Fuelling debate on climate change

Sir — So, Eamon Ryan TD, Leader of the Green Party, has changed his mind about which vehicle fuel is the worst to put in our car tanks (Dept of Finance proposal for diesel tax).

Ryan was one of those government ministers in the Fianna Fail/Green Party Coalition who persuaded the likes of me to change from petrol to diesel-engined cars, through their vehicle fuel tax policies (i.e. the favouring of diesel engines with lower excise duty).

Now that most of us motorists have ‘changed-over’, we are being told by the likes of Eamon Ryan that ‘it was a mistake!’ — as diesel engines have been found to be ‘more polluting’.

Any increased hike in fuel excise duty — especially for those of us who cannot rely on public transport to carry us around — will be an unfair and imbalanced financial burden on non-city motorists (plus associated cost increases for the transport of all goods and food by haulier’s trucks), if Deputy Ryan has his way.

Luckily for Eamon Ryan, his constituents (of Dublin Bay South) are not so dependent on cars to get them to work and for other essential travel, as we country folk might be. Otherwise Deputy Ryan would surely be struggling for votes at the next general election (maybe losing his seat a second time?).

By the way, might we look forward to a time when Eamon Ryan TD changes his mind about the true cause of Climate Change — otherwise termed as ‘Global Warming’ — when the deputy comes to realise that it is not carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that is the reason for the rising temperatures on parts of the Earth, but ‘increasing solar activity’ (warmth emanating from the Sun, which is the main heat source for our planet)?

Tom Baldwin Midleton Co Cork