Opinion: ‘Just one week after banning fracking, we started drilling for oil’
We need a just transition to a low carbon economy, not a sell-off of our future, write Sinead Mercier and Louise Michelle Fitzgerald.
IN AN ORWELLIAN twist of double-speak, on 11 July, just one week after onshore fracking was banned in Ireland, Minister of Communications, Climate Action and Environment Denis Naughten granted consent to Providence Resources PLC to commence drilling for oil in the Porcupine Basin off our south-west coast.
If catastrophic climate change is to be avoided, existing fossil fuels must be kept in the ground. Providence Resources states that they expect to find 5 billion barrels of oil.
As George Orwell wrote in 1984, “doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them”.