An earlier version of this article was written but unpublished back in 2008 and it has now been revised and published to take account of various changes since then.

Are buses the future instead of the electric car? Heresy?

The Earth's climate has turned out to be more sensitive and complex than anticipated as evidenced by the recent dramatic record breaking summer ice melts in the Arcticc¹ in 2007, 2008, 2012 and basically every year since then. With such a large change in the albedo or reflectivity over a huge area of the Arctic, this signifies the jump into positive feedback of the climate system, although it is not the only positive feedback. Combined with preliminary reports that frozen methane is beginning to be released from the Arctic sea floor and tundra and given that methane is 20 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas, it is clear we are probably at the point of things running out of control. Emissions need to be cut drastically, starting about 20 years ago.

Maybe global warming is happening after all ....
Arctic sea ice, going going,..gone?

Moving to free and well-designed public transport allows society to deal with these problems in the least disruptive manner and to do so in the most equitable way and it would increase the shared sense of everyone working together to cope with what are essentially going to be permanent problems. Free public transport is not the full solution but is definitely an important first step. Switching to public transport has the potential to achieve large scale reductions in fuel use and it can be done immediately without further research or perfection of any technology. The current status quo plan to replace all the petrol and diesel fuelled cars with electric ones still leaves us with the problem of massive resource usage, a replacement of oil wars for lithium wars, traffic congestion, deaths from air pollution , high accident rates and actually high energy use. It does not matter if the heavily promoted so called solution of producing millions of electric cars is run on renewable energy because it would require vastly more wind farms, solar farms and whatever else compared to a transport solution based on highly efficient, globally deployed free public transport system which would only require a fraction of energy and resources of a car based one.

These local elections on Fri 24th May are more important than ever. The reason is that up and downthe country Fine Gael with help from Fianna Fail have allowed corporate vulture funds through various government breaks to themto buy up valuable tracts of land and to buy up thousands and thousands of apartments and homes. And the result is they arescrewing people for rent. In this feature a case study for South Dublin of how they corporate takeover has occurred and driven prices sky high and priced out ordinary people from ever buying a house or apartment. Found out what is happening in your council area and how FG and FF councillors encourage this madness because it is happening in towns and cities all overthe country.

The European elections are this Friday on May 24th and there are good reasons to consider your vote very carefully because it does make a difference because practically every bit of law passed in the EU has to be adopted by Ireland at some point. It is a great way for politicans here to say the "EU forced us to..."
They said that one about the attempt to privatise water during that campaign.

It can be safely assumed that most people are for internet freedom, protection of the environment and in particular to live in places with unpolluted water, clean air and safe from exposure to toxic chemicals. These are all no brainers. In the area of military we have seen how years of bringing democracy to the Middle East by bombing them has resulted in devastation and huge waves of human refugees and immigration and time and time again the nefarious activities of the intellegence agencies of the big powers like USA, UK, France and NATO show them to be heavily linked to the various terrorist groups, via training, funding and weapons supply through third party countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar in order to disrupt and overthrown regimes they don't like. So do people really want Ireland to drop it's neutrality and get aboard these very costly military adventures and volunteer it's soldiers for basically ordained mass murder? At a guess, the answer is probably no.

So what have the present MEPs done in their last term in the European Parliament?

Well for one the Fine Gael MEPs are consistently backed the corporate, pro-military, anti environment and internet censorship agenda whilst all the Left leaning and Sinn Fein MEPs have consistently been against corporate control, anti-military, pro-environment and for internet freedom. The only FF MEP managed to be absent for most of the votes mentioned here and it would seem, has been playing the line of being non-committal until the party gains more strength and can then openly go back to supporting the status quo. And least anyone is in doubt, the status quo is anti democractic and pro corporate domination of society. The sections below will give some examples but it should be clear that it by voting for FG you are voting against your own interests. The only reason anyone has ever voted for them or will is because the election marketing machine is so effective and marketing works extremely well. Just think of all the junk people constantly buy that they do not actually need.

Julian Assange being dragged out of Ecuadorian Embassy

Julian Assange who helped setup Wikileaks and in one of the first set of leaks revealed the murderous campaign of the US military against innocent civilians in Iraq amongst many other leaks showing the systematic criminality and inhumanity of the US government was betrayed this morning by the right wing corrupt president Lenin Moreno of Ecuador. Former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa – whose government granted Assange asylum in 2012 – branded his more pro-US successor Lenin Moreno the “greatest traitor in Ecuadorian history” for rescinding the asylum claim and allowing British officers to enter his country’s embassy.

At the moment in a damage limitation exercise to try and shutdown support for Assange the corporate press is saying if charged, he could face up to 5 years in prison. This is to make it not so bad, but we can be 100% sure if deported to the USA, they will have a long list of dubious charges and most likely will give him a prison sentence that will more than easily cover the rest of his lifespan for that is the way of such regimes.

Other Coverage Worldwide outrage over arrest of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange | Former UK ambassador Craig Murray denounces arrest and conviction of Julian Assange | Amid corruption scandals and deals with IMF and Washington, Ecuador’s government betrays Assange | Exposing ‘collateral murder’ and mass surveillance: Why the world should be grateful to Assange | Every charge against Julian Assange, explained | Ecuador SITREP: How Corrupt History Repeats Itself | 'Our property now': (Most) US lawmakers rejoice over Assange arrest |Roaming Charges: Tongue-Tied and Twisted | Hillary Clinton shows signature style as she chuckles over Assange’s arrest |Toe the line or go to jail: Tulsi Gabbard (2020 candidate) says Assange arrest is a message to Americans | The Martyrdom of Julian Assange | Daniel Ellsberg on the Importance of Julian Assange | Citing Assange's Work Exposing US 'Atrocities,' UK Labour Leaders Speak Out Against Extradition Effort | Why Julian Assange’s Extradition Must Be Opposed at All Costs | The Assange Arrest is a Warning From History
Some previous Indymedia coverage:OCCUPY MEDIA VID (14 mins) solidarity with Julian Assange at Supreme Court |LONDON - Julian Assange speaks from balcony of Ecuadoran embassy marking 6 months. |Julian Assange Has Been Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize of 2019 |We Will Not Be Gagged: Wikileaks |

The Workers’ Party have accused Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney of prioritising Donald Trump’s foreign policy ahead of Irish neutrality. Cllr. Éilis Ryan, the Workers’ Party candidate in May’s European Parliament elections, said:

“Simon Coveney has, for the first time in our history, given formal backing to United States overseas aggression. Successive governments under Fianna Fáil, Labour and the Green Party have facilitated US overseas aggression by allowing the use of Shannon Airport, but this move marks a new departure, leaving behind even the facade of neutrality.

“It flies in the face of the values of anti-colonialism and sovereignty which Irish people are so rightly proud of.”

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