Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Although there is no cookie-cutter template for socio-ecological transition, it’s important to build bridges between communities working for fair food systems and resilient rural areas around and beyond Europe.
In the rainy mountains along Ireland’s west coast, a group of surfers wants to restore a temperate rainforest ecosystem that has been gone for centuries.
A chat about the Irish elders I’ve talked to, and how their close communities and traditional culture allowed them to survive crises like the bank strikes of the 1960s and 70s.
We have found that among climate scientists and politicians, advocacy for a direct fossil fuel phase-out with adaptation through resource allocation and rationing, is very rare indeed. That’s why we found the Oireachtas hearing so encouraging.
Although Ireland still has a fairly good natural environment in comparison with some other countries, we are putting ourselves in grave danger because of the tendency to damage and even destroy our natural environment in the pursuit of commercial profits.
Despite the extreme difficulties and threats we’re facing, the potential for positive change at the moment is actually huge – including a move towards a much fairer, stabler and more efficient financial sector in Ireland.
I suggest respectfully that the time has long passed for debate on the science, useless apportionments of blame, or idle comparisons. Action is now needed, and I ask all engineers across all branches of engineering to play their role.
How quickly, in peacetime democracies, are people prepared radically to change their behaviour? The Covid-19 pandemic provides some clues. One of the most common measures introduced to control its spread has been the ‘stay at home’ order. Normally known as ‘lockdown’ … To an extraordinary degree, people have complied, and this is not the first time populations have accepted and adapted to suddenly introduced behaviour changes.
The former political arm of the IRA now draws support from the economically besieged young. A risky game.
In 2005, a group of Permaculture students from Kinsale Further Education College set a course for how their town of 7,000 people on the west coast of Ireland could transition to a better quality of life while dramatically reducing fossil fuel consumption. … Their plan was soon adopted by the Town Council of Kinsale, and when it was posted online, it quickly spread around the world as people everywhere embraced it as a groundbreaking tool for cultivating community-level sustainability and resilience.
