StephDickenson.bsky.social

There isn't much coming out of #COP17 nature talks. A lot happening behind closed doors, but most journalists are in the dark about the actual fights. With just 4 more days to go, @cop17arm.bsky.social presidency held only its third press interaction today. The next one's on Friday: finale day.

This is just the maddest argument. These people would trap us in poverty to keep a decade old commitment, which no one ever actually made, to an electorate which no longer exists.

Denmark, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands plan to build four artificial islands to quadruple offshore wind in the North Sea – the equivalent of 30 nuclear reactors. We have so many solutions. Implement them. #ActOnClimate #ClimateCrisis #climate #energy #tech #GreenNewDeal

www.irishtimes.com/opinion/edit...

In Science & Climate in @irishtimes.com, there's a science to feeding the world and it's agricultural and political. Tom Arnold & Cary Fowler analyse what needs to happen..... www.irishtimes.com/environment/...

‘My dream is for us all to live in a dystopian nightmare where technology never stops interfering with you for even a second of the day.’

Lula: "We had to overcome foreign interference through digital platforms, which we will have to regulate. A crime in the digital world must be treated the same as a crime in the real world. We cannot have monstrous companies earning millions... not paying taxes... wanting to steer elections."

It’s nearly time for our Halloween book swap! Taking place Saturday 31st Booktober, 11am-12.30pm, at An Síol, 19 Manor Street. As usual we’ll have a great range of books for all ages - and if you have any books with ghosts or ghouls you’d like to bring along, so much the better!

Lula’s win is the first good news for the planet in a while! I bet it shaves a tenth of a degree off how hot our earth eventually gets, which will save millions of lives Thank you Brazil!

🧵Yesterday, British Columbia elected a Conservative majority government that ran on a platform of tax cuts and accelerating the pillaging of nature, or what the party calls “natural resources exploitation.” They also ran on attacking Indigenous sovereignty and trans rights.

Ulster University’s education quality under threat from spending cuts, warns provost

I really enjoy reading Bright Spots every Sunday as they are uplifting and optimistic. Today's: Heat pumps and EVs cut emissions today. They will cut them further every year as the grid gets cleaner.

Last year I was with Data Stories Project, on housing and planning, Maynooth University, as writer in residence. The case study I worked on was a collaboration between Dublin City and South County Dublin Councils called City Edge. I've been writing about it : www.thisiswherewelive.ie/news/2026/10...

The Minister for Justice’s intervention with the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre’s consent campaign video on hugging risks creating “a pervasive chilling effect and self-censorship” within society. www.thejournal.ie/consent-hugg...

In a little-noticed webpage update, the Environmental Protection Agency has announced a plan to decommission its online web archive at the end of the year, a move that would wipe tens of thousands of publicly available environmental resources from the web.

"Overall, we are seeing some very odd deal talks that are supposedly a part of ending the war in Ukraine. But in fact, evidence shows these deals are structured (in the most recent case secretly until now) to financially benefit Russia or business partners of the Trump and Witkoff families."

50,000 people died this summer due to European heat waves. We are in a climate emergency.

This, from the hugely experienced Irish courts reporter, Isabel Hayes, on the Minister for Justice’s performative outrage over an ad about children and consent, is worth reading.

Britons should use money we haven't got to buy food the country doesn't grow, store it in homes that don't exist, in spare rooms that got taxed away, so we can survive when reservoirs nobody built run dry because of a climate the govt won't protect. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

We are using agroforestry to fight climate change in 3 ways: Trees capture & store carbon Roots stop soil erosion and desertification Diverse farms are resilient to droughts & floods This is adaptation + mitigation in one.

Ever feel like you're actually living that nightmare in which you open your mouth to cry out, but no sound comes? www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Very different messaging today from the Irish and British governments …

I’m actually pretty freaked out by the amount of people that don’t think children should have bodily autonomy. Also, should Ministers be allowed to just pull charity campaigns with no discussion or engagement. Manufactured outrage over on X that becomes an edict in an afternoon. Dodgy AF.

