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...
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...
Is a social tipping point on climate within sight?
It is often said that nothing seems to happen for decades, then decades can happen within a matter of months or even weeks....
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...
All easy options are now off the table
Irish political leaders have an unfortunate habit of showing up at international climate conferences and delivering eloquent, impassioned speeches that are clearly not...
Bringing the climate emergency to book
When this blog first when live in late November 2007, the world was a quite different place. That year, global CO2 levels, as...
Tackling stubborn climate myths & misinformation
Despite the mountains of scientific evidence, as well as what we can see with our own eyes, myths and misinformation about climate change...
Risky business for insurers as climate crunch bites
As extreme weather ratchets ever upwards, it seems inevitable that more and more locations will become uninsurable over time, whether as a result...
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...
Silent killers of the biosphere revealed
I ran this article in the Irish Examiner in early October to mark and honour the 60th anniversary of the publication of ‘Silent Spring’...
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Cook Inlet gas pipeline leak is a hazard and must be repaired, feds say.
"The annual side-scan sonar or multi-beam echo-sounder survey, or both, that Hilcorp currently performs, do not provide sufficient information to determine whether there are...
The key role of forests in meeting climate targets requires science for credible mitigation
Figure 2 compares the historical LULUCF trend from our analysis with three other well-known global LULUCF data sets: (i) latest country reports to UNFCCC (refs 13,15,16,20); (ii) FAOSTAT...
Europe’s coal power is going up in smoke — fast.
The long goodbye for coal in Europe is accelerating as the cost of shifting to green energy plunges.
The most important business stories of the...
Glowing fossils: Fluorescence reveals color patterns of earliest scallops
UV light makes it possible to see intricate structures of fossils that are barely visible in normal daylight. This method has often been used...