Category Archives: Energy
Soaring oil price sinks iconic Hummer
Nothing says vulgarity or hubris quite like a Hummer. Clocking in at an average of 13 miles per gallon (21.7 litres per 100km), they are no longer the biggest monstrosity on the roads these days, if you really want to … Continue reading
Posted in Energy, Global Warming, Sustainability
Tagged CO2, Hummer, Peak Oil, petrol, SUV
2 Comments
Water shortages add to list of critical pressures
With oil prices steaming towards $130 a barrel, CO2 emissions climbing relentlessly, food shortages and major commodity price hikes hitting the world’s poor, “the last thing anyone needs is another crisis”, according to the current issue of Business Week. But … Continue reading
Posted in Energy, Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Sustainability
Tagged Australia, biosphere, China, CO2, shortage, water
4 Comments
On a wing and a prayer
Airlines are forever telling us that aviation is just a teeny weeny contributor to greenhouse gases, nothing to be bothered about really. The figure of 2% of total emissions being attributable to flying is frequently quoted in defence of our … Continue reading
Posted in Energy, Global Warming, Irish Focus, Sustainability
Tagged Aer Lingus, aviation, carbon, CO2, emissions, pollution, travel
3 Comments
Let them eat cake
It takes around 230 kg of corn to feed a child in the ‘developing world’ for a year, according to UN estimates. By a ghoulish coincidence, that’s around the same amount of corn as is needed to produce enough biofuel … Continue reading
Posted in Energy, Global Warming, Sustainability
Tagged Biofuels, Bush, climate change, famine, hunger, Oil
5 Comments
Some like it hot?
Climate sceptic Bjorn Lomborg was in Dublin last Friday telling the folks at the IMI national management conference that everything’s just honky dory on the climate front – a business-as-usual message that was no doubt eagerly lapped up by that … Continue reading
Posted in Energy, Global Warming, Sustainability
Tagged Arctic, climate change, GISS, global warming, ice melting, IMI, James Hansen, Lomborg, NASA
4 Comments
ESB finally sees the light
Ireland, it appears, is at last starting to get serious about tackling our huge energy requirements, and the dagger that our massive dependence on imports of oil and gas in particular holds to our collective throat. We are reckoned in … Continue reading
Posted in Energy, Global Warming, Irish Focus, Nuclear, Sustainability
Tagged climate change, CO2, Coal, Eamon Ryan, ESB, Ireland, Moneypoint, Peak Oil
3 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
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
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
The heat is on for patio burners
If you sat down to design a more environmentally unfriendly product, you’d be hard pressed to come up with something worse than a patio heater. Ten years ago, these were relatively rare in Ireland, but with the upsurge of ‘decklanders’ … Continue reading
Posted in Energy, Global Warming, Irish Focus, Sustainability
1 Comment
Is the Lucky Country’s luck running out?
Australia is, and has been for generations, a paradoxical place. Though it’s more than ten thousand miles and 12 time zones from England, it has still looked longingly over its shoulder to the ‘Mother ship’, many decades after the British … Continue reading
Posted in Energy, Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Sustainability
1 Comment
