Tag Archives: Business Post
To save our world, we must fall in love with nature
“In the end we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught”. These words were spoken at the 1968 General Assembly of the International Union for the Conservation … Continue reading
A 15-minute walk on the wild side
There is no idea too moderate or sensible that conspiracy theorists can’t tar as a Marxist plot to turn us all into slaves in some dystopian new world order. Well, at least that’s the impression you might have gotten in … Continue reading
Dialling up the global thermostat another notch in 2022
It sounds almost a cliché to say that last year was a year of weather extremes. After all, which year out of the last 20 hasn’t been? After all, according to the WMO, the past eight years have been the … Continue reading
Bringing the climate emergency to book
When this blog first when live in late November 2007, the world was a quite different place. That year, global CO2 levels, as recorded at Mauna Loa, had reached an all-time high of 384 parts per million (ppm). Since then, … Continue reading
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
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
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
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
Things are Looking Up as climate crunch hits funny bone
It will come as no surprise to regular ToS readers to learn that the biggest ‘story’ of the 21st century, or perhaps 66 million years of Earth history, is the rapidly unfolding climate emergency and simultaneous global mass extinction event, … Continue reading
We are Generation Incineration
This piece ran in the Business Post magazine in late August, as more and more media outlets rallied to engage with the climate emergency and its vast implications for all life on Earth, humans included. AT EXACTLY 1.18am, on June … Continue reading
Which part of ‘Code Red’ don’t we understand?
The publication of the first working group report (physical sciences) of the IPCC’s keenly awaited AR6 report in mid-August came against the backdrop months of genuinely alarming extreme weather events across multiple continents, from killer floods in Europe and China … Continue reading
Dangerous myth of infinite economic growth exposed
Regular ThinkOrSwim readers will know that your correspondent is not a noted fan of mainstream economics, or most of its practitioners, for that matter. They have, in my view, done untold damage in impeding societal and political understanding of and … Continue reading
Beyond denial and grief and towards solidarity on climate
This piece ran in the Business Post in late March as my take on the revised – and considerably improved – Climate Bill. Since it was written, it has become clear that the absolute maximum ambition the agri sector is … Continue reading
Investors running for cover as allure of fossil fuels fades
The below piece was published in the Business Post in late February. By my usual standards, this probably ranks as quite optimistic, in pitching the argument that fossil fuel, the world’s most dangerous industry, is in the process of losing … Continue reading
When scientific facts and corporate fiction collide
The article below ran in the Business Post in late January. Just days after the inauguration of a new US president, it seemed like an opportune time to explain to a wider audience how the blitz of malignant lies aimed at … Continue reading