The Healy Raes

mr potato head

SouthWesterly wrote: »

There's enough evidence out there now to show that cows actually sequester carbon. Where do you think all that manure goes?

From what I've heard, there are two sides to it, the land can store a certain amount eventually being unable to sequester more and in order to do so the rotation of grazing has to be carefully managed at the expense of yield.

TaurenDruid

"Land" doesn't store carbon. Plants do. Animals - that eat plants - fart methane and other greenhouse gases. Beef farming as carried out in Ireland produces far less greenhouse gasses than factory-farmed beef in South America and elsewhere, so yay - but it is still a net contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.

To get back on topic - the HRs seemingly don't accept climate change, and if they do, reckon it's not man made, and there's nothing that can be done about it anyway, sure God will fix it, let's all just carry on the way we are, be grand, like. And sure don't we all have to make a living, what would those arseholes up in Dublin know about our hardships, anyway.

They're wrong.

As evidenced by the last page or so of this thread, though, this sort of rhetoric goes down a treat with the locals. Give them an enemy, tell them you're on their side, they'll love you for it.

SlowBlowin

TaurenDruid wrote: »

"Land" doesn't store carbon. Plants do. Animals - that eat plants - fart methane and other greenhouse gases. Beef farming as carried out in Ireland produces far less greenhouse gasses than factory-farmed beef in South America and elsewhere, so yay - but it is still a net contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.

To get back on topic - the HRs seemingly don't accept climate change, and if they do, reckon it's not man made, and there's nothing that can be done about it anyway, sure God will fix it, let's all just carry on the way we are, be grand, like. And sure don't we all have to make a living, what would those arseholes up in Dublin know about our hardships, anyway.

They're wrong.

As evidenced by the last page or so of this thread, though, this sort of rhetoric goes down a treat with the locals. Give them an enemy, tell them you're on their side, they'll love you for it.

Watch the video I posted earlier as you have made some assumptions there which are not correct.

TaurenDruid

SlowBlowin wrote: »

Watch the video I posted earlier as you have made some assumptions there which are not correct.

WTF did you just have me watch?!

Ok, so...

• I did eventually cop on he was in some sort of heritage museum, and he wasn't trying to pass that off as his own living room. Grand.
• Let's ignore the ominous music playing in the background.
• He doesn't deny climate change. Grand, so, that's just his brother, then.
• Asking questions of animals. Ah-ha-ha, hilarious, would ye stop? No seriously - stop.
• So he accepts climate change is real, but... just isn't willing to do anything at all about it, seems to be the gist of his message?
• "This doesn't make sense" - what, this thing nobody has proposed doing?
  You're right, it doesn't. Which is why nobody proposed it, except in your head.
• He is using the well known tactic of sprinkling in a little truth, then twisting and exaggerating it, though, and he does it very well. Yes, FF, FG and the Greens are trying to bring in CETA, which would mean allowing imports of beef from South America, and that doesn't make sense (unless you stand to profit from it.) But a lot of the other stuff is a nonsense!
• "Why should we do anything when we're only less than 1% of the problem" is, obviously, a huge problem when everyone also says that they're only a small part of the problem. So, what, then? Nobody does anything? And we all die?
• Something something making concrete? Something something batteries? Something something trawlers? There are, of course, solutions to all of those, but he's more interested in mocking than investigating solutions, clearly.

What an odious, self-serving man.

SlowBlowin

As you, by your own admission, did not understand much of what was said, let me summarise.

MHR thinks its unwise to ban something when there are no alternatives in place.

You disagree so do enlighten me, you said:

"Something something making concrete? Something something batteries? Something something trawlers? There are, of course, solutions to all of those."

OK so using your own logic, lets ban them now, like peat is banned, can you explain the alternatives to cement production or deep sea fishing ? What are the alternatives you boast of ?

My guess is you will not explain the alternatives, as they don't exist today, and just fire more irrelevant questions.

John_Rambo

SlowBlowin wrote: »

This is something I have been thinking about.

