Unilateral Eco-policy in Ireland?

Jackie laughlin

It seems to me that the basic objection to doing anything to reduce our contribution to atmospheric pollution is that nothing we can do will make any difference. That is to say, I'm growing tired of the fallacious argument that because a problem is large and has many contributors worldwide, we in Ireland can lean ar agaidh because our role is so small that change here would make no difference.

I'm thinking particularly of travel. This tiny country doesn't need more than one airport. Internal travel by air is eco-madness. Indeed the same could be said of all short trips including those to the U.K. Trains and ships are more efficient and the trip durations are not significantly longer. Moreover, we could campaign for or force people to take just one foreign holiday per year. These are not revolutionary proposals that would involve massive changes in lifestyle. However, they would make no appreciable impact on the problem. They might say to the world that we are making a start and we hope that the rest of you will follow until the aggregate will make some difference.

Incidentally, such policies would be horrendously unpopular and amount to electoral suicide for any party suggesting them.

silverharp

The way I look at this is that your frustration is valid if you believe that oil supply will grow in the years ahead as demand will rise to meet it, however if you buy into Peak Oil then by around 2010 oil supply will hit a peak and will then decrease by 2-3% per year going forward. This will cause more pain to the consumer then even you are suggesting by some sort of top down demand control. The challenge is to wean the essential parts of the economy off oil now so we can weather the storms ahead, air travel and commuting will be priced out of the market anyway.

mike65

Moreover, we could campaign for or force people to take just one foreign holiday per year. These are not revolutionary proposals that would involve massive changes in lifestyle. However, they would make no appreciable impact on the problem. They might say to the world that we are making a start and we hope that the rest of you will follow until the aggregate will make some difference.

C'mon now read that back and think about it. There would be riots and for no good reason, I'm all in favour of prices air-travel realisticly but the idea of the state telling me or anyone how many times they can travel abroad is communist. Worse than that its gesture politics as its worst. If we want to 'show willing' there are far better ways like upgrading our minimum standards for building insulation (our idiot minister actually criticised Dun Laoghaire Rathdown CC for seeking to make such standards tougher)

Mike.

BendiBus

Jackie laughlin wrote:

Moreover, we could campaign for or force people to take just one foreign holiday per year.

Not the best way to engender popular support for environmental protection.

Be The Holy

In britain, they are/were considering implementing a carbon points system where by an individual would be granted an allocation of carbon points at the beginning of the year and be forced to stay within this limit or face fines. They wud use these carbon points up by driving flying etc, dont know if public transport was included, wud probably be weighted very lowly. Would be a nightmare to implement and probably could be easily abused.

Jackie laughlin

Silverharp,
Do I understand you correctly to be saying that oil will run out, the market will respond and that there is no problem?

Mike,
Contradiction in your post! You should agree with the Minister. His reaction to DL/Rathdown's imposition of tougher standards is exactly the same as your reaction to controlling foreign holidays.

Look, nothing that is done in Ireland will make a significant difference. The choice is do nothing at all or move a tiny grain of sand from the heap that is the problem. DL/Rathdown could be seen as "gesture politics".

OK, so banning 2nd holidays abroad might cause barricades in Dublin 4. How about making a start with advertisements ("a public information programme") saying that it would be nice if people didn't take 2nd holidays in the interests of the environment? Then we could move on to demonise the greedy holidaymaker (This was the route of the anti-smoking campaign.) before getiing round to some kind of effective control.

Bendibus,
Does the public persuasion route appeal to you?

Be the Holy,
Rationing is a live issue in Britain.



OK, so where do we stand on regional airports in a country that is hardly big enough to be called a region? What about a railway plan whose express (ooops!) purpose is to close regional airports?

silverharp

Jackie laughlin wrote:

Silverharp,
Do I understand you correctly to be saying that oil will run out, the market will respond and that there is no problem?

I never said oil will run out, PO means there will be less every year from the peak point the market mechanism will be $250+ per barrel oil. There will be plenty of problems, but if you are speaking about man made global warming then by definitions emissions from petrolium products will reduce year on year, people won't be flying on their holidays, people wont be commuting long distances to work, isn't this what you aiming for?

Jackie laughlin

Silverharp,
I'm a very recent convert to global warming. I'm always suspicious of predictions. In the 1960s Ireland had 15 years of turf left! Your approach may be correct but wouldn't it be more prudent to be sceptical about peak production, declining production and dates?

silverharp

Jackie laughlin wrote:

Silverharp,
I'm a very recent convert to global warming. I'm always suspicious of predictions. In the 1960s Ireland had 15 years of turf left! Your approach may be correct but wouldn't it be more prudent to be sceptical about peak production, declining production and dates?

from my own perspective it pays to be skeptical about gov. ststistics about future oil growth, the costs of being wrong are far less then the benefits of being right.
From a country perspective Ireland seems happy to buy carbon credits, to me this is a complete nonsense and waste of money as the money should be spent of reducing energy consumption in Ireland

Be The Holy

As regards global warming and carbon credits, when one considers that the chinese plan on building several hundred coal plants, whats the point? Our best efforts will count for nothing.

BendiBus

Be The Holy wrote:

As regards global warming and carbon credits, when one considers that the chinese plan on building several hundred coal plants, whats the point? Our best efforts will count for nothing.

Environmentally, maybe our efforts may mean little.

However, we are hugely dependent on oil, a commodity mainly sourced from the most unstable parts of the world. This commodity is also in huge demand from the worlds superpowers. In times of shortage, we will be far down the queue.

By acting in our own economic self interest, using indigineous renewable resources to replace coal & oil, we will achieve environmental soundness as a by-product of energy security. People will always be guided by their own interests (a feeling of wealth & security), so I suggest selling the economic advantages is better than trying to persuade/coerce people to reduce their standard of living.

mike65

Well put BendiBus, there's nothing like a bit of enlightened self-interest. its Euros and Cents we should be thinking about as much as anything.

