Category Archives: Habitat/Species

Big trouble as world’s tiny empires crumble

Posted on February 18, 2022 by John Gibbons

As recently as 30, even 20 years ago, when at night across Ireland, by the time you reached your destination, the front of your car would be caked in hundreds, even thousands, of dead insects. Commonly known as ‘bug splat’ … Continue reading →

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The library of our living planet is burning down

Posted on November 5, 2021 by John Gibbons

Shortly before the COP26 climate conference began, another global conference, this one on biodiversity, known as COP15, took place in Kunming, China. My piece around the global biodiversity crunch ran in the Business Post in late October. THE NATURAL WORLD is … Continue reading →

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Climate emergency ‘widespread, rapid and intensifying’

Posted on August 15, 2021 by John Gibbons

I was asked by TheJournal.ie to write a reaction piece to mark the release of the first part of the IPCC’s new climate report in early August. I also recorded an Explainer Podcast with TheJournal.ie later in August. JUST HOW … Continue reading →

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Agri emissions plan a roadmap to nowhere

Posted on December 15, 2020 by John Gibbons

In the absence of action, the next best thing is to look busy, and Ireland’s agri-industrial sector and its many boosters in politics and the civil and public service have elevated this frenzy of inaction to something of a performance … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Agriculture, Economics, Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Irish Focus | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

‘Our relationship with nature is broken’

Posted on September 19, 2020 by John Gibbons

The below piece ran on TheJournal.ie in late September. It was inspired by a combination of the surreal imagery emanating from the western US and the release of the 2020 Living Planet Report, which chronicles ever sharpening declines in planetary vital … Continue reading →

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Ecocide: the greatest crime against humanity and nature

Posted on July 13, 2020 by John Gibbons

It is extraordinary that ecocide is not formally recognised and codified as a crime under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. There are surely few greater crimes than the deliberate destruction of entire ecosystems, in many cases leading directly … Continue reading →

Posted in Biodiversity, Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Sustainability | 1 Comment

Coronavirus an appetiser for what climate breakdown has in store

Posted on May 17, 2020 by John Gibbons

The piece below ran on Thejournal.ie in early May, and to my surprise, made quite an impact, with over 83,000 views, 142 online comments and thousands of tweets and reposts on social media. Thejournal.ie is now very much part of … Continue reading →

Posted in Biodiversity, Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Pollution, Psychology, Sustainability | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Shattering the illusion of control

Posted on March 26, 2020 by John Gibbons

Below, my piece for Greennews.ie, published on March 26th, just as the grim reality of the Coronavirus pandemic was finally hitting home in Ireland: ========== Right now, millions of people around the world are waking each day with a sensation … Continue reading →

Posted in Biodiversity, Global Warming, Habitat/Species | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Rout of global biodiversity comes with a heavy price tag

Posted on June 20, 2019 by John Gibbons

Below, my article as it appeared in the summer edition of ‘Irish Wildlife’, the magazine of the  Irish Wildlife Trust, an organisation well worth supporting. I gave a one-hour presentation followed by a Q&A at an IWT ‘Green Drinks’ event … Continue reading →

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Window on ecological annihilation closing fast

Posted on November 30, 2018 by John Gibbons

Below, my article that appeared in the Irish Times at the beginning of this month, inspired by the publication in October of the WWF’s ‘Living Planet Report‘. Even when generally inured to the drumbeat of ecological bad news, the Living … Continue reading →

Posted in Biodiversity, Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Sustainability | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

RTE bog broadcast sinks into mire of low standards

Posted on May 30, 2018 by John Gibbons

Below, a piece I ran in a well-known satirical magazine in May 2018. It was subsequently picked up by the Sunday Times, who also gave the show a bit of a scalding under a piece headed: ‘RTE turfed into trouble over … Continue reading →

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Day of reckoning on global extinction crisis draws near

Posted on March 30, 2018 by John Gibbons

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 , , , , | 7 Comments

Pinker serves up a Panglossian three-card trick

Posted on March 27, 2018 by John Gibbons

“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 , | 3 Comments

2017: yet another year of living dangerously

Posted on December 31, 2017 by John Gibbons

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 , , | 6 Comments

‘I have fed – and starved – species greater than you’

Posted on September 18, 2017 by John Gibbons

Back in the bleak 1980s, some 500 Irish river locations boasted pure, clean water. What of today’s modern, sustainable and super-green Ireland? Now, a mere 21 river locations remain of very high quality, according to the EPA’s newly published Water … Continue reading →

Posted in Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Irish Focus | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments