A plan on how Ireland can become a global leader in sustainable energy will be unveiled this morning by Sustainable Energy Ireland.

Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources Eamon Ryan will attend the event, which will outline a five-year strategy on how Ireland can fully exploit clean, low-carbon technologies and enterprise.

A report completed last year suggested 80,000 jobs could be created in Ireland’s emerging green economy – a strategy the Government said would be implemented.

However the Labour Party says that while the Government ‘talks a good game’, it has simply failed to deliver.

via: rte.ie

In the last few years particularly, I have found myself easily spending €50 to €70 per week on my daily lunch. If you eat your lunch out every day, you might not realise just how much it is costing you. A soup, sandwich and a drink doesn’t give much change from €10! I very much doubt I would spend that same amount if I pepared these lunches at home!

If you take this saving and calculate what you could put away over a 5 year period, it equates to quite a tidy sum!! Perhaps the Take your Lunch to Work campaign can take over from the heady days of SSIA schemes!!

I admit, taking your homemade lunch takes a little bit more organisation, but once you get in to the habit of it, it′s both financially rewarding and generally much tastier and satisfying!! My first tip is to invest in some good reusable containers and perhaps a flask if you fancy a hot drink – this also makes sure you′re cutting down on waste – so it′s a double whammy!!!

I already hear some of you groan at the memory of the soggy tomato sanger at the school lunch break!! But fear not, there is so much more choice there now!! Fill you lunch box with some fresh cut bread and a slice of parma and brie, and you have an epicurean feast to compare with the best deli in town!! I personally love to make a bowl of pasta twirls every few days, keep them in the fridge and use them to make a different pasta salad each day (you can′t beat tuna, sweetcorn & a good dollop of low fat mayo!).

Also don′t forget leftovers, this is definitely the easiest way to organise your take to work lunch. This is the easiest way to make your lunch: just make extra dinner the night before. Nearly every office has a microwave oven and you will be happy to have a bowl of last night’s beef stew, which will probably taste even better than it did right from the oven. Other leftovers don’t even need to be re-heated, such as poached salmon or a piece of cold chicken. By planning ahead you can steam some extra broccoli, saute an extra chicken breast, add another sweet potato to the oven, or boil some eggs while dinner is on the stove.

Two other suggestions that I think important, if you want this to work for you – firstly, just because you bring your own lunch doesn’t mean you shouldn’t really enjoy what you’re eating. Prepare and eat meals that you will look forward to eating and you won’t feel hard-done by nor be tempted to toss your homemade food in exchange for a slice of pizza.

Finally, even if you don’t have to leave the office to buy your lunch, give yourself a break. Take your lunch, and a friend, with you to a park bench, or do a quick visit to a nearby museum, browse in a bookstore, or just walk around the town. We need our lunch breaks not only to refuel our bodies but also our minds! So come on, join me Save money, Eat Better and Get Greener!!!

It’s an exceptionally inconvenient truth. Only one American in three believes that human beings are responsible for climate change: a polling result 10% down on where opinion rested the year before.  Worse, the number of Americans who believe that climate change is a hoax or a scientific conspiracy – not doubting,   just damned blank certain – has doubled since 2008.  Add in those who assert that the changes, if any, are of “no significant concern”, and you’ve got 30% of the US denying, scoffing and just walking on by.  Are the issues clearer, the people more committed, here on this side of the Atlantic?  Call for the latest evidence from Ipsos Mori – and find that the proportion of  UK adults who believe that global warming is “definitely” a reality has plummeted from 44% to 31% in the last 12 months.  And although no study of this nature has been completed in Ireland (to my knowlege), figures like these, on both sides of the Atlantic, are getting more sceptical week by week.   The real change of electoral climate is that fewer and fewer voters pay any heed to scientists and politicians.   It isn’t hard to collate the factors that drive disillusion.  Professors with a colloquial touch writing “awful” emails; a recession so tough that it blows future shock away; a cold, cold winter the Met Office didn’t forecast; scientific angst about swine flu revealed as way over the top; dodgy figures, dodgy reporting, dodgy issues way up to UN level.  These are only a few of our least favourite things. Mix them together in the stew of pre-election politics, and the result is lethal inertia.