Take the total CO2 output of say greater Dublin and divide by the population of greater Dublin -

Take the total CO2 output of Kerry and divide it by the population of Kerry -

Now you must include every bit of CO2 - every street light, cow belch, leisure centre, pub, shop, lorry, building activity, factory, docks, airport etc.

My guess is that the Kerry average will be a small fraction of the Dublin average.

I have a diesel car, burn peat, make my own electricity thats it, how about you ?

If you have a leaky roof full of holes do you start repairing the big holes first or the smaller ones ? Its the cities that are the big holes.

I have no figures on this, but I am willing to bet I am right, I contacted MHR and he said no such data exists in government, it should do.

You're very wrong I'm afraid. Aside from your car dependence and environmentally damaging lifestyle everything, down to policing, ESB repairs to deliveries are infinitely more damaging and more expensive in areas with one off housing compared to urban areas.

Take your post for example. A diesel van delivering post to a few houses, taxed, insured, serviced, CVRT'd, scrapped when out of commission etc... expensive to the tax payer and bad for the environment.

My post man delivers to hundreds of houses on a bicycle. Massively more efficient, incomparably cheaper and much better for the environment.

Thelonious Monk

SlowBlowin wrote: »

or deep sea fishing ? What are the alternatives you boast of ?

I would suggest not fishing, and not eating seafood for a while at least. Surely we can protect larger areas of the seas around Ireland and maybe have moratoriums around certain types of catches like they did in Newfoundland after the cod stock collapse?

Rows Grower

John_Rambo wrote: »

You're very wrong I'm afraid. Aside from your car dependence and environmentally damaging lifestyle everything, down to policing, ESB repairs to deliveries are infinitely more damaging and more expensive in areas with one off housing compared to urban areas.

Take your post for example. A diesel van delivering post to a few houses, taxed, insured, serviced, CVRT'd, scrapped when out of commission etc... expensive to the tax payer and bad for the environment.

My post man delivers to hundreds of houses on a bicycle. Massively more efficient, incomparably cheaper and much better for the environment.

I thought those bikes were done away with as they were unsuitable for the volume of deliveries?

In all fairness you can't blame rural people for the carbon emissions An Post create if An Post decide to use electric vehicles only in the cities.

Water John

A basic is, that soil does lock in carbon. with some farming systems, ruminant animals, one can store up to 4t/acre/yr.

mgn

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

I would suggest not fishing, and not eating seafood for a while at least. Surely we can protect larger areas of the seas around Ireland and maybe have moratoriums around certain types of catches like they did in Newfoundland after the cod stock collapse?

Is that you Eammon, if not, he must have a clone, this is the same type of nonsense he would come up with.

Better still, go and visit a few fishing towns around the country and run that by them to see what the think of your plan.

Thelonious Monk

mgn wrote: »

Is that you Eammon, if not, he must have a clone, this is the same type of nonsense he would come up with.

Better still, go and visit a few fishing towns around the country and run that by them to see what the think of your plan.

Ok let's carry on as is and destroy the seas. Also fishing is a tiny part of our economy, and some things are more important than jobs.
It's just incredible that people think we can carry on doing things the same way.

TaurenDruid

SlowBlowin wrote: »

As you, by your own admission, did not understand much of what was said, let me summarise.

MHR thinks its unwise to ban something when there are no alternatives in place.

You disagree so do enlighten me, you said:

"Something something making concrete? Something something batteries? Something something trawlers? There are, of course, solutions to all of those."

OK so using your own logic, lets ban them now, like peat is banned, can you explain the alternatives to cement production or deep sea fishing ? What are the alternatives you boast of ?

My guess is you will not explain the alternatives, as they don't exist today, and just fire more irrelevant questions.

Thing is - nobody is actually proposing banning making concrete or sea fishing. MHR is just claiming they are.

And his scaremongering about concrete production would have nothing whatsoever to do with the HR plant-hire business? (Were they his JCBs in the video, or the brother's?)