“The country now has the third lowest share of renewable energy in the European Union… Growing traffic, increasing flights & data centre expansion are all complicating efforts to move away from the carbon-polluting fuels.” www.irishtimes.com/environment/...

It makes me deeply uncomfortable that the Minister for Justice has used his Twitter account to create an online pile on of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre. It also appears to me a dangerous precedent that this minister, and his dept. have instructed the DRCC to remove content that he disapproved of.

"Continued improvement in air quality is possible with practical local action and sustained investment in supporting cleaner heating, promoting home energy retrofitting, improving public transport and encouraging active travel.” www.rte.ie/news/environ...

Dave and Brian from our Joinery Workshop adding gates to the planters for the upcoming #PlayStreetsBETA trial. During pedestrianised hours, people can walk through as usual on the footpaths or can cycle/scoot through using the gap between gates (with the gates providing some visibility through).

The Guardian's homepage right now... 1. "UK approves Jackdaw gasfield in North Sea" 2. World must cut emissions by 18% in four years ‘to find our way back’, UN says

Enough renewable electricity to power almost half a million Irish homes was lost during the first nine months of this year because of limitations on the electricity system.

None of this is 'pragmatic'. It is the precise opposite. www.businessgreen.com/blog-post/45...

The problem is not really Jackdaw, which is pretty small. The problem is the UK's plan to transition away from fossil fuels is still not ambitious and detailed enough. The problem is if Rosebank follows. The problem is if every country develops one last fossil fuel project we're all screwed.

The chance to keep global warming below 1.5°C with no overshoot is gone. But urgent action can still limit the overshoot and bring warming back to 1.5°C by 2100. Current policies, however, put the 🌎 on course for up to 2.8°C this century. New #EmissionsGap Report: https://ow.ly/SNHX50ZZz8l

Longyearbyen is warming at between 5 & 7 times the world’s average rate We're getting a glimpse of the chaos to come if the world does not act now on climate change share.google/Fxd4dhTvAVlD...

BBC cuts - to news & channels - should be alarming for anybody who's spent 5 mins looking at US news media. Big Tech, Google, Meta are trying to squeeze the life out of 'legacy media', regional news, public broadcasting & non-billionaire owned sources. If we let them - it's darkness.

“Are we willing to simply accept that we will be stuck in traffic for the rest of our lives?” www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2026...

This is something we're seeing more and more of in our climate changed world. Same story with the fire in Summerland this year. Welcome to @johnvaillant.bsky.social's fire weather.

Rejected due to lack of "capacity on the electricity grid, the lack of planned on-site renewable energy generation and the failure to engage with corporate power purchase agreements" www.irishexaminer.com/news/munster... We're just getting started! 💪 👉DEMO: 7 Nov - 12pm - Garden of Remembrance👈

A man has died following a fatal assault in the Blackhorse Avenue area of Dublin 7 in the early hours of this morning jrnl.ie/7197032

As communities grapple with kids at loose ends messing, the government disappointed those in the youth-work sector with what they say is a meagre budget offering.

Greens’ Pete Fry will be the next mayor of Vancouver

a reminder if you are about Wexford town the book fair is on + The Lake has no voice brings spoken word, art, ecocide in direct conversation with the audience at 3pm today in Sunday 18 October in Red Books Underground, Eclectic Ave, 51 North Main Street (Bull Ring). Free event

Heat pumps and insulation would cut UK living costs more than new oilfields, study suggests

Zuckerberg's own employees confirm that he directed an intentional effort to throw the Brazilian election in favor of Flávio Bolsonaro, apparently because he understood this is what Trump wanted. www.reuters.com/world/americ...

Long suspected, this is now evidence that honey bees are adding to the pressure on wild bee species www.theguardian.com/environment/...

my 6-year-old daughter and 81-year-old dad both got their first whiffs of teargas today, on the fringes of protests in brussels dad was there in '68, barricading the university! still never had teargas it feels like the cops are out of control now, extremely trigger-happy with so many weapons