Category Archives: Habitat/Species
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
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
‘I have fed – and starved – species greater than you’
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 Bord Bia, EPA, Origin Green, water quality
4 Comments
Nature is the silent victim of Nimbyism
Last November Sir David Attenborough’s Planet Earth 2 attracted 9.4 million viewers for one episode- two million more than watched the X-Factor that night. It was the most watched nature show in the UK for 15 years. No doubt, like … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity, Habitat/Species, Irish Focus, Sustainability
Tagged Heritage Bill, Nimbyism, Wildlife
4 Comments
Toothless watchdog lets its Standards slip
{PROLOGUE} LOCATION: Bord Na Mona conference room* DATE: Early 2016. TOPIC: Ad planning meeting (*fictional) BnaM Marketing Exec: ‘I’ll cut to the chase. Here’s the challenge: we’re a company that, pound for pound, is the biggest polluter in Ireland. We’ve wrecked … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Irish Focus, Media, Sustainability
Tagged ASAI, Bord na Mona, Greenwash, peat
18 Comments
We mourn for Cecil while ignoring destruction of natural world
Below, my article, as it appears in this weekend’s Irish Times. WITH modern technology and firepower, it takes little courage and even less skill to kill wild animals. This week US dentist and recreational ‘big game hunter’ Walter James Palmer found … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity, Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Sustainability
Tagged Africa, Biodiversity, extinction, illegal hunting, ivory
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Breaching our planetary boundaries, one by one
Below, my article, as it will appear in the latest Village magazine: BACK IN 2009, some months before the ill-fated UN climate conference in Copenhagen, an Earth system framework was proposed by an international collaboration of environmental scientists. Their aim … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity, Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Sustainability
Tagged Biodiversity, boundaries, nitrogen, phosphorus
7 Comments
The oceans: cradle and graveyard of life on Earth
My first newspaper environmental column appeared in mid-March 2008, headlined: ‘Out of our depth in tackling overfishing disaster’. In researching the piece, I was staggered to read a quote from a senior UNEP official to the effect that even if … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity, Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Sustainability
3 Comments
It’s a race to the bottom – we’re winning as the oceans die
To me, nothing says summer down-time quite like finding a shady spot on a warm day and settling in for a great read. This year, I had the good fortune of picking two exceptional books – ‘The Ocean of Life’ … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity, Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Media, Sustainability
Tagged Callum Roberts, extinction, marine
4 Comments
Life on Earth now under threat as never before
Below, my opinion article, as it appears in today’s Irish Times: WHEN WE put our mind to it, it’s amazing what we can learn to forget. Rio de Janeiro in June 1992 hosted one of the most important international conferences … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Media, Sustainability
Tagged Earth Summit, Rio+20, Sustainability
8 Comments
Crutzen’s tough medicine for a sick planet
Arguably one of the most significant figures of the last two centuries was in Dublin last night, where he presented a lecture in TCD, organised by the Royal Irish Academy. The man in question is Prof Paul Crutzen, the brilliant … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity, Global Warming, Habitat/Species
Tagged Anthropocene, CFCs, Crutzen, GHGs, ozone
12 Comments
Six degrees to annihilation
Below is a news feature as appears on page 14 of this weekend’s Sunday Tribune. Given that global emissions are and will continue to run at or perhaps beyond the IPCC’s ‘worst-case’ (A1F1) scenario, I felt it useful to try … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Irish Focus, Sustainability
42 Comments
Ming shows our bogs no mercy
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it”. So wrote novelist Upton Sinclair, and boy, did he have a clear understanding of human nature. Last Thursday’ PrimeTime on RTE … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity, Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Irish Focus, Sustainability
8 Comments
Ireland’s looming bird crisis
Back in 2002, the parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity set a target of halting biodiversity loss by 2010. It is now 2010, the declared UN Year of Biodiversity, and although some endangered species have been saved, notably … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity, Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Irish Focus, Sustainability
Tagged birds, egret, extinction, habitat, habitat loss
1 Comment