What alternatives will MHR be proposing as and when we have actually run out of oil but because of him an people like him, have failed to plan for it and have just kept on building diesel JCBs? (rhetorical question - obviously, he doesn't give a ****, he regards it as someone else's problem.)

Rows Grower

TaurenDruid wrote: »

Thing is - nobody is actually proposing banning making concrete or sea fishing. MHR is just claiming they are.

And his scaremongering about concrete production would have nothing whatsoever to do with the HR plant-hire business? (Were they his JCBs in the video, or the brother's?)

What alternatives will MHR be proposing as and when we have actually run out of oil but because of him an people like him, have failed to plan for it and have just kept on building diesel JCBs? (rhetorical question - obviously, he doesn't give a ****, he regards it as someone else's problem.)

The world isn't going to run out of oil.

SlowBlowin

John_Rambo wrote: »

You're very wrong I'm afraid. Aside from your car dependence and environmentally damaging lifestyle everything, down to policing, ESB repairs to deliveries are infinitely more damaging and more expensive in areas with one off housing compared to urban areas.

Take your post for example. A diesel van delivering post to a few houses, taxed, insured, serviced, CVRT'd, scrapped when out of commission etc... expensive to the tax payer and bad for the environment.

My post man delivers to hundreds of houses on a bicycle. Massively more efficient, incomparably cheaper and much better for the environment.

Absolute uninformed nonsense, do some reading up old boy.

It might be convenient for you to think you are being green in the city but look around. Comparing our postie's van to your bicycle is playground stuff.

https://www.seai.ie/publications/Dublin-City-Baseline-Report.pdf

TaurenDruid

SlowBlowin wrote: »

Absolute uninformed nonsense, do some reading up old boy.

It might be convenient for you to think you are being green in the city but look around. Comparing our postie's van to your bicycle is playground stuff.

https://www.seai.ie/publications/Dublin-City-Baseline-Report.pdf

Ah - glad to see you found the SEAI's website, anyway. You might pass the address on to MHR.

TaurenDruid

Rows Grower wrote: »

The world isn't going to run out of oil.

Not soon enough, anyway.

SlowBlowin

TaurenDruid wrote: »

Ah - glad to see you found the SEAI's website, anyway. You might pass the address on to MHR.

Go on then read and do the maths, dont forget to add in the docks and airport.

mr potato head

There's a lot of "us and them" b****ks on this thread, in reality a country the size of Ireland is extremely interdependent on both urban and rural communities for our future.

We all have to change, whether that's farming practices, data centres, eating habits, transport or housing stock retrofits.
The Healy Reas and other ludites (urban and rural) are only looking at the short term, in reality we are really just stealing from future generations to maintain our current lifestyles and habits. The resulting collapse from failure to act will be far worse for them than us!!

The "we've always done X and will keep doing X" doesn't fly anymore, there is glaring evidence we are screwing our landscape and children over with our actions.

And the "Ireland is only small" argument is weak too, we can do two things... 1) innovate and be the small agile economy providing solutions and best practice to the rest of the world. 2) we can put pressure on laggards by showing a willingness and ability to change, rather than being laggards ourselves.

To do that we each have to make changes, support others to make changes and ultimately pay our way.

John_Rambo

SlowBlowin wrote: »

Absolute uninformed nonsense, do some reading up old boy.

It might be convenient for you to think you are being green in the city but look around. Comparing our postie's van to your bicycle is playground stuff.

https://www.seai.ie/publications/Dublin-City-Baseline-Report.pdf

Ah, I see where you're confused!! Absolutely, Dublin as a whole pollutes the air, but individually, urban dwellers are much kinder on the environment than rural dwellers.

Here's another simple example;
Picture 5000 people travelling home from work in electric trains.
Picture 5000 people travelling home from work individually in diesel cars.

Which do you think pollutes more?

I actually did a bit of work for the SEAI last year and they confirmed that urban living has less of an impact on the environment. Rural, car dependent living isn't good at all. Very expensive on all of us to support it and not good for the environment.

