John Dolan’s topical take on the week’s events

FIRST the bad news. In the next few years,  Ireland will be hit with a hefty multi-million euro fine for failing to achieve targets set down by the EU on greenhouse gas emissions.

Assuming we are still wearing a financial straitjacket then, that will mean we will have to borrow more money from the EU to pay a fine as punishment for failing to reach a completely arbitrary figure set by the EU on Co2  emissions.

We will  still have to cough up the fine, even though emissions have dropped in any case because of the recession, er, triggered partly by the EU.

That’s all bad news. But you were waiting for the good news, weren’t you? And here it is: Global warming, as underlined once again in this country this godawful  summer, is a load of hogwash.

I hope those Cork residents and businesspeople affected by the floods this week will forgive my use of a watery term to denounce the global warming theory.

Now, before all those highly- paid ‘experts’ who depend for a living on the global warming industry jump and down in outrage at my dismissal of their creed, I think we should point out some facts.

The flooding in Cork was down to a freak warm weather system that blew in from Spain. That system, and the fact it blew into our path, was not down to belching car exhaust pipes or farting cows.

Also, average global temperatures have been falling for over a decade, roughly since the global warming industry persuaded vain governments that there was money to be made — sorry, I mean a planet to be saved — in the theory.

(They changed its name to ‘climate change’ when they realised the stats weren’t backing them up… and any weather event in the world can be included in the catch-all term ‘climate change’)

Despite these inconvenient truths,  global warming  remains a multi-billion industry, sucking up huge resources.

Given the events of this week, shouldn’t those resources be spent in an infinitely more pressing way?

Cork has suffered from flooding episodes for centuries, but there’s no doubt that in recent years, the level and frequency of rainfall has put huge pressure on our city and county.

There is certainly an argument that building work on the flood plains during the boom is partly responsible for this. Perhaps also, the planet is undergoing one of its natural climate change shifts, which has happened periodically since the beginning of time and can’t be blamed on man or beast.

Whatever the cause, it seems ridiculous to put resources into a long-term and now discredited theory that the planet is warming up to dangerous levels because of mankind, while there are sofas floating down the streets of our suburbs.

Now is the time to invest in ways of preventing flooding in the future.

Yes, let’s pursue early warning systems such as a text message alert, which was proposed this week. But let’s also divert money from pet global warming projects into tackling this flooding  at source.

When the 2009 floods devastated Cork city, part of the river wall collapsed. The wall was built in Victorian times, meaning that during the entire duration of the Irish Republic — from the British empire to the German-led bloodless coup of our nation — our politicians did nothing to strengthen this most basic flood defence.

It can be done, if we just take a brave step, declare that global warming is a busted flush, and siphon some of its money into somewhere it’s badly needed.