Climate Change
Read all the lastest news on climate change, and our blogs, actions and updates below.
Special one-day offer: Join and get a free book
Issued in news on August 10, 2010 at 09:34:00.
Friends of the Earth is has a special offer for everyone who joins by direct debit today. We'll send you a a free copy of Carbon Detox by George Marshall. Click here for more info.
Friends of the Earth director, Oisin Coghlan, says of the book:
"Carbon Detox is the best thing I've read on the climate change. George Marshall's book is in turns inspiring, irreverent, hopeful and practical. Al Gore meets Woody Allen as one reviewer put it. It's my indispensable guide to the challenge ahead"
Join now.
Want to find out how big your carbon footprint is?
Issued in news on August 04, 2010 at 12:27:00.
Try out Friends of the Earth's easy to use carbon calculator. See what your carbon footprint is.
A dark ideology is driving those who deny climate change
Issued in news on August 01, 2010 at 09:52:00.
People who claim that climate science is a conspiracy or the work of charlatans are talking rubbish
Robin McKie
The Observer
Life can be hard in Moscow. The Russian capital is sweltering in temperatures that reached a record 37.7C last week. Vast stretches of peat bog surrounding the city have dried out and caught fire covering Moscow with choking smog. The changing of the horse guard in Cathedral Square was cancelled as sentries wilted in traditional woollen uniforms. Elsewhere, more than 2,000 Russians - many drunk - drowned trying to cool off in lakes and rivers and at least 10 million hectares of crops have been ruined. States of emergency have been declared in 23 regions.
Global Warming "Undeniable," U.S. Government Report Says
Issued in news on July 28, 2010 at 09:35:00.
Past decade hottest on record, NOAA study says.
Christine Dell'Amore
National Geographic News
"Global warming is undeniable," and it's happening fast, a new U.S. government report says.
An in-depth analysis of ten climate indicators all point to a marked warming over the past three decades, with the most recent decade being the hottest on record, according to the latest of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's annual "State of the Climate" reports, which was released Wednesday. Reliable global climate record-keeping began in the 1880s.
The report focused on climate changes measured in 2009 in the context of newly available data on long-term developments.
Mass lobby, a great sucess
Issued in news on June 17, 2010 at 16:33:00.
On the 2nd of June Friends of the Earth as members of the Stop Climate Chaos coalition took part in a Mass Lobby on climate change. Friends of the Earth members and supporters from all over the country came to Buswells hotel across from the Dail to meet with their TDs. We were asking TDs to commit to supporting a strong climate law in the Dail, when the Bill comes before them this Autumn.
Why did the TD cross the road?
Issued in news on June 01, 2010 at 11:27:00.
Why did the TD cross the road? Because you emailed them now and asked them to drop into Buswells, opposite the Dáil, on Wednesday for the Stop Climate Chaos mass lobby.
Even if you can't make it to Buswells tomorrow for the Stop Climate Chaos mass lobby you can still help make it a success.
Just email your local TDs and ask them to come across for a briefing on the proposed climate law. It doesn't matter that you won't be there, there'll be plenty of us there to get the message across.
Come and meet your TDs with us, its time to act!
Issued in news on May 24, 2010 at 14:33:00.
Climate change hasn't gone away and this year the Irish Government will make crucial decisions about how it will tackle climate change, now and into the future. Our Government has committed to a passing a Climate Change Bill by the end of 2010, including binding targets for reducing our carbon emissions.
Use the Stop Climate Chaos website to arrange to meet your TD. Its time to act!
As the Government negotiates the text of this forthcoming legislation, we must send them a clear message that we expect the bill to be strong, with real enforceable targets that ensure Ireland plays its part in delivering climate justice and a fair and safe future for all.
The crucial role of activism in scrapping Heathrow's third runway
Issued in news on May 22, 2010 at 13:29:00.
It was more than four years ago when George Monbiot wrote on these pages: "At last the battlelines have been drawn, and the first major fight over climate change is about to begin. All over the country, a coalition of homeowners and anarchists, Nimbys and internationalists is mustering to fight the greatest future cause of global warming: the growth of aviation."
