Author Archives: John Gibbons
He hasn’t gone away, you know
Regular visitors to ThinkOrSwim may have been wondering in recent months if I’ve finally gotten sense and packed it in, some 17 years and many hundreds of posts later, as the blog ground to a near halt throughout 2024. For … Continue reading
No good deed goes unpunished as Greens eviscerated
The Greens went into a three-way coalition as the junior partner in 2020 and have, by any reasonable measure, overperformed in terms of bending the national political agenda towards meaningful climate action. Of course, mistakes were made and opportunities missed … Continue reading
Posted in Irish Focus, Media, Politics
Tagged Election 2024, Green Party, Holly Cairns, Roderic O’Gorman
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Rain in Spain a harbinger of ever more climate pain
The horrifying floods that killed over 200 people in the Valencia region of Spain dominated the headlines in October 2024, but as I explained in a piece at the time for TheJournal.ie, these were far from isolated incidents. They are … Continue reading
Posted in Extreme weather, Global Warming, Just Stop Oil
Tagged flooding, Friederike Otto, Spain, TheJournal.ie, Valencia, World Weather Attribution
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Armed conflict also means going to war on nature
By any standards, 2024 was a grim year for armed conflict worldwide. At the time I filed this piece in the Irish Times in February of that year, the Russian invasion of Ukraine was bogged down in a bloody stalemate, … Continue reading
Another year for the record books?
I filed this piece, a combined review of 2023 and preview of 2024 on the climate and wider environmental front for the Irish Examiner just before the holidays and it ran in early January. And if I sound like a … Continue reading
Posted in Energy, Extreme weather, Global Warming, Politics, Sustainability
Tagged COP28, flooding, Libya, Midleton, Storm Babet, World Weather Attribution
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Winning slowly still means we’re losing
I filed my final Irish Examiner report on the Cop28 conference as it came to an end in Dubai. Next stop: Cop28 in Azerbaijan in November 2024 another petro-state, and yes, this event will also be presided over by a senior … Continue reading
Posted in Energy, Global Warming
Tagged AMOC, CCAC, COP28, Eamon Ryan, Marie Donnelly, Sultan Al Jaber, Tipping points
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Seriously, why not just use a rake?
Have to admit that this one has long been a personal bugbear: the petrol leaf-blower. These are the proverbial solution to which there is no known problem, yet they are now so commonplace as to be unremarkable. I filed this … Continue reading
Posted in Energy, Global Warming, Pollution, Sustainability
Tagged air pollution, gardening, Irish Examiner, leaf blower
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Do as I say, just not as I do
While it’s easy to finger-wag and point to the failures of others on achieving climate targets, how does Ireland stack up in terms of delivering on its own legally-binging commitments? In short, not very well, as I explained in this … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture, Global Warming, Politics, Sustainability
Tagged Charlie McConalogue, COP28, Dubai, Eamon Ryan, EPA, Global Meat Alliance, Livestock, Mary Robinson, Sinn Fein
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Taking the man in charge down a peg or two
The Cop28 conference got off to an eventful start in Dubai, with our own former president grabbing international headlines in her forthright exchanges with the new president of Cop, as I reported in the Irish Examiner in early December. IT … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture, Irish Focus
Tagged Charlie McConalogue, COP28, Dubai, Leo Varadkar, Mary Robinson, Sultan Al Jaber, UAE
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No quick climate techno-fixes at Cop28
November each year sees the annual gathering of the Conference Of the Parties, or Cop, to discuss and agree steps at Intergovernmental level to address climate change. This year’s set piece conference, Cop28, took place in the oil-rich state of … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Politics, Sustainability
Tagged COP28, Dubai, IPCC, Livestock, Paris Agreement, Sultan Al Jaber
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An ill wind that blows no good
Cast your mind forward two decades and into the 2040s, what might Ireland be like by then? Let’s just hope it’s nothing at all like the hellscape vividly painted in Irish author Daniel Mooney’s new novel, which I reviewed for … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Media, Psychology
Tagged Business Post, Cli fi, Daniel Mooney
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What economists get wrong about climate
Whether or not you believe that the dangerously foolish advice issued by climate economists will in fact kill billions of people this century, there is little doubt that we have been poorly served and grievously misled on the true costs … Continue reading
Posted in Economics, Global Warming, Irish Focus, Sceptics
Tagged Cormac Lucey, DICE, economics, Friederike Otto, Joseph Stiglitz, Panama Canal, Richard Tol, Steve Keen, William Nordhaus
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Mitigation, adaptation – or suffering
Years and decades of dithering, denial and inaction mean that the remaining options open to humanity grow more limited and more unpalatable by the day. I explained in this Irish Examiner piece in late October the crucial differences between climate … Continue reading
Posted in Energy, Extreme weather, Global Warming
Tagged adaptation, mitigation, West Antarctic, World Weather Attribution
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Climate impacts hitting home
The below piece ran as full pages in the Irish Mirror and Irish Daily Star in late October, to mark the UN’s International Day Against Climate Change. IT IS ALMOST certain that 2023 will be the hottest year globally since … Continue reading
Posted in Extreme weather, Global Warming, Irish Focus, Sustainability
Tagged flooding, Irish Mirror, Storm Babet
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Nature holds key to tackling flood risks
Flooding remains Ireland’s top climate vulnerability, and it once again came home to bite in county Cork in October 2023 when the town of Midleton and some surrounding areas were inundated, with millions of euros in damages, but thankfully, no … Continue reading
Posted in Extreme weather, Global Warming, Irish Focus, Sustainability
Tagged Climate Action Plan, Eamon Ryan, flooding, Midleton, OPW, Pickering
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