Articles Archives - Page 2 of 4

Climate action should transform freight and logistics, but are we prepared for it?

This article first appeared in the Irish Times on 25th May 2023 as https://www.irishtimes.com/environment/climate-crisis/2023/05/25/climate-action-should-transform-freight-and-logistics-but-are-we-prepared-for-it/ When he is not chastising economists for their obsession with economic growth, President Higgins regularly invokes the work of Zygmunt Bauman, a leading theorist of the 20th century. Bauman is noted for his observation that modernity has fundamentally altered social relations …

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We need to talk about climate politics, Mary Lou

This article appeared in the Irish Times on the 22nd of June 2023 as https://www.irishtimes.com/environment/climate-crisis/2023/06/22/we-need-talk-about-climate-politics-mary-lou/ A climate-conscious friend of mine recently shared that what keeps him awake at night is the prospect of a Sinn Féin-led government propped up by rural independent TDs. I can go one better than that. What keeps me awake is …

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Local climate action plans offer an opportunity for place-based leadership

This article was published in the Irish Times on the 27th of April 2023 here It might not feel like it yet, but there’s an election in the offing. The first of many shiny newsletters arrived in my letterbox recently. It was an impressive list of small jobs that, taken together, show that my local …

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Rays of hope

This article was published in the Irish Times here under the title “Rapid expansion of solar power capacity gives us grounds to be hopeful” on the 23rd of March 2023. There is hardly ever any good news on the climate front. However, a recent report by the think tank Ember found that the energy price …

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All climate politics are local, but are local politicians up to the challenge?

This article was published in the Irish Times here on the 23rd February 2023. Former speaker of the US House of Representatives Tip O’ Neill is famous for quipping that all politics are local: he said, “everything starts at your back yard”. How to square this political maxim with robust decision-making in respect of Ireland’s …

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We can’t afford to let the national retrofit plan fail

This article was published in the Irish Times on the 26th January 2023 and is available here The National Retrofit Plan has already been branded as a failure by opposition politicians despite being just a year old. Is that a fair assessment? Despite the best efforts of politicians, public servants and various social actors, sometimes …

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What goes on in the Arctic won’t stay in the Arctic

This article appeared in the Irish Times on the 22nd of December 2022 as https://www.irishtimes.com/environment/climate-crisis/2022/12/22/what-goes-on-in-the-arctic-wont-stay-in-the-arctic/ For a country unused to ice, sparkling landscapes gifted to us by a cold snap bring fairy-tale conditions. Snow always comes to us as a surprise in this part of the world, accustomed as we are to dreary winters of …

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Losing hope, finding courage

People often ask me, how do climate activists “keep going” in the face of so much inaction and indifference? It’s a good question. In the Greek mythology, princess Cassandra was bestowed with the gift of being able to see the future, but she was cursed because her prophecies would always come to pass but no …

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Despite its faults, the COP is the only show in town

[This article with some small changes appeared in the Irish Times on Saturday 5th November 2022 https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2022/11/05/climate-change-cop27-despite-its-faults-is-the-only-show-in-town/] Greta’s not going; neither is Prince Charles, China’s Xi Jinping nor India’s Narendra Modi. The red carpet at this year’s Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Egypt will be …

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Galway Ring Road decision marks a turning point in road construction in Ireland

[This article appeard in the Voices section of The Journal on the 17th of October 2022 as https://www.thejournal.ie/readme/galway-ring-road-5895409-Oct2022/] LAST FRIDAY, THE news broke that An Bord Pleanála was not going to oppose an order of the High Court quashing the controversial N6 Galway Ring Road. This came on the back of a High Court action taken by …

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