I’m fascinated by the amount of neurons my kids devote to holding grudges. I mean somehow they forget to do their daily chores, but dare to suggest a bowl of hearty porridge and they’ll nail me with the infamous “burnt breakfast of 2013”. As “we don’t inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children”, I’m praying they don’t resent me too much for my past carbon-intensive indulgences. They incentivise me to

How do we give ourselves the thrill of retail therapy without the environmental hangover? Well our last article was about caring for our existing wardrobe, so today is about choosing our future one! ✅ As always, start with “rethink” – before you buy, ask yourself “How much will I wear it? How much do I already own? How long will it last?” Resist the impulse to buy vast numbers of cheap items in favour of

“Fast fashion is like fast food, after the sugar rush it just leaves a bad taste in your mouth”. Topped only by the oil industry, fashion is the world’s second-most polluting industry, responsible for 8-10% of global greenhouse gas emissions and other toxic impacts! So what simple actions can we take to make our wardrobes a lot more climate-friendly? Well about half of fashion’s CO2 emissions come from the electricity used in washing, tumble-drying, and

“Sure it’d be a grand country if you put a roof on it” was a phrase oft heard, but with a rapidly changing climate, the last few years have featured a previous unknown… long periods of scorching summer sun. So ever the opportunists, we’ve realised we don’t need to travel 1,000’s of energy-intensive fossil fueled miles to now enjoy a break. 🛏️ Whether you feel like riding an e-bike along the Wild Atlantic Way or

I’ve a funny image of Michael O’Leary doing a nocturnal rain dance and Lynne Embleton praying diligently for Low Pressure systems. Of course airline CEOs’ delight with meteorological misery is understandable since the cold, wind & rain pushes us ever closer to that annual tipping point… googling foreign holiday destinations. While we all love to escape these shores from time to time, the problem is that each flight zaps our annual carbon budget. A Dublin-New

In the hope of staving off potential bankruptcy from the arrival of next month’s utility bill, we often rush to “A-rated” lighting and electrical appliances to drastically reduce these ever-increasing expenses. While “A-rated” plays its part, it might surprise that lighting and electrical appliances account for only 13% of our household’s energy use. If you really want to wrestle your utility bills into submission, here are some simple ways to go after the biggie that

Maybe you’ve experienced the cold sweats and heart palpitations that come with committing the most mortal or Irish sins… forgetting to turn the immersion off!If not, count yourself lucky, but as it takes so much energy to heat our domestic hot water, (24% of average Irish household’s energy use), reducing our hot water use as much as possible will see huge payoffs for our wallets, our energy security and for the environment too. ✅ So

“I saw a lad at pump 3 put €20 petrol into his car. He must only be going to pump 4.” Sometimes all you can do is laugh, but with fossil fuels now costing an arm and a leg, we’re quickly running out of limbs. In Ireland we drive an average of 16,400km per year, 31% more than the EU average, thus emitting 31% more vehicle CO2 per capita than our continental neighbours. According to

I saw a cartoon where a doctor asks a guy, “What fits your schedule better, exercising one hour a day or being dead 24 hours a day?” In Ireland, we walk and cycle 1.5 billion kilometres. While that sounds like serious mileage, it’s only 3% of the total passenger kilometres travelled. Driving on the other hand… 85%. And since the car is incredibly carbon intensive, swapping short journeys to zero carbon walking (or cycling) is