The climate swindle
Having cast an eye (very briefly) over the Cork County Council Climate Action Plan my attention was drawn to the Foreword section, in particular Cllr. Frank O’Flynn who states and I quote: “Climate change is one of the most critical, long-term global challenges of our time and its effects are already impacting Cork County. Sea levels in the Cork Harbour area have risen by 40cm since 1842.”
Of the over five million people living in Ireland, does he honestly believe that the ordinary citizen considers this to be the most pressing issue. Thank the lord the man is in local politics, though one might add it is time for change. Like all politicians in our country, be they local or national, they are completely out of touch with the people and ignore the wish of the people.
As for climate change, a phenomena that has been in place since the earth’s formation, I would have little hope in Cllr. O’Flynn and his cohort of doing anything remotely positive to address this non issue given their total inability to tackle the real issues affecting the citizens of Cork from crippling taxes, housing, health care, cost of living crisis, education etc. Will the good councillor be throwing himself across Cork Harbour in an effort to hold back the daily tide? I think not. It might interest Cllr. O’Flynn to learn of the fact that since the retreat of the last ice sheets, sea levels have risen 130 metres, rising by 1 metre per century to today’s levels. In the last 182 years Cork Harbour has seen a rise of 40cm or a rise of 2.1mm per year. That is a serious reduction which the good councillor failed to mention. Geology and climate have not stopped, and as there is still ice on both poles, and glaciers in the mountains and as nothing stays static, we will see changes. As scientists use 1850 as the baseline for human induced climate change, they never mention that during that particular period the little ice age was ending. They have never informed the public of the fact that between 1300 and 1850 the average temperature dropped by as much as two degrees, particularly in Europe and North America. Please readers, remind yourself as to what must happen when coming out of an ice age. That’s right, it gets a little warmer. Things begin to melt. Today, so much emphasis and blame is put on CO2, calling it a pollutant, when in fact it is the gas of life. It is plant food and without it we would have no food. We hear of methane from cattle being the source of all evil, however, intensive farming has its flaws it is not the subject for discussion. The reality is that during an ice age, termination event methane levels rise, and they have been doing so for some time. There has been a massive increase of methane released into the atmosphere since 2006, coming from the tropical wetlands. And no, this is not coming from the steak on your plate. Like previous termination events, methane and CO2 levels rise, followed by warming, and levelling off to remain so for a few thousand years. There are so many variables that even the computer models can’t get it right and scientists tweak the programme to get the right results. No climate doom means no jobs for these scientists. All of this alarmism and sensationalism is doing nothing more than deindustrialising the west, taking more money from the citizen, while Cllr. Flynn jets off to America on a junket along with his posse, Cllr Noel McCarthy included, and then they come back to save the planet and the citizen must pay. As I mentioned above, geology has not stopped, the Milankovitch Cycle has not stopped and thankfully, the sun still rises. What must stop is this climate swindle and demand real issues be resolved. Time for party politics to end and the religion of climate change to cease.
Daniel O’Brien, (formerly of Fermoy) Bellach, Switzerland.