February 28th, 2020 Last May, TCD and UCD were found cutting trees and hedges on their campuses during the closed period designed to protect nesting birds and other wildlife. Environmental lawyer Dr Andrew Jackson explains why we should all respect the closed period from 1 March to 31 August, and how we can help wildlife […]
February 4th, 2020 Much has been said recently about the need for unity across the wide spectrum of left politics in Ireland. In today’s evermore degraded environment and society, the rationale for close collaboration is clear. As the resident of the highest office in the land has recently stated: “The world needs to move away […]
January 28th, 2020 Energised as a party, as deputy Catherine Martin put it at the launch of the Green’s election campaign earlier this month, spirits were high that the green wave of the local and European elections would continue to crash against the Irish electorate in the brawl for the Dail, heralding in a new […]
January 27th, 2020 During the closing months of its tenure, the outgoing Government proposed a Bill that would have left an even more stinging environmental legacy for Fine Gael. The proposal in the Heads of the Housing and Planning and Development Bill 2019 would radically reduce and limit the rights of citizens, local groups and […]
January 24th, 2020 General Election 2020 must be the ‘Climate Election’. As the global climate and biodiversity emergency deepens, it is surely inconceivable that Irish politics can continue to ignore and sideline the greatest crisis in human history. After all, ignorance is no longer an excuse. Yet, this is manifestly the case. In his comments […]
January 23rd, 2020 Voters don’t care about the environment. There, I said it. And I wouldn’t have believed it until this week either. I think I have been living in a bubble for a very long time – seeing the increased coverage of the climate emergency in the media, watching Greta Thunberg deflate pompous politicians, […]
January 14th, 2020 Yesterday, Storm Brendan swept across Ireland. While far from unusual for us West Coast dwellers to be battered by the gusts, gales and crashing waves of the Atlantic, there is no better time than now to reflect on what we will face should we not act on the climate crisis. The storm […]
January 9th, 2020 As the world sat on the edge of a new decade in December, the news of Australian bushfires broke. Soon, apocalyptic scenes materialised, showing swift-legged Australian kangaroos failing to run fast enough to evade a raging climate. They were soon followed by humans. The pictures and statistics on the scale of the […]
December 16th, 2019 On Thursday, the official penultimate day of COP25, the energy in the conference halls seemed low as negotiations across the board were blocked. Tensions were also high owing to the UN’s reaction to a peaceful civil society protest led by Latin American indigenous voices inside the COP venue the day before, with […]
December 16th, 2019 And so after two weeks of negotiations, COP25 finally came to a fractious end last night, some 40 hours past the scheduled close. As the remaining bleary-eyed delegates gathered for the final plenary, the stands were being dismantled, the protesters had departed and the motto of the meeting – Time for Action […]
