It was his mother’s dying wish that he continue a tradition dating back centuries”
In the previous paragraph it states he cut the turf using a machine, has this machine been around for centuries?
Because, one again for the people at the back, this ban will not stop *you* cutting *your own* turf, which is the actual traditional going back centuries.
It has not been tradition for centuries to hire in a huge turf cutting machine that does can do many multiple the work of a human
*My comment from the thread that has been removed.
To be fair many poorer communities in Ireland rely solely in turf for heating and cooking, it was never factored in to their cost of living to need anything else, they should be allowed to continue doing so.
Have some fun. Have a look at Google Earth satellite photos of the Midlands for as long as you can go back. Just watch the stripping of the bogs across those images and come back and defend high intensity (largely non licensed) huge machine based stripping of these lands.
The problem hasn’t been Mick fuelling his hearth. It’s been Mick turning his little business into a massively destructive, environmentally vicious industry level business.
It is a difficult situation, I think the side of turf cutting is definitely misrepresenting the impact and machinery involved. In the vast majority of cases, it’s a massive machine taking clumps of land and wrecking everything in it’s path. It’s not some auld lad with a sleán cutting turf. Just the post-processing (turning, drying, footing) with turf is back-breaking work, so doing the cutting yourself too is an incredible amount of work.
My parents live in the countryside, and we used to cut out own turf for years and then my parents decided to start buying it. It’s becoming increasingly hard to buy it but the alternative for them is home heating oil. The house is blackened with turf and honestly it’s probably not that healthy with the micro dust etc floating about.
HOWEVER, I feel this ban was so poorly handled or explained. Back in 2012/2013. This was on offer for the Irish government & EU for people to stop cutting in those bogs that were protected.
>>> The Irish government has offered compensation and alternative boglands for those barred from turf-cutting, and says around 4m euros (£3.5m; $5m) has been paid out, with more than 2,600 applications made. A delivery of 15 tonnes of turf a year or 1,500 euros is also offered while alternative bogs are being arranged.
It feels like this was just low hanging fruit and out of the blue. To say that they were going to ban it in 3 months is crazy in my opinion. Rural houses are most affected by all environmental policies. I get that and understand why, but there needs to be some delicate work there to get people onside. Not just to alienate people and get theirs backs up. What we want is change of habits to help the enviroment. If you’re going to be a dick about, people will vote for the guys saying ‘We’d never ban turf!’. It probably should be banned, but shouldn’t we have a long term plan, some grants and information to get people to move away from it. Some advice on converting houses to not rely on turf, more guidance about using solar or wind on your home. It’s not really viable to tell people to move into bigger towns or villages or cities considering, we have tons of people around struggling to find anywhere to live.
Everyone is being hit by all sorts of price hikes and inflation. Anyone being a dick without compassion or understanding isn’t going to go down well.
`The ban was not for people who have a plot. So the article is a bit incorrect
My family tradition is equestrian fox hunting and my mother on her death bed wanted me to continue. So should I be allowed to continue?
I don’t understand how this is a fucking discussion any more. With the carbon footprint that’s in it, we can fly in wood from Finland that’s been hand-cut on the thighs of Cuban virgins and we’d still end up with a cleaner fuel that gives better heat. Seriously, why the fuck are we so caught up on this?
I think a better solution would have been to either fix the price of turf a such a low level as to make non-viable commercially or slap a massive carbon tax on the machines that do it on a industrial scale. The issue isnt individuals with a sharpened stick but the large scale commercial cutting. Rather than ban it I’d suggest tax and regulate(I never thought the line from yes minister could be used in reality but “administration saves the nation” in this case might be true) it so heavily it suffocates the industry and the practice slowly dies a natural death. Much harder to rally support for corporations profits than granny living on her own. Pledge to use the tax gains to refit rural homes as a 90% grant and I imagine you could bring a lot more rural people on board.
Of course they have the hipster photo as the headline image yet further down is the reality, a huge tractor and an excavator ripping a bog to shreds.
This is really a smoky fuel ban.
Just for reference, we burn approx. 500,000 tonnes of smoky coal in Ireland, maybe another 50,000 tonnes on the black market from the North. In comparison, about 100,000 tonnes of turf are burned.
With 1300 lives a year lost to air pollution, the most due to fuels, taking 2-3 large providers will stop 80 % of the pollution and save hundreds of lives.
meanwhile turf burning is dying out as people move to warmer homes; the government is investing 8 billion euro retrofitting homes over the next decade. So the regulations are being written to allow leeway for smaller , rural areas (less than 500 people).
