Are we all fucked?

[Pedrito]

You have to laugh at a tiny country, with fucking hardly anyone living there, and the coldest miserable cunting weather ever, getting het up about global warming. A few more sunny days wouldn't go amiss in Ireland. But of course we get a beautiful new shiny carbon tax to give more money to keep the oul show on the road.

[Emphyrio]

I don't go along with the "we're only a tiny, insignificant country" line. We all have to take responsibility for our own actions. The carbon hike was lower than I expected to be honest. As said though, introducing a carbon tax while also agreeing to the Mercosur deal is bizarre.

[Pedrito]

Politicians playing at smoke and mirrors..who wudda thunk it?

[Scáthach]

I live in Fingal constituency and recently got a James Reilly leaflet through the door. It was meant to be about the governments great green policies, which were all waffle, the biggest move was that Reilly has bought an electric car, and there's a lovely picture of him with his new car! I kid you not.
Then we have Leo in New York recently saying how great it is that we will no longer issue oil exploration licences. Great! Except no commercial oil has ever been found here. Gas on the other hand...

[mickO)))]

As predicted, government budget increased the carbon tax by 6euro per tonne (30% increase). That's expected to occur every budget until 2030 getting us up to 80 euro per tonne. By 2030 that will be about an extra 155 euro for a 900 litre of Kerosene and nearly €140 extra on 11kwh Nat Gas. Petrol/Diesel will be an extra 20cent per litre in 10 years time just from a carbon tax alone.

Meanwhile Phil Hogan signs off the mercosur deal which will completely level rainforests at an industrial rate to produce non traceable low quality beef that will be shipped over to the EU from South America. How very green this all is...

The carbon tax is a crock of shit just another excuse for Government to take more of your money. That is essentially what all these protesters are out doing begging the Government to tax them even more I wonder how they will feel 10 years from now when they have bills to pay and a family to support. Meanwhile the main contributes to this whole problem China, India etc. will just keep doing what they do and nothing will change.

[Eoin McLove]

https://youtu.be/bSAgHvETNSg

Interesting take on things. 

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

The Guardian just published a dossier on pollution from fossil fuel companies today:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/series/the-polluters

[Pedrito]

Some very interesting stuff there Chris, and as I was saying earlier in the thread, there's an article  talking about how the blame has been shifted onto joe soap who is almost powerless in all of this. In one way I admire the power of people's convictions to go out and protest for what they believe in. On the other, I think people like myself are literally confused by the amount of conflicting info out there. There is supposed consensus and yet I read daily about nobel prize winning scientists who say it's nothing near as bad as it's made out to be. So my head is spinning with it tbh.

There's the likes of the following petition signed by over 30k American scientists rejecting global warming. http://www.petitionproject.org/
Again, I've no idea where to place this or what to think about it...are they all gun toting types who only believe in capitalism? 30,000 of them? I'm not sure how to process the info.

Now maybe they're talking about something very different than what the extinction people are talking about. Maybe there's a whole language around it all that I'm simply not fluent in in any way.

Then there's the media whipping up a fenzy about the likes of Storm Lorenzo the other week, as much as saying it was all global warmings fault and yet I'm watching a video with a top meteorologist later that day saying storms and weather events have nothing to do with global warming even though it does exist.

And I'm definitely not alone in all of this.

Either way, this chap thought he'd get on a plane today and turn even more people off the issue than probably should be. I just don't know if this type of thing is going to work in the modern world. Are we desensitized? Is it a post religious, cynicism to anything or anybody that is idealistic and wants a better world. I'm completely conflicted knowing that if that lad was on a plane with me I'd love to see him fucked down  the stairs for being such a do-gooder twat. But maybe I'm in the wrong there? I probably am, even though I'm a fairly reasonable person 75% of the time. 

https://www.rte.ie/news/2019/1010/1082321-aerlingus-protest/

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Snopes gave that petition the once over: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/30000-scientists-reject-climate-change/

But, whoever did sign it, clearly either didn't read it properly or has a huge bad faith problem:

The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.

Even if anthropic climate change is a hoax, the two claims in bold are absolute nonsense, and the claim about the advance of science and technology only holds within a limited view of what direction science and technology should be advancing in.

[Pedrito]

Nice one..I've heard that petition quoted quite a few times.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

I end up using the same terms from time to time, but I do try to avoid talking about climate change. There are plenty more immediate reasons to change global production and consumption habits, all of which can be summed up by the basic idea of it being better to live in a cleaner, less toxic environment (air, water, soil). I don't believe anthropic climate change is a hoax, but even if it was, I think moving away from pollutants and excessive production/consumerism is a worthy goal, certainly more worthy than any alternative being proposed (I don't think any alternatives are being proposed, just carrying on as usual).

I'm sure right up at the top there's a battle going on between old school nefarious billionaires and new "green" but still ultimately nefarious billionaires, but if the latter can provide cleaner air, water, and more green areas for me to live in and raise a family in, then that's my preference.

[Eoin McLove]

I think that final paragraph sums it up nicely. If it's a choice between a cleaner,  healthier environment with vibrant ecosystems to explore, or even just to know they are out there doing well,  I'll choose that over environmental destruction.  I suppose it's about finding the right balance so that we all don't have to revert to an old way of existence,  however noble or ideal the fantasy might appear to be, and the most persuasive argument I've come across is to allow the scientists and engineers the free rein to find the most workable solutions.  And l think that they are.  The work is being done.  Naturally when anything becomes a political football progress grinds almost to a halt so maybe the solution is to separate church,  environmental issues and state!

[Scáthach]

Fair play BSC, you have articulated well the sensible non - shouty opinion that I (and probably a lot of other people) share.

[Pedrito]

Yep I'd second that. What's clear is that our media  is broken and it's setting us up to see conflict everywhere. Social media is worse. There's got to be a middle ground for reason in all of this.

[Pedrito]

Andrew Neil always gets to the core of the issue. Before anyone says he's grilling her too hard, he does this to everyone.

https://youtu.be/H3kJwQBZOkM