When news of the new Retrofitting scheme was announced by the government recently, I was probably one of the few Greens in the country who gave a sigh of mild irritation! Not, I hasten to add, because I have any issue with the scheme, quite the contrary in fact. I […]
Environment
by Nicolas Mitchell The Dunnock or Donnóg (Prunella modularis) is a regular visitor to my garden, foraging on the ground for crumbs under the bird feeders, or beneath the shrubs for small invertebrates. It’s not a ‘flashy’ bird, in fact it’s quite drab, with its dun coloured plumage and unobtrusive, […]
NASA’s global climate change website states, ‘While the effects of human activities on Earth’s climate to date are irreversible in the timescale of humans alive today, every little bit of avoided future temperature increase, results in less warming that would otherwise persist, essentially forever.’ NASA scientists report that it may not be too […]
‘New Year’s Eve 2021 – provisionally the warmest on record’ claimed the UK Guardian newspaper. Whilst MET Éireann didn’t agree; or at least not for Ireland, nevertheless it reported that, during 2021 at least ten weather stations across Ireland reached heatwave conditions where temperatures of at least 25 degrees Celsius […]
by Nicholas Mitchell ‘The rook and jackdaw are too well known to need any introduction in themselves, as one need not go far from the centre of the city before seeing one or both species. On the principle that familiarity breeds contempt, it is perhaps their very abundance which accounts […]
It is “code red for humanity…The world is running out of time,” declared UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres at the start of COP26. But even as we all know this, still we wait! Forty-four years ago ExxonMobil senior scientist James Black told the fossil fuel executives that, “ Man has a […]