With apologies to Ms Austen, it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a modern celebrity in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a cause – preferably a cause that will allow the best public display of one’s virtues, even at the cost of inflicting misery on the sweaty plebs.
Enter Mark Ruffalo stage left.
Who’s that, you might ask? He played the Hulk in the Avengers franchise apparently, and right now what makes him angry – and you wouldn’t like him when he’s angry – is fracking.
He’s very against fracking, is Mr Ruffalo, travelling the world (presumably while still worrying about his carbon footprint) to castigate anyone who might be thinking of using the technique to get oil or gas out in response to the ever-growing energy crisis.
Last week, Ruffalo was making statements for something called the Climate Camp in Kerry where activists are opposing plans for a liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility which would import gas from the U.S. for a power station at Ballylongford.
The facility was previously refused planning permission in 2020, but have reapplied since. The disruption of gas supplies across Europe as a fallout from the Russian/Ukrainian conflict has also led to a reversal of political opinion amongst some government figures on the move.
While Eamon Ryan was telling an Bord Pleanála that the facility should not be allowed to go ahead “under any circumstances”, Fine Gael’s Leo Varadkar and Niall Collins of Fianna Fáil were making noises about having to rethink this one.
The Climate Camp, which seems to be mostly represented by U.S. activists, objects to LNG being brought through the Kerry plant because it is obtained using a technique called fracking which recovers gas and oil from shale rock.
Fracking has proved controversial because some campaigners believe that drilling into the earth and using a high-pressure mixture of water, sand and chemicals at rock to release the gas may have harmful consequences.
They point to the fact that fracking can cause earth tremors – but supporters of the technique say that these movements are minor and not usually felt. Critics also say the environmental cost of using enormous quantities of water for fracking must be considered.
However, its adherents say that fracking offers cleaner techniques than many traditional drilling methods or than coal extraction. The U.S. has relied heavily on fracking to drive an economic boom featuring lower emissions than when energy relied on coal and oil, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs in energy production in the process and ensuring America could enjoy energy security.
But many European countries banned fracking or suspended plans to embrace the technique. Similarly, nuclear power was largely considered unsafe even though it produces far less carbon emissions than other alternatives.
Now the continent is grappling with drastic measures such as turning down air conditioning in a heat wave, while consumers face real fears about heating and lighting their homes in the winter. Bloomberg reports that energy prices in France and Germany have hit an all-time high, and that soaring energy costs are pushing up the price of everything including daily items such as sugar and bread.
What would Ruffalo’s response be? Let them eat cake?
In Britain,the energy crisis has led a leading geologist and government advisor to tell the government that Britain “could have another go” at seeing whether fracking can be carried out safely given any new developments and technologies.
It is to be hoped that, in this country, the voice of reason from those at the coalface of energy provision are listened to, rather than the opinions of Hollywood actors who the media like to hype.
Newstalk recently heard from Don Moore, Chair of the Energy and Climate Action Committee at the Irish Academy of Engineering, who said that Ireland was “the worst prepared country in Europe” in terms of the likelihood of power outages, adding that the consequences of such energy shortages were “just enormous”.
“The country at the very end of the European network has no gas storage,” he pointed out.
Even Fianna Fáil, in relation to the Kerry LNG facility, are now saying that Greens need to listen to the Irish energy regulator, Aoife MacEvilly, who says Ireland ‘must build import terminals to ship and store gas’ – and that we may be in breach of EU energy security rules without such undertakings.
This cold, hard reality is hitting home for millions of Irish people who are realising that hippies in camps, however well meaning, won’t make sure that you have light and food and provisions when energy runs out.
And while millionaires like Ruffalo and Prince Harry and all the other intolerable twats can afford to treat the rising cost of energy like a luxury goods purchase – where flights and holidays and maybe even home heating are increasingly the purview of the rich elites – what makes them think us ordinary folk are happy to put up with that nonsense?
It is beyond insufferable that a privileged actor who has earned millions from churning out Hollywood movies, and has the lavish lifestyle that is typical of the jet set, thinks he can lecture the Irish people on what gas we can use.
Multi-millionaires have no idea what it’s like to worry about paying their electricity bill, or to face growing and maybe crippling anxiety about the cost of living, which is being driven upwards by Green policies that are disrupting energy generation, amongst other things.
So, with respect, Ruffalo and his fellow travellers can take a hike. Irish people need energy, and we’re not about to spend a winter sitting in the dark or freezing in our homes because they have an objection to fracking.