Gentle Decline 2/39: Ideals & Indications

Hello. After the last issue being about the outcomes of the US election, this issue is mostly concerned with the Irish one - a general election, which was much predicted, and then called with about three weeks notice. I’ve been looking at the environmental and climate concerns of the various parties, and thinking about what I would want them to do - my own personal manifesto for government, as it were. The election counts were, it turns out, pretty much a status quo, albeit one that removes the Greens from government, and might replace them with another party.

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Positive Things

Paris has plans to replace parking spaces with trees; Las Vegas is making major investments in “solar power, water conservation, and energy-efficient resort operations”; work is under way in the concrete industry to reduce CO2 emissions, and the last coal plant in the UK, in Nottinghamshire, is closing down.

Manifestos

The headline news of the Irish election, from my point of view, was an excellent analysis done by Friends of the Earth of the climate positioning of the Irish parliamentary parties. The Green Party, whose whole point and reason is climate, came third in this analysis, behind Labour and the Social Democrats. This is, bluntly, an absolute disgrace.

It’s not surprising that the fascist parties; Aontú and Independent Ireland, are bottom of the list; Independent Ireland, who apparently have strong connections to the IFA, are actively anti-climate. Usefully, they’re getting absolutely minimal levels of support, and will be at best an unpleasant noise on the edge of the Dáil. And People Before Profit, a leftist party whose aims and ideals I’m broadly down with, are just behind the Greens, with the major parties getting failing grades.

Most of the failures for the bigger parties come from their lack of support for phasing out fossil fuels. They are putting in effort in accelerating wind and solar power, so they’re not failing completely, from my point of view.

My own obsessive topics of flood management and public transport aren’t particularly examined in the Friends of the Earth analysis, so I’m going to have to look into that myself. It’s worth setting out what I want to see in those, I think.

Flood management should dedicate a useful amount of budget to putting in future-proofed flood management measures. These should include tree planting in upland areas (to help absorb rainwater before it becomes an issue in the river catchment areas), undoing some of the stupid things the OPW have done in straightening waterways, ensuring there are meadows, parks, and other “wettable” sites where there’s flood vulnerability, preventing future building on flood plains, and making some commitment to moving people out of the ones that have been built in. There should be some accommodation for coastal flooding, too; erosion prevention in vulnerable areas, commitment to moving people out of low-lying coastal areas, moving critical infrastructure inland, and forward planning for population moves away from the coast in the longer term.

Public transport is in many ways simpler. The long term thinking should involve getting better train services to all parts of the country, explicitly involving early morning and late night trains to enable longer-distance work travel; feeder bus services from towns that don’t have train services to those that do, and rural bus services that mean that people can do basic travel to work, shopping, and other urban stuff without needing a car trip every time. There should also be a push toward greater delivery ranges for grocery deliveries, and some move toward delivery of prescriptions and other medications. There should be priority bus lanes put in anywhere there are buses, and there should be at least plans for light rail services in cities other than Dublin, expansion of those services in Dublin, and SOME rail connection from Dublin Airport to Dublin City centre; I do not care what it is.

I’m going to look at Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin, Labour, the Green Party, People Before Profit, and the Social Democrats. I’m not bothering with the fascist parties. There are 174 seats in the Dáil; I’m listing how many each party got, too.

Fine Gael (38 Seats) proposes a “a new, consolidated Department of Infrastructure, Climate and Transport”, merging together several existing Departments, and a few non-department structures like the OPW. The way in which this is proposed to work actually looks pretty good to me, and there’s repeated mention of flood management, including “fast-track[ing] flood relief schemes currently in design, planning, or construction stages”. And there’s a specific commitment to “Implement nature-based catchment management solutions, which mitigate flood risk by storing or slowing water flow in the environment, allowing gradual release into rivers, streams, or groundwater”, which is really exactly what I’m looking for.

There’s a line about guiding “50% of population growth into the cities of Limerick, Galway, Waterford, Cork, and Dublin, with the remaining 50% directed to rural areas”, which isn’t terrible in overall environmental terms (well planned urban development does more for the environment than rural living, and “rural areas” here largely means the county and smaller towns, rather than open countryside. However, the five cities are all coastal. I’d prefer to see a focus on some of the inland towns. There is some development planning in there for other towns, though. There’s a somewhat vague commitment to rural public transport, too - “Increase Local Link services in rural areas to better connect villages, towns, and cities” - and other mentions of public transport priorities.

There’re a couple of mentions of long-term climate-resilient infrastructure, too. So from my requirements, FG score pretty well.

Fianna Fáil (48 Seats)say they’ll “Accelerate the implementation of flood protection schemes including tidal barriers and early warning systems”, and “Introduce an Emergency Weather and Flood Damage Scheme for farm businesses”. That seems to be the limit of their concern with flooding, and the latter comes under the heading of “Protecting and Improving Farm Incomes”, rather than anything specific.

On public transport, “€3.6 billion will be provided for the improvement of transport networks countrywide to promote increased business investment in the economy and the supply of new housing.” And they’ll “Invest in our transport infrastructure, delivering additional capacity across rail, light rail and bus networks.” There’s as much mention of transport police for dealing with antisocial behaviour as there is anything useful about transport.

Compared to the FG manifesto, this is extremely poor, though it’s not surprising. FF don’t generally voice direct opposition to climate efforts, but they’re very prone to dragging their heels.

