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IMAGINE FOR A moment that our government and others around the world had been given detailed information and warnings about the coronavirus years, even decades before it finally erupted.
Imagine also that experts had shown the path to minimising or even avoiding this global disaster, but our political and business leaders, uneasy about the costs of taking action and possible disruption to commerce, chose to ignore the expert warnings as alarmist and carried on regardless.
In reality, full-blown pandemics are vanishingly rare. Almost no human is alive today who lived in the time of the ‘Spanish Flu’ pandemic of 1918-19.
In the modern era, our collective cultural experience is that of taming, rather than being at the mercy of, nature in general and deadly diseases in particular. Consider smallpox: during the 20th century, it killed an estimated 300 million people worldwide. A global vaccination campaign eventually led to its eradication in 1980. Likewise, polio, another dreaded disease, has been almost completely vanquished by vaccination.
The damage done
Until very recently, premature death had been the norm for most humans. However, in the last five decades, largely freed from the threat of predators, large and small, our numbers on this earth have more than doubled, to over 7.8 billion, while average life expectancy in the same period has increased by well over a decade per person.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that this unprecedented global expansion of the human footprint has brought the biosphere, our living planet, to the brink of collapse. There are many ways of measuring this, such as the precipitous decline in biodiversity, the average annual loss of 15 billion trees, many of them from razed ancient rainforests.
A major report on biodiversity and ecosystems published last May found that the natural world is declining globally ‘at rates unprecedented in human history – and the rate of species extinctions is accelerating, with grave impacts on people around the world now likely’.
The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) report concluded that around one million animal and plant species now face extinction in the coming decades. ‘The essential, interconnected web of life on Earth is getting smaller and increasingly frayed…this loss is a direct result of human activity and constitutes a direct threat to human well-being’, the IPBES report warned.
The unavoidable warming
We face an equally daunting and arguably more intractable challenge from climate change. In October 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a special report on the likely impacts of global warming at and beyond 1.5ºC over pre-industrial temperatures.
Arising from this landmark report, it emerged that in order to keep global temperatures within relatively safe limits, carbon emissions would have to fall by at least 45% by 2030, which is just ten years from now.
This is in line with commitments made by almost all the world’s leaders, including Ireland, when we signed up for the 2015 Paris Agreement, which legally committed us to doing everything possible to avoid extremely dangerous climate change at 2ºC and beyond.
This commitment was underlined in January 2020 by the all-party Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action when it agreed a minimum targeted emissions reduction of 7%+ per annum and this, in turn, has become the Green Party’s key precondition for entering into a coalition government.
According to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), the economic impact of the coronavirus is likely to see global carbon emissions fall by some 6% in 2020.
We need to flatten both the pandemic and climate change curves; we need to show the same determination and unity against climate change as against Covid-19”, according to WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas. Action, he added, would be needed “for many generations ahead.
What this underlines is that to achieve a compound 7% annual emissions cut every year from now until 2030 would require the most radical rethink of how we organise our society and economy since the foundation of the state.
Can you see it happening?
Many are deeply sceptical. Former ‘Climate Action’ minister, Denis Naughten dismissed the 7% target as ‘unachievable’, claiming it would equate to banning every private car and slaughtering every (farm) animal in the country.
Naughten is at least being consistent. Back in 2017, he threatened to block implementation of the Paris Agreement at the EU level, claiming it was ‘unaffordable’ for Ireland to implement.
Since 2011, a succession of Fine Gael-led governments has stymied meaningful climate action. As a result, Ireland has now the third-highest per capita emissions in the EU, with the average Irish citizen accounting for more than double the emissions of their high-income Swedish counterparts.
As Sweden shows, ultra-low carbon solutions in transport, energy, home heating, agriculture and industry are indeed possible, but in Ireland, these have been held back by vested interest groups pursuing short-term agendas and TDs engaged in parish pump politics.
Even Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has had to concede he was “not proud of Ireland’s performance on climate…as far as I am concerned, we are a laggard”.
At what cost?
