Category Archives: Biodiversity
Mental blocks contribute to our inaction on climate change
My article, as it appeared in yesterday’s Irish Times. There’s a busy comments section attached, with the usual handful of hard chaws piling in to an otherwise productive discussion… IT’S REASSURING to imagine we are, by and large, rational beings … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity, Global Warming, Psychology
7 Comments
It’s a race to the bottom – we’re winning as the oceans die
To me, nothing says summer down-time quite like finding a shady spot on a warm day and settling in for a great read. This year, I had the good fortune of picking two exceptional books – ‘The Ocean of Life‘ … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity, Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Media, Sustainability
Tagged Callum Roberts, extinction, marine
4 Comments
Doom with a view? Trap tightens on our diminishing prospects
In the current issue of ‘Village’ magazine, editor Michael Smith has explored at length and in some depth the array of formidable challenges that humanity (and all other species on Earth) face in the years and decades ahead. It’s a … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity, Energy, Global Warming, Irish Focus, Sustainability
Tagged doomer, Michael Smith, Sustainability, Village
9 Comments
To save lives, we must first abandon hope
Below, my article, as it appears in the latest edition of ‘Village’ magazine: Is it a biscuit? Or is it a bar? Does the convergence of a range of environmental, energy and resource crises compound a problem – or a … Continue reading
A warning from history
It’s almost 20 years since the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992. This led to the ‘Rio Declaration’ and its 27 Principles, signed up to by the nations of the world amid much pomp and posturing. Later that year, a group comprising … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity, Global Warming, Sustainability
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Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will
Any lingering sense, however slight, that humanity could shake itself from its collective somnambulation in time to arrest the coming twin ecological and resource catastrophes was finally snuffed out this month in Durban. Here, the nations of the world in … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity, Economics, Energy, Global Warming, Media
Tagged Canada, Chris Martenson, Crash Course, David Korowicz, Durban, Feasta, Kyoto, Tar Sands, Vesuvius
11 Comments
Survival of the fairest?
Greed, in the immortal words of Gordon Gekko from the movie Wall Street, is good. Or, as we were told over and over again in this country during the heady days of the Bubble, we just needed to free our … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity, Economics, Global Warming, Psychology, Sustainability
Tagged economics, hubris, inequality, New York Times, wealth
8 Comments
The decline and fall of the Human Empire
Below is my article, as it appears over four pages in the current edition of ‘Village’ magazine: Doomsday cults are as old as human civilisation. The Bible is a rich sourcebook for ‘End Times’ enthusiasts, who pore over Iron Age … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity, Economics, Energy, Global Warming, Irish Focus, Media, Sustainability
Tagged Armageddon, CO2, Peak Oil, Village
13 Comments
Tipping the Scales towards Sustainability
The Stockholm Memorandum – 3rd Nobel Laureate Symposium* on Global Sustainability, Stockholm, Sweden, 16-19 May 2011 I. Mind-shift for a Great Transformation The Earth system is complex. There are many aspects that we do not yet understand. However, we are … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity, Global Warming, Sustainability
5 Comments
2084: An Oral History of the Great Warming
“Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future”, the famous Danish physicist Niels Bohr once quipped, only half in jest. Scientists, as we know, are a dry lot, preferring to leave the purple prose to the scribes while they pore … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity, Global Warming, Sceptics, Sustainability
21 Comments
Crutzen’s tough medicine for a sick planet
Arguably one of the most significant figures of the last two centuries was in Dublin last night, where he presented a lecture in TCD, organised by the Royal Irish Academy. The man in question is Prof Paul Crutzen, the brilliant … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity, Global Warming, Habitat/Species
Tagged Anthropocene, CFCs, Crutzen, GHGs, ozone
12 Comments
Ming shows our bogs no mercy
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it”. So wrote novelist Upton Sinclair, and boy, did he have a clear understanding of human nature. Last Thursday’ PrimeTime on RTE … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity, Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Irish Focus, Sustainability
8 Comments
Can industrial civilisation and the biosphere both be saved?
Even when you don’t agree with him, Monbiot remains essential reading. Whether you regard the Dark Mountain Project as a bunch of dystopian doomers, or simply realists probably depends on how you feel about peak oil (in the shorter term) … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity, Global Warming, Sustainability
Tagged Energy, Monbiot, Oil, palm oil, Peak Oil, Sustainability
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Ireland’s looming bird crisis
Back in 2002, the parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity set a target of halting biodiversity loss by 2010. It is now 2010, the declared UN Year of Biodiversity, and although some endangered species have been saved, notably … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity, Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Irish Focus, Sustainability
Tagged birds, egret, extinction, habitat, habitat loss
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Where have all the fish gone? (we ate them)
The world’s oceans are in deep, deep trouble. Industrialised fishing, in full swing since around 1950, has in essence waged a war against the marine ecosystem. And the bad news is: we’re winning. Species extinctions, population crashes and vast disruption … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity, Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Media, Sustainability
Tagged Achim Steiner, collapse, extinction, fishing, global warming, marine, maritime, oceans, overfishing, population, sharks, species loss, Sustainability, UN, UNEP
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