@Dara O’Brien: and her other options were?

@Garreth Mc Mahon: how about over 95% of climate scientists then? It’s not her information, she’s just passing it on.

@Dave O’Keeffe: video link

@Dave O’Keeffe: Staying at home Dave.

@Dave O’Keeffe: well then give me a scientist

@Dara O’Brien: 97% of scientists agree the climate crisis is happening. But sure if we all put our tinfoil hats on we will be safe!

@Simon O Flaherty: I don’t think Dara disagrees with the science, it’s more the messenger

@Garreth Mc Mahon: She’s chose to go in a zero emissions sailing boat, not an F1 car or in an aircraft transporting them. You can always point to someone next to you who isn’t making good choices, that’s not the same as you doing the same thing. We can all make better choices with respect to our planet. It’s a positive message.

@Simon O Flaherty: and why is pointing out the hypocrisy of a climate change activist being skippered across the Atlantic by a patron of Formula 1 ‘tinfoil hat’ territory Simon?

@Paraic: the boat has to have generated a large footprint when it was built

@Paraic: also it wasn’t me that mentioned the f1 car stuff

@Garreth Mc Mahon: …not a chance am I listening to 99.9% of the worlds scientific community either. Even if knowledge sharing is a uniquely human trait and is what actually separated us from earlier human species and ensured our survival till now. Good on ya Garreth. Stick it to the man!! Or the little girl or whoever.

@Paraic: Her entire approach is based on making principled stands. She should have politely refused and looked for a boat and skipper that is at least moderately aligned with her principles and messages.

If the boat was sponsored by Exxon Mobil or Monsanto would it be acceptable – I mean it’s still a boat right …?

@Garreth Mc Mahon: how?

@Dara O’Brien:Yeah its hypocritical in some sense, but do you think its also someone trying to make amends for taking part in the pollution of our planet?

@Garreth Mc Mahon: At least shes doing a phenomenal amount of work bringing attention to a critical area. What did you do at 16?

@Dara O’Brien: “Her entire approach is based on making principled stands”. You just made that up to suit your retoric. I would say that her entire approach is based on raising awareness. The boat isn’t sponsored by Exxon Mobil or Monsanto Dara. My guess is that she would find another if that were the case.

@Nial D: I got a summer job and enjoyed myself

@Paraic: So it’s ok that it’s owned and skippered by a patron of Formula 1 then?

@Dara O’Brien: a note on Formula 1’s carbon footprint (this is in addition to getting into bed with the likes of Azerbaijan and Bahrain)

They each lug between 50 and 100 tons of cars, spare parts, and equipment to each of the 21 races on the calendar, covering more than 110,000 air miles every year. That teams don’t just travel with cars and mechanics. They bring ostentatious mobile headquarters and hospitality centers with them everywhere they go to impress local dignitaries and their high roller sponsors.

110,000 miles times 10 teams equals 1,100,000 miles. A 747 burns 5 gallons of jet fuel for every mile it flies. That’s 5.5 million gallons of jet fuel just to fly back and forth to races. Add in another 25% to get to testing venues, promotional events, and other special activities and you’re up to almost 7 million gallons. And that still doesn’t account for emissions from the factories, wind tunnels, and the 300 to 600 employees each team employs.

A gallon of jet fuel creates 21 pounds of carbon dioxide when it is burned, according to the Energy Information Agency. 21 pounds times 7 million gallons equals — wait, I have to get out my Radio Shack calculator for this one — a staggering 147 million pounds of carbon dioxide just so Formula One can bring “the show” to fans all over the world. The cars could be powered by pixie dust and Formula One would still be one of the biggest polluters on Earth.

@Dara O’Brien: I see what you mean. If I’m a vegetarian and I go to a restaurant with a friend who orders steak, then I’m guilty by association. Is that the way your logic works Dara?

