Duck, dither, dodge, delay: the new, improved climate denial

Below, my report as it ran on DeSmog UK on the latest climate denier get-together, involving our old friends at the ICSF, in what is their 10th sort-of-public meeting. For an organisation with no known membership list and no apparent way of joining (or donating), it is doing a remarkable job in hosting so many meetings involving, in most cases, bringing in speakers from the international denier circuit.

For this latest meeting, they changed tactics and brought in some Irish speakers to answer the question: “Climate Action to 2030 – What is really Feasible?” Many eyebrows were raised at the decision by Teagasc, the state agriculture research agency, to allow one of its senior figures to attend. Green Party leader, Eamon Ryan was clearly unhappy at their presence. He feels ICSF’s talks are “designed to undermine climate science… [and that] is not being open to enquiry and listening to different views”.

My favourite slide from the mini-forum was by a mechanical engineer from UCD. It showed a Tesla in flames, and the chilling headline: ‘Tesla battery reignited twice after fatal crash in Florida’. They’re death traps, I tells ya! Among the shock conclusions: “CO2 benefits of Electric vehicles are highly questionable”; and “Current EV financial subsidies are unsustainable” and, of course, “Internal combustion engines have a long future”. So, business-as-usual, in other words.

We have, it appears, been well warned about these new fangled exploding EVs. Somebody must have forgot to tell those backward Norwegians. In March 2019, 58% of all new car sales in Norway were electric, with Tesla the number one brand. What a bunch of dummies, eh? Didn’t anyone tell them the internal combustion engine has a long future behind it?

Running a talking shop like the ICSF can’t be cheap. All those flights, transfers, speaking fees, hotel room rentals, website, agendas, flyers etc. etc, must be running at this stage to tens of thousands of euros, but, according to its chair, one Jim O’Brien, “ICSF operates to a very modest budget and is entirely self‐funded. It has no vested interests other than disseminating the latest climate science in the public interest”.

Someone should get these guys to build the National Children’s Hospital, given how far they’ve managed to stretch their ‘very modest budget’. The public interest is no doubt already in their debt for their selfless work.

Our plucky band of retired and semi-retired have-a-go iconoclasts have modestly debunked those know-nothings at the IPCC, which is great news all round as we can get back to business-as-usual, now that the most powerful international scientific consensus in history has been so brilliantly unpicked.

Or, in Jim’s own words: “the ICSF proposes that national climate policy should be based on ongoing energy innovation, efficiency and conservation measures compatible with continued economic growth (my emphasis) rather than imposing any economically and socially‐regressive measures”. Brilliant, truly brilliant, gents. A grateful world thanks you for your service.

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THE climate science denying Irish Climate Science Forum (ICSF) held another behind closed doors meeting, and this time a government agency accepted the invitation.

The group has previously invited infamous climate science deniers from around the world to speak at its events, casting aspersions on the veracity of mainstream climate science. It has also submitted arguments to the Irish Parliament, suggesting climate change isn’t as bad as scientists make out.

The ‘economic’ arguments on climate change are understood to be the topic of the ICSF’s latest event, with the ‘mini-seminar’ on 13 March 2019 titled ‘Climate action to 2030 – what is really feasible?’

Among the guest speakers were scheduled to be Trevor Donnellan, head of economics and farm surveys at Teagasc, Ireland’s national agriculture research agency, David Timoney, a mechanical engineer from University College, Dublin and Kevin O’Rourke, described as ‘an independent specialist in sustainable energy policies’.

Once again, the press, including DeSmog UK, was barred from attending this invitation-only meeting of the secretly funded ICSF, which has in recent months strengthened its ties to the London-based climate denial group, the GWPF, with whom it regularly shares speakers.

The Teagasc press office declined to comment on whether it was aware of the ICSF’s climate science denial. It also declined to comment on whether it considered it appropriate that a government agency official would be speaking at an event from which the public and press were barred, for an organisation which refuses to disclose its sources of funding.

A spokesperson for the Teagasc told DeSmog UK:

“Teagasc has presented results from its research to multiple organisations. This is another opportunity to outline which mitigation measures can contribute to reducing Ireland’s emissions from the land-use sectors”.

Leader of the Irish Green party, Eamon Ryan, criticised Teagasc’s decision to allow Donnellan to speak at the event. He questioned why a Teagasc representative was involved with a group whose events have been “clearly designed to call into question climate science”, GreenNews.ie reports.

Lagging Behind

This week, the Parliamentary All-Party Committee on Climate Action concluded that “Ireland cannot meet its international emissions targets without tackling agricultural sector emissions”, according to a draft report.

Various reports have ranked Ireland as the worst country in the EU on climate action, with much of this failure attributable to the work of powerful lobby groups such as the Irish Farmers Association (IFA) and IBEC, the business lobby group.

In another reminder of the close personal ties between agricultural lobbyists and top politicians, the IFA president was photographed accompanying Ireland’s prime minister and foreign minister to the international rugby match in Dublin last weekend. The foreign minister’s brother, Patrick Coveney, is CEO of the agri-food giant, Greencore.

Ireland’s agriculture sector is the number one producer of greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for well over a third of total emissions. Greenhouse gases from this sector have begun to rise since 2015, following the removal of milk quotas and the rapid expansion of Ireland’s dairy herd.

Ireland’s has a 2020 EU target for to reduce emissions 20 percent on 2005 levels. However, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, the country will “at best” manage a one percent reduction.

ThinkOrSwim is a blog by journalist John Gibbons focusing on the inter-related crises involving climate change, sustainability, resource depletion, energy and biodiversity loss
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2 Responses to Duck, dither, dodge, delay: the new, improved climate denial

  1. Pingback: Duck, dither, dodge, delay: the new, improved climate denial | Climate Change

  2. Denis Daly says:

    Good piece by you. Shocking in a way.

    There is another engineer, Jim O’Brien, who describes himself as an energy consultant, that has signed onto a climate science denial list on Clintel.org.

    They feel threatened now with the heatwaves that most people are concerned.

    Their arguments,… it is not as bad as they say, and sure CO2 is good, as its plant food. These are designed to fool very gullible people.

    I am very much interested in climate inaction, and in the propaganda deniers use, and in ways to counteract them, such as inoculation to misinformation. I am a psychologist by training, and getting into the reality of climate science/change only recently

    Keep up the good work, and if you want me to guest write a piece of two and spread your blog, would be delighted.

    Thanks, Denis.

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