Category Archives: Sustainability
Ozone recovery offers sliver of optimism on climate action
Good news stories on the climate beat are few and far between, and offer occasional relief from the quickening drumbeat of bad news on the climate and biodiversity front. I didn’t have to be asked twice to file this piece … Continue reading
Posted in Arctic, Global Warming, Pollution, Sustainability
Tagged Montreal Protocol, ozone, WMO
Leave a comment
Step by step towards a lower carbon future
Here’s a piece that ran in the Irish Daily Star in the first week of January, my 10-point guide for those dipping a toe in the water of climate action in 2023. It’s not intended to be either definitive or … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Psychology, Sustainability
Tagged An Taisce, BirdWatch Ireland, Irish Wildlife Trust
Leave a comment
Cutting down on global deforestation
For as long as I can remember, we’ve been hearing about deforestation, usually expressed as an area of old-growth forest the size of x number of soccer pitches being lost per minute/hour. Globally, more than two billion hectares of forest … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity, Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Sustainability
Tagged Brazil, deforestation, IPCC, Livestock, Planetary boundaries, WWF
Leave a comment
Giving nature the legal right to exist
Mankind’s relationship with the rest of nature has been overwhelmingly predatory for centuries, with the natural world used as both a quarry from which to extract ‘resources’ and as a dump into which to eject our mountains of waste. The … Continue reading
Biosphere buckling under weight of human pressures
Rapid population growth has seen another billion humans added to world population in just the 11 years since 2011. In tandem with dramatic economic growth and accelerating climate change, these are placing unbearable pressures on the biosphere, foreshadowing a near … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture, Agriculture, Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Irish Focus, Sustainability
Tagged contraception, nitrogen, overpopulation
1 Comment
Carbon offsetting a cynical cop-out on climate action
In the late Middle Ages, there was a roaring trade within the Catholic Church in the sale of indulgences, as handy way for the sinful to wipe the slate clean by purchasing redemption. The abuse of this system is often … Continue reading
A walk on the wild side in the Beara peninsula
Ever wonder what Ireland might look like in its primordial condition? One man set about not just finding out, but recreating this, in a remote corner of south-west Ireland. I filed this review of the book he has just written … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture, Biodiversity, Global Warming, Sustainability
Tagged Biodiversity, Business Post, Eoghan Daltun, rewilding
1 Comment
The future is green, Soylent Green
Back in the early 1970s, even the year 2000 seemed an infinity away; for many, it conjured images of a glittering high-tech future. For others, a grim dystopia. The latter view definitely inspired the only film of that era to … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Psychology, Sustainability
Tagged consumerism, Paul Hawken, Victor Lebow, Village Magazine
1 Comment
We can feel the heat, but are we getting the message?
As the scorching summer of 2022 swept across Europe (it was to be the hottest summer ever recorded on the continent) I filed the below piece for the Business Post at the end of July, framing it around my own … Continue reading
Austerity or catastrophe: options grow ever narrower
Our chronic dependence on an invented system of growth-based capitalism that is destabilising the global climate system and laying waste to the natural world looks increasingly like a Faustian bargain, and metaphorical Mephistopheles is now knocking at the door looking for … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Psychology, Sustainability
Tagged Business Post, climate denial, extinction, Exxon Mobil
2 Comments
Putting our bodies on the line to save everything
I contributed the below piece to the Business Post in mid-June looking at the extraordinary phenomenon of climate scientists taking to the streets and risking professional ridicule, arrest and more in order to ring the alarm bells on the ever-deepening climate … Continue reading
Feeding the planet without destroying the Earth
My review of ‘Regenesis’ by George Monbiot appeared in The Irish Times in mid-June. The author has, since its publication, been on the receiving end of what looks like a co-ordinated campaign to smear and discredit both him and and … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture, Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Sustainability
Tagged extinction, Monbiot
1 Comment
Message remains the same, but who’s listening?
I filed this comment piece for the Irish Examiner in May to coincide with the publication of the WMO ‘State of the Climate’ report. The science gets clearer and clearer, the direct evidence of global climate destabilisation is now evident for … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity, Global Warming, Sustainability
Tagged Antonio Guterres, heatwave, Irish Examiner, WMO
1 Comment
The 1.5C danger line draws ever closer
I contributed the article below to TheJournal.ie in mid-May to mark the publication of a worrying new report from the World Meteorological Organisation. Tried to stress for the umpteenth time that physics is indifferent to the many political, economic, social, … Continue reading
Posted in Arctic, Energy, Irish Focus, Sustainability
Tagged heatwave, Sinn Fein, TheJournal.ie, Ukraine, WMO
1 Comment
The magic porridge pot is finally running out
To mark the 50th anniversary of the publication of the landmark ‘Limits to Growth’ book, I contributed the below article to the Business Post. We are now precisely half way through the century modelled by the Club of Rome, and … Continue reading
