Category Archives: Global Warming
Rationing our way to a rational aviation policy
To see the enthusiasm with which politicians have been co-opted to help Dublin Airport Authority to overturn the planning permissions that govern its operation in order to facilitate ever more flying is indicative of just how much of a vote-getter … Continue reading
Posted in Energy, Global Warming, Irish Focus, Pollution, Sustainability
Tagged aviation, DAA, Irish Examiner, Ryanair
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Laying waste to Europe in pursuit of short-term profits
The bitter ongoing battle this summer to get the crucial Nature Restoration Law enacted and the dirty tricks campaign orchestrated by the EPP on behalf of agri-industrial lobbyists is not yet over, but below, I reported for the Irish Examiner … Continue reading
To cut or to cull, that is the question
It’s amazing the power of a single word or phrase. A headline writer in one of the Irish dailies deployed the word ‘cull’ to describe proposals to modestly reduce the total number of Irish cattle in line with our climate … Continue reading
We’ll miss them when they’re gone
The insect kingdom, sometimes described as the “tiny empires that rule the world” is now facing its gravest threat in its 400 million-year reign, with human impacts taking a devastating toll, as I explored in this piece for TheJournal.ie in … Continue reading
Good ancestors demand a Ministry for The Future
While the title for this piece was borrowed from the Kim Stanley Robinson cli-fi classic novel, I wanted to explore our paradoxical relationship with the future and how we struggle to engage in intergenerational stewardship to take into account the … Continue reading
Posted in Economics, Global Warming, Politics, Sustainability
Tagged Business Post, Citizens Assembly, Nature Restoration Law, Paul Hawken, Sweden
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When nature is the enemy, whose side are you really on?
The iron grip of agri PLCs and the farm lobbyists who work on their behalf on the EU’s agriculture policy was seen yet again in the outright rejection of modest proposals to give nature restoration a chance amid an ever-deepening … Continue reading
Nothing ‘natural’ or safe about gas hobs
Was there ever a cleverer sleight of hand than the labelling of the fossil fuel methane as ‘natural gas’? Oil and coal are also natural, but have you ever heard of ‘natural coal’ as a marketing slogan? Mercifully not, yet … Continue reading
The Late Late no-show on climate emergency
Back in more innocent times, i.e. before the whole soap opera over how much Ryan Tubridy was getting paid, and by whom blew up into one of the biggest “stories” of the year, there was the small matter of who … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Media
Tagged David Bellamy, Late Late Show, Pat Kenny, RTE, Ryan Tubridy
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Beware the radical climate inactivists
It has long puzzled me that those promoting ecocidal policies that in the short term impoverish and kill millions and that in the longer term may well kill us all have somehow managed to maintain the illusion that they are … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming
Tagged Antonio Guterres, heatwave, Ministry of the Future, Peter Kalmus, PNAS
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Between the AMOC and the deep blue sea
The Environmental Protection Agency hosted a public meeting as part of their ongoing series on climate change in the Round Room at Dublin’s Mansion House in late April, chaired by Ella McSweeney. I met the guest speaker, Prof Stefan Rahmstorf … Continue reading
Posted in Arctic, Global Warming, Sustainability
Tagged AMOC, Antarctic, EPA, Stefan Rahmstorf
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A defining moment for humanity
A number of people active in the area of climate science and activism were asked by the Irish Times in April to contribute a fairly short vignette on where we saw the current situation. My contribution, titled “Few options available to … Continue reading
Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone
They say that, given half a chance, most people would instinctively love and cherish nature. If that’s the case, then something must have gone seriously awry in Ireland in recent decades, given our collective neglect of our natural heritage, along … Continue reading
When all hope is lost, keep fighting
On the one hand, it’s simply impossible to overstate just how dire the climate and biodiversity emergency really is, and in truth, most people either have no idea, or else are in absolute denial. So, is it already Game Over? … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity, Global Warming, Psychology
Tagged Antonio Guterres, Cassandra, doomer, Greta Thunberg, IPCC, Michael Mann
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Progress through technology? Nein, danke
Every country has its deeply entrenched lobby group, and in the case of Germany, its massive motor industry pulls the political strings, exercising a negative influence on policy throughout the EU. Ever wonder why European regulations on emissions from cars … Continue reading
Posted in Energy, Global Warming, Sustainability
Tagged Dieselgate, EVs, Germany, motor industry, T&E, Tesla
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