Green agenda

‘Rural Ireland is rising up against the green agenda!’ This has been the headline statement from many of our newspapers and the talk on many of our radio and TV stations over the last number of weeks since the news that a rural political independent alliance is possibly being created to contest the next general election.

I, for one, completely disagree with the statement that rural Ireland is against “‘he green agenda’. Rural Ireland is not rising up against a green agenda, it is rising up against an insane agenda!

To cull cattle numbers in this country by over 30 percent to help prevent climate change while at the same time importing vastly increasing quantities of beef from Brazil, where the Amazon jungle is being cut down to make way for the production of that beef, which is then shipped over 7,000km across the Atlantic Ocean on a diesel guzzling cargo ship for Irish and European consumption, is not green. It’s insane!

To reduce food production, with policies like forced re-wetting of hundreds of thousands of acres of perfectly fertile land in the most environmentally friendly country in the world to grow food, at a time of mass hunger and star

vation throughout the world, is not green. It’s insane!

To force power plants like Edenderry power plant, to stop using the peat located within a few kilometres of the plant as its fuel source with hundreds of jobs lost as a direct result, and then to import 175,000 tonnes (as estimated for 2023 ) of woodchip (again from Brazil) 7,000km across the Atlantic is not green. It’s insane!

To force our fishermen to scrap their small fishing boats to protect our seas, whilst at the same time permitting huge factory ships to wreak havoc and destruction on our marine ecosystem is not green. It’s insane!

To destroy small local businesses with red tape and bureaucracy, whilst aiding giant global corporations is not green. It’s insane!

So yes, we are rising up, but not against a green agenda. We are rising up for common sense in a country which gets saturated more and more every day by insanity and nonsense.

I look forward to the day when we see common sense being voted back into Dáil Éireann and those who promoted and pushed absolute nonsense with the last number of years being voted out.

Yours sincerely, Peter O’Donoghue,

Bartlemy.