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 star is joining in. Next month sees the launch of ‘The 11th Hour’, a new documentary film produced and narrated by a Hollywood A Lister, Leonardo DiCaprio. It is in many respects the natural heir to Gore’s scary but optimistic film. 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 of years. Luxury car maker, Porsche has just announced that it’s bringing out a hybrid version of its Panamera 4-door GT. Don’t all rush at once to place orders, as it won’t ship for at least another two years. 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’. Continue reading →

“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 president who caused the world to lose eight years in getting started with serious efforts to save the planet and the inhabitants thereof from the deadly consequences of global warming”. 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 the era of man. 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 his order for a Toyota Prius, and is happy to be shortly retiring his thirsty current model. 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 the scheduled final destination on the Bali roadmap.

Getting a deal signed here was always going to be hugely problematic. When the world’s superpower sets its face against an issue, as the Bush administration has so firmly done on climate change, in the teeth of overwhelming evidence, dramatic breakthroughs are never on the cards. 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 actual targets, in other words, their clear objective has been to sink the summit in a sea of fudge. 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 stick of Australia’s outrageous climate denial over the last 11 years beat Howard not just from high office, he even lost his own seat. Guess you can’t fool all the people all the time. Continue reading →