Category Archives: Sustainability
Your time is precious: spend it wisely
While the big ticket changes to move the dial on the climate crisis are generally beyond the reach of most people, that doesn’t mean there is nothing we can do. How we choose to spend our time, including our choices … Continue reading
The climate future? It’s already here
While this article was published in the Business Post in early August, it was already patently clear that 2023 was going to be the hottest year in recorded history, and so it has transpired. I set out the risks as … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Psychology, Sustainability
Tagged AMOC, Business Post, Gaia, James Hansen, James Lovelock, Stefan Rahmstorf
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If they work hard, if they behave
Here’s a piece I chipped in to Village magazine during the summer on the hopes and fears that prospective new parents must navigate when considering taking on the awesome responsibility of bringing a new life into our climate-wracked, overheating world. … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Irish Focus, Psychology, Sustainability
Tagged Morgan Stanley, NOAA, Village Magazine, WMO
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To hold on, sometimes you have to simply let go
When facing seemingly impossible odds, we are sometimes capable of rising to the challenge, no matter how unpromising the situation, as I explored in this piece in the Irish Examiner at the end of June. On the other hand, value … Continue reading
Rationing our way to a rational aviation policy
To see the enthusiasm with which politicians have been co-opted to help Dublin Airport Authority to overturn the planning permissions that govern its operation in order to facilitate ever more flying is indicative of just how much of a vote-getter … Continue reading
Posted in Energy, Global Warming, Irish Focus, Pollution, Sustainability
Tagged aviation, DAA, Irish Examiner, Ryanair
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Laying waste to Europe in pursuit of short-term profits
The bitter ongoing battle this summer to get the crucial Nature Restoration Law enacted and the dirty tricks campaign orchestrated by the EPP on behalf of agri-industrial lobbyists is not yet over, but below, I reported for the Irish Examiner … Continue reading
We’ll miss them when they’re gone
The insect kingdom, sometimes described as the “tiny empires that rule the world” is now facing its gravest threat in its 400 million-year reign, with human impacts taking a devastating toll, as I explored in this piece for TheJournal.ie in … Continue reading
Good ancestors demand a Ministry for The Future
While the title for this piece was borrowed from the Kim Stanley Robinson cli-fi classic novel, I wanted to explore our paradoxical relationship with the future and how we struggle to engage in intergenerational stewardship to take into account the … Continue reading
Posted in Economics, Global Warming, Politics, Sustainability
Tagged Business Post, Citizens Assembly, Nature Restoration Law, Paul Hawken, Sweden
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When nature is the enemy, whose side are you really on?
The iron grip of agri PLCs and the farm lobbyists who work on their behalf on the EU’s agriculture policy was seen yet again in the outright rejection of modest proposals to give nature restoration a chance amid an ever-deepening … Continue reading
Between the AMOC and the deep blue sea
The Environmental Protection Agency hosted a public meeting as part of their ongoing series on climate change in the Round Room at Dublin’s Mansion House in late April, chaired by Ella McSweeney. I met the guest speaker, Prof Stefan Rahmstorf … Continue reading
Posted in Arctic, Global Warming, Sustainability
Tagged AMOC, Antarctic, EPA, Stefan Rahmstorf
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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
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 … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity, Habitat/Species, Irish Focus, Sustainability
Tagged cats, IUCN, Red List
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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
Posted in Energy, Global Warming, Sustainability
Tagged Dieselgate, EVs, Germany, motor industry, T&E, Tesla
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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 … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Sustainability
Tagged Advertising, Antonio Guterres, AR6, Friederike Otto, IPCC
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