Category Archives: Sustainability

First, there was Al Gore and his ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, the hugely successful documentary film which managed to bring climate science to the masses. That film turned a washed up politician into a movie star. Now a bona fide movie … Continue reading →

The motor industry, in its own odd, self-serving way, has begun to notice that there’s more demand from consumers for vehicles that may be just a little less environmentally disastrous than what they’ve been churning out for the last number … Continue reading →

2007 was a watershed year in media coverage of global warming/climate change. It is the year these topics finally went mainstream. The Sunday Times led the charge last March with a cracking cover to its Magazine, entitled ‘Tomorrow’s World’.

“If we can make it through the next 379 days without getting into nuclear war, historians writing 100 years from now will begin their assessment of George W. Bush, not at all kindly, by identifying him as the United States … Continue reading →

Nobel laureate Paul J. Crutzen isn’t exactly a household name in Ireland. The former chief of atmospheric chemistry at the Max-Planck Institute in Germany coined the phrase ‘Anthropocene’ at a meeting of scientists in 2000. What it means, literally, is … Continue reading →

Two interesting car-related events today. First, the European Union announced its plans to crack down on high-emitting vehicles, with direct penalties on carmakers who continue to churn out gas-guzzlers. This was announced on the day that this correspondent finally placed … Continue reading →

After all the histrionics, eventually a roadmap of sorts was agreed at the UN climate conference in Bali. This roadmap first leads to Poznan in Poland in a year’s time, and then on to Copenhagen in late 2009 – that’s … Continue reading →

As we write, it appears that the UN climate summit is ‘on the brink’ of a deal. A bloc comprising the US, Japan and Canada have been working together to block any agreement that imposed any actual deadlines or any … Continue reading →

That’s how Australia’s new prime minister, Kevin Rudd today set it out to delegates in Bali on climate change. “There is is no other planet any of us can escape to”. Rudd recently thrashed outgoing PM, John Howard, and the … Continue reading →

“Watch out for Canada, the US and Saudi Arabia” – that was the warning from a spokesperson for Climate Action Network, quoting a leaked memo from Ottowa ordering Canadian delegates to demand binding reductions from all major emitters, ie. China … Continue reading →

Ho ho ho. Vaclav Klaus thinks that the movement to prevent global warming is in fact a new ideology that threatens to undermine freedom and the world’s social and economic order. Klaus feels so strongly about this that he has … Continue reading →

You have to hand it to Al Gore. Yes, his hopeless presidential campaign in 2000 gifted the Presidency to the most rapacious group of robber barons since their heyday in the late 19th Century. Yes, he is a bit of … Continue reading →