Category Archives: Sustainability

Species Extinction, loss of biodiversity

Oh! What a Lovely War for fossil fuel profiteers

While 2022 may have been the year when full-scale war returned to Europe for the first time since 1945, with massive spikes in energy prices impacting tens of millions of households, it was also a great year for fossil fuel … Continue reading

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Bracing for the coming climate refugee crisis

The millions of people displaced by wars and conflict in the 20th century and in the early part of this century are likely to be eclipsed by a vast waves of forced migration in the decades ahead, as rising temperatures, … Continue reading

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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 , , | 1 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 , , | 1 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

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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

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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 , , | 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

Posted in Economics, Global Warming, Sustainability | Tagged , | 1 Comment

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 , , , | 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

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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

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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

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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

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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 , | 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 , , , | 1 Comment