Mike.

Lazairus

Come on , Lets not be so defeatist . please watch The (misguided )Presiut of happiness) . from that video , he stats that people change the environment around them to make them feel better about themselves.hell at least if we try , when the rest of the world catches up we can say that we did our bit .

I believe that the Irish Government can do so much more They are moving way to slow Bertie's policy issued 2 weeks a go is laughable . People are doing much , but not doing every thing in their power , If every Irish person started converting their cars ,Installing solar panels , Using wood chip burners , then we can say
WE TRIED.

jet travel is a global Issue , There need to be an alternative engine to the jet , and fast , I am impressed with Richard Branson Hes leading the way in finding an alternate fuel to Kerosene. The jet has not evolved since 1960 , please read this weeks new scientist article for jet travel . Laz

Jackie laughlin

This is very interesting as I'm a newcomer to the Green corner on this site. The message I'm getting is that Ireland should do nothing except reduce fuel consumption for national strategic and economic reasons.

Misty Moon

Re the regional airports - I see your point and would be inclined to agree. However, considering the lack of an excellent train service I don't think it's too surprising that people would choose to fly instead.

Jackie laughlin

Misty,
Two points. Firstly the present train service, while inadequate, is nothing like as bad as opponents of public transport portray it. It has improved greatly in the last few years. I find mainline Iarnrod trains comfortable, clean, reliable, easy to book and easy to access. However, there are too few destinations, other than "offers" tickets can be very expensive, and service ends far too early in the evenings. Secondly, I'm not advocating the immediate closure of airports. I'm suggesting a statement of intent, to be followed by a plan including rail improvements/extentions and target dates for the closure of airports.

On a larger scale, I'm arguing that Ireland decide to do something about excessive and/or unnecessary air travel and then begin a) to discourage Irish people from flying frequently and b) to develop a plan to reduce Ireland's contribution to the problem.

SeanW

Aviation only accounts for 2% of world emissions if Mickey O Leary is telling the truth, so even if we grounded all aircraft tomorrow, there would still be 98% of GHG emissions to worry about though I reckon the economic collapse that would follow would take care of the rest.

But yes, with the exception of remote places like Donegal and travel to the Western Islands, I certainly agree that internal aviation is idiotic. But there has been a serious failure by government to improve Intercity public transport with many Intercity railway routes being SLOWER than they were in 1987 - in some cases slower than they were in 1937.

http://www.platform11.org/passenger_issues/not_getting_there.php

So you can't really blame people for wanting to fly these journies. This is just one in a long string of failures by our government, in environmental matters and others.

There really is no getting away from the core issues, we need more focus on public transport especially railways, more carefully managed consumption in general, and to look at cleaner ways of making electricity.

ardara1

mike65 wrote:

If we want to 'show willing' there are far better ways like upgrading our minimum standards for building insulation (our idiot minister actually criticised Dun Laoghaire Rathdown CC for seeking to make such standards tougher)

Mike.

Mike - new build housing does not contribute that much in reality - the govt has concentrated all its effort and GRANT money toward ne build. If our regs were implements as stands - rather than chasing rainbows in Dun Loaghaire and Fingal it would mean something - their signing up to these green initiatives is only as paper excercise.

We need to concentrat on EXISITING buildings - not new ones. 6500 grant for a heat pump - think of the CO2 savings if that put insulation into old lofts or replaced old boilers or glazing?

The govts concentration on micro savings - rather than large scale renewables let them off the hook with a good PR story

Capt'n Midnight

If we had a TGV link Belfast - Dublin - Limerick - Cork then a single airport might be an option. We don't and with the way Ryanair and co. are squabbling over terminals and the various debts on existing airports don't make it seem like a runner.

Maybe some "wing in ground effect craft" across the Irish Sea to the TGV network in Wales.

Or EU structural funds on improved rail links so that air travel isn't competitive on short haul, though this would mean high speed rail up to Mayo. For long haul aircraft are more efficient, even more so when you have to provide sleeper trains.

But providing heavily subsidised public transport for Dublin would be a practical step, so people could feel there was an alternative to the car. Reducing transport wastage and super-insulating houses would do a lot too. Subsidiesed broadband would allow tele-commuting ,again with a petrol saving ( energy and heat used by the stay at home person might be more than if they were in the office)

removing the WEE on the most energy efficient applienaces like fluorescent bulbs and putting a waste tax on incandescent ones. similarly for the energy rating on household appliances using the ABC ratings

maybe banning desktop computers and forcing everyone to use laptops - where does it end ?

Why not put a carbon tax on carbohydrates since we will just breath out the CO2 :rolleyes:

Jackie laughlin

There are many, many policies which we could discuss. I was trying to focus on just one. That is not to say that it is more important. I wanted to know if anyone agreed with me that Ireland should go it alone before international agreement and begin to tackle the problem; remove one grain of sand from the heap in the hope/belief that others will follow suit.

I'm not talking revolution, destruction of industry or major lifestyle changes; just a statement of intent, formulation of plans, setting target dates and then implementation.

By the way, internal flights are subsidised.

DrFunkenstein

I think unilateral action on eco policy would be a good move,
Recycling is done mostly out of inititive of householders and has ben a huge sucess, We should all do what we can to reduce emissions of GHG and otherwise enhance our environments. Petition for legalisation of cannabis ruderillis (Hemp) for teh purposes of industry, Carbon sequestration and bio fuels.

Remember we dont have to Move the rock, just push.

There is no-one taking a lead in eco policy, and we shouldnt let any group outside of ireland dictate what we should be done to combat carbon emmisions, only take onboard worthwhile advice

Regards,
Dr. F