Climate Action Plan

Thelonious Monk

_Brian wrote: »

I’ve literally been on three journies in the last 16 years where I’ve used a plane.

Yeah but you could fly whenever you want

Thelonious Monk

Emme wrote: »

That's the point. The climate change lobby want that to stop. They want the ordinary man and woman in the street to stop flying because it's bad for the planet. Never mind the billionaires and politicians flying around in their private jets, it's the ordinary people flying who are the problem.

I don't really think we can just keep growing the aviation industry indefinitely though, do you? Eventually we will surely have to limit it to a certain extent. But you can say that about most things I suppose.

gozunda

_Brian wrote: »

They are also implementing massive green technology on the ground at a staggering scale.

The facts are some 70% of all energy production in China is coal based. The are still commissioning and opening new coal fired power plants both in China and under contract in some third world countries. Globally they are the biggest emitters of ghg and already exceed EU per capita emissions. What renewables are being used pale in insignificance and the rest being flogged to the west. And yes China is using much of that coal fired energy to produce stuff which we buy here. Imo yes we would be better of not buying cheap imported goods - most of which end up in landfill anyway.

Water John

Some elements of GHG production will be harder to crack than others. Flight is one of those. It produces 2.5% of total GHG emissions I think.
Lets tackle the main ones that we can deal with relatively easy first. These are space heating/cooling and transport.

Mr. teddywinkles

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

We can hardly give out to others for chopping down trees, ours is gone a long time and we haven’t exactly replaced them. I don’t understand why so many people are beef farmers in Ireland if it seems to be such a constant struggle for them. Do something else.

Due to British colonial rule. Yep we could start planting which in my view is absolutely necessary. But we're supposedly an agricultural economy. Why doesn't government do something real productive and plant native hardwoods or incentivise each farmer to set aside a portion of land for this. No just let's tax ordinary Joe trying to get to work.

Thelonious Monk

Mr. teddywinkles wrote: »

Due to British colonial rule.

Lazy excuse. They haven't been here in a long time and there's still no trees. Anyway farming started here 1000s of years ago and that and the spread of bog are major factors in us having no trees. The Brits contributed too but blaming them is an easy way out of us doing nothing about it.

Pa ElGrande

jmayo wrote: »

Ok then really start investing in wind farms.

Both solar and wind are expensive and unreliable methods of energy generation. You can make an argument for using them as a viable alternative for off grid locations but attaching too many of them to a national grid eventually destabilises it as they have discovered in South Australia and investigations are under way in Germany looking for the causes of several instances of grid instability during June.

jmayo wrote: »

Also lets look seriously at all options including nuclear.
Although knowing how we cock up things in Ireland we would build the most expensive nuclear power plant based around the old Soviet RBMK reactor design. :rolleyes:

Building a modern nuclear plant is not the issue, dealing with the NIMBYs will be the most expensive part of construction. Skills shortages and modernising the electrical distribution network would be the main challenges.

jmayo wrote: »

Push grants for improved home heating using non fossil fuels.

As far as I can see all such schemes depend on electricity which is really an indirect method of consuming fossil fuels. I would rather not depend on single source of heating and cooking in this country we do get severe storms especially in winter that can mean you are disconnected from the grid for anywhere from 3 days to 2 weeks in the more remote parts of the country. This has to be borne in mind as the grid becomes more unstable due to the lack of investment in maintaining reliability as well as questions of load shedding that will result (already done with large consumers in this country during peak demand). The push for smart meters means consumer demand will be rationed by price, the burden of which will be borne by working families with children who work 9 to 5 type jobs. Pay attention to the effects of ENRON on California as similar events may happen here and speculation is rife that such schemes may be part of what happened in Germany.

jmayo wrote: »

Investigate bio fuel generation as replacement for old sugar industry.

Already been done, it's not viable unless the government want to create Bord na Mona part deux - i.e. another jobs for the boys scheme.

jmayo wrote: »

Lets make entire public transport bus fleet electric or renewal energy.

This increases the demand for electricity. There are other secondary effects to take into account as well. Nobody is investing in internal combustion engine development in Europe, so if vehicle manufacturers do successfully make the transition and governments outside of Ireland survive the polotical fallout from mass layoffs that will result due to the disruption.

jmayo wrote: »

Lets improve electric grid, make more charge points available for rollout of electric powered cars.

Who operates the meters? How will charging prices be kept in check?

jmayo wrote: »

But all of that costs lots of money.