@Paraic: Only if you spend your whole life denouncing the evils of meat eaters

@Dave O’Keeffe: She could do a Skype call to the event and show it on big screen. Surely more environmentally friendly

@Garreth Mc Mahon: er. ALL of them??

@Dara O’Brien: I think your looking at it wrong. She’s not denouncing anything. She’s promoting the merits. Big difference.

@Simon O Flaherty: 98.2 % of all statistics are made up on the spot!

@Dave O’Keeffe: 95% of what number of scientist’s. Because Dr Patrick Moore founding member of Greenpeace does not agree. He left Greenpeace because its lost its way and gone of track. Its all about money now with them.

@Garreth Mc Mahon: have you nit got the internet yourself ?

@Simon O Flaherty: Science doesn’t work by consensus, you either have solid proof or not.

@Jamie Mul: there no solid proof for the theory of evolution either but you have creationist types that pretend that it didn’t happen and well everyone else does believe it. Don’t you?

@brendan H: Interesting piece on Greenpeace, have a read
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329680852_Analysis_of_Greenpeace’s_business_model_philosophy_Greenpeace_wants_a_piece_of_your_green

@Dave O’Keeffe: stay at home and use a video link.

@Simon O Flaherty: or maybe do some research on how they reached that magical 97% figure, or else as I assume you’ll do just keep your head firmly buried in the sand and lap up everything you are told without question.

@brendan H: congrats, is he a climate scientist? If so he’s in the 5%. All scientists have names, just because you know one of their names doesn’t make them any more right or wrong

@Dara O’Brien: your guilt by association shtick is a bit pathetic. She’s getting on a boat, not endorsing formula 1.

@brendan H: Patrick Moorehall is not a climatologists in fact he is not even a scientist, he doesn’t do anything by way of research or publish academic work. He holds a PhD but that is really meaningless because all he misuses it for is to dazzle and hypnotise the unwary. He is a publicist for companies that pollute. He spouts pseudo science, the complete opposite of a scientist. So he is not qualified or a scientist so your point is moot.

@Dara O’Brien: Dara you are coming across as bucolic and ignorant. She is a 16 year old girl doing the best she knows how to bring attention to an issue that she’s passionate about (that also happens to affect all of us).

You’re not a scientist, we all get that, but god almighty you certainly are a begrudger. As someone who knows a lot of “climate scientists” (or rather scientists whose research contributes towards knowledge on the environment), I can safely say that not one of them thinks that the impact of humans on our atmosphere and weather systems is a hoax.

In any case, your arguments are laughable for loads of reasons, but the most succinct way I can think to put it is that you have a holier than thou attitude even though you do and know fck all on the issue. So annoying.

@Veronica: Give it a rest Veronica – do you not have anything positive to contribute to this argument or are you just so angry at your lot in life that all you have left is to complain and moan?

It’s interesting that you are happy to have a go at my posts but not to engage in the logic? The fact is, if you can wipe the red mist out of your eyes for a second, I have made no comments on climate change, science or otherwise.

I have merely pointed out that there is a lot of hypocrisy surrounding Greta Thunberg and her supporters. This tends to happen when you get fanaticism and reverence mixed together.

It’s similar to the Gemma O’Doherty situation where someone campaigns for free speech and tries to silence those who criticize – her acolytes don’t see the hypocrisy.

I’m simply taking an objective view. Deal with it.

@Dara O’Brien: hey man, there’s no red mist here, I just read your ludicrous comments about a 16 year old and decided to reply to you.

If it’s a rational conversation you want, then let’s have one. What do you disagree with most about this whole issue, is it that you disagree with the message, or the messenger?I get the feeling that it’s a bit of both, but mostly it’s the messenger. What about the way she has raised awareness on the issue gets your goat? You and I both know full well that we all live in the same world, and that in order to move about in it we all have to make compromises, otherwise nothing would ever get achieved.That comment about guilt by association was what really annoyed me, because not a single person on this planet can live a truly “pure” lifestyle by your measure.

