Keeping the planes out of the skys

_Brian

Seems that the air quality rapidly returning to clean now that the emission spewing planes are grounded.

How for environmental reasons do we keep them grounded ?? It’s clear society had lost the run of itself with cheap flights everywhere just because they are cheap.

Is it time for a seat tax, €100/seat would be a good start or is it enough to deter people??

How about land and sea shipping ??

Or will governments rush to get straight back to pre Covid activity to kickstart economic activity.

My fear is things will just return to same old same old amd the vested interests will be back to eloquently blaming farming for everything and an opportunity will have been missed.

jaymla627

_Brian wrote: »

Seems that the air quality rapidly returning to clean now that the emission spewing planes are grounded.

How for environmental reasons do we keep them grounded ?? It’s clear society had lost the run of itself with cheap flights everywhere just because they are cheap.

Is it time for a seat tax, €100/seat would be a good start or is it enough to deter people??

How about land and sea shipping ??

Or will governments rush to get straight back to pre Covid activity to kickstart economic activity.

My fear is things will just return to same old same old amd the vested interests will be back to eloquently blaming farming for everything and an opportunity will have been missed.

I reckon the era of cheap flights is over, Europe will probably end up with a handful of airlines left after this is over and with competition non-existent airline ticket prices will rise, their isn’t going to be the same amount of free cash floating about on the consumer side of things either for the 3 plus foreign trips a year

CIARAN_BOYLE

It's much more likely to be manufacturing and energy consumption and reduced car use rather than flights having an environmental impact.

patsy_mccabe

Air travel is only resonsible for 1.6% of global emissions. (source WRI)

The J Stands for Jay

Shipping is highly polluting: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2007/mar/03/travelsenvironmentalimpact.transportintheuk

NIMAN

McGaggs wrote: »

Shipping is highly polluting

Farming not innocent either.
Has massive effects in our environment.

patsy_mccabe

NIMAN wrote: »

Farming not innocent either.
Has massive effects in our environment.

Farming can't stop.

Del.Monte

Sure what harm do planes, trucks and cars do to the environment - it's a well known fact that cows belching are melting the ice caps and causing global warming, more plastic in the sea than fish, Covid-19 and the impending re-election of Donald Trump.

Triangle

Del.Monte wrote: »

the impending re-election of Donald Trump.

Biden is 6 points ahead of Trump according to BBC. Trumps not a foregone conclusion to being the next US president

The J Stands for Jay

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Farming can't stop.

Farming can change...

patsy_mccabe

McGaggs wrote: »

Farming can change...

How?

_Brian

Nobody is saying farming doesn’t have associated emissions, however farming has significant carbon absorption too and all farming including forestry is a net carbon sink.

Counter that with air travel for frivolous reasons burning fossil fuels emissions are all one way.

What we are seeing at the moment is farming, which feeds EVERYBODY is not the major issue, where we need to look is at non essential travel and shipping and make attempts to stop their growth and even lower their impact.

Travel for leisure needs to be massively expensive to stop it.
Shipping of cheap plastic tat round the globe needs to become so heavily taxed that people stop ordering ****te from
China “just because it’s cheap”, this would also save emissions from its production.


Focus on farming needs to be water protection and biodiversity improvement, real measurable stuff, not box ticking crap.

Birdnuts

_Brian wrote: »

Seems that the air quality rapidly returning to clean now that the emission spewing planes are grounded.

How for environmental reasons do we keep them grounded ?? It’s clear society had lost the run of itself with cheap flights everywhere just because they are cheap.

Is it time for a seat tax, €100/seat would be a good start or is it enough to deter people??

How about land and sea shipping ??

Or will governments rush to get straight back to pre Covid activity to kickstart economic activity.

My fear is things will just return to same old same old amd the vested interests will be back to eloquently blaming farming for everything and an opportunity will have been missed.

Curtailing flying would seriously damage tourism here and around the world - having said that, cheap short haul flights like Dublin to Belfast probably should be taxed heavier given the many more sustainable alternatives now availiable

I can't see demand for cheap flights staying down forever. If this virus persists then a lot won't be eager to travel. But, if we develop a vaccination or it goes away, the weekend city break/skiing/sun holiday goers will be out in force.

_Brian

Birdnuts wrote: »

Curtailing flying would seriously damage tourism here and around the world - having said that, cheap short haul flights like Dublin to Belfast probably should be taxed heavier given the many more sustainable alternatives now availiable

Tourism at wit cost though ??

Very soon we will have the loons back out beating the drum on climate, we have hard evidence now that farming can continue as it’s essential while the 2 weeks in Benidorm aren’t so important. Same for having all the fat yanks rolling round Tralee buying Aran sweaters, let them stay home.

The J Stands for Jay

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

How?

I'm not going to pretend to know much about it, but in such a varied field/industry, there's always going to be different things to do and the possibility for human ingenuity to come up with different ways of doing things

_Brian

_Brian wrote: »

let them stay home.

Tourism is the life blood of many parts of the country.

ruwithme

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Air travel is only resonsible for 1.6% of global emissions. (source WRI)

Patsy can we really believe all we are told.cattle grazing grass is unarguably natural. look up at the sky and see a tin can moving around not so.

heard recently if true, the European union forces airlines to fly some routes x amount of times in a period. in return landing slots are not lost by them.
this was relaxed in recent weeks by the e.u due to covid.

