Because sometimes taking a stand is more important than gaining a short-term benefit.

The Oireachtas is asking you for your thoughts on fracking and unconventional extraction of fossil fuels. In October, they unanimously agreed to the principle of introducing legislation that would ban all fracking activities in Ireland. Now they want to know what the public thinks on the matter. There are lots of reasons why fracking is bad news. And mounting global and national peer reviewed and scientific evidence that taking oil and gas out of the ground poses a significant threat to Climate Change, Public Health, Water Quality, and the Natural Environment. The proposed bill would make it illegal to take oil and gas out of the ground from areas in Ireland where it would need to be fracked, such as the shale deposits across Sligo, Leitrim, Roscommon, Donegal, Cavan, Monaghan, Clare, Limerick, Cork and Kerry. Please help us demonstrate that the people of Ireland support a legal ban on fracking activities by signing this petition.

There is a Bill to ban fracking coming before the Dail on Thursday 26th Oct. But despite wide cross party and public- support, the government wants to stall its progress until at least June 2017. Fracking is a dangerous form of gas extraction. It involves pumping chemicals and water deep underground at high pressures that create explosions to fracture the rock and release pockets of gas trapped within it. The evidence is clear that fracking poses serious risks to public health, the local environment, the climate and jobs in farming and tourism. This evidence has led countries, including France and Germany, and US states such as New York, to ban the process. The bill to ban fracking was introduced as a private member's bill by Sligo-Leitrim TD Tony McLoughlan. It has received wide support from across the parties, including Fianna Fail, Sinn Fein, the Greens and People Before Profit. The government has accepted the bill but now wants to stall its progress in the Dail until June 2017. They claim this is to allow time for the Enivronmental Protection Agency study on fracking to be properly considered by the Department. This study has already been discredited as being conducted by the fracking industry itself, as well as failing to take into account the crucial issue of public health. The government should allow the bill to move forward without delay. We have the evidence. Fracking damages health, community, environment and jobs. It is incompatable with action on climate change. We can't afford to wait for a year. It's time for TDs to #BacktheBill and ban fracking now!

The Marine Institute has applied for a 35 year lease for an offshore electricity generating station in Galway Bay off of Spiddal. There are 5 applications relating to this all to be found on www.environ.ie. Although, there have been a couple of public meetings about this, the most recent meeting in the Connemara Coast revealed that a huge amount of people have very little or no information about what this entails. Indeed, there are too many Galwegians and Clare people who have no idea that this is the plan for Galway Bay. We would like to inform people of the details and have asked the Marine Institute and Simon Coveney, who has the power to sign off on this, for more time to examine the applications and the consequences for Galway Bay and its surroundings. Please help us spread the word quickly as we only have until August 2nd for submissions on this. Unless our TDs and Councillors stall the deadline for us.

Its important because it will encourage dumping. The bin system is fine. Taxes are being put on ordinary people who are already doing their best to help with the rubbish by putting them into bins already as well as recycling their products. Its not right to impose such charges. We are being forced to pay a polluters charge how dare they. Its the shops have to reduce this packaging on products sold in their shops as we are paying for it now.

Since pre-industrial times, our world has warmed by a global average of almost 1 degree celsius, due primarily to greenhouse gas pollution from human activities. This has already triggered serious planetary-scale climate disruption, and is having devastating humanitarian impacts on vulnerable communities in diverse geographical regions. But we are not powerless. We can still act: both to limit the speed and ultimate severity of global climate impacts, and to brace our own society for the potentially drastic shocks ahead due to the climate disruptions we have already initiated. This will require urgent and radical societal transformation. That can only happen with the willing engagement and support of the people. We need a genuine, sustained process that allows every single citizen and community in Ireland to fully consider the range and nature of the changes we face, and to advance policies and actions that are commensurate with them. Only in this way can we hope to create the unity and solidarity that is essential to create a strong, resilent, and genuinely sustainable society. We need a Citizens' Convention for a Post-Carbon Ireland.