@Nial D: Pretty much the same thing he’s doing now,being a w@nqer

@Dara O’Brien: Climate change denialists fall into one of 2 camps. 1. So poorly educated that they can’t interpret this basic graph: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Temperature-and-CO2-trends-1900-2004-green-and-blue-lines-CO2-derived-from-Law-Dome-and_fig7_258606359
Or 2. Conspiracy theorists who believe that global temperature records and CO2 measurements are being faked (despite temperature records clearly being smashed year on year this decade including this year). Either way, if you fall into either camp or a mixture of both, then your views are built on a foundation of ignorance of the facts, the scientific method and the anthropic climate change consensus. You can argue against the science all you want but it comes across like a fool denying gravity because “it’s just a theory”.

@Paraic: Alternatively, people who engage in debates on the internet fall into two camps – those who read the posts of others and those who do not.

You sir, clearly fall into the latter as nowhere have I commented on climate change or science.

@Veronica: it’s not about pure lifestyle and I am not making any comment on climate change whatsoever – in fact I’ve gone to the effort of highlighting the huge carbon footprint of F1 – so no point in anyone trying to state that I am in some way in delnial.

In relation to the messenger/message I am simply pointing out that, of all the yachts and all the slippers in the world she could have picked to travel with, she chose a patron of an organisation which pumps massive amounts on CO2 into the atmosphere. This is a really poor choice and, in my opinion should be called out.

She can still travel by yacht anywhere – maybe just not with the skipper in question.

@Dara O’Brien: I read all your comments thoroughly. I was just making an observation. So you’re not a denialist. You’re just someone who dislikes a young woman who opted to sail across the Atlantic instead of taking a 747 to raise awareness of her strongly held personal beliefs on the climate crisis. I get it.

@SteoG: Do a bit of research and don’t be a sheep. Its pure sensationalist and political gobbledygook, the scientists blow it up to get funding and a lot of funding at that and the governments can invent a new tax called a carbon tax , they completely ignore the medieval warming period, the planet has been warming up and cooling down for millions of years and will continue to do so. And anyway carbon is plant food. Carbon is at 415 ppm thats 0.04% of the atmosphere, it used to be 800ppm and up to 1000ppm, when carbon was below 200ppm we had a cooling and mini ice age and full ice age. WE CAN’T CONTROL NATURE.

@Dara O’Brien: instead you’ve just decided that you don’t like this particular person and are looking to pick holes in everything they do.

@Simon O Flaherty: Scientific consensus is not synonymous with fact. In the middle ages for instance, the scientific consensus was that the earth was flat.

@Dave O’Keeffe: Nothing against her, don’t know her. I have an issue with all the blindly swooning adults afraid to question questionable decisions though.

It is possible to agree with some parts of what a person does/says whilst questioning other parts.

@Simon O Flaherty: said the same to years ago

@John O’Leary: Wow….. You’ve just upped the figure from 97% of respondents to a ridiculousy worded survey to 99.9% ? Go you. You’re surely up their amongst the leaders for the Fake News/Exaggerated Nonsense Award of the day.

@Mike Conway: Yep and we are all laughing at them now. Same will happen in generations to come, People will look back and laugh at the “climate Fairies”…………….”they thought the earth was going to end” the G0b5hites

Wow your F1 calculations are amazingly bad. They don’t bring motor homes to all races, only European, and they drive them. The equipment for the teams, when flown, is flown on the same planes, not a plane each. So already you can divide your pollution guesstimations by 10.
They only test out of season twice, in spain, so only 2 trips there, not just a blanket 25% extra. And 1 or 2 in season tests the day after a race so no extra trip there.

F1 is where hybrid technology, ideas and performance improvements are coming from, without it, we’d be 15 years behind where we are now.

