"Green" policies are destroying this country

Meanwhile in the UK: Electric vehicle smart charging consultation: summary of responses

Here in Ireland we are at ~240,000 meters into the rollout. Imagine that you do as the Irish Government (and SIMI) wants you to do and buy an electric car. Then you replace your gas boiler with an electric heat pump and install a smart meter. You think you have done your bit to help the environment. And your reward? To have your electricity company use your smart meter to turn off your power because there is not enough juice in the grid. Suddenly, you find yourself sitting in a cold home and your plans to drive to from Dublin to Cork tomorrow are scuppered because your car won’t be fully-charged. That might be the extreme scenario, the reality is we are going to get charged with time-of-use tariffs where the cost of charging an electric vehicle gets socialised.

Who pays for the Micro-generation subsidies? These might make sense in off the grid or remote locations (e.g. offshore Islands), how do they make sense in an dense urban environment who pays the grid management costs?

Remuneration of Renewables Self-consumers’ exported electricity

There is another problem if everyone goes for solar panels, these things stop working when system demand is at its highest leading to the duck curve and the time-of-use tariffs. If your neighbour uses subsidised micro-generation and you don't, guess who pays the grid management overhead.

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You "wonder" and "presume" too much. This crazy labeling you try to engage in does not work anymore. To me it is simple. Awesome and useful initiatives which were tackling real problems like pollution and waste management were hijacked by crazies who tried global cooling first and when that didn't manifest as predicted they came with warming. Since that is not the case too, now we have to deal with all encompassing "climate change". Which is brilliant because everything what happens can be blamed on this and solution is always at hand, offered in form of increased carbon taxes and plastic bag levy.

Reduce, reuse and recycle debate is far better than empty talk about sub Saharan people running for their lives in a year, two, ten or fifty.

People migrate and always did. It just does not happen in a year or two (with exemption of sudden environmental catastrophes like volcano eruption) it is more of a long term issue and raising "carbon tax" and introducing paper straws and plastic bag levies is not going to change it no matter what you think. Some of it may work with pollution but certainly not the way it is being done with all that carbon credits trading farce. Just another business and money making scheme that is all there is.

We are not even close to any high CO2 levels earth experienced in history. Perhaps some of the extreme levels in history may not be the best environment for humans or for all of us but it certainly isn't going to "kill the planet"

'Crazies tried global cooling first and when that did not work...' - not sure what that means: work to do what? Also, 'they came up with warming. Since that is not the case too...' - I don't understand what you are saying here. The evidence is black and white that the earth's climate (not local weather) has heated up markedly in the last 50 years. This is a matter of fact, not opinion.

I agree on the recylcing point of course.

On migration: I encourage you to read about the Bronze Age Collapse - apologies if you know about this already, but the TLDR was that there were advanced civilisations 3000 years ago in the Middle East and Mediterranean, and they all collapsed at the same time (aside from the lone survivor, Egypt). The historical and archaeological evidence suggests that climate change caused massive migration from other areas, and subsequent war and plundering from desperate people. As I mentioned before, what I am suggesting in terms of migration and resource wars has happened already in human history.

On your final point: yes, the planet will do fine (unless we cause runaway global warming, we might turn it into Venus). The point is whether we can mitigate the misery we are leaving behind us for our children and grandchildren. The world isn't going to blow up...it may simply not have the carrying capacity for more than a few million people.

The climate emergency - what is it you think it is?

As the planet warms, and CO2 levels rise, the conditions for life improve - Medieval and Roman warm periods being proof. Plant life is going to love it and humanity is not going to become extinct.

The very reason we have fossil fuels is that there was an abundance of plant life, when the planet was 6-7°C warmer than at present and atmospheric CO2 levels were considerably higher.

Further back in this Holocene period we are in, Ireland was a lovely warm place with a dryer climate - the Céide Fields in Mayo being proof of that along with tree trunks at the bottom of Europe's largest bog in Scotland. Then it cooled and turned nasty, which is why we have bogs and peatlands.

Don't worry, the next glaciation event will make the planet more suited to Neanderthals again.

Can you please point me to studies that suggest that higher temperatures mean more habitable land? Seriously?

Secondly, I don't think extinction is the concern. The concern is the carrying capacity of the planet. Do you have kids at all? Maybe you have a different perspective when you have kids, as I do.

Is your position that the people doing post-doctoral research on this stuff are not aware of this? Is it possible they know even more about it than - say - a layman?

So just to go over the discussion that just happened:

Cnocbui: Rising temperatures are going to make things even better.

Me: Can you show me any study that shows this?

Cnocbui: No. It's obvious.

It's funny how complete laymen know as much as people who spend their lives working on certain - but very limited - areas. Climate, virology, that sort of thing.

Ok, I see that you are coming at this with political goggles on. Fair enough. Just be self-aware enough to know that's not the way to see the objective truth.

Is NASA good enough for you? (I doubt it, nothing is good enough for closed mind)

"A new NASA computer modeling effort has found that additional growth of plants and trees in a world with doubled atmospheric carbon dioxide levels would create a new negative feedback – a cooling effect – in the Earth's climate system that could work to reduce future global warming."

As the former head of Greenpeace, Patrick Moore, who is much hated by eco catastrophists puts it - CO2 is plant food - fertiliser.

Photosynthesis is at an optimum when the global average temperature is about 8°C warmer than it is now. More heat and more CO2 leads to more and rapid plant growth. What do people like you think is the principal reason there were huge dinosaurs? Was it the shiny white ice caps at the poles (there weren't any) or the massive amounts of food available in the form of plants?

"Dinosaurs lived during the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous. During these periods, the climate was much warmer, with CO₂ levels over four times higher than today. This produced abundant plant life, and herbivorous dinosaurs may have evolved large bodies partly because there was enough food to support them. But being large also helps to protect against predators." https://www.sciencefocus.com/nature/why-were-dinosaurs-so-big/

Did you know that in fairly recent times, atmospheric CO2 levels fell so low that at higher altitudes all the plants died - globally? Life on Earth would have mostly gone extinct had the fall in CO2 levels continued to the point plants died of CO2 starvation even at sea level.

"The Ice Age’s combined horrors – intense cold, permanent drought and CO2 starvation – killed most of the plants on Earth. Only a few trees survived, in the mildest climates. Much of the planet’s grass turned to tundra, which is much less nourishing to the herbivores prehistoric humans depended on for food and fur. Recent Cambridge University studies conclude that only about 100,000 humans were left alive worldwide when the current interglacial warming mercifully began."

Warmer is better for life on Earth, colder is worse.

Provide purported evidence.

I realise that my mind is closed (apparently), but how is it that one 'modelling effort' is conclusive proof that warming is good, but thousands of modelling efforts are not evidence that it is bad?

It feels like you might be cherrypicking evidence here.

What does weak-minded mean? It sounds like a way of dismissing arguments without actually engaging with them.

Greens advocate decriminalisation of drugs.

yet bleat on in their manifesto about empowering people to be healthier

They also advocate the pardon and release non-violent, minor, drug offenders…..pardon and release ?

empowering people to be healthy yet greater empowerment and enablement of drug users, dealers and said industry…you couldn’t make this up…you really couldn’t.