PEOPLE Before Profit’s mayoral candidate for Limerick’s upcoming elections, Ruairí Fahy, has hit out at claims from Independent councillor Emmett O’Brien that “climate change is a complete myth propagated by Marxists”.
After a presentation from the Irish Farmers Association (IFA) at last month’s full meeting of Limerick City and County Council (LCCC), Cllr O’Brien took the view that global warming is only a figment of the Green Party and Social Democrats’ imagination.
The Pallaskenry beef farmer also maintained that environmental policy is being set by the European Commission, people in the media, and propagandists about climate change.
“If we are to believe in the myth of climate change, it’s a complete myth, propagated by Marxists leftists, policists here, members of the Green Party and Social Democrats behind me,” he told the council chamber.
“It’s a direct attack on the farm, it’s an anti-farming policy. Farmers are going to have a very difficult role over the next 10 or 15 years.”
Limerick mayoral candidate for People Before Profit (PBP) has hit back at Cllr O’Brien’s claims, noting that “farmers are struggling to get their cattle back out in the fields after the torrential rain in March”.
“The train from Ennis to Limerick has been shut again due to flooding, while the Panama Canal had to close its gates to large cargo ships due to drought,” he continued.
“Farmers are absolutely at risk from climate change but they’re also at risk from the increasingly industrialised farming system forcing them to take on debt to get big or get out.”
Spreading vast amounts of artificial fertiliser made from fossil fuels, the PBP candidate said, is destroying the country’s air and water as well as killing life in the soil.
“Climate change is real, we’ve known it’s real for over a century. It’s a threat to all human life on this planet and is already forcing people from their homes in Africa,” he said.
“We need to change up how we grow food if we’re going to leave a liveable planet for our children.”
