"Green" policies are destroying this country

machiavellianme · 21-10-2023 12:40PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121266141#Comment_121266141

The day that you post an excellent even handed analysis will be the day that Eamon Ryan finishes terraforming his Utopia on Mars.

It's quite amazing how basics of science and geography continue to elude you but you'll somehow manage to find the most random quack on the Internet to echo their guff. There's zero science or sense in that article.

Atlantic Dawn · 21-10-2023 12:41PM

An opportunity missed with the budget, €2 on a litre of petrol could have easily stopped all the floods 🤔

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2023/1021/1412158-recent-weather-events-have-gone-off-charts-ryan/

prunudo · 21-10-2023 01:22PM

I hate buzzwords, what the hell is climate neutrality?

machiavellianme · 21-10-2023 02:00PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121266841#Comment_121266841

Fairly sure it's when hot dry spring/summers are balanced out by cold wet autumn/winters.

21-10-2023 06:59PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121266612#Comment_121266612

In this metaphor we do, we stop causing the climate to change.

21-10-2023 07:02PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121266664#Comment_121266664

Been a trained environmental scientist I will take your observation with the seriousness it deserves. None.

creedp · 21-10-2023 08:01PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121268156#Comment_121268156

Whose we though? Little old Ireland? Can we do it??? Yes we can🔥🔥

elperello · 21-10-2023 08:07PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121268439#Comment_121268439

Realistically we try to find the sweet spot that allows us to do our bit as part of the EU without damaging our economy.

InAtFullBack · 21-10-2023 10:19PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121268156#Comment_121268156

Climate has always changed, our contributions to changing the atmospheric composition is minute - we've increased C02 from ~0.03% to ~0.04% in the last ~200 years. It's a sad state of affairs to see so much focus put on one issue that is rather small in the grand scheme of things when it comes to human influenced climate change or more appropriately human influenced micro-climate change.

The change of land use over the past two centuries is an often overlooked contributor to increased temperatures. Reduction in forest cover, increases in urbanised areas and suburbanised areas, increased desertification, changes in agriculture, drainage of wetlands etc... all seriously change how sunlight interacts with the nearest 50m of the atmosphere above the ground.

Weather patterns respond very much to the land beneath. Once such example is UHI (Urban Heat Island) and how they increase temperatures in some cases up to 10c higher than the surrounding countryside. There are numerous studies into how UHIs can exacerbate intense rainfalls upwind from the city centres.

Increased desertification allows for higher temperatures over the arid sands/soils - the sun has no "work" to do in drying out already dry sand and soil, all the energy goes into heating the air above the ground. We can even see such examples in Ireland, our highest temperatures are often during periods of drought. In 1887, Kilkenny recorded 33.3c - Ireland's national high temperature record and it was during the driest year on record - no co-incidence is it?

21-10-2023 10:24PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121269334#Comment_121269334

We are causing current climate change. We can stop causing it. Beyond that nature is in control.

InAtFullBack · 21-10-2023 10:34PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121269352#Comment_121269352

We are not causing all of it, we are though responsible where we have changed/altered the surface of the ground. But in order to survive as a species we have little choice in changing that surface for housing and foodstuffs. We need crops to grow where there once was forest, etc... however we do need to manage the surface, especially in sensitive areas where humidity levels are naturally lower in order to avoid increased desertification. If we can halt or even reverse desertification we reduce the increased heat zones and help keep average global temperatures at a sweet 15c.

InAtFullBack · 21-10-2023 10:43PM

Came across the above image in another thread on this site, but it illustrates how ferocious the environment was way back when, during the times of sub 300ppm. Certainly food for thought as you realise most of the markers on that wall are flood levels from the 1700s and 1800s.

21-10-2023 10:44PM

Land use change makes a difference, but it is not the main driver of climate change - that is mans emissions.

No climate scientist had ever denied that climate change doesn't happen naturally - but all natural change has a cause and all the natural causes should be causing a slow return to an ice age.

That is not happening because we have overwhelmed the natural drivers with our man made changes to the atmosphere.

