Too big to fail? Great Barrier Reef nears final collapse

Posted on June 19, 2017 by John Gibbons

Below, my article on the plight of reef systems worldwide, with a focus on the Great Barrier Reef, as it appeared in the Irish Times earlier this month…

AUSTRALIA’S Great Barrier Reef is best described in superlatives. Covering an area the size of Italy, it is the only living structure clearly visible from space. Rather than a single reef, the mighty Barrier Reef, which extends much of the length of Australia’s east coast, is instead an archipelago of some 3,000 co-habitating reefs.

Although covering barely one-tenth of 1 per cent of the ocean floor, globally, reefs are the nurseries for around a quarter of all marine species. Their importance to the oceans’ ecosystems vastly outweighs their physical extent.

Despite its size, the Barrier Reef is manifestly not too big to fail. Marine scientists have been ringing alarm bells as an unprecedented series of major recent “bleaching” events have left large parts of the reef system dying or dead. Continue reading →

Posted in Biodiversity, Global Warming, Habitat/Species | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Doubling down on climate denial: ICSF hosts Happer

Posted on June 14, 2017 by John Gibbons

Below, my latest article on Desmog.uk, covering the recent ultra low-key visit of well known climate contrarian, William Happer to Dublin. Publication was delayed by around a week as Desmog turned its editorial focus to the UK elections – including the climate-denying DUP’s surprise ascent to centre stage.

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The second meeting in a month of the newly formed climate sceptic group, the Irish Climate Science Forum, took place behind a veil of secrecy and a media blackout in Dublin on June 1, DeSmog UK can confirm.

Guest speaker was noted climate science denier William Happer, a retired Princeton professor who is currently understood to be on a shortlist for the role of Science Advisor to the climate-denying Trump administration in the US. Continue reading →

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Ulster says hoax: a short history of the DUP and climate denial

Posted on June 12, 2017 by John Gibbons

Below, my article as it appeared on DeSmog.uk over the weekend, in the light of the extraordinary decision by the Tories to throw in their lot with Ulster’s not-particularly-Democratic Unionist Party.

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Theresa May’s general election gamble has seen a little-thought-of and highly controversial party thrust into the spotlight: Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).

Having failed to gain enough seats to form a majority the Conservative Party has turned to the DUP, which won 10 seats, to create an alliance and give the Tories the ability to govern as a minority.

While the two parties are said to still be “in discussions” over a possible agreement, the decision to try and strike a deal has seen hundreds of protesters descend on Westminster due to the DUP’s stance on abortion, gay rights and climate change. Already more than 500,000 people have signed a petition condemning the Tory-DUP alliance.

The DUP until now hasn’t garnered much attention in the British press but the party has a long history of science denial.

It is a most unusual party for a number of reasons, including its well-documented links to Protestant paramilitary groups and dark money links to the Saudi Arabian intelligence service. Continue reading →

Posted in Energy, Global Warming, Irish Focus, Sceptics | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

From pipsqueaks to bullies: farm leadership, 50 years on

Posted on May 31, 2017 by John Gibbons

Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Ireland’s National Farmers’ Association (NFA) was a political pariah, with then Taoiseach, Fianna Fail’s Jack Lynch threatening to have the organisation proscribed, a move that would have placed every farmer in the NFA on the same legal footing as an IRA member.

This was almost exactly 50 years ago, in April 1967, when tempers flared and relations between the NFA, forerunner to today’s politically powerful IFA and the state hit an all-time low. Just before dawn on April 24th, 1967, a series of co-ordinated Garda raids, led by Special Branch detectives and backed up by armed soldiers, descended in darkness on the homes of selected farm leaders.

Later that evening, Jack Lynch was to solemnly address the nation on television and warn that if the NFA’s campaign of refusing to pay agricultural rates was not stood down, the consequences would be dire: “The restraint that the Government have shown up to now proves to any fair-minded person that the Government have no desire to see the dissolution or the disintegration of the NFA, but if it is a choice between that and the maintenance of our basic political institutions and the rule of law, the decision is clear”, he intoned.

This was serious stuff. “By their speeches and actions, the NFA leaders have shown they are prepared to challenge the basic political institutions of this country. Questions of agricultural policy have become secondary”, said Lynch. Continue reading →

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The ICSF – Irish Contrarians Serving Farming?

