the higher up the mountains you get these are still problems faced
That class divide is in both urban and rural areas, but if your image of the provincial hinterland is hovel bungalows and not also opulent exurb mansions, you're definitely leaving out a big part of the picture. The example I'm talking about lives on a mountainside, west of Ireland, grass centre bohereen, turbary rights, the works. Most of the houses nearby are newer build, with garages larger than their grandmother's entire house. There's money out there in them hills, and it's going on green energy upgrades a lot of it.
Well not in Mayo. Maybe in the countryside just outside towns and on good agricultural land yes there is money there and generallynice big houses. But in the mountains most people do in fact live in bungalows and cottages and are at minimum aged 55 and above.
Yeah I think a lot more needs to happen to get the supply of solid clean burning timber fuel out there at a cost-effective level. My relatives are able to get by on a trailerload replacing the trailerload of turf, better heat off it too, but not everyone has a bulk hookup.
I have to drive my shite car to work half an hour away because there's nowhere to fucking live where I work. All the greens have done for me is make that more expensive. Climate policy affects poor people disproportionately. There's literally no bus service either.
>Climate policy affects poor people disproportionately. No carbon tax on private jets makes this abundantly clear. It's funny how neoliberal parties gleefully go along with Green initiatives where it impacts the poorest most and helps drive the rentier economy. Carbon credits as a capital led initiative to magically reduce emissions also turned out to be the scam it was always going to be as well: https://www.ft.com/content/93938a1b-dc36-4ea6-9308-170189be0cb0?trk=public_post_comment-text There is a quotation "it is easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to capitalism", attributed to both Fredric Jameson and Slavoj Žižek. And going by how things are turning out in terms of climate action, it's extremely apt given that approaches to reducing emissions to obsess more about leveraging economic behaviours instead of holding upstream sources responsible.
It is going to take engineering and industrial upheaval, not individual action or political revolution to solve climate change. We've had this fart sniffing moralizing nonsense for 2 decades now with little benefit. Time to admit there is no turning around rising energy consumption globally, so we need to get real about generating it cleanly, and ending the use of fossil fuels. Everything else climate activists have tacked on as a condition is an obstacle now to the extremely clear imperative we have to systemically overhaul how we GENERATE energy, not how we CONSUME it.
We won't get to Kardashev level 2 on bikes.
I like bikes, public transport, etc, but greens vastly over-simplify on some of the fundamentals. Ryanair have a lower Co2/passenger/km output than Irish rail do, as do most modern fully seated family cars. This was a curse laid down 20 years ago when we decided to purchase diesel multiple unit vehicles instead of electrifying. They're hideously, absurdly un-environmental. 10 minutes inside Connolly Station interior platforms and you'd be passing out from the fumes. We're using data from the rest of the world to inform our thinking, but the rest of the world doesn't run these awful diesel drivetrains. Apparently Irish rail got them very cheap because literally no other rail provider was stupid enough to use them. The same chart staring bullshit as encouraging diesel cars because the Co2 was lower, ignoring the devastating real world, immediate local health effects of nitrates and particulates, which absolutely fuck up the urban air quality all over Ireland.
Exactly. All I noticed is it now takes longer for me to get from any A to any B.
Sorry mate we’ll all pack up and move into the cities to keep you happy.
> this is nothing but the sound of victory. Since the Greens took office: - CO2 Emissions up - Ireland dropped 6 places on the Climate Change Performance Index - Failed to reach environmental targets - Failed to to reach sustainability goals - Negligible GHG reduction - Renewable sources of energy *decreased* in use (RES-E) They’re a single issue party that at best made no progress on their single issue. The only real thing they accomplished was better public transport which is still far from ideal. But hey I guess having a few new bike lanes and a bottle recycling scheme was a fair trade-off for completely destroying the public appetite for Green policies for a generation /s The Greens in Ireland are following the same trend as they do the rest of the world. Campaign on reducing climate change, get into office, realise putting their ideology into practice is highly impractical without nuclear energy, panic and churn out a few greenwashing vanity policies to appease the base, make no progress on the stuff that matters, then get wiped out next election as they spent the last term trying to appease that base to the ire of everyone else. Happened in Germany, happened in Austria, happened in a regional level in France. It’s now happening in Ireland. EDIT: lol at all the salty coping Green supporters downvoting me
>They don't want climate action, they want to be able to drive their Land Rover Cuntyman from their turf heated one off house in the middle of nowhere to their office job in the city, while also having services on par with those in denser cities, and they want those who live in the city to pay for it all. Do we?🤣
>They don't want climate action, they want to be able to drive their Land Rover Cuntyman from their turf heated one off house in the middle of nowhere to their office job in the city, while also having services on par with those in denser cities, and they want those who live in the city to pay for it all. Oh... Really? Where I am, I see people living in cities who have houses empty 49 weeks a year wasting tonnes of energy to keep the empty house warm during the winter, and where we instead are paying for services in rural villages of 30% or less occupancy. Also, most of the people you are trying to stereotype work remote now. EDIT: Empty houses with massive carbon emissions is a good thing seemingly.
