Category Archives: Irish Focus
Here’s to you, Mrs Robinson
It has been a bruising couple of days for the image of politics in Ireland. Yesterday morning, of course, we had a tired-and-emotional performance on RTE radio by Taoiseach Brian Cowen. A few hours earlier, junior minister Conor Lenihan had … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Media
71 Comments
Six degrees to annihilation
Below is a news feature as appears on page 14 of this weekend’s Sunday Tribune. Given that global emissions are and will continue to run at or perhaps beyond the IPCC’s ‘worst-case’ (A1F1) scenario, I felt it useful to try … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Irish Focus, Sustainability
42 Comments
A safer future? Don’t bank on it
“Disaster myopia” was a new phrase to enter the lexicon of Irish political life this week. This condition manifests itself in an “increasing tendency to discount the probability of a disaster occurring, the longer the interval of time that has elapsed … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Sustainability
26 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
A burning question
Fair play to Duncan Stewart. He was in combative form on Saturday’s Marian Finucane Show on RTE radio. The subject of his interview was the one hour documentary film special, ‘A Burning Question’, which airs this Tuesday (29th) at 10.10pm … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Media, Sceptics
Tagged climate, collapse, Duncan Stewart, hoax, Media, sceptics
12 Comments
Sunday Times shows its hand. Again.
Last April, I gave a lecture to the Met Society of Ireland in Glasnevin. A Sunday Times reporter was in the audience, though she did not make herself known to me, ask any questions or attempt to speak to me … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Media, Sceptics
Tagged Arctic, climate change, IPCC, Media, sceptics, Sunday Times
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Next stop: make up our mind time
In the last post Paddy Morris noted that we need a vision and implementation strategy along the lines of the Marshall Plan to shield us from the worst of the energy and climate crises. He’s right. Avoiding oil consumption and … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus
Tagged carbon emissions, Energy, metro north, transport
4 Comments
Ireland among most vulnerable to peak oil
HERE’S A conundrum: restarting global economic growth will, by definition, push up energy costs. Rising energy costs will in turn choke off that economic recovery, leading to a fall in energy prices. Try to restart growth again, and the brick … Continue reading
Posted in Energy, Global Warming, Irish Focus, Sustainability
Tagged Energy, Feasta, Forfas, Hirsch, Korowicz, Peak Oil
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Heavy weather for climate science
You would think that people whose business is the weather would be pretty informed about climate change. The reality is a great deal more complex. In the US, weathermen, for many the very public, trusted face of science, are split … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Media, Sceptics
Tagged forecast, John Coleman, Met Eireann, meteorology, Pat Kenny, sceptics, Sunday Times
7 Comments
Low future price for carbon puts us on the wrong route
Transport investment is particularly expensive. And two points are emerging in Ireland. First, some facilities are significantly overcapacity. Second, there isn’t enough capacity in areas set to grow as the price of carbon emissions rise: the failure to adequately price … Continue reading
Posted in Economics, Global Warming, Irish Focus
Tagged pricing, roads, Shadow price of carbon, transport emissions
3 Comments
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
1 Comment
Repeat after me: Weather is NOT climate!
Oh dear, here we go again. An editorial in the Irish Times yesterday was headlined ‘Global cooling’. It began: “So much for all of that guff about global warming! Are world leaders having the wrong debate? We are experiencing the … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Media, Sceptics
Tagged climate, Daily Express, deniers, Media, sceptics, snow, weather
17 Comments
Greens Flavor of the Day in Domestic Climate Policy
Amid the white noise surrounding last week’s budget, the government made a number of announcements with potentially profound and long-term implications for Irish climate policy. Much as the PD’s allegedly provided the sauce in the meaty Fianna Fail coalition sandwich, … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Sustainability
Tagged Brian Lenihan, carbon tax, Eamon Ryan, Greens
7 Comments
Latest recruit to Confederacy of Climate Dunces
One by one, they’re coming out of the woodwork. Occasional climate sceptic William Reville was the latest to re-surface, this time in his weekly Irish Times column. I read it with dismay; I genuinely have no problem with him having … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Media, Sceptics
Tagged climate, climate hoax, Climategate, CRU, Phil Jones, Reville, sceptics, UCC
33 Comments
Planning for the 21st Century: More Than Permission to Build
Planning as a concept has become synonymous with “permission to build” in this country. As in: “I got ‘the planning’ for the apartments on the flood-plain at the outer-rim of the commuter belt”. The original meaning – taking a strategic … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Sustainability
7 Comments