Apart from constant lobbying by commercial and agri-industrial groups, another reason politicians have run scared of climate action is that the issue is consistently framed in the Irish media in terms of the cost of tackling climate change. However, international studies have shown repeatedly that the price of inaction far outweighs the costs of addressing the crisis.
It is estimated that the cost of the coronavirus to the global economy is in the range of $2–$4 trillion this year. A 2018 report calculated that failure to rein in climate change would deliver a devastating $34 trillion hit to the global economy – many times greater than the economic chaos arising from the pandemic.
Other estimates are even less sanguine. An Australian study published in 2019 argues that ‘climate change represents a near to mid-term existential threat to human civilisation’.
Should global temperatures reach 3C over pre-industrial by mid-century, ‘the scale of destruction is beyond our capacity to model, with a high likelihood of human civilisation coming to an end’, the report warns.
So, the next time someone asks if we can ‘afford’ to tackle climate change, a better question might instead be: what price isn’t worth paying to avoid the collapse of civilisation?
John Gibbons is an environmental writer and commentator who specialises in covering the climate and biodiversity emergency. He is a contributor to The Irish Times, The Guardian and DeSmog.uk and is a regular guest environmental commentator on broadcast media. He blogs at Thinkorswim.ie and also runs the website Climatechange.ie and is on Twitter: @think_or_swim.
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How about you park these scare mongering articles for a better time. People have enough to be worrying about with a deadly virus doing the rounds, lockdown and an impending global depression.
@Craig Mahon: Good to Tease these things out in rational adult manner. Otherwise we might get the ‘Ostrich ‘ syndrome.!!
@Craig Mahon: The effects of the climate emergency will have you wishing it was 2020 again.
@ÓDuibhír Abú: Tease them out? You make out like this is the first ever article about climate change. The world is fully aware of global warming and what it will bring.
My point is people have enough to be worrying about over the next few months.
@NotMyIreland: No I most definitely won’t.
@Craig Mahon: Burying your head in the sand and hoping difficulties go away. Is that how you deal with your problems? Please demonstrate with supporting evidence examples of how well that works out.
@SteoG: who’s burying their head?
I made a point of laying of the scare articles as people have enough to be worried about. Loved one dying, not seeing family, business failing, losing jobs, etc.
Do you think global warming is going to sorted in the next 8 weeks?
Maybe the journal can give us an article on how we will all end up dying of cancer or some other horrid disease, to cheer us all up.
@Craig Mahon: the earth doesn’t care about a human pandemic , it’s going to do its own thing when it heats up too much . It’s not something we can “park” until we’re ready to deal with it.
@John Quill: thanks for the enlightenment. Sure we will be all dead soon it won’t matter. Happy Saturday.
@Craig Mahon: “How about parking these kinds of articles…”
20 mins later: “Who is burying their head?..”
Without even a hint of irony :)
@Craig Mahon:
He forgot to mention the high probability of an asteroid impact in the next 30 years. And what about the Yellowstone park super volcano…? Let’s get it all out there…. :-)
@Craig Mahon:
Scare mongering? You must be incredibly ill-informed.
@Craig Mahon: So we just handle climate change at the last minute like we did the pandemic? That’s just not going to work. The lesson here is that global level events like this can and do happen – and quite often. Hopefully a decent percentage of us will have the foresight to act well in advance of it being too late.
@Craig Mahon: This in fact seems like a very good time. For many, the rat race has been (temporarily) suspended, people have more time to think and reflect, to consider the future, and also to consider just how fragile life really is, and how quickly things can deteriorate. We’ve also seen evidence of nature starting to slowly recover, with fewer humans out and about, fewer cars, planes, cleaner air, quieter streets, etc. With that in mind, I think it’s a great time to take a long, hard look at the wider climate issue so we don’t just stumble out of the coronavirus frying pan and into the climate fire
@Craig Mahon: The word is a scary place. Maybe you need to realise that. I give you credit for your empathy for other people. It is an informative piece not a scare article. You could have scrolled on by. The fact is that everyone needs to realise that we cannot continue to treat the ecosystem with the same contempt. Time to wake up.