Bad for the economy as well with the growing rural obesity problem along with people shunning towns for outlet shopping affecting local businesses and the economy. Post offices, butchers, Garda stations etc... all being shut down.

You're going to see it get more difficult to build one of houses now, mark my words.

Rows Grower wrote: »

I thought those bikes were done away with as they were unsuitable for the volume of deliveries?

Incorrect. They're still used along with cargo bikes.

https://ibb.co/59y66Y8

Thelonious Monk

The mail def gets delivered in Dublin 5 by bicycle anyway, think they're just pedal powered though

TaurenDruid

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

The mail def gets delivered in Dublin 5 by bicycle anyway, think they're just pedal powered though

Letter post everywhere in Dublin (outside the city centre) is delivered on pushbike - if not, it's down to the preference of the individual.

SlowBlowin

John_Rambo wrote: »

Ah, I see where you're confused!! Absolutely, Dublin as a whole pollutes the air, but individually, urban dwellers are much kinder on the environment than rural dwellers.

Here's another simple example;
Picture 5000 people travelling home from work in electric trains.
Picture 5000 people travelling home from work individually in diesel cars.

Which do you think pollutes more?

I actually did a bit of work for the SEAI last year and they confirmed that urban living has less of an impact on the environment. Rural, car dependent living isn't good at all. Very expensive on all of us to support it and not good for the environment.

Bad for the economy as well with the growing rural obesity problem along with people shunning towns for outlet shopping affecting local businesses and the economy. Post offices, butchers, Garda stations etc... all being shut down.

You're going to see it get more difficult to build one of houses now, mark my words.



Incorrect. They're still used along with cargo bikes.

https://ibb.co/59y66Y8

Look at my post they do not include all the figures as I laid out, all the info is available in their reports, Dublin, the docks, the airport, the industrial infrastructure.

I am saying go after the low hanging fruit, if you had a bucket with a small hole and a big hole, I guess you would fix the small hole first then..

I live in a very rural location, I make my own electricity, I grow my own food, I shop local and buy local produce, and I burn a bit of peat, and I could not give a flying ***k weather your postman has a bike or not.

Add up the cost of my lifestyle, compare it to the costs of consumer culture.

So you ban Irish peat - Buy it from Germany - Ship it on diesel powered ships to the docks - Sell German peat to the same people that were buying the Irish peat, and that is better for Ireland because the CO2 is emitted outside our shores..

And you all think this is a great idea - fine, thats your opinion.

SlowBlowin

I am going to go through the reports, do the maths, and post it on this thread as soon as I am done, probably tomorrow..

Add up add the infrastructure(as detailed in the original post)/population by area.

I think it will show rural living is more sustainable than city living, if i am wrong it will show in the data.

Thelonious Monk

SlowBlowin wrote: »

I live in a very rural location, I make my own electricity, I grow my own food, I shop local and buy local produce, and I burn a bit of peat, and I could not give a flying ***k weather your postman has a bike or not.

Add up the cost of my lifestyle, compare it to the costs of consumer culture. =

To be fair most rural people just go to lidl and aldi or supervalu or whatever, buy furniture and house stuff from the usual places and consume the same as people in cities.
How you can think rural living is more sustainable is beyond me. That means you think if everyone moved out of the city cities and lived in one offs and drove everywhere, it would be better for the land and for emissions? Really?
I'm not having a go at you but the fact is clustered communities is a better way of managing resources for a population.

Thelonious Monk

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

It's just incredible that people think we can carry on doing things the same way.

Fishing is one of the places where we can’t carry on. But fishing can be managed.

As I said before, on the topic of planes, nothing is going to be acceptable if it only affects normal workers.

SlowBlowin

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

To be fair most rural people just go to lidl and aldi or supervalu or whatever, buy furniture and house stuff from the usual places and consume the same as people in cities.
How you can think rural living is more sustainable is beyond me. That means you think if everyone moved out of the city cities and lived in one offs and drove everywhere, it would be better for the land and for emissions? Really?
I'm not having a go at you but the fact is clustered communities is a better way of managing resources for a population.