All we ever see in these ideas is about taxing people, penalising them and like all things from this government there is very little mention of the real costs.

And again I say this, people need to start thinking where the enormous taxes gathered from fossil fuels are going to come from in the future.

The technology already exists using GPS to change road pricing to usage per mile charging as well as peak time or surge charging and sin taxes such as speeding fines. If anyone is thinking of using jammers this will become a serious crime given the revenue involved.


The most likely push back against unreliable expensive green technology will be against the authoritarian abuse that inevitably results from such control over peoples use of energy and hence their daily lives and standard of living. The resistance will be found in the people realising the Irish governments actions against them are the manifestation of their loss of sovereignty (we gave that up gradually with the various EU treaties and made it official with the bank bailout and Lisbon treaty)

It is already very difficult to keep your head above water financially for working families which are a crucial demographic that does the work, pays the taxes and is raising the next generation. If you are watching closely what is happening, a significant number (even non-natives) are giving up on Ireland and moving abroad where they can survive, it is not being noticed because they are being displaced by new arrivals to the country.

Is this push for change in how energy is consumed going to improve the quality of peoples lives or not? What happens when the energy systems become unreliable while at the same time the delayed sovereign debt wave hits this country and others? Then what? All the taxes plus infrastructure that does not work reliably.

Pa ElGrande

Christopher Booker died last Wednesday 3rd July.


Christopher Booker: slayer of sacred cows

Booker was working on a new book (his 13th) when he died. It was to be wide-ranging exploration of groupthink across a range of issues, based on the work of psychologist Irving Janis. He wanted to apply the characteristics of groupthink Janis identified to everything from the current ‘climate crisis’ to more historical incidents of groupthink, from Galileo’s punishment for defying the church’s ‘consensus’ to McCarthyism.


source

GLOBAL WARMING A case study in groupthink
How science can shed new light on the most important ‘non-debate’ of our time

Christopher Booker

Future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early 21st century’s developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree and, on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly uncertain computer projections combined into implausible of inference, proceeded to contemplate a roll-back of the industrial age.

Dr. Richard Lindzen


By far the most extraordinary achievement of the panic over ‘man-made global warming’ was the way it managed to demonise carbon dioxide, a trace gas vital to all life on earth, as a dangerous ‘pollutant’. Equally demonised, therefore, were those sources of energy based on fossil fuels, coal, gas and oil, on which all modern industrial civilisation had been built. Wherever possible, according to the groupthink, these had to be described as ‘dirty’ (as opposed to the ‘clean’ energy from renewables), and had to be phased out or eliminated from human activity.

<snip>
One was simply the cost. Nowhere in the world had it proved possible to switch to‘zero carbon’ energy sources without the aid of colossal subsidies. The actual cost of‘renewable’ and even nuclear power was up to four or even more times higher than that derived from coal.


The second huge problem was that the two ‘renewable’ technologies that had attracted most attention, wind and solar, were so unreliable because of the inescapable fact that they were wholly dependent on the vagaries of the weather. There was nothing their advocates were more reluctant to admit than that wind turbines and solar panels could only produce electricity irregularly, unpredictably and therefore at only a fraction of their potential capacity. In the case of wind turbines this averaged out at a third or less of their optimum power; for solar panels, except in parts of the world where the sun could be relied on to shine most of the time, it averaged out, as in northern Europe, at only around 10 percent.


But the more of these wind and solar farms that got built, the more the constant fluctuation of their output created serious technical problems for electricity grids. To keep supply and demand in balance, they needed instantly available back-up. And this could not be provided by coal or nuclear power, which were designed to generate ‘baseload’ electricity, and could not suddenly increase their output to meet a sharp rise in demand


The only energy source flexible enough to provide that instantly available back-up when needed was natural gas, which unlike the others could be quickly ramped up and down. In other words, the only way to keep a grid balanced was by means of one of those ‘polluting’ fossil-fuels the groupthinkers wished to see the back of.


The astonishing fact was that, by 2015, despite more than $1 trillion having been poured into building hundreds of thousands of wind turbines and solar farms across the world, the amount of the world’s energy needs they supplied was still almost infinitesimally small. In 2014, according to the IEA’s 2016 Key Renewables Trends, wind contributed only 0.46 percent of total global energy; solar and tidal power just 0.35 percent. These thus amounted between them to less than 1 percent. Yet so carried away by make-believe were politicians and the media that hardly anywhere outside technical reports were these figures reported.