@Craig Mahon: This ‘scare article’ is actually full of facts about how little time we have.
It’s like saying, let’s not look at the meteor hurtling at earth that is going to wipe us out, very soon because, well, it upsets you.
Is that what your saying ?
2030 is 10 years from now, and we don’t have time NOT to talk about the system change needed 20 , 30 or 40 years ago.
Great article, John. Keep shouting from the rooftops.
@John Gibbons: the carbon budget of the next generation is precious and any attempt at bailing out airlines should be strongly fought against by the public.
We need to be the lobbyists, now ensuring they don’t give them any taxpayers money.
We have one change to retrofit the system before it is rebooted. We need really strong leadership right now, globally.
We live I hope.
@Craig Mahon: thanks for your concern Craig. You’re free to keep your own head in the sand. The rest of us don’t need to follow you.
@Craig Mahon: The best thing to do is look at the news once weekly – you’ll find out all you need to know without a constant stream of negative and stressful information.
@Craig Mahon: Because they’re inextricably connected and climate change is the senior of the two. You’re just whistling past the graveyard if climate change isn’t addressed. You want more pandemics? Keep letting the permafrost and ice melt where ancient infectious microorganisms, now dormant, become active. The very cause of climate change, rapacious destruction of the planet to prop of the capitalism Ponzi scheme that demands infinite growth at the cost of all life, is the reason for this pandemic and will the reason for others until nothing remains.
Regardless of the layout of the new coalition why is home insulation not exempt from VAT? It only benefits all with reduced emissions.
@Coimeádach na hÉireann: agree. VAT exemptions on the right things could be the quickest way to incentivise the right kind of behaviour.
Does this writer realise this is Ireland.
@Daniel Roche: they tax the winters in ireland an extra 3euro on a bag of coal since yesterday
@Daniel Roche: So?? Did you even finish the article
@Seriousnojoke: yes
Fake news, we just need to make a giant sunshade problem solved. God this detol tastes awful.
@Owen O’Murchú: plandemic has proven the climate change hoax…no change in carbon emissions despite the absence of traffic
@JB: That makes no sense
@JB: that’s incredibly wrong
@JB: can you smoke stupid now?
@JB: Plandemic? Oh I see what you did there…..you spent too much time on a certain Garda abuser’s twitter feed.
@Johnny 5: unlike gemma, a paid shill, there are real truth seeking people out there with good intentions. Gemma ruins it for those good people.
@JB: A cursory search of the Internet has reports of worldwide drops in CO2 output. No point in saying things that are untrue when it’s trivial to discount your claims.
@JB: Or rather how much is actually caused by industry and not individual car owners. There was that cruise ship company that was revealed recently to be outputting the same about of pollution at every car in the EU, from their fleet of a dozen ships.
@JB: what’s your source for that, I want to believe you am not a believe in man made climate change I just think Mother Nature is doing it all in its own
@Conall: You obviously did not search enough, from the worldwide acknowledged source of CO2 data Mauna Loa in Hawaii
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
CO2 levels for March 2020 have increased by 3ppm over March 2019
@JB: You actually couldn’t be more wrong, and look at all the fools upvoting you, lol!
@JB
That’s that matter sorted then.
It’s frustrating to see new cases arise even though we mostly all have been staying inside for 7 weeks, but we know we’re getting there slowly…but to be honest it MORE than frustrating to listen to reports that ‘climate change’ keeps getting worse after 20 years of making changes and paying taxes….will these sacrifices really work?…I really have my doubts that human kind have the ability to fix our climate
@Spartacus Ireland: But don’t doubt our ability to break it
@Conall: The point, though, if we (humans) are destroying the climate, and we are so so much more “green” then we used to be (compare to 20 years ago)…why oh why is climate change getting continually worse according to the scientists and at a rate that is worse than predicted?…at least with the pandemic we can see it is getting better, the science is helping?…perhaps the science is wrong/inaccurate and we (the public) are peeing against the wind with our ‘sacrifices’
@Spartacus Ireland: Because of uncontrolled population rises, because of the increasing use of planes and ships due to more people getting out of poverty, half a billion in China rising from poverty, India population explosion and use of Australian coal, because of America not caring, because of peoples need for crap from China, because of the destruction of Carbon sinks like the the Amazon and great barrier reef, even our bogs.
