Category Archives: Sustainability
Dire warnings falling on deaf ears
Late 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
Posted in Global Warming, Sustainability
Tagged Advertising, Antonio Guterres, AR6, Friederike Otto, IPCC
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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
Posted in Biodiversity, Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Irish Focus, Sustainability
Tagged Anja Murray, Business Post
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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
Posted in Energy, Global Warming, Irish Focus, Sustainability
Tagged aviation, Biofuels, Eamon Ryan, T&E
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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
Posted in Global Warming, Sustainability
Tagged Brexit, Business Post, cycling, Desmog, Oxford
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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
Posted in Energy, Global Warming, Sustainability
Tagged Bernard Looney, BP, David Horgan, Shell, Texaco, Valero
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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
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
Posted in Energy, Global Warming, Sustainability
Tagged climate denial, Exxon Mobil, Shell, Texaco
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Bracing for the coming climate refugee crisis
The millions of people displaced by wars and conflict in the 20th century and in the early part of this century are likely to be eclipsed by a vast waves of forced migration in the decades ahead, as rising temperatures, … Continue reading
Ozone recovery offers sliver of optimism on climate action
Good news stories on the climate beat are few and far between, and offer occasional relief from the quickening drumbeat of bad news on the climate and biodiversity front. I didn’t have to be asked twice to file this piece … Continue reading
Posted in Arctic, Global Warming, Pollution, Sustainability
Tagged Montreal Protocol, ozone, WMO
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Step by step towards a lower carbon future
Here’s a piece that ran in the Irish Daily Star in the first week of January, my 10-point guide for those dipping a toe in the water of climate action in 2023. It’s not intended to be either definitive or … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Psychology, Sustainability
Tagged An Taisce, BirdWatch Ireland, Irish Wildlife Trust
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Cutting down on global deforestation
For as long as I can remember, we’ve been hearing about deforestation, usually expressed as an area of old-growth forest the size of x number of soccer pitches being lost per minute/hour. Globally, more than two billion hectares of forest … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity, Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Sustainability
Tagged Brazil, deforestation, IPCC, Livestock, Planetary boundaries, WWF
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Giving nature the legal right to exist
Mankind’s relationship with the rest of nature has been overwhelmingly predatory for centuries, with the natural world used as both a quarry from which to extract ‘resources’ and as a dump into which to eject our mountains of waste. The … Continue reading
Biosphere buckling under weight of human pressures
Rapid population growth has seen another billion humans added to world population in just the 11 years since 2011. In tandem with dramatic economic growth and accelerating climate change, these are placing unbearable pressures on the biosphere, foreshadowing a near … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture, Agriculture, Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Irish Focus, Sustainability
Tagged contraception, nitrogen, overpopulation
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Carbon offsetting a cynical cop-out on climate action
In the late Middle Ages, there was a roaring trade within the Catholic Church in the sale of indulgences, as handy way for the sinful to wipe the slate clean by purchasing redemption. The abuse of this system is often … Continue reading
A walk on the wild side in the Beara peninsula
Ever wonder what Ireland might look like in its primordial condition? One man set about not just finding out, but recreating this, in a remote corner of south-west Ireland. I filed this review of the book he has just written … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture, Biodiversity, Global Warming, Sustainability
Tagged Biodiversity, Business Post, Eoghan Daltun, rewilding
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