Author Archives: John Gibbons
Shadow of a doubt: how they fooled us about a killer habit
Below, my article, as it appears in today’s Irish Times. It’s as much about the ‘Tobacco Strategy’ as smoking. There are lessons that may be useful in facing down the climate deniers. At the very least, it’s good to know … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Media, Sceptics
14 Comments
When science and special interests collide
Below, my column, as it appears on TheJournal.ie… Do you reckon GPS is a hoax? How about x-rays? Or satellite communications. Or perhaps the Internet, smartphones or germ theory. Or how about evolution? What these seemingly unrelated themes have in … Continue reading
Inside the dark Heartland of climate denialism
James Brown put it best in a song: “Don’t tell a lie about me and I won’t tell the truth about you”. A terrible crime has been committed against the libertarian US Heartland Institute. Someone has nefariously gotten hold of … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Media, Sceptics
Tagged denial, GWPF, Heartland Institute, Media
10 Comments
Media throws in the towel on coverage of climate change
Below, my article, as it appeared in last Thursday’s Irish Times (and fair play to the IT for running a piece that is openly critical of its own editorial policy in this area; that’s the true mark of a serious … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Media, Sustainability
Tagged Irish Times, Media, Met Eireann, RTE
9 Comments
Weird weather is our ‘new normal’
The folks over at TheJournal.ie asked me to do an OpEd on the ever weirder weather that is now featuring in pretty much every other news bulletin. Turns out that this is one seriously busy website. The posting has been … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Media, Sceptics, Sustainability
8 Comments
2011 – another year of living dangerously
It’s been one hell of a year for the planet, with the meteorological and climatic record books being re-written and in some cases, thrown away. This year ushered the concept of the ‘new normal’ into being, as US scientists simply … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Sustainability
7 Comments
Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will
Any lingering sense, however slight, that humanity could shake itself from its collective somnambulation in time to arrest the coming twin ecological and resource catastrophes was finally snuffed out this month in Durban. Here, the nations of the world in … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity, Economics, Energy, Global Warming, Media
Tagged Canada, Chris Martenson, Crash Course, David Korowicz, Durban, Feasta, Kyoto, Tar Sands, Vesuvius
11 Comments
Phoney war ends as military eyes up new ecological foe
Late last year, Village magazine carried a cracking article entitled ‘Our deluded ESRI’, which opened as follows: “Patchy and boosterist forecasting, unquestioning neo-liberalism, an unempirical attitude to science and systemic ambivalence to environmentalism taint the performance of this apparently domestically-unassailable … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Sceptics
9 Comments
Hogan’s U-turn on climate is short-sighted and damaging
Below, my article as it appears in today’s Irish Times: WILL THE real Phil Hogan please stand up? On June 16th last, responding in the Dail to questions from Sinn Fein’s Martin Ferris on whether climate change legislation was being … Continue reading
Posted in Economics, Global Warming, Irish Focus
Tagged Green Party, IBEC, IFA, IPCC, John Sweeney, Mary Robinson, Phil Hogan
24 Comments
Population surge difficult to halt and almost impossible to reverse
My article, as it appears in this morning’s Irish Times: Today, just like every day for the last 50 years, around half a million babies will be born. Every 16 days or so, the equivalent of the population of Ireland … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Sustainability
22 Comments
We are earning the scorn and condemnation of history”
He’s hardly a household name, but US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (a Democrat representing Rhode Island) delivered a quite extraordinary 23-minute speech last week on the floor of the Senate – the speech we hoped, back in the heady days of … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Sceptics, Sustainability
Tagged deniers, Obama, Sheldon Whitehouse, US Congress
9 Comments
A little something for the weekend…
While smoking out climate change deniers can offer a little light relief, it’s important not to lose sight of what exactly is on the line here. For this, I am grateful to Joe Romm over at ThinkProgress for the following … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Sustainability
Tagged Arctic, Hadley Centre, IPCC, methane, MIT, permafrost
8 Comments
Climate scientist fillets Pat Kenny
Prof Richard Somerville of the University of California is one of the world’s top climate experts. A lead author for the IPCC’s AR4, he is research professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. He is also a big fan of … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Media, Sceptics
Tagged EPA, Pat Kenny, Richard Somerville
27 Comments
The devil or the deep blue sea – our nuclear conundrum
Twenty five years ago, in the early hours of April 26, 1986 a botched safety test led to a massive explosion at one of the four nuclear reactors at Chernobyl in Belarus. This was the world’s most serious nuclear event … Continue reading
Posted in Energy, Global Warming, Nuclear, Sustainability
Tagged cancer, Chernobyl, Fukushima, nuclear, radiation, thorium
9 Comments
When ‘functionally insane’ seems normal, time to worry
Every now and again I try to take a couple of hours out of life in La La Land (or was it Namaland?) to check in on the state of the real world. You know the one, it sustains all … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Media
Tagged climate change, human rights, IIEA, justice, Mary Robinson
7 Comments