@TheHeathen: Grand so they are the problems that need fixing…average Joe and Jane paying taxes won’t fix those problems, my point exactly, can’t be the average Joe and Jane that’s responsible for worsening of climate change cause we’ve already adjusted much and it just keeps getting worse
@TheHeathen: Besides, that list is so bloody long you might as well say ‘everything’ is causing climate change, so the solution ‘give up everything’s, live in a cabe…bet climate change would still happened faster than predicted, still don’t have the real answers
*cave :-)
@TheHeathen: P.S.: Think you forgot, farting, belching, keeping pets, farming, eating, breathing lol
@Spartacus Ireland: You asked a question, I answered. There are solutions. Stop buying shite firstly.
@TheHeathen: I appreciate that but the question really is ‘What evidence do we have after 20 years of green adjustments (by everyday people – and we have changed a lot!!!) that the adjustments are working?’…with the pandemic we can see some evidence it is working, slowly, but with climate change we’re only ever told it’s getting much much worse
@Spartacus Ireland: “20 years of making changes and paying taxes”. Sadly a lot of those taxes have gone into government spending that reverses the impact of changes we make in our lives. Building big motorways with housing estates either side, more airport terminals, buying more diesel buses, paying farmers to do the wrong thing.
And tragic thing is that we are seeing the start of it too, mass migration, drought so bad that some areas of the will be uhhabitable, exterme weather events, food shortages etc…. It will end being like the cut of a thousand knives.
@Conchuir O Maolchallann: There has always been mass migration, extreme weather events (in fact more more peoole died in extreme weather events a hundred years ago when global population was a fraction) and food shortages so what are you on about
The fact that the world population increases by 153000 every day never gets a mention. Why? – this has to be a fundamental reason for earth being destroyed
@Thomas Sheridan: and yet europe grows older and older with a lot of countries here not replacing its population (baring a couple of exceptions)
@Thomas Sheridan: The population of Africa will double within 50 years. There are millions of starving people in Africa, and their solution to this is to have more children born into poverty and starvation. These people need education and contraception.
@Damien: no, it’s not their solution. Birth rates are always higher in countries with higher levels of poverty. That’s been the case in every country. Including our own. Economic development leads to lower birth rates.
@Thomas Sheridan: don’t worry Bill Gates has a solution for that…
What if we were to drill a bigilly hole in the earths crust and inject it with a tremendous amount of Jeyes Fluid…
@Mick Stafford: Can we look into that?
@Ricky: I think that might be interesting
@Mick Stafford: It will be a tremendous hole, an American hole
@Mick Stafford: It will be a tremendous hole
@Ricky: for sure. it will be a great bigilly hole
The world is overpopulated that the story not sneaky bull levies and taxes
@Gerard Heery: that is exactly what the elite super rich and power hungry politicians have been saying for years. Climate change, planned parenthood, abortion ,vaccinations with toxic metals, chemtrails and water laced with fluride aka used in stalins goulags to make the inmates docile. Now you see the drugged up slaves in ireland incapable of understanding the objective of the propaganda machines of the elite selling us lies, each one bigger than the next. Prepare for the one world digital currency and cue up to get chipped.
@Thomas McGrath: Jaysus, what a steaming pile of shyte.
@Thomas McGrath: who is organising all these things? Is there a secret committee of the worlds richest people who meet regularly to figure out how they can get richer and make slaves of all the people.
Why would All world governments go along with it. What’s in it for them?
Why would the majority of the worlds science community go along with it. What’s in it for them? Why would the worlds main stream media go along with this plan, what’s in it for them?
@Thomas McGrath: I presume that’s a sarcastic parody of the idiots who post this kid of rubbish. If not I would you seek help for your delusions and addiction to conspiracy theories. Surely no thinking individual could believe that amount of bulsh%t except maybe Gemma
Well written article with good evidence behind it, cheers John Gibbons. As some comments suggest above, it’s disappointing that this coronavirus period will only result in a 6% reduction this year, when 7% a year is needed but it puts how much effort is needed into perspective. People can joke about solutions or whinge about it being bad news in an already bad time but this coronavirus time has shown that dramatic changes can be made at the drop of a hat for something that has caused less deaths than air and water pollution contributes to. So it’s a choice of joking to deflect, saying its upsetting, saying its too hard and belittling well researched articles or actually making an individual effort
@JC O’Connachain: a sensible comment!! I dispare reading some of the other comments and realise the challenge ahead.
@JC O’Connachain: You can write all the articles in the world but while all the calls for change are directed at normal everyday people and the solutions are taxes then I call foul. The most pollutant forms of transport by a country mile is shipping especially pleasure cruising as it is completely unnescessary. 300 cruise ships in the world burning 80000 gallons of heavy fuel oil a day. Heavy fuel oil is 3500 times more carbon pollutant than diesel do the maths and you will figure out that if you average out at 50 litres a week for a family car that the 1 cruise ship in a day puts out more carbon than the entire Irish car driver fleet does in 2 weeks.Mulitiply that by 300 then add in oil tankers cargo ships large fishing vessels research vessels. Cars, home heating only a drop in the ocean
@Michael McGrath: Fully agree, the worst offenders and biggest polluters need to be pressured to cover their impact, rather than solely asking individuals to be responsible. Equally though, I’m not going to give up personal efforts or mindset just because corporations or developing countries aren’t making the same effort. Throwing in the towel individually cause someone over there isn’t doing it is a weak response. I agree with your point and with keeping a drive at it make sense cause governments clearly won’t do this if left to themselves
@JC O’Connachain: It will never happen too many lobbyists, too many people with personal business interests in govts all you have to do is scratch the surface of our own to see all the conflicts of interest you can have all the best intentions in the world but money trumps all. Look at the U.S China and India between the 3 of them almost 60% of the worlds carbon output and they have not one notion of changing in fact the latter 2 are getting worse the more modern they become. Putting taxes on nescessities here without viable alternatives is a money grab and all its going to do is put people already under pressure to get the money to heat their homes like O.A.Ps further into poverty. Its actually depressing the horse manure we have to swallow under the guise of “climate action”
@Michael McGrath: Again, I agree with your stats and the fact numerous people, corporations and countries are doing considerable damage. I agree that taxing the average person while the above get away is a wasted approach. But what is the difference between the attitude of a realist who has lost their fight and caring and the attitude of a polluting corporation or country? Same end result, both have given up / don’t care. They will be happy to encourage people like you to give up. Call me the deluded optimist but its a lost cause, I’d rather have made my effort than sat on the sidelines saying I told you so
Very disingenuous to link one crisis to another yes climate change is important but pushing your point on the back of so many deaths is low .
@Paul Garvey: Not really, climate change is going to kill far more.
@Badger the witness: potentially yes could be catastrophic for us all however the authors timing and using the current crisis is cynical. Reminds me of a corporate marketing department latching on to me too.
We live on a planet within millions of galaxies that’s the least volatile to support human life.this planet revolves around the sun which is a star that’s growing bigger and bigger and will eventually engulf this world into a fireball.
But hey you keep the scare mongering going about climate change,what a silly article
@tuco: What an even sillier comment.
@tuco: in billions of years? What has that got to do with climate change?
@Johnny 5: wow you really add to the debate.”sillier” haha you sound like a 5 year old Johnny 5
@tuco: you are very dim.
@tuco: silly
[ sil-ee ]
adjective, sil·li·er, sil·li·est.
weak-minded or lacking good sense; stupid or foolish
@Johnny 5: keep it up there with your fake twitter account you numpty
@Bríann O Connor: boc off
@tuco: wow you really add to the debate. You sound like a 5 year old Tuco.
