I just emailed TDs who've said they'll back ending fossil fuel exploration in Ireland. Can you join me now? action.uplift.ie/campaigns/emai…
[1/n] My message: "Dear Members: I know you’re considering passing the Climate Emergency Bill. I want to thank you for standing up to end fossil fuel exploration in Ireland. I have listened to much of the Committee hearings on the Bill. The performance of the Committee ...
[2/n] ... in critically interrogating the presentations given has been exemplary. However, I was absolutely shocked to hear representatives of the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment argue against the Bill.
[3/n] The Department officials - unlike representatives of industries vested in fossil fuel extraction - have a clear responsibility to speak exclusively for the welfare of citizens, now and in the future.
[4/n] The grounds given for opposing the Bill, focussing primarily on Ireland's well known energy insecurity, appeared to me entirely spurious. Fossil fuel exploration is, as we know, extremely speculative...
[5/n] ... with absolutely no guarantee of any discoveries at all, nor of the scale, costs, or time (including social licence) for exploitation.
[6/n] To suggest that something of such uncertainty could be a central element in our strategy for addressing energy security seems to show a willful misunderstanding of risk management.
[7/n] And this is without reference to the existential risk to our own, and every other global society represented by any further expansion in our collective capability to disrupt the global climate - which is the inevitable consequence of
any additional fossil fuel "discovery".
any additional fossil fuel "discovery".
[8/n] I urge you to continue your work on the Bill and promote it to your colleagues in the Oireachtas as a whole. It represents a small but still hugely symbolic step in finally taking action that is commensurate with the climate dangers we now face. Yours sincerely..." @autofac
[n] And here's the unrolled version 😉: threadreaderapp.com/thread/1017670…