We can stop changing the atmosphere if we so choose. Whether we choose not to is the only issue of significance.

InAtFullBack · 21-10-2023 11:09PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121269419#Comment_121269419

Land use change makes a difference, but it is not the main driver of climate change - that is mans emissions.

Land use makes a huge difference, it is a massive driver of increased temperatures. For instance, stand in the middle of O'Connell Street, Dublin on a warm summer's day, take a quick drive out of the city to the Airport and you'll notice a huge difference. Next on your trip, swing over to the tree covered grounds of Malahide Castle where mature trees adorn the grounds. Carry a thermometer if you wish, you might be surprised with the readings.

No climate scientist had ever denied that climate change doesn't happen naturally - but all natural change has a cause and all the natural causes should be causing a slow return to an ice age.

Wrong, we are still exiting the last Ice Age and we will continue to do so regardless of what influences we attribute.

That is not happening because we have overwhelmed the natural drivers with our man made changes to the atmosphere.

I'm perplexed by this (even if it were a thing) - do we really fecking want to return to an Ice Age or even a little Ice Age - the historical records of the Little Ice Age make for grim reading, what twit would want to re-visit that?

We can stop changing the atmosphere if we so choose. Whether we choose not to is the only issue of significance.

See point made above. If the choice is to return to an 1800s climate or have what we have now, then sorry bud - I'm all for where we're at right now. Had a taste of shyte summers and brutal winters in the 1980s (akin to some of the 1800s crap) and it wasn't a picnic.

21-10-2023 11:18PM

Cities account for a miniscule area of the planets surface - the urban heat effect is in no way the driver of current climate change. Even when accounted for in land temperature records there is still an overall heating trend in urban areas which has nothing to do with urbanisation.

InAtFullBack · 22-10-2023 12:15AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121269528#Comment_121269528

Even when accounted for in land temperature records there is still an overall heating trend in urban areas which has nothing to do with urbanisation.

Oh dear, let me guess, concrete is only bad when it's produced because of the C02 involved in the manufacturing process, but once it's poured and set then nothing, nada! That's some mental gymnastics there!

And that's even before we discuss where alot of temperature recording stations are based. A fair swathe of them are close to 'urban' areas.

22-10-2023 07:07AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121269674#Comment_121269674

"Watts was co-author with climatologists John Nielsen-Gammon, John Christy and Roger A. Pielke, Sr. on a paper with Souleymane Fall as lead author, which found that mean temperature trends were nearly identical between poorly sited and well-sited stations, but poor siting led to a difference in estimated diurnal temperature range. The poorly positioned stations led to an overestimate of trends in minimum temperatures, balanced by a similar underestimate of maximum temperature trends. This meant that the mean temperature trends were nearly identical across the stations.[56]"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Watts_(blogger)

Anthony Watts the author of leading denial website Wattsupwiththat (source of all things climate denial) tried to pull the urban weather station biased hot scam on his followers/worshippers for nearly a decade. He eventually had to publish a paper which showed that urban weather stations correctly accounted for urban heat effects. He never apologised for calling scientists liars for years. It seems he has no actual shame as he has recently tried to revive the lie.

I don't suppose you will either.

marno21 · 22-10-2023 10:37AM

Whatever about river dredging, failure to progress flood defences or building on flood plains, the idea that aggressive action to reduce Ireland's emissions (60Mt in 2022 out of 37,000Mt globally) will have any bearing on future flooding events should demonstrate a complete lack of critical thinking ability and should immediately discredit such opinions.

In pure numerical terms, imagine if I was spending €1,000 more than I was earning per month and I decided to take action to address this issue by cutting my spending by €1.50.