@Johnny 5: I knew from the start I was dealing with stupidity from you.your replies are getting “sillier”
@tuco: Hopefully your pre-school won’t be closed for too much longer little girl.
@tuco:
We don’t need to wait that long all it takes is a coronal mass ejection to destroy our communications and electricity. There’s a 35% probability that the earth will endure a Carrington type even within the next 5 years .Even allowing for that sun is capable of a lot worse in the short term .
Why do we never hear about the affects of ground pollution? Plenty of existing rules and regulations on that already but not enough enforcement.
A burst of positivity to Kickstart the weekend ahead!
Everyone has now had a taste of the climate evangelists world. And most have given it a solid ‘no thanks’. Absolute bolloxology
Give it rest will yeah
Excuse me but global bedwetters have now moved on. Climate change is soooo yesterday
This pandemic is nothing, Looks to me like the greens are loving the way things are at the moment.
These people make a living from spouting their fear mongering rubbish.
Their only solution then is tax,tax tax . Tax everyone and ordinary workers into poverty.
I don’t find the content of this article as depressing as the fatalist and denialist comments below it. We know what needs to be done, and the consequences of failing to act. Trying to shut down the conversation won’t make the problem go away.
The heading of this Article is pure Scaremongering, Again, I enquire,- Why are we supposed to be World Leaders in Climate Change. We are but a Speck in the. Ocean. The Rain Forests are not being felled here, Brazil and other South American Countries is where that problem lies- , and are they going to change? China, India, United States ? , are they going to change?. Yes we need to tidy up, stop rubbishing everywhere, Recycling can be improved greatly yet, but this Scaremongering and Ranting by The Greens is pure Bulls…. . Since the Planes stopped streaking down the Skies emissions have decreased, nobody wanted to hear about them before this, and apparently, there is NO tax on the Fuel they use.
Climate change is going to happen anyways. If we can slow down the curve, that will be great
One Armageddon at a time please.
So what’s the answer?
Climate change is happening. We adapt.
Would be and present governments propose drastic measures which will have far reaching consequences on all of us while they travel globally to conventions in transport that emit the pollutants that they tax us for.
Seems a bit hypocritical
@Paul: If you think that’s bad check out that doc on YouTube planet of the humans.
instead of telling us how bad it’s going to be maybe the scientists could give us some real life solutions. every time I go looking for alternatives they either dont work or are crazily expensive. eg my oil heating system would cost 4 times as much to install and be more expensive to run in an old house if replaced with air to water.
Nothing like a good pandemic to sort the wheat from the chaff.
Industrial farming is killing the planet-chopping down rainforest and other fertile land to grow grain and plundering the seas to make fishmeal to feed billions of chickens, cows and pigs which are kept in horrific confined conditions, just so we can all eat meat every day of our lives. Those mono cultures are also making the land infertile, so they requires millions of tons of fertiliser and pesticides just to produce animal feed, both of which are making the land and water around them toxic and causing respiratory problems for those who are exposed to them, not to mention leading plenty of species to extinction. We all need to cut down our meat and dairy consumption and switch to pasture farming but will that happen? Probably not! We are too used to getting what we want, at any expense.
The same people who call this scaremongering were saying corona was “just a flu” a few months ago.
Listen to scientists, the scientific consensus is clear. This is not a “debate”, we’re being warned, just like we were warned about corona.
@: A contrary view?: pasted from above, but just wonder if you are willing to think for yourself and not just ‘believe’ what scientists tell you [they are just a community of knowledge]?…is the science for climate change as verifiable as corona?…or are we over-relying on “consensus”…can your open your mind to the contrary viewpoint like good science demands?:
“If we (humans) are destroying the climate, and we are so so much more “green” then we used to be (compare to 20 years ago)…why oh why is climate change getting continually worse according to the scientists and at a rate that is worse than predicted?…at least with the pandemic we can see it is getting better, the science is helping?…perhaps the science is wrong/inaccurate and we (the public) are peeing against the wind with our ‘sacrifices’”
@: There is no consensus. Everybody knows the climate is changing (unlike what the “denier” label disingenuously claims), the point is about what can we do about it? Right now European countries are doing more than most, taxing the hell out of their people. Meanwhile developing countries ignore environmental issues so people can actually have electricity in their homes. We can’t stop that.
