Author Archives: John Gibbons

About John Gibbons

ThinkOrSwim is a blog by journalist John Gibbons focusing on the inter-related crises involving climate change, sustainability, resource depletion, energy and biodiversity loss

There’s no climate show like a Joe Show

Whatever it may or may not have achieved politically, US president Joe Biden clearly hugely enjoyed his trip to Ireland in April. Though not a political groupie, I still found myself on the road to Westport to attend the last … Continue reading

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Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone

They say that, given half a chance, most people would instinctively love and cherish nature. If that’s the case, then something must have gone seriously awry in Ireland in recent decades, given our collective neglect of our natural heritage, along … Continue reading

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Natural-born killers wreak ecological havoc

According to the French Novelist, Victor Hugo, “God has made the cat to give man the pleasure of caressing the tiger.” It’s an apt description of these scaled-down apex predators. The fearsome toll they take on wildlife may come as a … Continue reading

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When all hope is lost, keep fighting

On the one hand, it’s simply impossible to overstate just how dire the climate and biodiversity emergency really is, and in truth, most people either have no idea, or else are in absolute denial. So, is it already Game Over? … Continue reading

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Progress through technology? Nein, danke

Every country has its deeply entrenched lobby group, and in the case of Germany, its massive motor industry pulls the political strings, exercising a negative influence on policy throughout the EU. Ever wonder why European regulations on emissions from cars … Continue reading

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Dire warnings falling on deaf ears

March saw the launch of the IPCC’s AR6 Synthesis Report, which brings together the three main strands, as well as other IPCC special reports, into a unified, albeit hefty, document. Despite its quite shocking conclusions, it made barely a ripple in … Continue reading

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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

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Feeding aircraft while people go hungry

As the squeeze on heavy users of fossil fuels to be seen to be cleaning up their act intensifies, there is now a flurry of activity especially from the aviation sector behind promoting “renewable” fuels such as biofuels and synthetic … Continue reading

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Bringing airborne plastic pollution down to earth

What goes up, must eventually come down again, and so it is with helium balloons, a pernicious form of pollution that rarely receives the critical attention it warrants. One happy side-effect of writing the below piece for the Irish Examiner … Continue reading

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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

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Violent words beget violent actions

By and large, Ireland is a tolerant country, spared the worst excesses of polarisation that have blighted post-Brexit Britain and the US after Trump. There has, however, been a creeping slide towards ugly extremism in the last couple of years, … Continue reading

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Oil giants struggle to wash blood off their hands

It may be making more money than ever, but the fossil fuel industry is rapidly losing whatever semblance of social licence it could still cling to. And despite the high salaries on offer, more and more young people are turning … Continue reading

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Watch out for quick-fix climate techno solutions

Decades of abject failure to curb carbon emissions has left us in a perilous situation as global climate destabilisation begins to bite in earnest. Numerous techno-fixes are now being seriously explored, backed by some big names as well as attracting … Continue reading

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There’s no vaccine for the greenhouse effect

The future is an Undiscovered Country. Things are done differently there. For those who follow the science of the climate and ecological crisis, it’s also an overwhelmingly scary place. Climate fiction, or cli-fi, is our best available vehicle with which … Continue reading

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Oh! What a Lovely War for fossil fuel profiteers

While 2022 may have been the year when full-scale war returned to Europe for the first time since 1945, with massive spikes in energy prices impacting tens of millions of households, it was also a great year for fossil fuel … Continue reading

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