Posted on May 15, 2017 by John Gibbons

When I first heard about the newly formed climate denier group, the self-styled Irish Climate Science Forum (ICSF), I tipped off my usual Dublin media outlets, but nobody was biting, so from there, I went to the London-based Desmog.uk, part of the influential Desmogblog network of websites specialising in countering climate denial and misinformation, or, to use their slogan: “Clearing the PR pollution that clouds climate science”.

Desmog.uk were both receptive and very thorough, with volleys of questions and clarifications sought prior to their deciding the piece was fit to publish. As a writer, it’s good to be robustly challenged at the editorial desk. Plus, this process can help winkle out any of the author’s own prejudices or preconceptions (yes, we all have plenty of both) and ensure they don’t unduly colour the final piece.

Anyhow, the article went live on the website as its main story on Friday evening, and remained in that position for a couple of days. And that, I assumed, was that. A number of people in the Irish media were tipped off about the piece, which got some modest traction on social media, but nothing appeared in print. Then, it fell under the gimlet eye of RTÉ’s Philip Boucher-Hayes. Continue reading →

Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Media, Sceptics | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

Dad’s Army of climate deniers rallies in Dublin

Posted on May 9, 2017 by John Gibbons

My piece below, as published last Friday on the respected climate science website, Desmog.uk. As outlined below, I was tipped off about the meeting early last week, and wrote to the organiser, Jim O’Brien, who informed me I would not be allowed to attend. To use his exact phrase: “Please be advised that this is a strictly private event. We decided ab initio to exclude politicians, media and NGOs”.

Despite this setback, I decided to drop down to the event venue, the Sandymount Hotel in south Dublin, to see the lie of the land, if you’ll pardon the phrase. While denied admittance, I did manage to snap a shot of Lindzen (74) and his (almost entirely elderly, grey-haired, male) audience through the glass doors at the rear of the room.

Knowing how much fringe groups like this feed on fantasies of persecution by ‘climate zealots’ (you know who you are) I decided against attempting to doorstep any of the attendees for interview or comment. However, there were one or two people in the room underwhelmed by Lindzen’s brand of so-called skepticism who were prepared to give me a detailed run-down of his talk and the Q&A that followed.

Continue reading →

Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Media, Sceptics | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

Engineer Trump leads Human race to the bottom

Posted on April 10, 2017 by John Gibbons

Below, my article, as it appears in the current edition of Village magazine (ok, apart from adding in the referencing, there were a few other tweaks and alternate adjectives I had probably wished I’d completed with for one final round of amends before submitting the magazine version; guess the web means never having to say you’re sorry!).

No sooner had the reality of having the execrable Donald J Trump as US president begun to truly sink in than the rationalising began. All those awful things he said and did were all really just campaign rhetoric for his hard-core supporters. He’ll pivot to the centre. The system is bigger than one man. American institutions are strong. The Republican Party will rein him in. Besides, it can’t happen here.

Well, it did and it has. While Trump’s staggeringly clumsy overreach in trying to dismember Obamacare led to an embarrassing setback, this was a rare bump in the road to ruin that Trump’s new kleptocracy of billionaire bandits and ideologues have been busy mapping out. Continue reading →

Posted in Global Warming, Media, Psychology, Sceptics | Tagged , , , , | 10 Comments

Nature is the silent victim of Nimbyism

Posted on April 4, 2017 by Jeremy Hughes

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 myself, many thousands of viewers from Ireland also tuned in, transfixed by scenes of snakes chasing iguanas, rare footage of snow leopards mating in the wild and a face-off between Komodo Dragons.

That’s what makes it so hard to reconcile this interest in nature documentaries with our national ambivalence to our natural heritage here in Ireland. We love all that wildlife in Africa, Asia and the Americas – we’re just not that keen on the stuff back home. Nature, it seems, suffers from Nimbyism. Everyone seems in favour of it, but not just in their own garden, backyard, townland, parish or county.

