[brucky]

Reading articles yesterday on banning open fires and how terrible they are for society and the individuals using them. I am sick of this nanny state ideology. I wish the EPA would do something about the consistent raw sewage that spills into Dublin bay on a regular basis. This is a national disgrace you cannot even swim in the area now. Why so much attention is focused on open fires is beyond me.

[listermint]

You know when we are talking about environmental issues it's not just.. one thing... Right.

It's a collection of things .

.like when your car gets serviced they don't just change a spark plug and send you on your way .

[boombang]

Both those problems seem pretty important to me.

Separately, I don't see how the first is an example of the nanny state at all. Addressing private choices that lead to collective public harms is not nanny statism.

[Kevin Irving]

The general public are far more likely to do their bit for the environment, if the government are doing theirs, I believe is what the OP is getting at.

Obviously the government can't fix everything overnight, but very difficult for some to get on board when we hear of boil water notices for literally years, petrol being more expensive than diesel despite known environmental issues, and removal of VRT breaks on PHEV's.

The government in general are doing good work on the environmental front in general, but these things are thorns in peoples side that undermine the overall message of why smokey fuel needs to be minimised.

I grew up near the M50 pretty much, and now work in a town in Ireland. There are some days the air quality is noticeably far worse in the town due to smokey fuel.

[ted1]

You mean a project like this ?

http://www.greaterdublindrainage.com...roject-update/

And this ?

https://www.water.ie/projects-plans/ringsend/

[Topgear on Dave]

Originally Posted by ted1

You mean a project like this ?

http://www.greaterdublindrainage.com...roject-update/

Yes that one.... The one people dont want built

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crim...plan-1.4298545

[brucky]

As Kevin has eluded to its about getting the buy in from the public. I think it’s a national disgrace that you cannot swim or let your children play in the sand of the strand in Dublin. Smokey coal is already banned, and it’s low hanging fruit imho. To seriously tackle the water pollution in Dublin bay would involve taking on, and prosecuting another state agency. The capital projects in the links supplied above will be outstripped before they are even finished as they don’t have sufficient capacity, nor any capacity to meet future demand.

[magicbastarder]

the talk about a total smoky fuel ban seems to have been prompted by threats of legal action should they extend the smoky coal ban nationwide; IIRC two of the three companies mentioned are based outside the state too. so the 'compromise' was to suggest a ban on all smoky fuels.

it's not a simple issue though; stoves create less smoke than open fires, dry wood is far less smoky than wet ****ty softwood you'd sometimes see for sale in petrol station forecourts, but there's no real way to distinguish them in terms of a workable ban.
coal and turf are fossil fuels, but wood is not, but they're mainly interested in particulate matter rather than CO2 with the mooted ban, which i think is short sighted.

i have a load of cherry wood drying outside at the moment. it was from a diseased tree taken down a year ago and it'll probably be next year before it's burned, in my stove.

our primary heat source in the house is GFCH and we supplement that with the stove, so we're definitely burning less gas (a fossil fuel) as a result; but if i was not allowed burn the cherry, our fossil fuel consumption would rise and the CO2 from the wood would still enter the atmosphere over the next few years anyway, as it rotted.