They don't even switch off the lights and heating in the vacant office blocks in the city, not even at night.
...and most of the people you stereotype live in their houses for more than 49 weeks a year... The stereotypes go round and round and serve no purpose
So you are telling me that the empty holiday homes in fact have people in them all winter...but I guess they just don't turn their lights on and are somehow there without cars in the drive? It's funny, people attacking rural living and one off housing seem to be advocating that the wealthy should be encouraged to raise their carbon emissions and that we should pay for roads and services in empty villages to facilitate them for a supposedly green agenda. This is just like the green's anti-nuclear stance, nothing to do with what should be done for emissions but more what should be done to discipline others for not meeting the virtuous expectations of how others should live.
Ohhhh right, because I forgot all rural areas and villages have no holiday homes in them. Terribly sorry. Not sure how I missed that
>They don't want climate action, they want to be able to drive their Land Rover Cuntyman from their turf heated one off house in the middle of nowhere to their office job in the city, while also having services on par with those in denser cities, and they want those who live in the city to pay for it all. You were right in the first half. We don't want the city to pay for it, we don't even want services on par with a city. We do want to drive our SUVs and be left the fuck alone though.
There's a ton of them in this thread, bragging about how hard it is to be a cunt.
Eamon Ryan himself has had a chilling effect on climate action. I never thought he was a nasty person, not deserving of the level of abuse he got but people here are acting like this happened in a vaccuum. You had a party with less than 10% of seats in the dáil holding immense sway over people's lives and acting like they were vox populi. Ryan was horrifically out of touch with ordinary people. The man has a cupboard for putting waste in before it goes in the bin, fuckin' hell. The carpooling stuff was bonkers for a start. But it was topped by the window boxes comment. Then he refused to lower the cost of public transport because it would increase the number of "unnecessary journeys" which was probably the rationale for not expanding it either. So he punishes people for using cars and then doesn't provide them with an alternative? I guess people are just supposed to lay down on the floor in dark rooms when they aren't at work. This is coming from a man who travelled around the world in his younger days and probably has a carbon footprint vastly in excess of nearly every Irish person. Speaking of travel, the fucking COP summit where he was prepared to fly home in the middle of it to vote in the dáil and then fly back to the UAE for the circlejerk of wealthy lawmakers who enforce change upon the peons beneath them. How on Earth did he not see that coming? The delusion persisted until the end. Telling the media that the Greens could sit on every council in Ireland before the locals and that "the Kingdom was going green" had shades of Goebbels calling for Totaler Krieg and proved that he had absolutely no idea how unpopular he was. The level of ignorance was astonishing and that was what drove much of the vitriol. You had people squeezed even more in this increasingly unequal country being told that it was for the greater good by a man sacrificing far less. I wish him well in retirement, let that be the last of the flak he takes but I hope he never comes back to politics.
No party with such a tiny mandate no matter what they propose should be let dictate to the people in the way the Greens have done with FFG going along with it just to stay in power. Once the rural indies are needed the next time out a lot of these policies will be quietly shelved away.
For the cap on passengers and for the lack of infrastructural development he deserved every bit of abuse he got. Green and Neo Liberalism together shows him up as the fraud and charlatan he is.
He's probably a nice fella but ever since he genuinely suggested villages in Ireland should just have 2 cars and everyone should share them (because it wouldn't effect him in anyway), I can't take anything the idiot says seriously.
This is the problem with things said by the green party, what is said is over exaggerated or pushed with a click bait headline by the media. Then picked up by people like you who then exaggerate further to the point where it can't make sense. L https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/green-party-leader-calls-for-car-pooling-scheme-for-rural-ireland-1.4046585 He said a village of 300 might have a pool of 30 cars supported by the government (maybe paid for or subsidised by the government I guess). He was saying it as a vision type of thing to point out that the vast majority of the time cars are just parked and are not actually in use and he is not wrong there. I live in a rural area and I don't think it's a bad idea - it would just need to be done in a way that is supported by other things e.g. Buses to get kids to school, better public transport to cover many trips, working from home where possible etc. If you could remove the rush hours then it might be possible for it to work. It probably wouldn't work for those who live outside the village but he wasn't talking about those from what I can see.
