Galway Greens

The re-opening of Ireland’s national Irish language theatre is vital for Galway’s cultural and artistic heritage, according to Green Party Senator, Niall Ó’Brolcháin.
Senator Ó’Brolcháin is calling on the City Council to support the re-opening of An Taibhdhearc in Middle Street, which has established an international reputation as an artistic centre since its inception in 1928.

“The historic and cultural value of An Taibhdhearc cannot be underestimated,” said Senator Ó’Brolcháin. It has been operating from Middle Street for the past 82 years and is Ireland’s national Irish language theatre. It is a custom built venue and many local families have been involved with the theatre in some way. It is vital to keep this tradition going and to maintain the integrity of Middle Street as a cultural destination.

An Taibhdhearc is renowned also for its promotion of the Irish language and serves as a valuable tourist attraction.

I will be impressing upon the Council that the theatre should be considered a key part of the city’s cultural quarter and will be urging the council to ensure that this is part of the City Plan. The Council must provide the funding to get An Taibhdhearc up and running again and I have written to the City Manager in that regard,” he said.

Light rail is vital for the future of Galway City given that the population is set to expand to 90,000 by 2017, according to local Senator, Niall O’Brolchain,
Senator O’Brolchain has made the statement in reaction to the MVA consultant’s report, which has said that the light rail proposal is not economically viable.

“We need to think about our future transport needs given that the city population is set to rise to 90,000 inhabitants within the next seven years. A light rail system is the best option for many different reasons. It is clean, reliable and works extremely well in other cities of a similar size. A dedicated track and priority measures will ensure that it will not have to compete with the same gridlock which is choking our city at present. We must plan now to cater for increased population growth with a sustainable and user-friendly transport model.
Light rail is the most viable solution to Galway’s transport problems and it would be the best investment for our city.

The consultant’s report has predicted that a light rail system for Galway will cost almost €700 million – similar to the final cost of the LUAS in Dublin at €770 million. However, there have been technological advances since 2004 and I am confident it could be brought to Galway at a more competitive price tag.

I am calling on politicians of all parties to get behind the light rail proposal for Galway,” he said.

Is nuclear power a solution to climate change?
This is the title of the first of a series of public debates at Bar No’8 on the docks in Galway. It is happening on Monday 23rd november 2009 at 8pm.
I hope the agreed answer is NO.

Read the rest of this entry »

To access my new blog, click here. I will be periodically posting listing of new items on the blog.

Last year a comprehensive report was produced by the UN Environment

Programme called GEO-4 -The fourth Global Environment Outlook: environment for development.

The report is the fourth installment in what was originally the Brundtland Commission Report over 20 years ago.

What the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change) is to the specific problem that is Climate Change, the Global Environment Outlook reports are to the OVERALL ENVIRONMENT – massively important, yet they are unheard of by most citizens and politicians including many greens.

While climate change is the topic gaining most concern in the media and with the public, there are others putting the squeeze on humanity which urgently need to be addressed including:

• Pollution of land, water and atmosphere
• Water depletion and mismanagement.
• Peak oil and gas
• Loss of biodiversity
• Food security
• Overpopulation
• Waste (mis)management
• Widespread destruction of rain forests and other habitats.

Trying to address the problems of global environmental, economic and social sustainability without awareness of the problems is akin to flying blind without instruments in poor visibility.

A further description of the GEO process described in this link. For more background, see also the press release on the release of the report.

Click here for sustainability videos posted earlier.

The Galway Greens have a long track record in promoting many of the ideas now being toted as new such as light rail for Galway and the Western Rail Corridor. It looks like after 10 or so years campaigning NGO’s (some with a long established hard working track record, others much more recent) are taking the baton and that political parties who initially had no interest are finally catching on that good public transport is a necessity.

However, we’re still a very long way short of where we need to be in providing mass transit for the public. Progress in more economically strained times now depends to a large degree on how willing Government partners FF are to understand and accept that the bang for your buck in public transport projects is far superior to that of road projects.

Here’s a link which highlights our historical stance in supporting public transport.

No one seems to have told John Gormley that the summer holidays are here as he is still working away in his Department. His latest announcement concerns what was the bane on my participation in last years General Election  – the much overused election poster!

