Absurd heat! Despite our best efforts, the monster heat dome is bound to be "undersold" by the meteorology community. Why? Because intensity like this is almost never seen. This thing has the potential to be Epic for Mid-March, and not in a good way… 1/
“Ireland exports around 90% of the food we produce. Meanwhile, the food we rely on most in our daily diets – fruit and vegetables – are largely imported. Today, Ireland imports around 83% of its fruit and vegetables.”
www.thejournal.ie/readme/strai...
would've been nice if the polycrisis specified the number of crises
I thought like, 3 or 4 but we're up to like 19 now
We are a country of light and (very) dark animal stories: Black Beauty (a harder read than many will recall); Wind in the Willows and Beatrix Potter; Watership Down and Plague Dogs (gulp); Tarka (by a fascist) and Animal Farm (by an anti-Fascist); Kes.
I think we can cope with animals on banknotes.
The Mental Load: Even in households where chores are shared, the invisible “thinking work” of parenting mostly falls to women, writes Niamh O’Reilly.
jrnl.ie/6980585
i still think the response to this should not be "giving up" but dramatically changing media consumption habits to prioritize irl and collective sources with physical proximity + high trust
The tip of Bull Island has been slowly disappearing “We’re losing a lot of [it],” said Mary Tubridy, an established Dublin-based ecologist, “and the chances are, we'll be losing more of it.”
“Energy security, affordability and climate action are not competing priorities. They point to the same solution: urgently reducing dependence on fossil fuels.”
www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2026...
Why would we expand our imports of fossil fuels, when we can see how war makes prices shoot up? Clean, green renewable energy is a better option - for energy independence, for the planet, and for our pockets.
I’d also like to see them push single elements more, esp roof insulation. I think the idea of a heat pump or deep retrofit can be practically & financially too overwhelming, whereas I think eg roof insulation seems much more accessible, in terms of time & cost, & the benefits are still significant.
Cut excise duty, sure - but not the carbon tax?
Why is it always and only the carbon tax certain groups want cut? We cut excise duty at the start of the war in Ukraine - we can simply do this again.
But why keep the carbon tax?
Look at the image.
'Reading deeply is also important for being an informed citizen.. our politics have increasingly played to the lowest common denominator with the simplest ideas possible. The results have often not been pretty.'
I should probably go do other stuff now but had to have a go at this one
I guess it maybe says something about people’s primary motives for retrofitting, about whether it’s for comfort or money-saving or climate reasons?
A depressing read, but I can’t say I find it surprising (she writes as someone who’s been involved in her local SEC @cosybatter.bsky.social for some years now.)
“This is because householders typically get used to higher comfort levels and so do not reduce their energy consumption as much as expected.”
It’s a depressing read isn’t it (she writes as someone who has been involved in her local Sustainable Energy Community group for some years now…)
To restore democracy and create a fairer, safer, greener world, we need massive taxes on the ultra-rich. As in the 1940s. People get confused about this. The main purpose of such taxes is *not* to raise revenue. The point is to stop the few dominating the many. It's an essential democratic measure.
Liverpool and Manchester United complain to X over ‘sickening’ Grok AI posts
EXCLUSIVE: Jay Graber stepping down as CEO of Bluesky www.wired.com/story/bluesk...
9 Mar 1649: James Butler Marquess of Ormond writes #otd to Michael Jones parliamentary commander in #Dublin (who was against the regicide) to try to persuade him to declare for Charles II in an attempt to take Dublin without a battle
www.cnbc.com/2026/03/09/t...
I've been getting some really interesting responses to my survey on how journalists are using (or not using) AI in newsrooms in Ireland.
If you haven't already, I'd be grateful if you could take the time to fill it out too - or share it around. You may also want to make fun of my handwriting.
this is true (and very dispiriting)
slightly tangentially, it should boggle everyone’s mind how much cultural life in our society is held together by good people volunteering or giving freely of their own time and skills to support others, and just how necessary and vital and important that work is
Polls have closed in the first of this year's five German state elections, in prosperous Baden-Württemberg. It's looking like a remarkable win-from-behind by the Greens under @oezdemir.de. Full results over the course of the evening.
Before universities opened their doors to women, one woman spent 7 years making a quilt of the Solar System to teach other women astronomy: www.themarginalian.org/2018/12/06/e...
Most consumers don’t realise yet how bad this could get for our economy
Iran’s people were facing a horrible shortage of water before the war began. If we are destroying desalination plants and setting fire to Teheran we are committing unfathomable crimes.
BREAKING: An Iranian drone attack caused “material damage” to a desalination plant, Bahrain said. It is the first time an Arab country has reported Iran striking a desalination plant. Follow live updates.
Multiple news outlets are reporting a US attack on an Iranian #desalination plant.
If verified, this violates international law protecting #water systems during wars, and it sets a dangerous precedent, given intense dependence of Gulf countries on desalination.
timesofoman.com/article/1691...
The Gulf states & Israel depend on water desalination to live. If Israel & US break the taboo of bombing vulnerable desal infrastructure, they risk catastrophic harm.
Percent of drinking water from desal:
Israel: 80%
Kuwait: 90%
Saudi Arabia: 70%
Oman: 86%
UAW: 42%
www.ndtv.com/world-news/i...