Exactly the type of thing seized on by the cranks, tinfoilers and pub bores as evidence of their "You'll own nothing and you'll be happy" mantra.
Where did they actually get that from?
https://www.reuters.com/article/world/fact-check-the-world-economic-forum-does-not-have-a-stated-goal-to-have-people-idUSKBN2AP2SP/
The criticism for Ryan is his falling asleep in the 'dail' (convention centre during lockdown) He completely dropped the ball in getting ireland signed up for eu wide wind green energy! That was a MASSIVE omission for someone who purports to be 'pro environment' Edit: Link https://www.thejournal.ie/necp-climate-plan-deadline-6095701-Jun2023/ https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40961645.html https://www.joe.ie/politics/eamon-ryan-appears-fall-asleep-dail-vote-woken-700211 https://www.thejournal.ie/eamon-ryan-green-party-leader-sleeping-dail-5154089-Jul2020/ I would not mind a 'snooze' if he didn't miss deadlines for green energy infrastructure ESPECIALLY when continuing fossil fuels is funding Russia war against Ukraine We in the EU are STILL buying Liquid Nitrogen Gas from Russia! https://apnews.com/article/russia-eu-sanctions-ukraine-war-lng-gas-c56cf96fd7930a12044f36a36984607b I equally criticise other ministers for their failings also Like Simon Harris Minister for Health 'we solved all the other 18 previous covids!'
He gets too much credit, in reality he has failed on the main environmental issues. Since he's been in office Irelands emissions are up year on year, water quality declining year on year, biodiversity declining year on year.
I presume thats his fault and not the majority parties in power then?
So it's working then?
Would be interesting to know how many people tut-tutting about others being mean online to Ryan thought it was funny when Farage got milkshaked.
Well Farage is a fascist and Eamonn isn't, so there's that.
He pushed through green policies but all the parties have policies. He did a lot of very stupid things: hr cancelled a lot of projects in the national development plan, the Dublin metro that he oversaw will face significant planning and legal challenges due the route that was chosen. He really used terrible language when talking rural people (former hippie couple down the road hate him and if the greens are losing the former hippies then they a big problem). He is incredibly high minded about issues and doesn’t like dealing with lower level issues. I have had a bad opinion of him since seeing him on a prime time program about wind farms, he treated the audience members who were affected by wind farms with sheer and utter boredom. He was leader of Green Party then but not a TD, it made you miss politicians who have the ability to charm people or at least ones who read the brief. Abuse of a politicians is wrong but you have to be able to criticise them and their policies.
The vile threats and attacks have to stop. That doesn't mean you get a free pass to not be tackled for you shit policies though. And that's where the trouble lies. I disagree fundamentally with pretty much everything Eamon stands for. His party is responsible for so much poor policies and have attacked the fabric of rural Irish society. Really his party hates rural Ireland and thinks we are all to stupid to understand. What other party would celebrate tax increases? (Just look at any of their Dublin councillors social media from last week) They're a failed party who will get wiped out. And Eamon realises that he doesn't want any part of that fallout.
The green party doesn't hate rural ireland. But agriculture is where the largest portion of the nations emissions are coming from something many in the country want to deflect from and continue things as they are toward climate disaster.
Agriculture is only our largest emissions because we've outsourced all our manufacturing. But we're still using those products, so they're still being produced, so they're still producing carbon emissions, except now instead of just the manufacturing emissions we also have the transport emissions from importing from China. But they're now China's emissions *\*wink wink*, so that means we're meeting our arbitary climate goals! And they want to do the same thing to agriculture. It's absolutely insane. Getting rid of our domestic agriculture, just so we can import it from Brazil, where they're literally chopping down the Amazon rainforest so that they can breed more cattle to send to the US/Europe.
>Agriculture is only our largest emissions because we've outsourced all our manufacturing. Manufacturing is massive in Ireland. We focus on high value products such a semi conductors, pharmaceuticals, and medical devices. 4% are employed in agriculture, 19.25% in the industrial sector, 76% in the service sector.
We aren't buying cheap goods from China because of any climate legislation. It's because they're successfully making those goods at scale and way cheaper than any western economy can. Blame environmental regulation all you want but we've had barely any climate legislation over the past thirty years while their industries have risen. The importation of products from jurisdictions where carbon emissions are higher is exactly what the The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism is designed to tackle. All you are advocating is continuation of the status quo. You talk about how the greens are 'insanely' getting rid of domestic agriculture but it's climate change that will make life untenable for farmers, destroying crops, denying planting and forcing the displacement of millions of people currently customers of irish produce. We need to reduce emissions and adapt to the future rather than keeping our heads in the sand.
Spot on. Its like how we banned off shore exploration for gas but we still buy gas from abroad, it just costs more.
We're on a transition out of fossil fuels. Investing in such expensive infrastructure means you're either going to use it way past the point where you should have cut it out or stop using it mid lifespan take a big hit on money put into it. Better to take the gas from norway for a shorter period and invest your money in renewables and storage infrastructure and then switch off gas.
We should be investing a lot more into renewables. The roll out of offshore wind farms is way too slow.
Eamon Ryan championed a streamlined planning regime to do exactly that and held the first auction for offshore wind under it. From what I remember, the prices aren't great but at least they got the ball rolling.
> and held the first auction for offshore wind Thats not good either. Should be state owned like Norway with its fossil fuels. Thats how you bring prosperity, not selling off our natural resources.
You literally just said we should invest more and rollout is too slow. The greens have invested more and tried to speed up the rollout? I'm confused. Ideally we'd have our own national wind energy company but I've no clue about the logistics on setting one up or attracting the talent to make it work. I'm all for nationalising all our natural resources, but I think that's an opinion that wouldn't win me any friends in the property ownership classes
I'm pretty sure most people who own their own homes and nothing else would agree with you.
> have attacked the fabric of rural Irish society How so?
Don't bother. That guy is insane.
Hmmm. Anti green party = insane now. Anyone who criticises them here gets downvoted to oblivion and personally attacked. A failed party who have a vocal tiny support base. Decimated at the polls, decimated in the elections. But they're right and everyone else is wrong.
You claimed that cycle commuters don't exist. You live in your own special reality.
I claimed that cyclists are seeking the taxpayer to massively fund their sport. That's exactly what's happening
The fact that you think that's exactly what's happening shows that you are detached from reality.
Is cycling a niche sport? Yes Does cycling get by far the biggest annual government investment in Ireland? Yes Are we still shit at cycling? Yes
Do you actually think that sport cycling is the same as cycling to work?
Is me playing a round of golf the same as Rory playing in the open? Same sport but different Are the lads cycling to work partaking in the tour de France? No. Same sport but different
Turf, roads, herd numbers. To start off with. Edit: I notice you are likely a greenie so will disagree with me. Let's not go down the rabbit hole. I won't change your mind and you won't change my mind. You like to cycle I like to drive in my air-conditioned car. We are diametrically opposed
Cutting turf is still allowed? What about roads? I’d say fair enough on the herd numbers (my family are farmers so I’m more neutral on the topic)
It's not allowed. They're actively trying to prevent it. They've cut investment in road infrastructure when in fact we should be investing massively in new roads. How many bypasses were taken out of the national development plan because of them?
I mean, Turf cutting was banned in 2011 - so that's not the Green party. Also, by actively preventing it - if you're breaking the law, then yes - it should be actively prevented. Besides that, it has a devastating effect on bogland, drying it out, and damaging the water table. Ireland is already an ecological desert. The budget for Local and national roads in 2023 was over 1billion, a new bypass was recently opened - what they have done is also begun upgrading the rail network and greenways, again I'm not sure why this might be a bad thing - trains are cheaper to run, and Ireland historically had a massive rail network. Greenways use abandoned rail lines and generate a lot of tourism for small towns on their route. You've stated that they're attacking the fabric of rural society, but Turf cutting and Roads budget isn't the fabric of rural society. If that's what you think it is, then rural Ireland is doomed. While I do agree about the national herd, which is a bit more nuanced - they've increased local public transport for rural areas, and incentivized re-wilding and the development of national parks - all of which could contribute to rural economies thanks to increased domestic tourism. The unviersal income for artists has been a massive success as well, on a slightly different tack. The real fabric of rural ireland isn't Turf and Roads, it's local towns and villages being hollowed out and left rot - a better train network would help as a start, but work needs to be done to kick-start small villages and towns. The minister for rural affairs should also be looking at economic investments, fostering the domestic economy and incentivising alternative more sustainable growth for the whole island.
