Letters to the Editor: Impact of geopolitical conflict on the environment
Climate activists protesting during the official final day of the Cop26 summit in Glasgow; how wars and militarism are polluting and killing our planet was not up for discussion.
One issue never discussed at governmental climate talks is how wars and militarism are polluting and killing our planet. All the major world powers are guilty of this but America is leading the charge.
The US Department of Defence (DoD) is the world’s largest institutional user of petroleum and hence the single largest institutional producer of greenhouse gases (GHG).
Since 2001 it has consumed between 77% and 80% of all US government energy consumption, it being the single largest consumer of energy in the USA.
In 2017, the US military’s total GHG emissions was approximately 59bn tons, greater than the GHG emissions of entire industrialised countries, such as Sweden, Denmark, and Portugal.
From 2001 to 2018, it is estimated that the US military created 1.3bn metric tons of greenhouse gases, with 440m tons alone through the wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Syria.
In 2017, the DoD spent $3,5tn to heat, cool, and provide electricity to its 275,000 buildings at 800 bases located on about 27m acres of land in the US and across the globe.
The last 19 years of US-led wars killed and maimed hundreds of thousands of people, made massive profits for a select few, and seriously damaged our fragile planet.
In addition to the GHG emissions produced by the US and other militaries, wars destroy the natural and manmade environment, leaving a long-lasting legacy of poisoned people, animals, agricultural land, and rivers.
The now six-year old war in Yemen which has already killed 10,000 children and created famine threatening conditions for most of the population is yet another futile endeavour driven by profit seeking western arms manufacturers.
We cannot as a human species fight climate change and continue to allow economies to be based on geopolitical conflict, the development and sale of arms, and the use of those weapons to destroy homes, hospitals, food supplies, and schools.
Recognising and reducing the role of wars and militarism in destroying our planet is crucial if humanity is to survive the harmful impact of climate change.
The offending governments need to be called out on this indisputable fact.
On the economy, Sinn Féin’s numbers are the same as everything Sinn Féin does: Sounds good, almost an expert, almost making sense.
But when you take out the abacus the ends don’t meet. They just don’t.
It’s close — all going well — but every responsible economist and employer knows that “close” is the ante room of amateurs and the bankrupt.
An almost expert road to politically sonorous disaster and national insolvency. Rhetoric and finance; never the twain shall meet.
Sinn Féin has economic ideals. Born in a dysfunctional, heavily subsidised make-believe economic entity called Northern Ireland, is Sinn Féin believable when it comes to economics and financial sovereignty (the only context in which sovereignty has meaning in the 21st century)?
There is no Fás or Anco course. There is no grant or subsidy in the real world. Sinn Féin is populated with “political activists” and “community organisers” with no business people or employers to speak of. Every cheque comes from “the northern state” or “the illegitimate Free State”.
And it cashes every cheque. This does not an effective sovereign government make on the high seas of international turmoul.
“Close enough” is grand altogether when daddy at Westminster pays the piper to clean up all disasters.
Sinn Féin at Stormont took responsibility for nothing.
Witness the Renewable Heat Incentive debacle; Sinn Féin was up to its neck in that. Westminster closed the tap and Sinn Féin collapsed the Stormont executive to cover its arse.
Not the stuff of enduring responsible and independent national sovereignty.
Huff. Puff. Deflect. I see no great leadership qualities there. Just grievances, excuses, and more whataboutery. That’s all we’ll get.
Big tough and all as Sinn Féin is, it’s not up to the job. It’s easy to be the bully in a playground. That is child’s play.
Sinn Féin has never stood tall or achieved anything in the adult world. The place where the rest of us have been living for a very long time.
Sinn Féin. It’s new. It has always been new. There’s a reason for that. The party has never accomplished anything or succeeded at anything. So it always presents itself as “new”.
I was delighted to learn from the recent Irish Business Against Litter (IBAL) survey that Fermoy was found to be above the European norm on the issue of litter.
After all the ultimate objective of IBAL was that all the cities and towns in our country would secure the ‘above’ status.
I also welcome the acknowledgement by the anti-litter organisation that Fermoy was one of the towns surveyed who recognised that cigarette butts constitute litter, a subject close to my heart.
It has been my experience that the most frequently dropped item on our streets is the cigarette butt.
Unfortunately the political establishment at national level and those who collaborate on the various local authorities up and down the country, who persist in the lip service paid to those genuinely involved in the fight against litter, fail to accept the reality that cigarette receptacles are vital in the fight to keep cigarette butts off our streets.
This situation is best illustrated when you consider, the amount of public buildings in the hands of government departments, state agencies, and local authorities, that are denied something as basic as cigarette receptacles.
In contrast many business owners have taken the initiative and led by example erecting cigarette receptacles outside their premises and undertaking the expense involved.
Another appeal I made in the past to Cork County Council to erect cigarette receptacles on request to all ratepayers fell on deaf ears.
In conclusion the best efforts of those proactive businesses civic-minded enough to make provision for cigarette receptacles outside their premises will never have the initiative realised as no amount of lip service on the part of the political establishment will compensate for the failure to ensure that all public buildings would have cigarette receptacles erected outside of same.
On May 8, Professor Philip Nolan likened the sale of antigen tests by a supermarket to ‘snake oil’.
This was part of Nphet’s controversial dismissal of the health measure.
Recent reportage on Nphet’s newfound recommended use of antigen testing, makes no mention of the stark volte-face.
I believe this does an already-confused public a disservice.
Reading about recent abuse to underage team referees from officials and supporters on the sideline, I have a simple solution: When a referee hears abuse he goes to the offending side’s manager.
He says if the abuse comes again, the match will be abandoned. With the prospect of 22-plus players and parents having nothing to do, I contend that the abuse will end.
After a few weeks players were like altar boys.
Unfortunately the rule was not continued and the following season things were as before.
When I hear of, not the arguments being put forward by Boris Johnson and David Frost in their discussions with EU officials, but the monumental arrogance that leads them to believe that they are, as of right, superior others I recall the words of one of the Mitford sisters.
She said: “When I consider that after all the years of this modern democracy in which we live, there are still those who believe themselves to be the heirs of some intellectual aristocracy, I think of the chicken which, when its head has been cut off runs round in circles because, having been beheaded, it doesn’t have the brains to realise that it is dead.”