As for it not being a “debate”, just look at the redemption of CO2 in recent years. We’re finding out more about the climate all the time. There is a debate, it’s just not going on in the news headlines. It’s very easy to find however. The problem is it’s become a politicized issue, so people have planted their flag on one side or the other without knowing there’s even a debate, bolstered by no-nothing politicians doing the same.
For example, what if it turns out the sun is the overwhelming driver of climate change on Earth? Seems pretty likely, but barely gets a mention in articles that promote citizens paying more (money and freedom) for so-called “green” programmes.
Not the time for this John
Hahahahaha what a joke
Who’s john gibbons when hes at home.ffs we ve enough misery around without publishing this drivel.
That’s put me right of my cornflakes that has
Climate change is a natural occurrence that has being hijacked to introduce new taxes by populist idiots calling themselves green. A mirror image of priests predicting that God caused famine, pestilence and disease. Instead of offering prayers now it’s hard cash to create government revenue.
Let’s look at the last 11 years of carbon taxes. Over 3 billion raised and we still are going to miss 2020 impossible targets. Not only that, the quango SEAI has being found to be useless not setting any targets or reducing home hearing costs. https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/half-of-the-homes-in-retrofit-plan-no-better-off-despite-cost-39166389.html.
I think it’s great people are asking questions but why not ask real questions. Will we get a carbon tax rebate this year? That’s a question we can all answer.
Until the biggest polluters sign up doeant matter what any if us do
So many scientists commenting on here it’s rather comforting.
@Cupid Stunt: Perhaps many of them are scientists, and scientists love questions and contrary views it makes their science more robust
When I see or hear the words climate change I think of poor people being fleeced by lazy Governments introducing taxes instead of incentives and alternatives. Poor people are being blamed for climate change and it’s not their fault. Eamon and the Green parties plight is admirable and has the best of intentions but it is doomed to fail because it’s the same ol scutter,
Carbon taxes, carbon taxes, more carbon taxes like Chinese water torture driving more people into poverty. This country is riddled with poverty and families on the bread line with children going to school hungry, Families that are being spat at by the middle class and working class because the government has you brainwashed into thinking that families living on welfare are bleeding the country dry. More taxes wont help
72% of climate change deniers have never kissed a girl, 85% still live with their mammies and 93% think Bill Gates is a lizard.
@Johnny 5: good one Johnny 5. Have you ever believed in a so called conspiracy theory? Please answer
@there’s a slow train coming: Apart from Ssnta Claus and the tooth fairy…..no.
@Johnny 5: so what about the WMDs in Iraq. What about the Hillsborough disaster
What planet earth needs to combat the human race is a good old flu virus, one which is viriliant to all present forms of medication and has no vaccine In sight. Throw in a mix of incompetent world leaders such as Trump and Johnson to let the virus run riot and hey presto. Lovely jubbly
“However, in the last five decades, largely freed from the threat of predators, large and small…” Ah, yes, 50 years ago – how easily we forget – fighting off the dinosaurs and the mammoths as we made our way (never by car, of course) to the local national school.
Why do you come with this rubbish in the middle of the worst pandemic in 100 years you have little sense or regard for people suffering right now
You think your mental health is bad, wait for this. Thanks
One pandemic at a time please
Blah blah blah…..basically more tax. f%#k u Green Party and f#%k u varadqueer
Close industries and shops on Saturdays and Sundays and see what can be gained and learned.
Close industries and shops on Saturdays and Sundays and assess what change would happen in a year.
Or aliens or zombies must be nxt I’d say
Typical of the greens, jump on every bandwagon to push their points. It does not matter if it is valid or not.
Now is not the time for this.
Not the first or the last they will do this.
Worse it is counter productive, people think they are crying wolf AGAIN.
Close everything become vegan, live in yurts, it all joins together, so that people tune out to it.
I,d say your great crack to have a pint with
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