Del2005

_Brian wrote: »

Tourism at wit cost though ??

Very soon we will have the loons back out beating the drum on climate, we have hard evidence now that farming can continue as it’s essential while tmhe 2 weeks in Benidorm aren’t so important. Same for having all the fat yanks rolling round Tralee buying Aran sweaters, let them stay home.

A lot of countries are heavily reliant on tourism. What are these people supposed to do it tourism becomes something only for the rich? Especially when most of them don't have a social welfare system or if they do it can't function without taxes from tourism.

It's all good saying that this will save the environment but at what human cost. Look what happened in India when they went into lockdown, millions of people had to choose between staying in place and dieing of starvation or walk hundreds of km to get home. What will we do when its not just poor Indians migrating for food but whole countries?

uck51js9zml2yt

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Farming can't stop.

Sure it can.....and we call all eat synthetic foods instead of real food.:)

CIARAN_BOYLE

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Farming can't stop.

Well if humanity in general slashes food waste (approx one third of globa production) the amou t of farming can be massively reduced.

patsy_mccabe

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

How?

Get away from fertiliser & chemicals, breed stock that are adapted to their environments rather than stock reliant on inputs like fert, grain, doses, herbicides etc.

alps

NIMAN wrote: »

Farming not innocent either.
Has massive effects in our environment.

Good effect too..

Sacrolyte

Did yall see how fast the shelves emptied

Birdnuts

_Brian wrote: »

Tourism at wit cost though ??

Very soon we will have the loons back out beating the drum on climate, we have hard evidence now that farming can continue as it’s essential while the 2 weeks in Benidorm aren’t so important. Same for having all the fat yanks rolling round Tralee buying Aran sweaters, let them stay home.

I've no time for those clowns either, but the facts are that the likes of Eco-tourism support many jobs, especially in poorer countries that would otherwise clear even more vital habitat if it wasn't bringing in tourism dollars via safaris etc.

Del2005

Sacrolyte wrote: »

Did yall see how fast the shelves emptied

What farmers grow toilet roll and soap? Did you notice 2 days later the shelves were all full again after the panic died down.

Eamonn8448

_Brian wrote: »

Tourism at wit cost though ??

Very soon we will have the loons back out beating the drum on climate, we have hard evidence now that farming can continue as it’s essential while the 2 weeks in Benidorm aren’t so important. Same for having all the fat yanks rolling round Tralee buying Aran sweaters, let them stay home.

not many yanks buying aran sweaters in Tralee Brian but say it to the south kerry folks esp killarney or kenmare and they will tell you how much they depend on tourism , what drive me mad is the amount of plastic used on veg , eg leeks, spring cabbage , broccoli, supermarkets say they want green and ok life would be so much easier for us if we didnt have to wrap but honestly the amount of waste plastic is unreal, as for the flights cant see them doing 100 a seat maybe 20 but if they do that airfreight will have to be taxed too, it will just make it more expensive to live while the likes of china breaks their hole laughing at us

Del.Monte

The whole tourist industry has been built on the daft belief that cheap air travel is going to keep on growing and long before the present crisis anybody with half brain could see that it was nonsense. Tourism like everything else needs to be built on sustainability rather than continuous growth.

_Brian

China wouldn’t be laughing if every container had a charge added. Stop the cheap tat shipping. There’s a way of tackling everything if the will is out there.

We’ve been given a glimpse of what’s possible, if we want a cleaner environment and lower emissions we need to drastically reduce fossil fuel consumption, not reimagine food production, seriously address fossil fuel usage.
Food production is essential, farming is essential. We need to look at non essential consumption of fossil fuels and make it an unattractive option.

This sample of what could be gives a platform for a whole new conversation, one where farming is easily defended but the focus is moved to the real problem industries.

We have our issues to work on, excessive leeching of N and pesticides into water, continuing reducing biodiversity must be addressed. But no more talk of belching cows or taking rubbish from keyboard warriors about having Great Plains of wheat planted in places like Cavan as they constantly say is possible. “If it can grow grass it can grow wheat, cabbage or carrots” is one that sticks in my mind.

Panch18

I have seen a few "Facebook" type posts about the air being cleaner, dramatically less pollution etc etc

But is it actually true? Is there clear evidence? Scientific evidence from reliable sources as opposed to "Facepain"

_Brian

_Brian wrote: »

........

My fear is things will just return to same old same old amd the vested interests will be back to eloquently blaming farming for everything and an opportunity will have been missed.

Huge irony here, farmer (vested interest) stating that lack of air travel is responsible for the allegedly cleaner air.
I'd hazard a guess that it's less private cars moving about is the key in the cleaner air.

blackbox

Pot, kettle, black

emaherx

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

Well if humanity in general slashes food waste (approx one third of globa production) the amou t of farming can be massively reduced.

Or maybe a better aim for that third of food, would be instead of not producing it, feeding the starving might be better for humanity.

emaherx

Personally I wouldn't like to see a world where only the rich get to travel to nice places.

The world needs to produce cleaner fuels. Electric planes are becoming a thing for shorter journeys but I can't see a future without ICE engines either. Biofuel and other emerging technology including producing fuel by extracting carbon from the atmosphere and combining with hydrogen to make Petrol Diesel and Kerosene is now possible not sure how far away commercial production is though.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb_8DJF6Hp0&t=61s