This might sound like a harsh, sweeping statement damning all. But then again, we’re living in a country where the government tried to change the law to extend the hedge-cutting and permitted burning dates to the detriment of the wildlife habitats. Thanks to a hard-fought rearguard action by a handful of politicians and NGOs and a petition signed by 27,000 people, a watered-down version of the bill looks like to come into effect – a bill that will still allow hedgecutting on road sides to take place in the nesting season. Continue reading →

Posted in Biodiversity, Habitat/Species, Irish Focus, Sustainability | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Lights out for Earth Hour? Save your energy

Posted on March 27, 2017 by John Gibbons

Dreamed up as a PR stunt by an ad agency 10 years ago, Earth Hour has become surprisingly succesful. This is, I suspect, because it’s long on tokenism and photo opportunities and desperately short on actual resolve, sacrifice or meaningful political action. Anyhow, my lights stayed remained undimmed on Saturday night last. Below, the original version of my piece, as featured in Saturday’s Irish Times:

ANY PLANS for Earth Hour this evening? If so, you’re not alone. Tonight in Ireland and in some 7,000 cities and over 170 countries around the world, upwards of a billion people will turn off the lights to mark Earth Hour, an event the organisers, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), claim is the world’s largest voluntary action.

Now in its 10th year, the event has been warmly embraced in Ireland, with lights being dimmed in government buildings and major heritage sites. For instance, in 2014, then Environment Minister, Phil Hogan had this to say: “I am happy that Ireland is again joining this global effort to highlight environmental sustainability and I hope that Irish people will support this powerful symbolic initiative by turning out the lights”. Continue reading →

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Dublin airport censorship just doesn’t fly

Posted on February 21, 2017 by John Gibbons

There is a rich irony in the fact that an airline company sponsors the weather on RTÉ Radio One, with its “smart flies Aer Lingus” tagline transmitted into a million homes, on the hour, every hour. After all, aviation is the world’s fastest growing source of climate-altering carbon emissions, so in a very real sense, Aer Lingus is changing the very weather whose forecasts it sponsors.

There are, as far as I’m aware, no grounds on which RTÉ, a state broadcaster could be compelled to stop accepting money from a company whose very business model is fuelling the dangerous destabilisation of the global atmosphere upon which we all depend.

After all, if the climate-destroying, biodiversity-thrashing Bord Na Mona can pass itself off as “Naturally Driven”, who could possibly object to Aer Lingus sponsoring the weather? And this of course assumes there exists even an iota of political will to be mustered in our collective defence (here’s a link to an Irish Times article on climate and aviation I wrote some years back; the stats may be a little out of date, but the gist is still relevant). Continue reading →

Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Media | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Time to push fossil fuel sponsorship beyond the Pale

Posted on February 16, 2017 by John Gibbons

Below, my article, as it appeared in the Irish Times earlier this month. Having had family members as past winners of the Texaco Children’s Art Competition made me leery about taking on writing about this long-running sponsorship, but then I realised part of the formula for corporate sponsorship of events or competitions actually depends on producing feelings of guilt and/or gratitude on the part of us adults. So, with a slightly heavy heart, I put them on hold on this occasion.

THE GLOBAL movement to delegitimise fossil fuels received a boost in recent days with the passage through Dáil Eireann of the Fossil Fuel Divestment Bill. This historic bill, introduced by Thomas Pringle, TD directs Ireland’s €8 billion Strategic Investment Fund to avoid investments in oil, coal or gas. Ireland is the world’s first country to make such a bold move.

While this decision is by itself unlikely to make even a dent in the trillion dollar hydrocarbon energy business, its real significance is symbolic, sending out a political and economic signal that the fossil fuel industry is to be regarded as a necessary evil, to be tolerated only until viable, safe alternatives can be brought on stream. Continue reading →

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A wealthy, kick-ass climate NGO: what are the odds?

Posted on January 30, 2017 by John Gibbons

There is never a shortage of stupid things to do with money, especially if you suddenly find yourself with loads of it. US socialite Theresa Roemer, for instance has a three-storey, 3,000-square foot closet; that’s a space twice the size of the average Irish family home to store her shoe collection.

Then there’s the €180 million Palazzo di Amore mansion in Beverly Hills – with 12 reception rooms, 22 bathrooms, a 50-seat cinema, swimming pools and a 12-acre vineyard. This property has been entirely vacant for the last eight years.

Oxfam recently published figures confirming that the world’s richest 62 people control as much wealth as the combined assets and incomes of the world’s poorest 3.7 billion people, and this trend is, if anything, accelerating.

