Author Archives: John Gibbons
Can the farmer and the environmentalist really be friends?
The piece below ran in the Farming Independent in early September. It started out life as a rebuttal of a recent piece by a Findo columnist and dairy farmer, which did a lot of indignant huffing and puffing about an An … Continue reading
Overshooting ourselves in both feet
How much money have you got in your current account? What about your savings? Imagine if by now, you had already spent all your income for 2020, and you were forced to live on borrowings for the next four months. … Continue reading
SUV fad puts us into fast lane towards climate breakdown
I’ll admit to having never been a big fan of SUVs. It’s fine if you’re one of a tiny handful of people who actually need a 4×4 in your trade, but there seems little reason for regular folk to be … Continue reading
Ecocide: the greatest crime against humanity and nature
It is extraordinary that ecocide is not formally recognised and codified as a crime under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. There are surely few greater crimes than the deliberate destruction of entire ecosystems, in many cases leading directly … Continue reading
Sweden points way towards a lower carbon future
My debut contribution to The Business Post was published in early July on the paper’s Comment page. In the last year or two the Business Post has significantly upped its coverage and focus on environmental topics (reporter, Daniel Murray did … Continue reading
Better late than never for Irish political action on climate
My take on the Programme for Government and why I think it represents a real opportunity to break the decade-plus logjam on meaningful climate action was published in late June on Thejournal.ie THE BATTLE FOR the hearts and votes of … Continue reading
Ambitious climate programme agreed by Irish political parties
My analysis piece for DeSmog UK was published on June 17th, as the parties concluded negotiations on a new Programme for Government. Ironically, while receiving much positive coverage internationally in terms of the degree to which the PFG is seen … Continue reading
Long day’s journey into the ecological abyss
My review of Mark O’Connell’s ‘Notes from an Apocalypse’ was published on Cassandra Voices in May. It’s an intriguing, engaging and often hilarious read, leavened with plenty of graveyard humour. If, like me, you’ve been staring into the fast-approaching ecological … Continue reading
Coronavirus an appetiser for what climate breakdown has in store
The piece below ran on Thejournal.ie in early May, and to my surprise, made quite an impact, with over 83,000 views, 142 online comments and thousands of tweets and reposts on social media. Thejournal.ie is now very much part of … Continue reading
In climate emergency, BAU is the road to unmitigated ruin
In early May, my first post appeared on The Currency, a business-oriented subscriber-only website launched by journalists Tom Lyons and Ian Kehoe and specialising in in-depth reportage. It’s not where you might typically expect to find a fairly downbeat assessment … Continue reading
Approaching the Precipice
My review of ‘The Precipice’ by moral philosopher, Toby Ord appeared in The Irish Times on May 1st. It’s an intriguing exercise, with Ord estimating humanity at having a one-in-six chance of becoming extinct by the end of this century. … Continue reading
Earth Day – 50 years later, and deeper in ecological debt
This is piece ran on Cassandra Voices on April 22nd, the 50th anniversary of the inaugural Earth Day in 1970: FIFTY years ago today, more than twenty million people took to the streets in towns and cities across the U.S. … Continue reading
Shattering the illusion of control
Below, my piece for Greennews.ie, published on March 26th, just as the grim reality of the Coronavirus pandemic was finally hitting home in Ireland: ========== Right now, millions of people around the world are waking each day with a sensation … Continue reading
Climate change making a tough situation worse in sub-Saharan Africa
Though it genuinely feels like a couple of years, it is in fact only a number of weeks since I returned from a working trip to Zambia towards the end of February. The main purpose of the visit was to … Continue reading