But look, if it makes your argument look good, don’t worry about it

@brendan H: Greens misuse statistics, probably only a few hundred who claim to be climate scientists when they aren’t fixing trains

@Muddy: You’re much more like the laughing yokels that condemned Copernicus and Kepler as heretics, for pointing out that the Earth was not the center of the Universe and that it was indeed round. You know, actual scientists who made discoveries from observational data. Just like modern day climatologists are making observations based on data, rather than laughing looking to out of date beliefs like idiots.

@Dara O’Brien: you can but at each step she’s choosing a better alternative, maybe not the best but better, and you can’t stand it. It’s really funny to see you get all bent out of shape over it.

@brendan H: Waffle away there. It is you that cannot discern the difference between a consultant conspiracy theorist and a scientist. I know the difference. Hint. The scientists deal with facts and publish findings. Whereas.
The consultant conspiracy theorist makes stuff up doesn’t produce any evidence and numptys like you swallow their seed because you don’t like the idea of a tax. By the way its Carbon dioxide CO2, not carbon. You see you don’t know what you are saying then say that I need to do a bit of research.

@John Kennedy: Thanks for that.

@Al Fresco: only 74% of people believe that

@Paraic: What about before 1900, you start at the end of a downward trajectory of temperature to suit your argument, when you see the bigger picture the temperatures go up and Down, nature correcting itself, carbon was up to 1000ppm it came down to 200ppm thats the ice age and little ice age, there was also the medieval warming when there was no ice on the north and south poles carbon was at 800ppm there was inland seas all over every continent. Seriously sheeple wake up and open the mind do some research. This is like the financial crisis when the ones saying there was going to be a hard crash were laughed at.

@SteoG: Oh my god sorry, I didn’t think I needed to write the full thing, but for the slow ones ill say carbon dioxide CO2 thanks for that bright spark.

@Garreth Mc Mahon: so you’d ignore the facts agreed upon by 99% of the world’s scientists just because a teenager made a stand for it?. So then, who has the lack of life experience?

@Garreth Mc Mahon: Is that you Trump?

@Jamie Mul:
Science absolutely works by consensus – you clearly don’t understand the meaning of scientific consensus.

@Tommy Roche:
Six separate independent studies using different methodologies have all found that the 97% figure is accurate.

You can read all about it here (if you can be bothered):
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048002

If you can’t be bothered, here’s the closing line of the paper:
“The level of scientific agreement on AGW is overwhelmingly high because the supporting evidence is overwhelmingly strong.”

@brendan H: Admit that you don’t know the difference. Carbon C is an element. Oxygen O is also an element. Carbon dioxide CO2 is a compound of two elements with one carbon atom and two atoms of oxygen. Two different classes. Proves my point that you don’t know what you are talking about. It does help when you actually research something instead of parroting pseudo conspiracy consultants who are clueless on the subject.

Mother of god lads she’s a young girl making a statement and a very strong one.
It’s about her and the planet not the skipper of the ship. Ffs

@Paraic: will she be eating salads at the banquets they fete her at or will gas burners/electric hobs be on for hot food? This is getting ridiculous!

@SteoG: I know exactly what I’m talking about not like you blindly following the climate alarmists con job, climate change is natural always was always will be.

@brendan H: Oh dear god, where do I start. PhD Geologist here, did paleoclimate climate research into the Miocene Climatic Optimum and its effects Ireland’s palaeosoil development. Also worked as a scientist on a project that aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from Irish agriculture.

Think I’m qualified to pick apart your firehose of falsehood.

“carbon was up to 1000ppm it came down to 200ppm thats the ice age”

The last time CO2 was above 1000 ppm was over 40 million years ago.

http://www.flainox.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/20130507CenozoicCO2.jpg

“there was also the medieval warming when there was no ice on the north and south poles ”

Wow. The last time the South and North pole was free of ice was over 30 million years ago (Wilson et al, 2013).

Wilson, D.S., Pollard, D., DeConto, R.M., Jamieson, S.S. and Luyendyk, B.P., 2013. Initiation of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and estimates of total Antarctic ice volume in the earliest Oligocene. Geophysical Research Letters, 40 (16), pp.4305-4309.

