Tag Archives: EPA
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
Posted in Agriculture, Economics, Energy, Global Warming, Irish Focus, Just Stop Oil
Tagged Business Post, CCAC, COP27, EPA, heatwave, Sinn Fein, World Weather Attribution
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Is a social tipping point on climate within sight?
It is often said that nothing seems to happen for decades, then decades can happen within a matter of months or even weeks. Despite the overall pessimism, there is growing evidence that we are approaching societal inflection points that may … Continue reading
Doffing the ministerial cap to the lobbyists
I contributed the below piece to The Journal in late July by way of a commentary on the ongoing battle by Ireland’s agri-industrial lobby to dodge having to play its fair share in meeting Ireland’s emissions reductions standards. What’s most … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture, Global Warming
Tagged Charlie McConalogue, Eamon Ryan, EPA, IFA, methane, New Zealand, Origin Green
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Do we care enough about nature to bother saving it?
This piece ran in the Business Post in early May, inspired at least in part by the devastating fires that swept many of Ireland’s uplands yet again this Spring, an annual ritual, it seems, that comes around with depressing regularity, … Continue reading
Green in name, but not in nature
Despite huge ongoing investment of both political capital and marketing euros in selling the message that Irish agriculture is green, climate-friendly and sustainable, it still keeps on running into the knotty problem that this simply isn’t the case. Recent comments … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture, Biodiversity, Global Warming, Irish Focus, Sustainability
Tagged agriculture, Bord Bia, EPA, Irish Wildlife Trust, Origin Green
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Epic emissions targets failure: it’s the politics, stupid
Below, an article I ran in a well-known satirical publication in mid-June: FOR YEARS, whiny environmental types have been warning repeatedly that the Irish state is treating its legally binding international obligations to cut our carbon emissions as a bit … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture, Global Warming, Irish Focus
Tagged Bord Bia, Denis Naughten, EPA, IBEC, Scotland
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‘I have fed – and starved – species greater than you’
Back in the bleak 1980s, some 500 Irish river locations boasted pure, clean water. What of today’s modern, sustainable and super-green Ireland? Now, a mere 21 river locations remain of very high quality, according to the EPA’s newly published Water … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Irish Focus
Tagged Bord Bia, EPA, Origin Green, water quality
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Right here, right now. Climate change impacts get real
Below, the original version of my article, which ran in the Irish Times last week, including some links: THE US National Weather Service is not noted for making alarmist pronouncements. So, when it earlier this week described Hurricane Harvey as “unprecedented … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus
Tagged Conor Murphy, Donegal, EPA, flooding, Harvey, IPCC, Kieran Hickey, OPW
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Engineer Trump leads Human race to the bottom
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 … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Media, Psychology, Sceptics
Tagged EPA, GOP, Obamacare, Putin, Trump
10 Comments
How to demolish a denier: scientist fillets Pat Kenny
Prof Richard Somerville of the University of California is one of the world’s top climate experts. A lead author for the IPCC’s AR4, he is research professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. He is also a big fan of … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Media, Sceptics
Tagged EPA, Pat Kenny, Richard Somerville
27 Comments
Now we’re getting somewhere
Earlier today, at a very well attended press conference in Leinster House, the all-party Oireachtas Committee on Climate Change and Energy released their report, ‘The case for a climate change law’. Committee rapporteur, Liz McManus likened the position we now … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Media, Sustainability
Tagged Climate law, EPA, ESRI, Labour, Liz McManus, Media, Rachel English, radio, Richard Tol, RTE, Sunday Times
29 Comments
Under pressure
Our closest living relatives on this planet are the 625 species of primates. We share over 98% of our DNA with them, so the similarities are more than skin deep. In the whole of the turbulent 20th century, not a … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Irish Focus, Sustainability
Tagged apes, EPA, extinction, land use, primates, Richard Leakey, vegetation, Wolfgang Lucht
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