If you sat down to design a more environmentally unfriendly product, you’d be hard pressed to come up with something worse than a patio heater. Ten years ago, these were relatively rare in Ireland, but with the upsurge of ‘decklanders’ aspiring to virtually year-round al fresco dining, they are now commonplace up and down the country. Continue reading
The heat is on for patio burners
Posted in Energy, Global Warming, Irish Focus, Sustainability
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All-party consensus on climate – what are the odds?
Earlier this evening representatives of all six major Irish political parties joined a panel discussion entitled ‘Three percent a year: How will Ireland cut emissions?’. The meeting, chaired by environmental broadcaster Duncan Stewart, was hosted by Cultivate in Dublin’s Temple Bar and organised by ‘People Against Climate Change.’
As the chairman set out vividly to the full house, while Ireland is on paper making all the right noises on emissions control, and is now mandated by the EU to achieve 20% emissions cuts by 2020, the reality is the exact opposite. Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Sustainability
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Is the Lucky Country’s luck running out?
Australia is, and has been for generations, a paradoxical place. Though it’s more than ten thousand miles and 12 time zones from England, it has still looked longingly over its shoulder to the ‘Mother ship’, many decades after the British Empire has faded away.
Maybe it’s when you’re so far away that you experience such a desperate need to belong; witness the Union Jack displayed on both the Australian and New Zealand flags. And Queen Elizabeth is Head of State! Australia has long been known as the Lucky Country; rich in both coal and minerals, its subterranean wealth has meant prosperity for many Australians. Continue reading
Posted in Energy, Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Sustainability
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The health impacts of climate change revealed
For many people in Ireland, the state of our health system is of far greater concern than something as abstract as climate change and global warming. After all, it’s a ‘real’ issue as to whether or not your elderly relative or sick child can actually get a bed in hospital if and when they need it. Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Sustainability
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A Giant step backwards
It’s not the easiest place on the island to locate, and when you do eventually get there, your first impression may be to wonder what all the fuss is about. But as you head on foot from the visitor area to the place itself, the Giant’s Causeway in County Antrim, you’ll soon see why it has been designated a World Heritage site. Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Irish Focus, Sustainability
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A greener Apple
Computers, monitors and associated gizmos are no friends of the environment. Frequent manufacturer upgrades lead to constant pressure on users to trade up to the ‘latest and greatest’ model. In some cases, you actually have little choice but to upgrade, as much new software will only run on the newer machines.
What’s worse, all manner of toxic materials, including Brominated Fire Retardants (BFRs), Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC), mercury, arsenic and lead are liberally used in manufacturing of computer equipment. Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Sustainability
Tagged Apple, arsenic, chemicals, environment, Greenpeace, laptop, PVC
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Wising up to the reality of biofuels
The EU is next week due to propose a ban on imports of many kinds of biofuels. If approved by European governments, the law would prohibit importing fuels made from crops grown on certain kinds of land – including grasslands, forests or wetlands into Europe.
The draft law would also demand that biofuels used in the EU deliver “a minimum level of greenhouse gas savings”. Biofuels, you may recall, are the great Green Hope, promising the dream of guilt-free motoring to the worried middle classes. Continue reading
Posted in Energy, Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Sustainability
Tagged Biofuels, carbon, climate, Duncan Stewart
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But they said it couldn’t happen…
When you follow climate issues, prepare to be confronted with bad news, lots of it. But no matter how bad things seem to be getting, at least some things are reassuringly constant.
Things like Antarctica. This frozen continent is so massive that it creates its own weather, and is therefore our great bulwark against climate catastrophe. Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Sustainability
Tagged Antarctic, global warming, Greenland, ice melt, sea level rise
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Flights of fancy on Irish emissions control
“The recent conference in Bali gave us hope that we can construct an effective, concerted response (to climate change) for nothing less will guarantee the safe future of all our children and our earth”.
That’s how President Mary McAleese addressed a gathering of the diplomatic corps from more than 50 countries in the Aras yesterday.She went on to describe climate change as a ‘contemporary and frightening phenomenon’ that demanded responsibility at every level. And who could disagree? Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Sustainability
Tagged air travel, carbon, emissions, Kyoto, Sustainability, transport
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Who’s the real enemy in the nuclear war?
Four years ago, in January 2004, what was then a startling claim was made by the UK Government’s chief scientific adviser. Climate change was a far greater threat to the world than international terrorism, according to Sir David King.
He went on to single out the US for failing to tackle greenhouse gas emissions. Given King’s role as Tony Blair’s right hand man, you can see how this story rattled the wires. This, remember, was just a couple of years after 9/11 and only months after US tanks had rolled into Bagdhad in search of those non-existent WMDs. Continue reading
Posted in Energy, Global Warming, Irish Focus, Nuclear, Sustainability
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11th Hour – or 12th?
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
Posted in Global Warming, Sustainability
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Driving off the deep end
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
Posted in Global Warming, Sustainability
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Media and climate – part of the solution, or the problem?
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
Posted in Global Warming, Sustainability
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World’s worst climate vandal enters his final year
“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
Posted in Global Warming, Sustainability
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Welcome to the Anthropocene
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
Posted in Global Warming, Sustainability
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