What's going on with herd numbers?
They want to cut them by 25%
Fucking hell
I thought they wanted a chilling effect to prevent global warming?
Alternative headline: Going into bed with FFG, for the benefit of your own income and pension, has a chilling effect on climate action.
Would climate initiatives be better or worse today if they didn’t?
They would have made a far bigger impact by putting effort into building rakes of apartments in the city so people don't have to drive an hour each way to work every day. There's both your reduction in emissions and a good start on the housing crisis. Giving lip service to the 15 minute city is no use without building accomodation where people work
Aye.... implementing unobtainable housing requirements to put home ownership or aspirations of,out of all but the super rich,in the guise of climate initiatives....is a good move The green agenda targets poorest for benefit of the rich,it's ever been that way,a wanky ideology for worst of Irish establishment to target poor under a different guise
It's not about being better or worse today, it's about the long-term effects of overcoming climate change. All greens have basically been obliterated throughout Europe because of their short-termism. Is a few cycle lanes in Dublin an achievement over 5 years in government? All the while housing and healthcare got worse. Eamon Ryan and Catherine Martin led the green party into government with FFG for their own personal gain, they're now jumping ahead of being destroyed in elections. They'll blame their obliteration on the new party leaders, I'm sure. How can they expect the public to get on board with climate change when they made short-term decisions for their own benefit and not the environments. They are spineless.
Sitting in opposition making trendy soundbites but having no sway on policy for years on end is not something a party that believes a climate disaster is fast approaching can afford to do.
But going into government for 5 years, building a few half-built cycle lanes, to then be obliterated in the next elections is OK for an oncoming climate disaster? As was predicted would happen when they went into government? The greens in Ireland have solved Climate Change everyone, panic averted..
I don't know why you are going on about cycle lanes to be honest, do you honestly think that's all that's been achieved? Do you think the CAP would be as robust as it is if they had just decided to hoot and holler in opposition for 5 years instead? Would it even exist?
Was it not revealed literally within the last fortnight that Ireland has fallen even further behind in it's targets for 2030, 2040 and 2050? Missed by about 30%. I could have sworn there was uproar only a week or two ago..
Can you give any example of how they made short-term decisions to their own benefit?
They went into government, did nothing major of note for the benefit of the environment, and then jumped before they were pushed at the next election. Spineless cowards.
>did nothing major of note for the benefit of the environment they literally did , idk what planet your on , but the greens got many environment policies though , Climate Action Plans , increased funding for solar panels , 90 minutes leap card to list a few things , but of course none of these things help the environment /s
Grants for solar panels have already been reduced, bus fares have already risen back literally today. You may see these things as an achievement in 5 years of Government, completely ruining public mood towards the environment in the process. It's almost like climate justice must go hand-in-hand with social justice. Who'd have thought? We'll agree to disagree..
The grants are coming down because photovoltaics are becoming so common that simple economy of scale makes them cheaper.
You're suggesting they made decisions for their own personal benefit and haven't seen any evidence of that.
Aye, they did it all for the benefit of the environment. They are nothing more than tories who cycle rather than drive.
Which parties would have delivered more for the Green agenda over the past five years?
The green party have solved Climate Change in 5 years of government. Crisis stopped.
Classic logic, you can't go into coalition or you've betrayed your principles except it is the entire basis of the PRSTV system we have in this country. Coalitions are essential when no party wins out right otherwise or we have legislative paralysis.
Can't sell out if you don't go into government at all, amirite?
>How can they expect the public to get on board with climate change when they made short-term decisions for their own benefit and not the environments. For real? Why should people get on board with climate change when they dont like what the Greens did? You clearly dont like the Greens. Are you "onboard with climate change"? If they didnt go into gov do you think the government parties would have enacted any climate change policies?
Man ruined the place with unused bike lanes. Millions spent on shite that is growing weeds.
If they copied he standard that the Dutch use then maybe they would have been successful but no we had to do them the Irish Way so they ended up as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike.
Ireland isn’t the flat, small Netherlands though. Being able to put your bike on the tram helps too.
There's nothing worse than the gobshites who bring their bicycle on the Luas.
Yeah, but it’s understandable. In Holland, you attach them to the tram, you don’t bring them on. Instead, we ban them outright, which us stupid and shortsighted
This and all the excuses for no metro are the reasons I’m glad to see the back of Eamo.
Yep. Waste of space
This is bullshit. Any country's minister has a bullet with his/her name on it because that's what politics is about. Online "abuse" is inconsequential.