In fact, the planet’s temperatures peaked ~8000 BC during the Holocene Climatic Optimum, afterwards the Earth gradually cooled. Eventually the Little Ice Age began around 1300 AD and ended around 1870 AD.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_climatic_optimum

This natural gradual cooling was caused by variation in the Earths tilt and distance from the Sun, that cooling stopped about 1880. Since then the Earth began to warm, counter to the expected trend. This warming is due to humans putting greenhouses gases in the atmosphere, causing Global Warming.

Svante Arrhenius published the first paper on Global Warming way back in 1896, this is not new science.

Arrhenius, S., 1896. XXXI. On the influence of carbonic acid in the air upon the temperature of the ground. The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, 41(251), pp.237-276.

Seriously, your knowledge of Climate Change is so poor and your confidence so unreasonably high, you’re like someone walking into the offices of SpaceX with a model rocket and telling Elon Musk that your creation is better than his Falcon 9! How embarrassing.

@brendan H:
With that statement you’ve just clearly proved that you don’t know what you’re talking about.

@brendan H: of course it is, to the extent that we are a part of nature. You know what’s also natural? Self preservation.

@Dara O’Brien: That is 66800 tonnes of CO2 per car per year ? Is that correct?

@Paraic:
1970′s Prepare for another Ice Age = Lies
1980′s Ozone Layer = Lies
1990′s Sea levels will rise and swamp islands and coastlines = Lies
2000′s No more snow or Ice at the poles = Lies

Do you see a common denominator ??????? = LIES

@Jamie Mul: Science does work very much by consensus. For your scientific proof to be valid your methodology and conclusions have to able to be replicated independently by other scientists. If that can’t be done, as in you can’t gain evidence based consensus, than it’s not science but spoof.

@Muddy:
Ice age coming – claimed by a tiny minority and picked up by a headline-hungry media, totally dismissed by the vast majority of climate scientists.
Ozone layer – hole reducing in size since we banned CFCs.
Rising sea levels – currently rising at record levels according to the World Meteorological Organisation.
Polar ice melt – currently melting at unprecedented levels in both the arctic and antarctic. Look at what’s been happening in Greenland this summer.

@SteoG: No it does not prove your point. You barely corrected him on difference between carbon and carbon dioxide wheres his point still stands as carbon dioxide is plant food. Another fact is that there were much more of carbon in atmosphere by a magnitude compared to current level quite a lot of times in history. Current levels are in fact quite small and plants are starving. More CO2 means more green earth and more food for all of us.
Your agruments are quite funny considering you claim people are uneducated on a matter when talking about carbon yet you do not have problem when we are told we need to reduce carbon production or pay carbon tax to save planet by politicians or “climate scientists”.
Why not carbon dioxide tax? Perhaps you can make it your little crusade to let them all know how wrong or uneducated they are in your mighty eyes.

@The Great Unwashed: It took 4 days for the Solar Impulse 2 to cross the Atlantic. That’s way faster than a sailing vessel. Amazing how everyone points to the carbon footprint of construction of a zero emissions aircraft or yacht without reference to total carbon over its entire lifetime or comparing it to a Boeing 747 which is the standard method for transatlantic travel. “Take a 747 because solar aircraft have to be constructed” is the takeaway message?

@Paraic:
When we develop a solar-powered aircraft that can take 400 passengers we’ll be onto a winner.
Don’t get me wrong, technology moves in steps and early research and development in new technologies is an essential part of the process, but carbon-neutral mass transportation is still a long long way off.

@Paraic:
It took Solar Impulse 501 days to make it round the rest of the world, much of it waiting for weather conditions to be perfect for each leg.

@The Great Unwashed: We had carbon neutral mass transportation for hundreds of years in the form of wooden sailing ships.
Obviously they aren’t practical when it’ll take two weeks to cross the Atlantic in them.