Its the infrastructure that surrounds and services them, that's the point. The restaurants, shops, shops, pubs, buses, roads, docks, offices, factories, airports, on and on.

As you said people in rural settings have an Aldi, Supervalu and Lidl.

Thelonious Monk

SlowBlowin wrote: »

Its the infrastructure that surrounds and services them, that's the point. The restaurants, shops, shops, pubs, buses, roads, docks, offices, factories, airports, on and on.

As you said people in rural settings have an Aldi, Supervalu and Lidl.

But all of those things are available to people rurally too. Like I have a friend who lives in Laois beside Stradbally, works near the M50, drives each way, apart from that he lives a similar life to myself.
How is that better?
People wear the same clothes and buy the same things all over Ireland.
Docks and roads? These are there for the entire country! How do you think all the beef and dairy you produce gets around?
Everyone in Ireland uses Dublin airport.
Sorry but your argument isn't thought through very well.

SlowBlowin

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

But all of those things are available to people rurally too. Like I have a friend who lives in Laois beside Stradbally, works near the M50, drives each way, apart from that he lives a similar life to myself.
How is that better?
People wear the same clothes and buy the same things all over Ireland.
Docks and roads? These are there for the entire country! How do you think all the beef and dairy you produce gets around?
Everyone in Ireland uses Dublin airport.
Sorry but your argument isn't thought through very well.

We are specifically talking about the comments made by MHR & Kerry rural lifestyle.

We grow the beef and dairy, perhaps you should drive over and get some instead, how is that better ?

I have not been out of Kerry in 2 years, if it was that easy to get to Dublin MHR would be in the Dail every day !

We disagree on who uses most resources, someone living in Dublin, or someone living in a rural cottage. Anyway I am going to try and prove myself wrong with the data for you.

gourcuff

dublin isnt really a sustainable city, its low density sprawling estates and bog standard semi-ds, awful public transport, mainly car dependant, awful air pollution, its beaches and coastal areas destroyed by e-coli and raw sewage getting pumped out..

at least compare to a sustainable city if you are going to go on that line of argument.

SlowBlowin

mr potato head wrote: »

There's a lot of "us and them" b****ks on this thread, in reality a country the size of Ireland is extremely interdependent on both urban and rural communities for our future.

We all have to change, whether that's farming practices, data centres, eating habits, transport or housing stock retrofits.
The Healy Reas and other ludites (urban and rural) are only looking at the short term, in reality we are really just stealing from future generations to maintain our current lifestyles and habits. The resulting collapse from failure to act will be far worse for them than us!!

The "we've always done X and will keep doing X" doesn't fly anymore, there is glaring evidence we are screwing our landscape and children over with our actions.

And the "Ireland is only small" argument is weak too, we can do two things... 1) innovate and be the small agile economy providing solutions and best practice to the rest of the world. 2) we can put pressure on laggards by showing a willingness and ability to change, rather than being laggards ourselves.

To do that we each have to make changes, support others to make changes and ultimately pay our way.

Its difficult to argue with such a well worded and eloquent post.

I wholeheartedly agree with you on the the "support others to make changes", in fact I think that is essential, but something that is lacking with decisions like the peat ban, no support seen here.

Things need to change, and that's in part why I live like I do, but why not make changes that will make a difference (peat ban will result in increased emissions).

I hate the fact that in Dubai you get light bulbs that use halve the electricity of ours, and last a life time. But they are not allowed to be sold in other countries as it destroys the current LED light bulb market.

I hate that ships keep their engines running in dock as opposed to a compulsory hook up, pumping fumes (heavy oil full of so2).

I hate that Government still has fleets of diesel buses, vans and cars.

I hate that most data centre heat is not recycled.

These are all easy wins and dwarf the peat ban in term of emissions, and there are countless others.

There are so many things that could be done to help that are not, which, unlike the peat ban, would result in significant reductions in CO2.

Support is the key, help people change, the implementation of the peat ban had no support.