Sinn Féin (39 Seats) have a specific section about flood defenses, and mention “infrastructural defences such as flood barriers, levees, embankments, and pump stations, [and] natural methods of flood prevention, such as river restoration and reconnecting of flood plains”.

On public transport, they’re committing to a Western Rail Corridor, which is a pretty notable and specific item. There’s a good amount of support for public transport development in general, as well as school transport.

Apart from the Western Corridor, there are fewer specifics here than the FG manifesto, but the points addressed are pretty solid.

Labour (11 Seats) say they’ll “Reform the OPW and give it a stronger role in climate mitigation and flood prevention work, including protection works, and upstream land management in catchment areas”, which sounds solid. They also say they’ll “implement a national flood warning system”.

Public transport is mentioned repeatedly through the manifesto. There’s considerably more than I can cover here, to be honest. The highlights are that they say they’ll “require the NTA and TII to advance LUAS designs for all 5 Irish cities with a view to completion of at least 15 new lines by 2040” and “Continue to progressively reduce the cost of public transport, with the introduction of a six-month trial €9 climate ticket, provide free travel for children and young people under 26 over the next five years, and focus on improving the reliability of timetabled services”. They also say they’ll “Ensure all towns, villages and rural areas have effective and timely public transport links that are adequately promoted locally and integrated where possible with school transport services”. They also want to reverse privatisation in public transport and “Build out a national network of climate appropriate bus shelters along all national, rural, and urban bus routes, that will also function as local information points and have appropriate and secure bicycle parking where possible”. They also mention late-night services, pedestrianisation of urban centres, and a host of other useful details.

So Labour’s coverage of floods is limited but competent, and their public transport commitments are well beyond anything I’d expect. I approve considerably.

The Green Party (1 Seat) have taken an absolute drubbing in the election, so what’s in their manifesto won’t be all that relevant. I’d still like to see if they’re providing anything practical, though.

They commit to preventing construction on flood plains and “natural flood management such as tree planting, the renewal of wetlands and other mechanisms to absorb water”. And… that’s it. About level with the other parties, and a bit behind FG.

On public transport, they’re intending to “Support a proactive approach to licensing rural bus services”, “Push for the design and implementation of high quality cycle lanes and inter-connected cycle routes” (the current Green Party are obsessed with cycle lanes), three other bike-focused items, and… that appears to be it.

Despite already being disillusioned with the Greens, I’m disappointed at how little is in the manifesto. They deserved their drubbing.

People Before Profit (3 Seats) are seen as the loony left in Ireland. They have zero mention of flooding in their manifesto, which is pretty poor.

They do, however, propose to introduce free public transport, invest massively in public transport infrastructure, fast track all rail and infrastructure projects, double capital investment in public transport, and build LUAS lines in Cork, Limerick and Galway. These are decent, if not fleshed out much.

The Social Democrats (11 Seats) promise to “invest in flood defences in areas of the country that are experiencing regular issues, and ensure that construction is avoided in floodprone areas” and talk about the “need for a national flood management plan, which will restore natural flood defences of rivers, and a reform of flood insurance”.

In public transport (again fairly well-integrated through their proposals), they’re looking for an off-peak €1 fare, an expansion of the current 90 Minute Fare (once you’re on public transport in Dublin, you’re not charged for new forms or routes for 90 minutes), free public transport for under 18s, shifting the balance of invetment from roads toward public transport, ring-fenced funding for new buses, 24-hour public transport including weekends, doubling funding to the Rural Transport Programme and Local Link, and establish a new National Transport Policing Unit.

They’re also mentioning directly: the Dublin MetroLink project, expansions of the DART and Luas, light rail in Cork and Galway, the Cork Commuter Rail project, Bus Connects in Dublin, Cork, Galway, Waterford and Limerick, the Western Rail Corridor, and extension of MetroLink to South-West Dublin.

That’s a pretty mixed bag, overall. Labour seem to come out better than the rest, and Fine Gael’s proposal of a new Department dealing directly with my issues of concern is welcome. The Social Democrats also have a good showing. PBP are ok on transport, but straight-up do not mention flooding. Fianna Fáil are less impressive, as expected, and the Greens remain a disappointment.

At the time of sending, no government has been formed, but it’ll almost certainly be Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, and either a few independents to make up the numbers for a majority, or one of the Social Democrats or Labour to fill out a coalition. If Fine Gael can follow through on their stated intentions, I won’t be unhappy with this. If FF get the upper hand, less so.

The Greens are promising to “rebuild”, although I’m starting to thionk a scorched earth policy might be better. Again, their coming third in an assessment of climate concerns is an utter disaster, and they’ve brought it upon themselves.

Closing

Much of this issue was written while I was in Utah, near the town of Tooele, and I looked at their local public transport out of interest. It didn’t take long: there is none. Tooele is a town of 40,000 people within about 40 minutes drive of Salt Lake City, and there’s not as much as a once-a-day bus to the city. So some places have it worse than we do.

The next issue will probably deal with more correspondence - if you’ve something to add to the pile, please hit reply!

[Support this newsletter (and Commonplace, its (more) food-related sibling) on Patreon or Ko-fi. Merchandise is also available. Major research contributions in this and all issues by Cee. Header image a composite of logo by Jenna at Cold Antler Farm, Kerry Floods image from Wikimedia, and the graph from co2.earth]