“When leaders call us amazing they are handing over responsibility to us” adding that “I hand the responsibility right back to them”.

  On arriving in Glasgow, I met someone for lunch and then made my way to the train station in Argyle Street where I attempt to buy a ticket to the COP26 site on the quays of the Clyde. But as Robert Burns would say “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang… Read more »

The pilgrims will walk along the Union Canal between the two cities and are expected to arrive in Glasgow on the morning of Saturday 6th November, in time to merge with the Rally for Climate Action – the biggest gathering of the 12 days, predicted to attract up to 100,000 people.

  On October 4th, to mark the end of the Season of Creation and coinciding with National Tree Day, communities, schools and works across the Irish Jesuit Province were planting trees. We harbour no illusion that planting trees absolves us from the necessary, hard work of reducing our overall ecological impact. But this simple act… Read more »

For anyone who missed our ‘Cop On’ webinar with speakers Sean McDonagh and Jerry Mac Evilly about the COP26 climate summit, you can now watch a recording of the event.

COP26 – What is it and why should I care? COP26, the annual global climate summit, is scheduled to take place in Glasgow over the first 2 weeks in November this year. Our climate has already heated by 1ᵒ Celsius. Further warming is already baked in, so to speak, based on our past emissions. The… Read more »

Catholicism, Anglicanism, and Eastern Orthodoxy represent well over 1.6 billion people. Christians working together to combat climate change are an immense and therefore powerful demographic.

Hope that things will change for the better is part and parcel of events like COP. If change was not possible, if the situation was truly hopeless, these meetings would not happen. What we need now alongside our hope is the will to take action.

“Climate change is widespread, rapid and intensifying” – IPCC Climate change is not an event; it is not something that just has arrived or will arrive in the few years. It exists on a continuum, on a scaling ladder of disasters with previously impossible events becoming normal. We are already on this ladder, experiencing extreme… Read more »

It was just a few ducklings at the start. I mean, everyone likes ducklings don’t they? During lockdown there was little else to do but go to the local park for interminable walks. So I took a few photos on my iPhone of some ducklings in the pond, posted them to Instagram and watched the ‘likes’ roll in.

“Food is more than just what we eat. The ways in which we produce, process and consume food touch every aspect of life on the planet. It is the foundation of our cultures, our economies and our relationship with the natural world. Food has the power to bring us together as families, as communities and as nations.”

In his 2015 book, Don’t Even Think About It, George Marshall examines the psychological obstacles to thinking seriously about the environmental catastrophe we have unleashed. He argues that the kind of problem we face in the climate collapse is one to which the human mind is not well suited. There are a number of ways… Read more »

If you consider yourself a climate justice advocate, then it is also impossible to be ambivalent towards the destructive nature of war. It is a simple fact that suffering of the most vulnerable people is an injustice, whether as a result of climate change or armed conflict.

What would a Just Transition mean for Ireland?

This workshop, which is the last in the Stop Climate Chaos Climate Action Plan Consultation Workshop Series takes an in-depth look at Just Transition, to help to inform your submission to the Government’s Climate Action Plan Consultation.

The most ambitious Irish commitment to emissions reduction to date, simultaneously falls short in committing us to doing our fair share in dealing with the climate crisis.  

Less than three weeks into the nesting season, which is legally closed for gorse clearing, and Ireland has already experienced several serious incidences of wildfires in hills around the country. While the smoke may have cleared from the wild fires which ravaged the hills around Kerry, Laois and Wicklow the ecological devastation will remain for years.

Environmentalism is one of the few substantial ideologies left standing in Western politics. Environmentalists believe in something more than mere utility. CETA is an excellent opportunity not to “play senior hurling” but to testify to the fact that another, better world is possible. It should be rejected wholesale and replaced with a framework fit for the 21st century.

  Economics and policy, a marriage made in the public, political and societal eye – is one that not even debt can tear apart. The two are inextricable , and the power dynamic within their relationship is an important one to consider. When fiscal priorities are the parameters that frame policies, the results may not… Read more »

On Saturday 21st November, the ACRE Project came together to construct a Bug Hotel in the grounds of its community house in Mullacreevie Park, Co. Armagh.

  Trade agreements are difficult things to discuss because they require such specialised knowledge and attention to detail. But they have such an impact on our economy and society that we must be alert to what they contain.

Perhaps the EPA report, which is unrelenting in its assessment, is the catalyst we need to become painfully aware of what is happening in our country as well as for a plan we can follow to change our collective habits.

  Amongst the news of the US election and of potential vaccines that will hopefully help end this twilight zone of social distancing we must not be deaf to the continuing reality of the climate and biodiversity emergency. Hurricanes, wildfires, and bog slippage , which are all part of the complex story of climate change… Read more »

The first step in this direction is acting on the promises made in the Programme for Government and definitively closing off all avenues of fracking importation and fossil fuel exploration in Ireland.

  In the midst of a global pandemic our perception of what is important in the world around us can shift. Foreign holidays pale when compared to the freedom of being able to visit our families, and the appeal of a healthy natural environment gains relevance when we have the opportunity to experience it more.… Read more »

  The Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice has made a submission to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine on the ‘Agriculture Appeals (Amendment) Bill 2020’. With this submission we hope to contribute to the to the ongoing discussion of the importance of maintaining and enhancing the ecological integrity of our ecosystems through… Read more »