12 comments
….. it’s turf
I like the hipster photo
It was his mother’s dying wish that he continue a tradition dating back centuries”
In the previous paragraph it states he cut the turf using a machine, has this machine been around for centuries?
Because, one again for the people at the back, this ban will not stop *you* cutting *your own* turf, which is the actual traditional going back centuries.
It has not been tradition for centuries to hire in a huge turf cutting machine that does can do many multiple the work of a human
*My comment from the thread that has been removed.
To be fair many poorer communities in Ireland rely solely in turf for heating and cooking, it was never factored in to their cost of living to need anything else, they should be allowed to continue doing so.
Have some fun. Have a look at Google Earth satellite photos of the Midlands for as long as you can go back. Just watch the stripping of the bogs across those images and come back and defend high intensity (largely non licensed) huge machine based stripping of these lands.
The problem hasn’t been Mick fuelling his hearth. It’s been Mick turning his little business into a massively destructive, environmentally vicious industry level business.
I did a project on bog and turf cutting when the first eu ban on some bogs was put into place. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-23462300
It is a difficult situation, I think the side of turf cutting is definitely misrepresenting the impact and machinery involved. In the vast majority of cases, it’s a massive machine taking clumps of land and wrecking everything in it’s path. It’s not some auld lad with a sleán cutting turf. Just the post-processing (turning, drying, footing) with turf is back-breaking work, so doing the cutting yourself too is an incredible amount of work.
My parents live in the countryside, and we used to cut out own turf for years and then my parents decided to start buying it. It’s becoming increasingly hard to buy it but the alternative for them is home heating oil. The house is blackened with turf and honestly it’s probably not that healthy with the micro dust etc floating about.
HOWEVER, I feel this ban was so poorly handled or explained. Back in 2012/2013. This was on offer for the Irish government & EU for people to stop cutting in those bogs that were protected.
>>> The Irish government has offered compensation and alternative boglands for those barred from turf-cutting, and says around 4m euros (£3.5m; $5m) has been paid out, with more than 2,600 applications made. A delivery of 15 tonnes of turf a year or 1,500 euros is also offered while alternative bogs are being arranged.
It feels like this was just low hanging fruit and out of the blue. To say that they were going to ban it in 3 months is crazy in my opinion. Rural houses are most affected by all environmental policies. I get that and understand why, but there needs to be some delicate work there to get people onside. Not just to alienate people and get theirs backs up. What we want is change of habits to help the enviroment. If you’re going to be a dick about, people will vote for the guys saying ‘We’d never ban turf!’. It probably should be banned, but shouldn’t we have a long term plan, some grants and information to get people to move away from it. Some advice on converting houses to not rely on turf, more guidance about using solar or wind on your home. It’s not really viable to tell people to move into bigger towns or villages or cities considering, we have tons of people around struggling to find anywhere to live.
Everyone is being hit by all sorts of price hikes and inflation. Anyone being a dick without compassion or understanding isn’t going to go down well.
`The ban was not for people who have a plot. So the article is a bit incorrect
My family tradition is equestrian fox hunting and my mother on her death bed wanted me to continue. So should I be allowed to continue?
I don’t understand how this is a fucking discussion any more. With the carbon footprint that’s in it, we can fly in wood from Finland that’s been hand-cut on the thighs of Cuban virgins and we’d still end up with a cleaner fuel that gives better heat. Seriously, why the fuck are we so caught up on this?
I think a better solution would have been to either fix the price of turf a such a low level as to make non-viable commercially or slap a massive carbon tax on the machines that do it on a industrial scale. The issue isnt individuals with a sharpened stick but the large scale commercial cutting. Rather than ban it I’d suggest tax and regulate(I never thought the line from yes minister could be used in reality but “administration saves the nation” in this case might be true) it so heavily it suffocates the industry and the practice slowly dies a natural death. Much harder to rally support for corporations profits than granny living on her own. Pledge to use the tax gains to refit rural homes as a 90% grant and I imagine you could bring a lot more rural people on board.
Of course they have the hipster photo as the headline image yet further down is the reality, a huge tractor and an excavator ripping a bog to shreds.
This is really a smoky fuel ban.
Just for reference, we burn approx. 500,000 tonnes of smoky coal in Ireland, maybe another 50,000 tonnes on the black market from the North. In comparison, about 100,000 tonnes of turf are burned.
With 1300 lives a year lost to air pollution, the most due to fuels, taking 2-3 large providers will stop 80 % of the pollution and save hundreds of lives.
meanwhile turf burning is dying out as people move to warmer homes; the government is investing 8 billion euro retrofitting homes over the next decade. So the regulations are being written to allow leeway for smaller , rural areas (less than 500 people).