
SCIENCE NOT REFEREES
January 14, 2021
NEW YEAR, same old nonsense at the Irish Farmers Journal. In recent years the paper has dabbled in promoting climate denial and junk science,... Read more »
SCIENCE NOT REFEREES
January 14, 2021
NEW YEAR, same old nonsense at the Irish Farmers Journal. In recent years the paper has dabbled in promoting climate denial and junk science,... Read more »
LUCINDA’S INSIGHT
January 14, 2021
Since when did former politician-turned-lobbyist Lucinda Creighton become a moderate? Speaking from her weekly Business Post soap box, she recently decried “the extreme left... Read more »
FISHY EU BUSINESS
December 16, 2020
“EU SUPERTRAWLER hell as dolphins killed!” screamed a Daily Express headline last week. The image of foreigners catching British fish and killing British dolphins... Read more »
METHANE MUMBO JUMBO
December 16, 2020
“Methane is a short life cycle gas.” This was just one of several flimsy arguments from IFA president Tim Cullinan that went unchallenged by... Read more »
THE MOO CREW
December 3, 2020
GIVE ME a child until seven and I will give you the man. That old Jesuit slogan has been clearly taken to heart by... Read more »
DAVID MCMANUS’S CV
December 3, 2020
Growing anger over the nearly €20m in government funding for the embattled greyhound industry spilled over recently on to RTÉ’s Claire Byrne Live show,... Read more »
CAP SELL-OUT
November 5, 2020
“Today the European Parliament will vote on how we produce our food for the next seven years,” tweeted Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan. “The decisions MEPs... Read more »
VEGGIE DISTRACTION
November 5, 2020
Veggie discs for dinner, anyone? Vegan tubes for lunch? These are the names we almost got for meat-free burgers and sausages, in an anti-vegetarian... Read more »
WEAK CLIMATE BILL
October 22, 2020
Earlier this year, the Green Party fought a running battle with its internal dissenters when pushing through its endorsement of the Programme for Government.... Read more »
RTÉ’S NEW SPONSOR
October 22, 2020
These are tough times for broadcasters, with advertising revenue hard to come by. However, there was still a sharp intake of breath at the... Read more »
PREDATORY FRACKERS
October 8, 2020
At first glance, John Mullins’s journey from his €400,000-a-year job as head of Bord Gáis to running his own renewable energy company, Amarenco Solar,... Read more »
RYAN LEAVES DOOR OPEN
October 8, 2020
A law to ban new oil and gas exploration licences “would be a historic change” and an inspiration “for the rest of the world”,... Read more »
GREEN PARTY TEST
September 24, 2020
AFTER A torrent of negative publicity before and since joining the coalition, the Green Party urgently needs some good news stories if its political... Read more »
GREENWASHING PETROL
September 24, 2020
It’s a sign of the changing times when an Irish petrol retailer is promoting its ‘green’ credentials. Applegreen claims that “carbon released from our... Read more »
EXTINCTION DENIAL
September 10, 2020
Conor Skehan chooses unlikely scapegoats when pontificating on the crises of our age. In 2018, as chair of the Housing Agency, he said some... Read more »
ALISON MCCULLAGH’S CLIMB DOWN
September 10, 2020
One of the environmental success stories of recent years is how a cross-border grassroots movement uniting those supposed sworn enemies, farmers and environmentalists, has kept... Read more »
FLANN O’BRIEN LOGIC
August 27, 2020
Joy was unconfined in dairy circles with the recent exciting news that good old-fashioned cows’ milk was “better for the environment” than those das-tardly... Read more »
COOL COURT CLIMATE
August 13, 2020
Imagine ordinary citizens being able to take the government to court to hold them to account for their climate inaction. That was the appalling... Read more »
DARRAGH MCCULLOUGH’S HOT AIR
July 30, 2020
A few short months ago, as Goldhawk reported, dairy farmer and writer Darragh McCullough in the Farming Indo decried the “dangerous nonsense” being spouted... Read more »
FORK OFF CLIMATE DEFENDERS
July 30, 2020
The EU Commission’s recently issued bombshell ‘Food to Fork’ strategy amounted to a radical demand for a complete re-think of how agriculture is to... Read more »
WIND OF CHANGE?
July 16, 2020
For the past six weeks, a socially distanced protest camp has blocked construction of a wind farm at Carrigdangan in Co Cork. It’s one... Read more »
GREEN TARGETS
July 16, 2020
The new government’s pledge to end oil and gas exploration provoked fuming and snarling from industry executives. The Business Post carried a photo of... Read more »
RYAN VS MARTIN
July 2, 2020
It seems oddly appropriate that, as the heated internal debates within the Green Party on entering coalition approached boiling point, a wave of extreme... Read more »
BARRY COWEN AND THE FARMERS
July 2, 2020
While few in environmental circles will have mourned the departure of Michael Creed from the agriculture ministry, the appointment of Offaly TD and former... Read more »
GAS ‘STORIES’
June 18, 2020
If the programme for government is green-lighted next week, it will spell the end not only for new oil and gas exploration licences, but... Read more »
LOBBYING THE AG
June 18, 2020
Meanwhile, the Irish Offshore Operators’ Association is understandably less than pleased about the promise to end exploration. Its CEO Mandy Johnston – Bertie Ahern’s... Read more »
‘INAPPROPRIATE’ PR
June 4, 2020
The old saying about never wasting a good crisis rings true when considering the all-out PR and political assault being waged on behalf of... Read more »
MEASURING THE GAS-GUZZLERS
June 4, 2020
Prior to 2008, big cars came with even bigger annual road tax bills. Then, thanks to an ill-conceived change in the rules in which... Read more »
MOORE’S ALMANAC
May 21, 2020
US FILM MAKER Michael Moore is doing his best to sabotage the boom in renewable energy with his latest attack documentary, Planet of the... Read more »
NOEL SMYTH’S TACTICS
May 21, 2020
Social distancing is suddenly bringing us the wider footpaths and cycle lanes that years of campaigning could not quite manage to do. It’s a... Read more »
SIMON COVENEY’S DOG WHISTLE
May 7, 2020
AN INTRIGUING game of cat and mouse is being played out between the Green Party and Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael over the Greens’ so-called “red... Read more »
JOHN FITZGERALD’S GAS ADVICE
May 7, 2020
THERE HAS been little reason for cheer in the oil and gas division of the Department of Climate Action & Environment in recent days,... Read more »
JOHN FITZGERALD’S TWO HATS
April 23, 2020
LIKE MOST of the Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael ‘draft document’ on forming a government, the section on climate is vague and threadbare. There is no... Read more »
SEAMUS WOLFE’S ENERGY POLICY
April 23, 2020
AMID THE coronavirus chaos, carmakers, airlines and oil companies are persuading governments to roll back environmental regulations to help them weather the Covid-19 storm.... Read more »
COVID-19’S CLIMATE CALAMITY
April 9, 2020
THE CORONAVIRUS crisis has delivered a harsh reminder that all human enterprises ultimately exist at the whim of nature. The global spread of the... Read more »
HOT STUFF
April 9, 2020
IN THE middle of a national emergency, it requires a special type of reckless entitlement to be starting illegal fires on the mountains that... Read more »