And despite the lip-service that so many countries were now paying to the need for more ‘renewables’, those national submissions by every country before the Paris conference showed that most of the ‘developing’ countries were still between them planning to build huge numbers of coal-fired power stations to keep their economies growing. From their own figures, it was possible to calculate that this would result by 2030 in a rise of 46 percent in carbon dioxide emissions in just 15 years.

source

Jimmy Garlic

Pa ElGrande wrote: »

Both solar and wind are expensive and unreliable methods of energy generation. You can make an argument for using them as a viable alternative for off grid locations but attaching too many of them to a national grid eventually destabilises it as they have discovered in South Australia and investigations are under way in Germany looking for the causes of several instances of grid instability during June.




Building a modern nuclear plant is not the issue, dealing with the NIMBYs will be the most expensive part of construction. Skills shortages and modernising the electrical distribution network would be the main challenges.




As far as I can see all such schemes depend on electricity which is really an indirect method of consuming fossil fuels. I would rather not depend on single source of heating and cooking in this country we do get severe storms especially in winter that can mean you are disconnected from the grid for anywhere from 3 days to 2 weeks in the more remote parts of the country. This has to be borne in mind as the grid becomes more unstable due to the lack of investment in maintaining reliability as well as questions of load shedding that will result (already done with large consumers in this country during peak demand). The push for smart meters means consumer demand will be rationed by price, the burden of which will be borne by working families with children who work 9 to 5 type jobs. Pay attention to the effects of ENRON on California as similar events may happen here and speculation is rife that such schemes may be part of what happened in Germany.




Already been done, it's not viable unless the government want to create Bord na Mona part deux - i.e. another jobs for the boys scheme.




This increases the demand for electricity. There are other secondary effects to take into account as well. Nobody is investing in internal combustion engine development in Europe, so if vehicle manufacturers do successfully make the transition and governments outside of Ireland survive the polotical fallout from mass layoffs that will result due to the disruption.




Who operates the meters? How will charging prices be kept in check?




The technology already exists using GPS to change road pricing to usage per mile charging as well as peak time or surge charging and sin taxes such as speeding fines. If anyone is thinking of using jammers this will become a serious crime given the revenue involved.

Don't need a jammer, a sheet of tin foil would do the trick.

Kivaro

So this is where we begin to see climate policies hitting the wallets/purses of 'the people':
France will introduce an eco-tax on airlines flying out of France, which is expected to raise around €180 million from 2020. Link.

Not surprisingly:
Shares in airlines across Europe fell on the news, with Air France down 5.2%, Ryanair down 4.8%, easyJet down 4% and Lufthansa down nearly 3% at midday on Tuesday.

I have to presume that the Irish Government will follow suit, including other measures that will have direct financial consequences for most of us.

branie2

Harsh, if you ask me

rireland

Humans are still going to be here in 102 years, as the government announced people can write a message in the next census and be secretly stored for 100 years.

Water John

Nobody has denied or sought to conceal that intermittent sources of electricity, need back up, it's called spin. Now it all doesn't need back up as forecasting has become much improved and production from both wind and solar has achieved a high level of predictability.
The cheapest back up source is indeed natural gas ATM. It is cheapest because it doesn't carry its full environmental cost in its price. As storage options improve its use will decrease.
Can't see where all this involves, groupthink. Brexit is a good example of Groupthink not scientists and the public attempting to get to grips with the damage being caused by GHG.

Graces7

It always seems from these threads that folk here always aver that measures are someone else's responsibility not theirs?

We can all and each make changes.

rireland

Graces7 wrote: »

It always seems from these threads that folk here always aver that measures are someone else's responsibility not theirs?

We can all and each make changes.

What changes have you made?

What is your impact on the environment?

Water John

I think Grace is living a simple life on an island, if my memory is correct. Don't think she is a major contributor to global warming.

Jimmy Garlic

The cost of wind energy could double in the next decade due to increasing maintenance costs for turbines as they deteriorate over their short lifespan of about twenty years give or take. The cost of maintaining offshore even higher. Then the cost of replacement in the near future.

Water John

Have you a link for that Jimmy? A wind turbine has paid for itself in the first 8 years. The only sum applied after that is output minus maintenance and repair.

rireland

I see bord na mona are laying off 150 people. Great news?

Thelonious Monk

rireland wrote: »

I see bord na mona are laying off 150 people. Great news?