Perhaps instead we could direct funding into R&D in our universities to develop new technologies that might actually be deployable at scale and help us reduce emissions meaningfully.

machiavellianme · 22-10-2023 10:48AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121268171#Comment_121268171

What did you do for that training? Collect tokens off the cornflakes box? Your posts are full of complete nonsense, carefully selecting snippets and passing them off as gospel. Between yourself and Dacor, ye must've linked every biased page on the Internet and then have the audacity to whinge about data centres. Full of contradiction but carrying on like you are some sort of sage prophet. You've once again tied yourself up in knots responding to InatFullback so you resort to what you do best, post yet more streams of links and random names (who align with your agenda) to try and make yourself look good with "science" yet that one photo of a building showing flood levels undoes your entire argument.

22-10-2023 10:51AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121270181#Comment_121270181

As I said your opinion is nothing to me. Carry on if it entertains you.

Akrasia · 22-10-2023 11:01AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121264310#Comment_121264310

Nope, cutting emissions won't reverse the harm we've already caused. We can only hope to prevent it from getting much much worse

Akrasia · 22-10-2023 11:11AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121265728#Comment_121265728

'can't someone else do it'

InAtFullBack · 22-10-2023 11:14AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121269857#Comment_121269857

What are you actually trying to say here? Another load of waffle. Temperature stations in urban areas will read higher than the surrounding countryside...

which showed that urban weather stations correctly accounted for urban heat effects

because urban weather stations cannot BUT account for UHI effects, because they're there, right bang in the middle of urban areas.

In other news, water is wet.

22-10-2023 11:19AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121270268#Comment_121270268

It's a shame you missed what it explicitly said. Climate study is interested in the temperature trend not the absolute temperature. The trend for urban and rural stations is almost exactly the same with a slightly lower trend for urban stations.

The reference I shared was absolutely clear on this point.

Urban heat island effect in no way biases the global land surface temperature data.

Watts spent a decade claiming it did (and he still does apparently) but then had to agree that it didn't based upon his own research.

Akrasia · 22-10-2023 11:27AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121270268#Comment_121270268

Believe it or not, but climatologists already know about urban heat islands and have accounted for it in the data.

machiavellianme · 22-10-2023 12:06PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121270188#Comment_121270188

Yet you feel the need to respond to everything I post? I guess that's why you continually refer to yourself as "trained" rather than qualified or competent. I look for trained nurses, teachers, firefighters, police etc as it means they've been instructed how to do a certain task and achieve repeatable outcomes against a benchmarked standard. I expect scientists to acquire more than just formal training in their development. They should be able to question the world as it is presented to them, gather comprehensive evidence and draw conclusions. You seem to be stuck in a world of only being able to see one outcome. I guess it's not surprising seeing as that is how you were developed. Much like training a machine learning system, it can only respond to what it knows, but it'll always respond and always within defined parameters, unable to see the bigger picture. Worse still, it isn't able to comprehend when it is wrong.

I'll look forward to your response. I think I can guess how it'll go.

ginger22 · 22-10-2023 12:52PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121270150#Comment_121270150

Don't worry. The government will commission a report on what to do, might be completed by the time this government has run its term and the minister responsible has qualified for his full pension. Let it up to the next crowd to do something.

22-10-2023 03:38PM

Hmm, this doesn't seem to align with some of the views in this thread

https://www.rte.ie/news/analysis-and-comment/2023/1022/1412243-weather-climate-change/

In particular that of the most recent climate change denier

22-10-2023 03:45PM

An assessment of how the GP have done so far in govt

https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2023/10/21/greens-in-power-will-second-difficult-album-turn-out-to-be-a-hit/

There's a particularly funny tweet featured in it

https://twitter.com/smytho/status/1712135221838069841

machiavellianme · 22-10-2023 07:06PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121271033#Comment_121271033

The climate is always changing, look at it evolve over the millenia. Going back as far as 1850 is but the blink of an eye.

Worse still, the climate was different then because the little ice age was ongoing. I'm surprised any academic institute would release such poor research.

Plus, any report that includes a caveat like "This is a piece of academic work, so it is a technical report, and it is a hard read. But those who struggle through it will be led to one firm conclusion" is clearly a well thought out thesis. It literally begs you not to read it, but if you do, you've only got one conclusion to draw because otherwise you're slated as an idiot.

"Green" policies are destroying this country

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