 Minister Gormley is asking the public to send in their views on election posters (contact details below) with a view to restricting their proliferation during next year’s locals. It is understandable that such a development is coming from a Green Party Minister, as we have an ‘interesting’ history with election posters.

 We started by rejecting the use of election posters all together, which was something of a moot point considering we didn’t have two pennies to rub together, let alone have enough money to buy these pricey election tools! We slowly moved away from such a policy in the nineties when we discovered the voters who knew what a candidate looked like were more likely to vote for them. Academic research on election tools whole heartedly supports the notion that posters are crucial to electoral success, hence the explosion in the numbers used at election time.

 However, being the cash strapped party that we are, we still rely on ordinary members to put up these posters at election time. I remember at the last GE being on Salthill prom on a windy Sunday morning, climbing to the very top of the pole to get the posters of Niall in to the ideal position. It was my first brush with postering and I have no shame in saying that I clung to the pole with my dear life. What I would have given for a cherry picker, or even just a helmet! So being the only Party not contact out the putting up of posters, it is unsurprising that any attempt to restrict them is coming from a Green Party Minister.

 But what will any restrictions look like? A blanket ban would be nice, but perhaps we should lower expectations. Personally, I think Local Authorities should be obliged to set aside between 25 & 40% of each ward to be designated as a ‘poster free’ zone. Such a proposal would work well in urban areas, but less so in rural areas where the County Councils could choose the least populated areas to be designated as ‘poster free’ zones. Thus county towns would still be overrun during election time, and let’s not forget that in recent years elections have coincided somewhat with the peak tourist season (General Election 2007 in May, Local & European Election 2004 in June). What must all those American tourists think of Eamon O Cuiv’s smiling face greeting them as they disembark on the Aran Islands!

 Another proposal would be to link the number of poster to the size of the ward – 10 posters per 1 square kilometer? But for a variety of reasons, this would be impossible to police.

 The response from the opposition was it usual self – absurd. FG’s environment spokesman rejected any restrictions on posters, claiming that they added to the razzmatazz of election time. From a Party that has Enda Kenny as its leader, it is a little rich to lecture us on ‘razzmatazz’ at election time. When ever Inda himself popped up on the tellie I imagine the collective groan from the nation was enough to drown out whatever drivel he was spouting at the time. Then again, they did bring us the infamous ‘Twink Ard Fheis’, so perhaps they speak with some authority.

 I’ll finish this post with a final thought – if postering is restricted, what will candidates spend their money on? A Dáil candidate can spend anywhere between €10,000 & €15,000 on posters. Suggestions please on where you think that money will go!

 To make a public submission, e-mail electionposters@environ.ie by September 15th.

The IPCC is the foremost global organisation in relation to Climate Change. To find out more about them, visit the link http://www.ipcc.ch/about/index.htm. While man’s impact on climate change is likely to always be disputed, the IPCC fourth assessment synthesis report (in 2007) states that most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic (i.e. man-made) greenhouse gas concentrations.

Think of hydrocarbons as rays of ancient sunlight. The earth controlled previous periods of extreme global warming by burying carbon underground. We’ve now released about half the buried oil, almost half the gas and a significant amount of the coal in about 150 years.

The graph below from page 6 of http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf compares natural and man-made global warming.

Even for the climate-change skeptics out there, there is the sustainability picture to consider, where we are wasting many of our valuable resources.  High energy prices are attributed to among other things peak oil and gas which has now become of major economic concern.

This post is to help differentiate between natural and man-made climate. In modern day climate, the main factor is sunspot cycles. The more sunspots, the warmer the weather as cloud-forming cosmic rays are diverted away from earth during higher sunspot activity.

However, back through the medium term (last million years) cycles of ice ages and interglacials which are determined by three factors summed up under the term “milankovitch cycles“. Adding all these cycles together shows when we had ice ages and interglacials in the past (see bottom waveform in the graph below).

Prior to that we need to look at Paleoclimatology back to over 4 billion years ago when there was almost no life on earth to get the long term picture. A good guide is available from the IPPC web site.