Climate Action keeps getting pushed down the priority list, sometimes understandably (e.g. COVID, the war in Ukraine with its associated cost-of-living price hikes). We need initiatives that keep Climate Action top-of-mind at all times, irrespective of what else is going-on in the world. Campaigns details will follow on social media (hints & tips to participate etc)

Methane emissions from animals is a well-known issue. Cows alone are responsible for about 40% of those planet-warming gases globally — mainly through their burps. UC Davis scientist Ermias Kebreab is something of a cow whisperer who has spent two decades studying the greenhouse gas contributions of hoofed animals. "If you tell me how much your animal is consuming, I can tell you pretty closely to the actual emissions using mathematical models," he said. "Most of the gas is formed in their stomach, so in their guts, particularly in the first chamber. And so they belch it out." He and other scientists have developed special diets and genetic predictions that could help reduce the methane formed in cow stomachs. Now, New Zealand could become the first country to tax its way to fewer "four-legged" emissions. There were 7.3 million cattle, 5.5 million sheep, 1.6 million pigs and almost 16.5 million poultry on Irish farms in 2020, while the average farm size has increased by 0.7 hectares (or 2.2 per cent) in 2020.

On the 9th of March, a motion to ban the building of further data centres in the constituency was put forward by Cllr Madeleine Johansson of People Before Profit and passed with the support of Sinn Fein, Social Democrats and several independent councillors. There are several reasons councillors voted to ban further Data centres in the region: Ireland currently holds 25% of Erops Data centres and South Dublin is quickly becoming the Data centre hub of Ireland with TikTok set to build one of the biggest Data Centres in Europe in Clondalkin which would use up the same amount of energy in one day then the whole of Clondalkin in three months. It is estimated that 10% of Ireland’s electricity use is currently consumed by data centres and this is expected to increase to 25-30% by 2030. Data centres consume an average of 2% of electricity globally. The continued building of new data centres is incompatible with any hope we have of reaching our climate targets in CO2 reductions. It is clear from EirGrid’s initial statement in late 2021 that the grid in Dublin is struggling to cope, something more data centres would put a further strain on. In addition to the large amount of energy used by data centres they also consume large amounts of water, again adding pressure on the capacity of water services in South Dublin where we are seeing large new housing developments. Despite the motion passing however, there is now an attempt to overturn this decision. Councillors will vote again on this on the 21st June when it will be either included in the plan or removed. After that it will be sent to the Minister for Local Government Darragh O'Brien. We need the Minister and the government to support the democratic vote of local councillors and keep the ban in place. Please sign the petition.

Shocking amount of unnecessary single use plastic bags being used, bad. Are they paying the levy for all these bags? It would be very easy to switch to brown paper bags(similar to TK maxx) for most of their

According to the World Health Organization, approximately 1 billion cases and millions of deaths each year can be traced back to diseases originating from animal populations. In the past three decades, researchers have found more than 30 bacteria or viruses that are capable of infecting humans. Over three quarters of those are believed to have come from animal populations. And while the current pandemic may feel like a very rare happening, scientists say the pace of these pandemics is accelerating dramatically thanks to humans' ever-encroaching proximity to wildlife. "The time between these outbreaks is getting shorter and shorter," said Dr. Tracey McNamara, a professor of pathology at Western University of Health Sciences College of Veterinary Medicine. And it's becoming increasingly clear that these viruses aren't just a threat to our health -- they're also a threat to the global economy. "We are only able to sustain an outbreak maybe once every decade," said Dr. Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance. "The rate we are going is not sustainable." As our population continues to expand, the interactions between humans and wildlife grow closer and closer. Cutting down forests and altering habitats push animals out of their own homes and deeper into human communities. Poorly developed hygiene and sanitation systems can make it more likely for germs to build up. With humans and animals living in such close proximity, bacteria and viruses can easily jump from one species to another. Once people become infected, the increasing interconnectedness of our world makes the spread of the disease easier. People and domestic animals are able to traverse the globe in a matter of hours. Illegal trade of exotic animals can move across borders undetected, carrying with them deadly bacteria and viruses.

Plastic packaging in supermarkets is one of the largely uneccesary uses for plastic in Ireland. We once got by perfectly without it, and that's what we need to do now. If we can support Aldi in bringing in a new zero-waste aisle, there could be a whole village-load less of plastic pollution coming from Dunshaughlin.