Ireland among "most vulnerable" to peak oil.
Issued in news on April 09, 2010 at 10:14:00.
It is hard to overstate the extent to which our daily lives are subsidised by cheap, plentiful oil, writes JOHN GIBBONS
HERE'S A conundrum: restarting global economic growth will, by definition, push up energy costs. Rising energy costs will in turn choke off that economic recovery, leading to a fall in energy prices. Try to restart growth again, and the brick wall of energy costs magically reappears. Repeat ad infinitum.
It is hard to overstate the extent to which our daily lives are subsidised by cheap, plentiful oil. Every 24 hours, Ireland burns around 200,000 barrels. That's the daily equivalent of the muscle power of 2.4 million men, each working for a full year.
UK Met Office: "Increasingly remote possibility" that humans not causing climate change
Issued in news on March 05, 2010 at 13:10:00.
It is an "increasingly remote possibility" that human activity is not the main cause of climate change, according to a major Met Office review of more than 100 scientific studies that track the observed changes in the Earth's climate system.
The research will strengthen the case for human-induced climate change against sceptics who argue that the observed changes in the Earth's climate can largely be explained by natural variability.
Obama administration backs science and advocates climate law
Issued in news on March 04, 2010 at 15:01:00.
Climate research missteps 'change nothing'
Irish Times weather eye column
THE DISCLOSURE of research "missteps" hasn't shaken the consensus that man-made emissions from burning fossil fuels are contributing to climate change, President Barack Obama's top science adviser has said.
The release of scientists' e-mails and errors in a report by a United Nations climate panel show researchers are human, John Holdren said yesterday at an energy conference in Washington. The errors don't alter the fact that carbon dioxide emissions are warming the Earth, he said.
...
Carol Browner, Obama's top adviser on energy and the environment, said climate legislation will trigger investment and job creation in industries that build solar panels and wind turbines. "Some have said this legislation is dead," Browner said at the conference. "We don't agree."
Beyond the Pole - Where can you see this award winning arctic comedy?
Issued in news on March 01, 2010 at 14:32:00.
Beyond the Pole is Friends of the Earth supporter Helen Baxendale's award winning arctic comedy.
It follows the frustrations and humiliations of two men trying to be green.
Beyond the Pole is being released in selected cinemas across the UK this spring. The films website has listed Dublin screenings in April, dates are to be confirmed.
Find out if it's showing in a cinema near you - and if it's not, request it! Your local cinema will show the film if enough people demand it.
About the film:
Beyond the Pole is the story of the first carbon neutral, vegetarian, organic expedition to the North Pole.
An extraordinarily dangerous expedition made even more dangerous by the fact that the explorers have never done anything like this before.
AL Gore "We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change"
Issued in news on February 27, 2010 at 13:30:00.
Al Gore
It would be an enormous relief if the recent attacks on the science of global warming actually indicated that we do not face an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it.
...
I, for one, genuinely wish that the climate crisis were an illusion. But unfortunately, the reality of the danger we are courting has not been changed by the discovery of at least two mistakes in the thousands of pages of careful scientific work over the last 22 years by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Harsh winter 'not a sign of stalled warming'
Issued in news on February 26, 2010 at 10:23:00.
THE PACE of global warming continues unabated, scientists have warned despite images of Europe crippled by a deep freeze and parts of the United States blasted by blizzards.
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"It's not warming the same everywhere but it is really quite challenging to find places that haven't warmed in the past 50 years," Australian climate scientist Neville Nicholls said.
"January . . . was the hottest January we've ever seen," said Prof Nicholls. "November to January as a whole is the hottest November to January the world has seen," he said.
Local group meeting with the Minister for Transport.
Issued in news on February 24, 2010 at 12:14:00.
Brilliant news coming to us from Meath. The Meath Climate Change group have been collecting signed postcards calling for a 
strong climate law in and around Navan for a few months. Earlier this month they met with their local TD Noel Dempsey. As minister for Transport, Mr Dempsey is a key figure in the Governments, attempt to tackle climate change. He sits on the important Cabinet sub-commitee on climate change.
