Category Archives: Global Warming
World awakens slowly to unfolding plastics catastrophe
Below, my article as published in the April 2018 edition of Village magazine. I’ve been writing for years about the pervasive and ever-expanding threats posed by plastic wastes, but have found few takers in the mainstream media; given the staggering … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Pollution
Tagged David Attenborough, Newstalk, plastic, Repak
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Failing farmers, the environment & wider society
My article on our broken agricultural system, as it appeared in the Irish Times on April 7th last. Getting a decent splash on the main OpEd page in the Saturday edition (the IT’s most read day of the week by … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus
Tagged agriculture, Bord Bia, dairy, IFA, Origin Green, Phil Hogan
1 Comment
Day of reckoning on global extinction crisis draws near
Below, my article as it was published in the Irish Times last month, with some referencing added back in. To borrow one of my own lines, “A solitary species has, in a heartbeat of geological time, overturned and routed half … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity, Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Sustainability
Tagged Anthropocene, extinction, Irish Times, northern rhino, WWF
7 Comments
Pinker serves up a Panglossian three-card trick
“Things can only get better”, went the lyrics to the hit by D:Ream which became the anthem of the incoming New Labour government in 1997, fronted by the relentlessly upbeat Tony Blair. Six years later, Blair joined the US in … Continue reading
Posted in Economics, Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Psychology
Tagged Bill Gates, Steven Pinker
3 Comments
Tall tales trump Varadkar’s Washington debut
Below, my piece published on DeSmog.uk from March detailing our Taoiseach’s travails when attempting to cosy up to the US president during the traditional St. Patrick’s Day visit. IRISH prime minister, Leo Varadkar dropped a major climate clanger in Washington this … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Sceptics
Tagged Donald Trump, Doonbeg, Leo Varadkar, wind farms
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All talk, no action: agri sector’s spin over substance
My article, which ran in the Irish Examiner in early February, is below IRISH agriculture faces enormous threats, both from direct climate change impacts and the urgent need to sharply reduce emissions, yet the sector has been remarkably slow to engage … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Sustainability
Tagged agriculture, ICOS, Irish Examiner, Phil Hogan
8 Comments
Sinking ever deeper into ecological debt and climate denial
Eschatology, or the study of the end of times, is at least as old as the written word. The concept spans many of the world’s major religions, usually referring to some future day of judgement or reckoning. Beyond the realms … Continue reading
Posted in Economics, Global Warming, Sceptics, Sustainability
Tagged climate denial, Doomsday Clock, ICSF, WWF
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2017: yet another year of living dangerously
And so 2017 comes, at last, to a close. From a climate and wider environmental standpoint, it has been an unmitigated disaster. It hardly bears repeating that the installation of the Trump regime in Washington was the worst possible news, … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Sustainability
Tagged Attenborough, Fisheries, Simon Coveney
6 Comments
Unmasking Ireland’s real ‘climate radicals’
Below, my article as it appeared earlier this month on the OpEd page of the Irish Times. I’ve been intrigued for many years at the way some people are automatically pigeon-holed as outliers and ‘radicals’ in certain debates. Nowhere is … Continue reading
Don’t give up on democracy just yet
Below, my article from the November edition of Village magazine, looking back on the historic proceedings of the Citizens’ Assembly: It’s been a bad couple of years for democracy. The Brexit fiasco was the most humiliating British retreat from Europe … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Sustainability
Tagged Citizens Assembly, Denis Naughten
2 Comments
Not waving, drowning: Ten years of ThinkOrSwim
This evening, exactly ten years ago, I tentatively pressed the ‘Publish’ button on my brand new blog, and released the first ThinkOrSwim posting into the wild. Titled ‘Wind of change finally reaches Ireland?’ it foolishly opined that the new government was … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Media
10 Comments
Pushing back against the tide of junk science
I published two articles over the summer in Village magazine on the subject of the new Irish climate denier group, the self-styled Irish Climate Science Forum (ICSF), founded by retired UCD meteorologist, Ray Bates. The first of these, in the … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Media, Sceptics
Tagged ICSF, Press Ombudsman, Ray Bates, Richard Lindzen, Village Magazine, William Happer
3 Comments
Can direct democracy succeed where politics has failed?
Earlier this month, I was pleased to have my third article appear on Guardian Environment. The topic was one I have previously teased around the edges, here and elsewhere, on numerous occasions. In a nutshell: once we’ve figured out our … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Media, Psychology
Tagged Citizens Assembly, FIE, Guardian, Urgenda
3 Comments
The Citizens have spoken: no more excuses, climate action now
I spent all day Saturday November 5th in the Grand Hotel, Malahide, covering the penultimate session of the Citizens’ Assembly hearings on climate change. Having watched much of the previous weekend’s deliberations via live stream, I had the sense that … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Sustainability
3 Comments
Eating the future, one bite at a time
Futurology is a favourite journalistic parlour game, usually reserved for a slow news week or the lifestyle section. When I saw the following bold opening statement in a recent Irish Times magazine cover story, “Half of the babies born today … Continue reading
