"Green" policies are destroying this country

?? Rivers have also been dredged . The Egyptians, Romans dredged rivers a long long time ago. Didn't Leonardo da Vinci invent a dredging machine ffs

From: How Somerset Levels river flooded after it was not dredged for decades (telegraph.co.uk)

Unfortunately here, the before image is what we want to see as the after image... the right hand side is the result of inaction.

I know a couple of those guys🤣 What % of the population fits neatly into that student union debating team discussion title IYO

They did and there wasn't the same demands put on them by massive urban sprawl built up alongside them. Where it was, the rivers were cleaned and kept. Remember that a rivers role is to drain and transfer water from A/B/C to the sea. If the rivers capacity for carrying water is diminished, and the prospect of higher rainfall coming down the line, plus flood plains no longer flood plains or having a higher water table, then the prospect of many more flooding events increases. And then to come in half gloating that it's proof positive of climate change and refusing to acknowledge that cleaning a river may alleviate some issues is quite frankly, a terrible stance to take. In my example a cleaner river would drain more water. There's a cost to doing it but each landowner on the river could be asked to foot some of the bill. That would avoid a big exchequer outlay for flooding and/or counter measures to protect people (like 750k for a 180m wall plus consultation fees).

Blaming males, then anyone who questions the stance is "ideologically opposed", a "conservative" "neo-liberal". What a load of word scutter.

When we get internationally coordinated plans then fantastic. But we don't have bar agreements on paper that are ignored by many (I'm looking at India/China mainly) and what's happening here is that this small island is expected to change how we live drastically for gains that no one has been able to quantify, all the while taxing the bejaysus out of the population and putting the cart before the horse in terms of power generation (closing what's working) in the hope of more renewables which may/may not be reliable depending on the weather at some point in the future, while being anti-nuclear but pro burning biomass imported from South America which we'll use to power the grid already under strain but with plans galore to demand more from it by heat pumps, EVs, etc, etc

Queueing in the cold and rain to put containers in a slot one at a time when before I could just drive up to the bins and put them in.

That's inconvenience, not a deviation to the normal but a new normal.

Having said that if it works and reduces littering/improves recycling I'll support it and do my bit.

I'm not whinging and moaning, just putting a point of view.

I campaigned for the plastic bag levy.

Irony is that I'm not really a dissenter.

We really do need to reduce, reuse, recycle.

And you missed my point about carrying water from A to the sea. By your logic, rivers filling with dirt and weeds and trees and silt and banks falling in will lead to less flooding in cities because the water will take longer to get there. Rising sea levels has nothing to do with it, but again, by green logic adaption isn't allowed and the money should be spent on wind turbines. Let the places flood and be told it's because you don't drive an EV that it's happening. Cop on.

I don't get how anyone can say cleaning rivers is a bad thing! Cities at mouths of rivers are easier to defend against for floods as the rivers are usually wider and it's easier build defences along the sides. The Shannon has ESB managing the water flow and Bord na Mona pumping silt in. As a result vast areas are flooding at much less rain than normal (look at the callow floods from this summer). It wasn't because ESB closed of the gates to back up the water to protect Limerick, it's because the water can't get away quick enough to the sea. Cleaning rivers should be handled by the OPW, start at the mouth and work your way up along. When finished, start again. Just like was done 50+ years ago until numpties decided it wasn't cost effective anymore, but makes more sense to spend millions on walls in towns and screw the land and people outside of them

Yes, it is laughable. It is not uncommon to see the greens display their usual ignorance but you can also turn it around, mirror it. Any ideology can oppose anything on principle and reject even the most basic logical assumptions. You dont have to be a total Ayn Rand style free market absolutist OR a total Marxist totalitarian state proponent to make sensible statements about climate change.

If only the greens would be willing to admit a level of uncertainty about it i for one would be happy to have a conversation about climate change. But since 2006 the debate has been cancelled by one side. That side has become more totalitarian in the last decade and display no tolerance whatsoever, only ignorance. It is a pathetic persistent narrow mindedness and self rightiousness constantly on the attack. No self reflection at all. And then they have the gall to criticise the belligerence of free marketeers, totally unaware of their own stupidity.

I wonder what our recycling percentage is for bottles and cans given the local drop off point is often too full to use. I think there are many other things that could be done, that would make a bigger difference but not as palatable. We already recycle bottles and cans, so this is just a different way of doing it. people are malleable and will accept the change, do the refund with their shop rather than a separate trip.

Having been to a few festivals in Spain they sell reusable plastic cups for drinks. You didn't get a drink without one. There is no deposit but you can keep it and bring it to the next festival. As a tourist I kept the different ones as souvenirs but it cuts down massively on plastic cups at concerts, games, etc. Locals would bring their old ones with them and reuse them, certainly for most of the summer festival season. An easy change here if it was desired. Just like plastic bags and the charge for them, just force all vendors to use and charge for them. Sell FAI ones at Irish soccer matches, IRFU ones at rugby games, and the like. Easy to reuse and not a massive weight to carry to a game.

From my perspective the biggest offender from a rubbish on the side of the road perspective is take away containers. Imagine if we had a re-usable take away container and had a deposit on it, something meaningful like 5 quid. Could potentially help with the obesity crisis as people might be less likely to impulse buy fast food with the extra up front cost, but would reduce litter. People would not throw it from the car window, or else if it was, others would pick it up for the refund. Yes yes cleaning and sanitising needs to be figured out but I think other areas should be looked at too rather than setting up a massive infrastructure for something that looks reasonably well done by most.