Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary says climate change is ‘complete and utter rubbish’ – not related to burning carbon
Ryanair chief Michael O’Leary has dismissed climate change concerns as “complete and utter rubbish”. Speaking on an Irish radio programme, he said he believes that people’s fears about global warming are unfounded. He said: “This kind of nonsense that we all need to cut back on beef production or that we all need to eat vegetables or go vegan and all start cycling bicycles is not the way forward. … In the 19th century in London, [people] thought they were all going to die from smog. There is always some lunatic out there who points to a load of rubbish science; science changes.” He said: “I don’t accept that climate change is real. I don’t accept the link between carbon consumption and climate change” … and the cooling and warming had been “going on for years.” It is hardly a surprise that a businessman whose private fortunes depend on encouraging ever more burning of fossil fuels thinks this. Otherwise how could he cope with the cognitive dissonance? But it is worth noting that the aviation industry does no more than pay lip service to any prospect of reducing its carbon emissions, merely holding out a few very minor carbon savings – while massively growing (doubling or tripling) the size of the industry – and getting other sectors to offset its CO2.
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Michael O’Leary slams climate change as ‘complete and utter rubbish’
By Sasha Brady (Irish Independent)
April 8th 2017
Ryanair chief Michael O’Leary has dismissed climate change concerns as “complete and utter rubbish”.
Speaking to RTÉ Radio One’s Countrywide programme, Mr O’Leary said he believes that people’s fears about global warming are unfounded.
He dismissed climate change as “complete and utter rubbish”.
“This kind of nonsense that we all need to cut back on beef production or that we all need to eat vegetables or go vegan and all start cycling bicycles is not the way forward. I think it’s complete and utter rubbish,” he said.
“You had these people standing round the market square 2,000 years ago saying the end of the world is nigh. In the 19th century in London, they thought they were all going to die from smog. There is always some lunatic out there who points to a load of rubbish science; science changes.”
Mr O’Leary expressed his desire to see nuclear fuel being considered as a viable future energy source.
“If you’re concerned about these issues, the obvious one is more nuclear fuel, but you ask the likes of Mary Robinson, the climate change justice mob, and they recoil in horror because it’s not trendy or liberal.”
Mr O’Leary, who owns 1,000ac of farmland in Gigginstown, Co Westmeath, said he doesn’t believe that beef consumption and carbon emissions are the primary driving forces of climate change.
The Ryanair boss said he believes “human ingenuity will find ways of improving the way we breed beef and they way we consume fuel”.
When asked if accepted that climate change is happening, Mr O’Leary said that the cooling and warming had been “going on for years” and he didn’t accept it was linked to carbon usage.
“I don’t accept that climate change is real. I don’t accept the link between carbon consumption and climate change.”
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Not at all sure Willie Walsh believes in climate change, (not in relation to aviation) very much either:
FORMER BA CHIEF WILLIE WALSH: EU CLIMATE POLICY ‘TOTAL MADNESS
5.10.2011
Willie Walsh, head of the new International Airlines Group, has branded new European climate change proposals as ‘total madness’.
In an exclusive interview with PRWeek editor-in-chief Danny Rogers at the ABTA conference in Palma, Walsh called for a co-ordinated and global approach to climate change that would see the UK’s controversial Air Passenger Duty scrapped.
Walsh spoke out after EU commissioner for climate action, Connie Hedegaard, announced European airlines would be part of the Emissions Trading Scheme.
‘There is no way this can be presented as anything other than a cost to consumers,’ he said.
IAG, the holding company of British Airways and Iberia, is linking up with ABTA to fight proposed increases to APD.
http://www.thegwpf.com/former-ba-chief-willie-walsh-eu-climate-policy-total-madness/
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and Willie Walsh’s comments here
http://www.es.iairgroup.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=240949&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=2139338 show little more than lip service being paid to climate, with his support for the (woefully weak) ICAO deal to offset the fast growing emissions from aviation, which in reality just allows the industry to keep emitting more carbon, while other sectors have to actually make carbon cuts. Oh, yes. And the aviation carbon emissions just wipe out the carbon cuts being made elsewhere.
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