Monthly Archives: January 2008
The heat is on for patio burners
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’ … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
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, … Continue reading
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, … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
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’.
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 … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading