“Ah sure, there’s always been as many days this hot” No, there hasn’t

When it comes to protecting rivers and lakes there’s really good and bad farmers. What if neither is the real problem? What if it’s the system? #RTÉcountrywide #SpeirGorm Listen: 👉 dj.rte.ie/radio/radio1...

A year after receiving it the government has published its Land Use Review. But … Published “without being adopted by government”. And “it is not an articulation of government policy”. Neither is it “a new strategy in relation to land use”. That’s a long barge pole. 🧵#SpeirGorm

I gave it a go (with something about half the size). It leaves you strangely elated, or at least temporarily dulls the mid life angst. The lifting is good craic, but the raising up of a lost culture is the bigger part of it. David’s book is called The Wind Beneath The Stone.

I went Stone Lifting with David Keohan. Archaeologist, anthropologist, strong man, and great company. #SpeirGorm #RTECountrywide Listen: 👉 www.rte.ie/radio/radio1...

Nothing as hot and humid as this week’s Europe wide heatwave has ever happened before and it would have been impossible without Climate Change. #SpeirGorm #Climate #Heatwave Listen: 👉 www.rte.ie/radio/radio1...

True story. I bought the thermal jacket in this pic in a mad rush. We were filming for a half a day in Greenland before the cameraman stood up, put the camera down and roared (justifiable) abuse at me for wasting everyone’s time. The security tag was pinned to the collar. Every shot ruined. 🤦‍♂️

The heat dome is caused by wobbles in the Jet Stream. I made a programme with one of the world’s leading researchers that explains what’s happening. #Climate #HotMess #SpeirGorm Listen: 👉 www.rte.ie/radio/radio1...

One fifth of the breadbasket of Europe is no longer producing food. (Sound up)

Israeli army salting the earth in Lebanon with glyphosate. Russian drone attacks on orchard workers in Ukraine. Leaving fields unplanted because of rising fertiliser costs as people die of starvation around you. Warzone farming on #RTECountrywide today. Listen: 👉 www.rte.ie/radio/radio1...

Ireland is being taken to the European court for failing to protect its raised bogs. Potential fines in the tens of millions if the state loses. I talked to the people still extracting the peat. TLDR: It’s nuanced. #RTECountrywide Listen: 👉 www.rte.ie/radio/radio1...

It’s #WorldOceansDay We just did a full #RTECountrywide on why Marine Protected Areas are now critical. Listen: 👉 dj.rte.ie/radio/radio1... The map is a Spillhaus Projection of the globe I keep on my office wall as a reminder of why the oceans matter.

There are solutions. Proven ones. For another post perhaps. But they take support, active intervention, people living in the landscape. Right tree in the right place, and the right amount of grazers in the right places too. Not donkeys, I just like this pic and I haven’t posted it yet.

“It’s quite the catch, that catch 22” as Yossarian said. Overgrazing cut a wound that scarred deeply. Undergrazing lays a banquet for the blaze that will leave only a molten mess.

Too many hooves starved the earth. But now too few hooves fan the flames. Overgrazing was/is a biodiversity killer. But undergrazing leads to a greater fuel load and more destructive fires when they come. And it tends to be the same areas, much of them SACs or SPAs that get pummelled repeatedly. 4/

It was only when UCC and the EPA started using satellites to monitor wildfire that we got a grip on how much of this was going on. About 30,000ha a year, depending on the year. Roughly the equivalent of 1000 average sized Irish farms 2/

Scorched Earth I took this today following a wildfire in the Dublin Hills at the weekend. Nothing survived. 1/🧵

I wrote to OIC asking for an update. They replied this week. They were hit by a cyber attack in Dec, and in the last four months it has not been possible to even assign a case officer to my appeal.

Not even Bull McCabe could stand in the way of #Climate Change. I talked to the owner of the most famous field in the country about how it’s being lost to landslides and flood erosion. #RTECountrywide Listen: 👉 www.rte.ie/radio/radio1...

A piece of Ireland’s cultural heritage many will remember fondly is being lost to #climate change. #RTECountrywide #Speirgorm

Landlocked Malawi gets 52% of its fertiliser from the gulf. 11 out of 28 districts have declared a state of disaster. When I was there three years ago farmers told me there was only one response to fertiliser price increases - plant less food

The Persian Gulf is deeply embedded in food distribution as well as fertiliser and agri- chemical production. Cost increases arising from the war will in the short term push an additional 45m people into acute hunger according to the UN. 3/ docs.wfp.org/api/document...

15% of fossil fuels extracted each year are used to make fertiliser, run farms, process foods and transport them. In a very real sense our food is made from oil and gas. We are about to feel a very painful food shock. 1/

History is repeating itself. A chance in this energy crisis to copy the choices made in 1970s crises by the countries now almost fossil fuel free. Full documentary series free to stream here: youtu.be/F8vI5_gN90g?...

Price comparison websites suggest there’s only 2 cents between Ireland and Portugal. Outrage is being manufactured.

There’s a pic in circulation in Irish farmer WhatsApp groups purporting to be of petrol prices in Portugal today. It’s being used to suggest the govt here isn’t doing as much as others to support farmers. I’ve been sent it several times. It must be old or unrepresentative. 1/2

An Iranian buddy reminded me last night that making up inconsistent versions of events is not just an American thing. #Iran

“Oh, that sounds like hope” Sounds of Spring montage in the last three minutes of this piece. #RTECountrywide Listen: 👉 www.rte.ie/radio/radio1...

If you are of a certain age and you enjoy a bit of a shout at the telly this is on on Monday. #Speirgorm

Overnight from Colorado comes the news that Global Warning has won Best Feature Film at the 20th Colorado Environmental Film Festival and will be screened as the closing film. What should an environmental award look like if it is to properly recognise the world’s resources are finite. Answer: 😐