Hyperloop will probably be one of the technical advances to seriously cut carbon emissions.

@The Great Unwashed: So don’t try then?

@Paraic:
Greta says it’s absurd that she has to sail to get across the atlantic emission-free. I’m saying it’s absurd (or at the very least incredibly naive) for her to think we have the technology for her to do it any other way.

@The Great Unwashed: she did say “to sail like this” not just to sail was absurd. Perhaps she, like many others, believes that the technology used to transport a handful of people emission free should have been scaled up by now. Maybe giant pedal boats

@Dave O’Keeffe:
Kites and sails have already been fitted to cargo vessels to reduce fuel consumption (which is certainly a step in the right direction), but short of nuclear power, a massive increase in electricity generation and battery power, or a return to the age of sail, we’re pretty much stuck with creating emissions to move large numbers of people over great distances.
Greta, for all her precociousness, is still a naive teenager.

@The Great Unwashed: I stand by my pedal boats suggestion. 400 people pedalling to America

@Dave O’Keeffe:
Think of the methane emissions…

@The Great Unwashed: could speed up the journey

@Paraic: What? No Water. The world is 71% water. Its not like it falls from the sky.

@Mark Mccormack: Hush up until you have something productive to add.

@Muddy: Good man, try drinking sea water. And that’s just the problem. It DOESN’T fall from the sky over, ever expanding tracts of land. Just because it falls from the sky over your head when you’re in Kiltimagh, doesn’t mean it will if you’re in subsaharan Africa. Engage your brain a bit more would you. Global doesn’t mean inside your safe bubble.

@Paraic: Survival of the fittest as the Great Darwin said

@Paraic: how soon are we talking ?? as for all the other people who are taking part in the Conference,apart from those based in NYC,how are the others getting there?

@Veronica: and her family are getting well paid for this….

@Muddy: Extinction of entire species is what we’re witnessing. Open your eyes too.

@Paraic: So no green idiots in a few years, excellent

@Cathal: The last male northern white rhino died last year leaving only 2 females (so extinct). There are only 40 red wolves left in the world. The spix macaw (as in the movie Rio) became extinct in the wild last year. There are only 8 Pinta Island giant tortoises left on the planet they were thought to be extinct. The scimitar oryx is extinct in the wild since 2000. The Western black rhino was declared extinct in 2011. The list goes on and on and on… It’s not survival but extinction?? What a dunce!

@Paraic: Dodo ,400 years ago, Irish elk, bear and wolf , 1700s. Tasmanian wolf 1930s, see the pattern, it didn’t start yesterday.

@Cathal: The current rate of extinction is 100 to 1000 times higher than the expected natural background rate. It has been named the Holocene event because it is caused by an unprecedented superpredator (us). You are correct, the Holocene period didn’t begin yesterday, but the species you listed were all victims of the same superpredator. Sure keep telling yourself that it’s all natural and we’ll be grand.

@Centerro: Does anyone know where I can purchase one of the Bumper Stickers that they have in Germany? I believe they are all the rage there.

@Centerro: That’s the point C, there’s won’t be much of a world left if we continue down this destructive commercial driven path. Would you prefer she was an idiot Kardasian Plastico?

@Nial D: I hear that Tin Foil is on offer down in Lidl. Failing that… I’m sure one of the alarmists here will give you a much needed hug.

@Centerro: You’re the angry sounding one. Shes simply sad cos of people like you.

@Nial D: When are we all going to die? Scroll back 30 years it was an Ozone crises…The planet survived Dinosaur farts, people cooking with fire for millennia.. your not dying tomorrow, relax, and it wont be fixed in your lifetime in anycase!

@Centerro: you’re a complete omelette you know that? Muppets like you

@Veronica: Agreed V. It’s a lot easier to be negative that say/do something positive.

@Tara Connolly: Does anyone know where I can purchase one of the Bumper Stickers that they have in Germany? I believe they are all the rage there

@Veronica: she’s flying home….FFS.