One of my earliest memories as a child is that of my great-grandfather, sitting besuited in his sitting room, watching television with a bag of seaweed at his side. Munching away to his heart’s content, he would consistently offer me a handful on my visits, to which I would of course po... read

The precursor to what may be a week-long international energy debate in West Cork takes place at the end of this month with delegates travelling to Ireland from the US, Portugal, Austria, Denmark, the UK, Holland and Germany.
Taking place over three days, the New Energy Era forum will talk abou... read

Cork Environmental Forum is set to recognise the work of a man who has been spreading a message throughout the county concerning the future of our food security. Following 2009’s CEF Person of the Year Award which went to Dr Colin Campbell, a leading authority on peak oil, the 2010 awar... read

Transition Towns is a concept that has spread across the world over the last decade from its beginnings in Kinsale, Co Cork. Rob Hopkins, a permaculture teacher at Kinsale Further Education College, pioneered the concept whose aim was to prepare communities for the oncoming challeng... read

Electric cars, wood pellet boilers, tidal wave technology, road pricing … These are just a few of the new ideas (and there are more every week) that are being promoted as part of the solution to the imminent, man-made global warming catastrophie.

If like me, you don’t know ... read

Around the world on May 22, the UN-decreed International Biodiversity Year will have its high point with thousands of events running globally. Saturday, May 22 is International Biodiversity Day and an opportunity here in Cork to not only discover more about how we can help and susta... read

Professor John Gamble was well positioned to take advantage of one of the world’s largest volcanic eruptions of the modern era in New Zeland in September 1995. Professor Gamble was an Associate Professor at Wellington University’s Geology Department and his field of expertise was ... read

At the beginning of March, the EU Commission approved the cultivation of German company BASF’s patented Amflora genetically modified (GM) potatoes in the EU. Almost immediately, the governments of Austria, Bulgaria, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg and Poland sta... read

Cork's crumbling roads continue to be a major topic of conversation following one of the harshest winters in living memory.

We are all aware of gaping chasms in road surfaces akin to craters on the surface of the Moon. The city and county councils want more money to fix the mess and the ... read

Two thousand and nine was a year that many of us will want to forget. It was a year of rising unemployment, increasing taxes and unrest in public services. There was, however, one bright spot on the otherwise dim horizon. In 2009 Ireland at last seemed to get a firm grip on the perennial problem... read