Discuss Choking Modern Ireland http://www.libertiespress.com/component/content/article/18-stephen-kinsella/155-choking-modern-ireland.html Fri, 10 Sep 2010 12:31:12 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.libertiespress.com/component/content/article/18-stephen-kinsella/155-choking-modern-ireland.html#comment-38 Hi Ben, Sorry, just saw this comment, how about the large scale support for farmer's markets in the new PFG? http://www.greenparty.ie/en/government/agreed_programme_for_government, page 29? Just as a swipe though, I haven't had a chance to look through this properly--I do feel duty bound to respond to each comment :) Thu, 22 Oct 2009 22:14:18 +0100 http://www.libertiespress.com/component/content/article/18-stephen-kinsella/155-choking-modern-ireland.html#comment-34 Can you give some examples of these tofu-barrel projects? Are the deal really 'shot through' with them? Thu, 22 Oct 2009 20:48:11 +0100 http://www.libertiespress.com/component/content/article/18-stephen-kinsella/155-choking-modern-ireland.html#comment-23 I'm not so sure we'll see recession drive massive new innovation. A reduction in car usage certainly. I think thats happening already. I'd like to see some stats on morning/evening rush-hour volumes. We'll also see a return to smaller cars as was the case pre-boom. Gas guzzling will become a rich mans luxury again. Other than that, I think we'd need significantly prolonged recession or significant increases in fossil fuel prices to drive structural change in the way we consume energy. Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:42:12 +0100 http://www.libertiespress.com/component/content/article/18-stephen-kinsella/155-choking-modern-ireland.html#comment-22 Hi Ben, Thanks for the comment, and the kind words. I think the 'new green deal' will amount to more than the sum of its expenditure by government, but not for the reasons the government thinks. One innovation produced by these billions of US dollars and Euros will change how we configure industrial society, but there won't be any relationship between the amount of money put into that project and the societal effects of it. So, for example, a guy on sabattical came up with Scotch tape, the Internet was a pretty cheap defense development, and Html was designed by Berners-Lee while skiving off work in CERN in Switzerland. So the new green deal will work, we just have no idea how! In the main though, the deal is shot through with pork-barrel projects (or perhaps tofu-barrel), and so that may reduce the likelihood of its success. Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:56:11 +0100 http://www.libertiespress.com/component/content/article/18-stephen-kinsella/155-choking-modern-ireland.html#comment-21 Hi Stephen, I've just finished the book (which was excellent) and came to have a look at this website. What do you think are the chances that all this talk of a "Green New Deal" will come to something? Couldn't ideas like the Spirit of Ireland initiative help to bring down emissions in the Industry and Residential categories at least? Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:32:15 +0100 http://www.libertiespress.com/component/content/article/18-stephen-kinsella/155-choking-modern-ireland.html#comment-19 Pete, Cheers for the quote--Do you think we'll see large scale structural change in the economy post-recession, with a set of new technologies replacing the polluting ones? Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:45:37 +0100 http://www.libertiespress.com/component/content/article/18-stephen-kinsella/155-choking-modern-ireland.html#comment-12 The graphs are a mixed bag with most trends looking to be constant or falling with fluctuations for residential. I imagine we'll see a decrease in the industry emissions in the next few years as recession shuts down a lot of industrial activity. Transport has the clearest upward trend which is presumably due to the total dominance of the car in Ireland and elsewhere. With no serious non-car transport policy, I would expect this trend to continue to 2040 or so when petrol and other carbon fuels will become prohibitively expensive and energy sources will be commonplace. There is no rush to accelerate the move away from single user fossil fuel cars. indeed the pitiful numbers of buses in Ireland for example, have been cut and 'Green' ministers promote the use of incinerators for waste disposal. Mon, 28 Sep 2009 11:59:46 +0100