With yet another EuroMillions winning ticket sold in Ireland recently (giving some indication as to how disproportionately much we are gambling per capita), our media went into overdrive with advice on how to spend the estimated €88 million fortune. The Sunday World’s staggeringly banal list of suggestions includes buying an island, or 17.4 million pints of beer, or 355 Audi R8 V10s. Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Global Warming, Media | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Toothless watchdog lets its Standards slip

Posted on December 31, 2016 by John Gibbons

{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 nearly 80,000 hectares of boglands right across the country, increased flooding in the Shannon basin and polluted a lot of the waterways. Oh, and we get bunged well over a hundred million quid a year to keep three hopelessly inefficient peat-burning stations open; the dogs in the street know it’s the most expensive JobBridge scheme in the country. People are starting to wise up to climate change as well, and, to be honest, we’re a disaster area on that front too. Jesus, even some of the politicians have noticed. It turns out that simply draining bogs turns them from carbon sinks into carbon pumps. And as for the biodiversity, well, let’s just say, once our machines have ripped up a bog, it looks like a scene from Apocalypse Now. Total dead zone, nothing much bigger than an ant survives peat harvesting. Nada. Zip”.

Agency Suit: “Guys, guys, guys. Take it easy! For starters, how many people have ever been out on a Bord Na Mona bog – or a living bog, for that matter? Not many, right? So, they haven’t a clue what happens out here. How many know or care about carbon sinks and climate whatsit? Right again. Ladies and gents, welcome to 2016. The truth, or the post-truth, if you prefer, is precisely what we tell them. And as for the media, no problemo. We’ll organise to bus a few of them down from RTE, the Times, Indo etc. and give them the “conservation tour”, you know the one, where we do the touchy-feely talk about hares and sphagnum moss and restoration, the standard PR drill. We can bring in some friendly conservation types to give the gig a bit of cred, then just sit back and wait for the positive coverage. No problemo. Fish in a barrel”. Continue reading →

Posted in Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Irish Focus, Media, Sustainability | Tagged , , , | 18 Comments

Nine years later, and deeper in debt

Posted on December 5, 2016 by John Gibbons

It’s nine years to the week since my first posting on ThinkorSwim went live – on the last day of November 2007. It was, in many ways, a different world. The mood was radically different too. For starters, the Greens were in government, holding both the Environment and Energy & Communications portfolios. The needle was moving alright; you couldn’t quite see it but you could sense the palpable energy for change.

While not exactly mainstream, green was certainly in vogue. The IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report had been delivered earlier that year in a blaze of overwhelmingly positive publicity. The huge success of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” a year earlier seemed to have struck a real chord with public and media alike. And the dismal failure of the Copenhagen Summit and the Climategate hoax were still two years in the future.

I kept a scrapbook that year of newspaper clippings, mostly from the Irish Times and Sunday Tribune, on climate-related coverage, and by late November, it was bulging. Expert contributors included the late great Dr Brendan McWilliams and of course the indefatigable Prof John Sweeney. The overall editorial tone was, viewed in hindsight, surprisingly serious and business-like. The contrarians and outright deniers were then rarely seen. They were, as it transpired, lying low as the prevailing tide swept a stream of positive coverage along. Continue reading →

Posted in Biodiversity, Global Warming, Irish Focus, Sustainability | Tagged , , , , | 17 Comments

A new age of endarkenment draws ever closer

Posted on November 21, 2016 by John Gibbons

Like millions of people all over the world, I’ve spent the last almost two weeks in a state of shock and disbelief. I had sat up with friends late on the evening of Tuesday November 8th into the early hours of the following morning. It started well enough. Preliminary polling numbers had Clinton ahead in both Ohio and Florida. Clinton winning either of these would seal off any possible path to victory for Trump, the TV pundits opined reassuringly.

As it transpired, and rather like the visit of Mr and Mrs Lincoln to the Ford’s Theatre in April 1865, this night too was not to end well. I crashed into an agitated, dreamless sleep sometime around 6.30am on Wednesday, and on waking some three hours later, for a few blessed moments my addled brain actually fooled me into thinking I had imagined the whole wretched event.

No such luck. As the Nightmare-Elect unveiled his chorus of bigots, crooks, crypto-fascists and religious zealots to stuff into the critical positions in his new administration, the feeling of dread was all-encompassing. I sat down more than once to write up a blog post on how I felt this would play out, but abandoned each effort. Continue reading →

Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Psychology, Sceptics | 3 Comments