Author Archives: John Gibbons
Watch out, Gaia’s about…
At 88, James Lovelock is for many people the Grandfather of the modern ecology movement. He today is admired and despised by people in the general ‘green’ movement in about equal measure. Apart from a highly successful career as a … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Irish Focus, Sustainability
Tagged climate change, Gaia, global warming, James Lovelock, overpopulation
2 Comments
Forty shades of brown?
Climate change is set to change the very face of Ireland in the coming decades. This is the conclusion of a study published to coincide with St. Patrick’s Day. The study is called ‘Changing Shades Of Green – The environmental … Continue reading
Posted in Energy, Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Irish Focus, Sustainability
9 Comments
The most dangerous man in Europe?
Gordon Brown gets it. Kevin Rudd gets it. John McCain gets it. Bertie Ahern (sort of) gets it. For goodness sake, even George W Bush is beginning to get it. It, of course, is the realisation sweeping the world that … Continue reading
Posted in Energy, Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Sustainability
Tagged climate, climate hoax, CO2, global warming, Keeling Curve, Vaclav Klaus
3 Comments
Ssssh, don’t mention the ‘E’ word
There’s an episode of the 1970s comedy, Fawlty Towers, in which German visitors come to stay in the hotel. Basil Fawlty goes to great lengths to avoid any references to World War 2 (it was then barely 30 years after … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Irish Focus, Sustainability
Tagged Basil Fawlty, climate change, collapse, extinction, Sustainability
2 Comments
Drowning in an ocean of rubbish
Nobody likes living near a rubbish dump. Fewer things are quicker at getting Irish people out to protest than the prospect of a new dump or incinerator opening anywhere near them. Earlier today, around 400 people in Nobber, Co. Meath … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Sustainability
4 Comments
Feast or famine
Food, or more precisely the lack of food, is deeply ingrained in the Irish psyche. Small wonder, having been victims of the worst western European famine of the last 250 years. In today’s world of plenty, where the local Tesco … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Irish Focus, Sustainability
Tagged Biofuels, famine, farming, food shortage, hunger, Irish, wheat
4 Comments
There Will Be Oil!
The prolific American author Upton Sinclair died 40 years ago, but his novel Oil, published in 1927, has recently had a second coming, being the book upon which the Oscar-winning film There Will Be Blood is based. Another of Sinclair’s … Continue reading
Posted in Energy, Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Irish Focus, Sustainability
Tagged Al Gore, climate, CO2, Coal, CSS, Lenny Bernstein, Oil, Upton Sinclair
3 Comments
Friends, countrymen, lend me your processors
Writing regularly about climate change and related issues is great – up to a point. However, the prospect of being able to chip something in to the actual science part might seem a little far-fetched for those of us such … Continue reading
Posted in Energy, Global Warming, Sustainability
2 Comments
A vision of beauty
Nature is under relentless assault, entire ecosystems are being obliterated, an area of natural forest the size of Croke Park is burned or cleared every second. Around every 12 minutes, yet another species goes extinct. The news is, to put … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Sustainability
Tagged climate change, extinction, species loss, Sustainability
2 Comments
Time to put a lid on bottled water
‘Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former’. That’s the view of no less an observer than Albert Einstein. Though his judgement may seem a little harsh, the strange story of … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Irish Focus, Sustainability
Tagged bottled water, carbon, environment, Perrier, plastic, pollution, Sustainability, Volvic
2 Comments
Corporations get in on the Green act
‘Over the last 150 years the corporation has risen from relative obscurity to become the world’s dominant economic institution. Today corporations govern our lives. They determine what we eat, what we watch, what we wear, where we work and what … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Sustainability
2 Comments
Getting some real wind in our sails
You only have to look at a map of Ireland’s rugged western seaboard to get some idea of the power of wave and wind in shaping our coastline. In Connemara the sparse tree cover leans away from the sea at … Continue reading
Posted in Energy, Global Warming, Irish Focus, Sustainability
Tagged Biofuels, carbon, electricity, ESB, Ireland, turbine, wind, wind farms
3 Comments
Forget chocolate – 40 steps to cut carbon for Lent
The Tearfund is a UK-based development agency which has come up with a novel idea for this Lent. Instead of cutting down on treats, how about reducing your carbon instead? They are clearly placing the effects of climate change as … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Irish Focus, Sustainability
Tagged climate change, fair trade, Lent, Sustainability, Third World
3 Comments
At the edge of the Olduvain abyss?
The year 1900 is little more than two generations ago. It’s the year before my maternal grandmother was born. At that time, she was one of some 1.6 billion people then alive on the earth. A hundred years, two World … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Sustainability
Tagged climate change, collapse, Dr Richard Duncan, Olduvai, Peak Oil
4 Comments
