Tag Archives: IPCC
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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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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Turning climate protest into an art form
An ingenious protest involving soup and a famous painting threw the global spotlight on the climate emergency in a way that a thousand scientific articles, petitions and marches seemed to have failed to do. I was asked by TheJournal.ie for … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Just Stop Oil, Media, Protest
Tagged Andreas Malm, Antonio Guterres, IPCC, Just Stop Oil, Living Planet Report, Scientist Rebellion, Shell
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Can we reimagine a better, safer world?
It sometimes feels like our collective inability to respond to the global climate and ecological emergency is first and foremost a failure of imagination. We are conditioned to see the world the way it is, and can easily assume there … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture, Economics, Energy, Global Warming, Irish Focus, Sustainability
Tagged Antonio Guterres, food security, IPCC, Irish Examiner, Ukraine
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The ecological point of no return draws ever closer
The first invasion of a sovereign European state since the second world war got underway on February 24th with the Russian assault into Ukraine. Just four days later, the IPCC Working Group 2 report, “Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability” … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity, Global Warming, Sustainability
Tagged Antonio Guterres, extinction, IPCC, Moneypoint
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No time to lose as climate clock approaches midnight
This article was published in the Irish Times in late October, just days before the start of the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow. AHEAD OF the upcoming UN’s COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, many countries are now revising their nationally … Continue reading
Posted in Arctic, Global Warming, Irish Focus, Sustainability
Tagged Chatham House, COP26, IPCC, Peter Thorne
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Latest chapter in one man’s journey into climate obscurity
This piece ran in Village magazine in mid-October, tracking the latest moves by Ireland’s climate denier-in-chief in his continuing mission to spread doubt on the science of climate change and the help stymie effective climate action. OVER FOUR decades ago, … Continue reading
Which part of ‘Code Red’ don’t we understand?
The publication of the first working group report (physical sciences) of the IPCC’s keenly awaited AR6 report in mid-August came against the backdrop months of genuinely alarming extreme weather events across multiple continents, from killer floods in Europe and China … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture, Global Warming, Irish Focus
Tagged AR6, Business Post, extreme weather, IPCC, wildfires
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Climate emergency ‘widespread, rapid and intensifying’
I was asked by TheJournal.ie to write a reaction piece to mark the release of the first part of the IPCC’s new climate report in early August. I also recorded an Explainer Podcast with TheJournal.ie later in August. JUST HOW … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Irish Focus
Tagged heatwave, IPCC, TheJournal.ie, wildfires
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Feeling the heat, then seeing the light
The story of RTÉ’s Damascene conversion on climate coverage has continued to gather pace. Below is a piece I wrote for the Business Post in early August explaining the background and context. AS THE STATE broadcaster, RTÉ occupies a special … Continue reading
The heat is on: climate emergency deepens
After the savage heatwaves that swept the northern hemisphere in June and continuing into July, I was asked by TheJournal.ie to contribute a piece putting these ominous events into context. Here’s what I wrote: “WORDS CANNOT DESCRIBE this historic event”. That’s … Continue reading
Coronavirus an appetiser for what climate breakdown has in store
The piece below ran on Thejournal.ie in early May, and to my surprise, made quite an impact, with over 83,000 views, 142 online comments and thousands of tweets and reposts on social media. Thejournal.ie is now very much part of … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity, Global Warming, Habitat/Species, Pollution, Psychology, Sustainability
Tagged Coronavirus, Green Party, IPCC, pandemic, Paris Agreement, WMO
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2029 – A letter from the future
We live in consequential times. “What we do over the next 10 years will determine the future of humanity for the next 10,000 years”, is how former UK chief scientific advisor Prof David King put it recently. There is no … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Psychology, Sceptics, Sustainability
Tagged Arctic, heatwave, IPCC, Long Emergency, permafrost, Village Magazine
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A tale told by an idiot, full of sound & fury, signifying nothing
In many respects, 2018 has been another thoroughly dispiriting year on the climate and environment beat. The publication in October of the IPCC’s SR1.5 report extinguished any remote hope that the pace and severity of climate breakdown might be less … Continue reading
Posted in Global Warming, Irish Focus, Media
Tagged Gavin Schmidt, Greta Thunberg, IPCC, Irish Times, Peter Thorne, Ray Bates
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Long day’s journey into 1.5º
Let’s get this out of the way first. On climate change, things are worse, a lot worse, than most people have been led to believe. Limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial would require “rapid and far-reaching” transitions in land, … Continue reading