They should hire more people and burn twice as much turf

Graces7

Kivaro wrote: »

Saw the tail end of a segment on Sky News this morning about 2 women trying to get people to stop flying for one year. 10,000 people have already signed up to commit to not taking any flights in 2019.

Is this flight shaming?
For the families or single people who take the one holiday overseas every year, does skipping that one flight make any real difference to the progress of climate change? It wouldn't hurt too much if you lived in France or Spain, but people living in Ireland are not guaranteed summers, so it is a big sacrifice for them.
And it's just a matter of time before our current government pops a climate change levy on flights we book in the future.

Or is all just symbolism?

I have not flown since I came to Ireland 20 years ago and have no intention or wish to do so ever again. I know a lot of other folk who also never fly

Graces7

rireland wrote: »

What changes have you made?

What is your impact on the environment?

a sensible question! I strive to live carefully and caringly. when my car died last year I decided not to replace it. Am now all but housebound anyways so no buses or ferries. Grow what food i can.

Shop online for needs, basics etc to avail of our excellent An Post. The internet is my lifeline... if I am ever out i use thrift shops.

No washing machine etc and keep esb usage as low as possible. An excellent solid fuel stove that heats water etc.

Aiming as little damage to the world as possible in practical terms; and in many ways back to my long ago childhood . happy in my life.

rireland

Graces7 wrote: »

a sensible question! I strive to live carefully and caringly. when my car died last year I decided not to replace it. Am now all but housebound anyways so no buses or ferries. Grow what food i can.

Shop online for needs, basics etc to avail of our excellent An Post. The internet is my lifeline... if I am ever out i use thrift shops.

No washing machine etc and keep esb usage as low as possible. An excellent solid fuel stove that heats water etc.

Aiming as little damage to the world as possible in practical terms; and in many ways back to my long ago childhood . happy in my life.

You are a rare type then but this is exactly the way of living (and probably more) that is required.

But 99.99% of people will not give up their current standard of living.

Not many people would survive without a washing machine.

Graces7

rireland wrote: »

You are a rare type then but this is exactly the way of living (and probably more) that is required.

But 99.99% of people will not give up their current standard of living.

Not many people would survive without a washing machine.

Thank you; oh I do have a washing machine but have not been able to get anyone over to plumb it in! They wanted e350 to instal the gas cooker so I gave up after that.. happy with that..

This is the way I have always lived. No problem to me but I know from forums etc that this is unusual these days.. I was a war baby and no one had "white goods" for many many years. We had a mangle to squeeze the water out of clothes.. OUCH for small fingers...

But yes we do need to move to simpler living to make any impact on what is happening to the world. We need to live our caring in real terms.

Kivaro

Graces7 wrote: »

But yes we do need to move to simpler living to make any impact on what is happening to the world.

I agree with you Grace.
But who is going to tell the 1,370,000,000 people in India and the 1,430,000,000 people in China that they need to change their ways in order to save the planet. And that's just two countries.

Ireland is small fry, so our sacrifices will not even dent the impact of climate change unless the rest of the world gets onboard.
We could go down the symbolic road though, and we may be able to sleep easier in Ireland at night by our environmental friendly actions ................. well, until the coal fumes and pollution from the east finally arrive here.

Thelonious Monk

Countries like Ireland buying crap from China are to blame though. The waffle makers and rubbish in Lidl are made for Irish consumers. All of us rich countries are empowering China by preferring giving them business to save money.

MightyMunster

Atoms for Peace wrote: »

The majority of cows here are grass fed, they're basically carbon neutral.

There are over 6 million of them though!

Thelonious Monk

MightyMunster wrote: »

There are over 6 million of them though!

They're fed by imported soy too.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/farming/we-depend-two-times-more-on-imported-animal-feed-than-our-neighbours-832683.html

Water John

Problem is cows produce methane CH4, that's the problem. If they just sh1te out carbon pellets at the back it would be fine.

Graces7

Kivaro wrote: »

I agree with you Grace.
But who is going to tell the 1,370,000,000 people in India and the 1,430,000,000 people in China that they need to change their ways in order to save the planet. And that's just two countries.

Ireland is small fry, so our sacrifices will not even dent the impact of climate change unless the rest of the world gets onboard.
We could go down the symbolic road though, and we may be able to sleep easier in Ireland at night by our environmental friendly actions ................. well, until the coal fumes and pollution from the east finally arrive here.

This is what TS Eliot calls " the lie politic." and a counsel of despair .. and maybe a copout!

What "sacrifices"? Symbolic? Nah!