Environmental issues have slithered down the greasy pole of public anxiety.  They won’t get much of a mention on the imminent reshuffle: no fresh commitments, no crucial pledges.  In one sense, the heat may by rising; in another, the heat is off.  And that, of course, is cause for very significant concern.  Democracies move in particular ways. Voters have to clamber on board when sacrifices are required.  They have to see the need for pain, to sense the danger of doing nothing.  They have to lead their leaders as well as follow – once they switch off, nothing good happens easily, if at all.  An Obama stalled on healthcare reform in the Senate isn’t going to be able to deliver sweeping global warming policies.   He may not be George Bush, but he already seems to know when he’s on a loser. And, without him, you can write the Chinese or Indian scripts. You can tell that the follow-ups to Copenhagen will be feebler, not stronger: true cause for despair. Kick away any mass impetus for tackling climate change as schedules of imminent necessity fade and review panels plod across the wastelands of borrowed time.  What’s to be done (except wait for a natural disaster that ends all argument – and much else besides)?  First, through gritted teeth, say what won’t work, what’s been tried already and failed.  More jaw and Gore from politicians can’t cut it. T hey have come to seem secondhand sources, merely parroting a frail scientific thesis.  That goes, alas, for journalists, too – and for pressure groups issuing lurid warnings or staging angry demos.  Those of us who are convinced, who believe in the necessity of action, haven’t changed our minds. But we’re not the point.  The audience that matters is out there, sleeping or drifting. And rousing it will demand something different, not more of the same. Yet more of the same is exactly what we seem to be getting. More re-examinations of existing evidence, monitored by the people who failed to monitor it last time.  More supposedly transparent attempts to say precisely when Himalayan glaciers will melt. More United Nations panels, flying lugubriously hither and yon in the cause of consensus. More declarations signed by hundreds of scientists on behalf of a notional “scientific community” (rather like letters to editors from umpteen economists urging cuts or no cuts).  None of it has a ring of renewed confidence. And the plain fact is that we surely need a prophet, not yet another committee.  We need one passionate, persuasive scientist who can connect and convince – not because he preaches apocalypse in gory detail, but in simple, overwhelming terms.  We need to be taught to believe by a true believer in a world where belief is the fatal, missing ingredient.

via: guardian.co.uk

Article written by Peter Preston

The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food is inviting farmers’ markets to sign up to the Code of Good Practice for Farmers’ Markets. Markets operating to the Good Practice standard receive a certificate and banner which they can display to inform the public that they source a substantial proportion, ideally 50%, of local produce from the county or neighbouring counties.

They also agree to accommodate seasonal and local garden/allotment produce and to comply with food safety/labelling rules and criteria on good governance.  34 markets were awarded the good practice banner in 2009.

Applications may be made up until 31 March.

No, GreenMe are not advocating a slovenly lifestyle, just encouraging you to take it outside!! Cancelling your gym membership will not only save you money, it will also lower your carbon footprint!!

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The hulking Hummers you see ruling the road will soon be a thing of the past.

General Motors has announced that it will stop production on its popular line of SUVs after an attempted sale of the brand to a Chinese company fell through. According to the Associated Press, Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery had to back out of the deal because it wasn’t able to obtain manufacturing clearance by the February 28 cut-off.

“We are disappointed that the deal with Tengzhong could not be completed,” said GM Vice President of Planning and Alliances John Smith. “GM will now work closely with Hummer employees, dealers and suppliers to wind down the business in an orderly and responsible manner.”

While Hummer is headed for the scrap heap, GM has said that it will continue to honor standing warranties.

via: S2Smagazine.com

The Environmental Protection Agency has secured a High Court injunction preventing the operators of a controversial landfill near Naas in Co Kildare from accepting further deposits.

The EPA had argued the landfill was causing environmental pollution through the emission of serious odours, which had led to more than 300 complaints from the public in a matter of months.

The Kerdiffstown landfill near Naas is operated by Neiphin Trading – a company associated with the major firm A1 Waste.
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EPA inspectors found strong odours, from landfill gas and composting activities, were emanating from two sites on the facility.

One local resident said the smells had been so severe they forced him to vomit on a number of occasions.

Neiphin Trading argued an injunction would ‘effectively shut down the business’, making 106 employees redundant, when the company had plans to tackle the problems.

However, today Mr Justice Sean Ryan granted an injunction to the EPA, saying he did not accept this would put the company into a condition of extreme financial peril.

He said that potential devastation had to be weighed against the public interest to be free from environmental pollution.

The EPA is taking separate court action against Neiphin Trading and others over the illegal disposal of 1.1m tonnes of waste in a separate part of the Kerdiffstown landfill.

via: rte.ie

‘THE BIG SWAP’ is the theme for Fairtrade Fortnight 2010, which will also highlight the continued growth in Fairtrade sales and support in Ireland.

“The Big Swap is all about encouraging people to swap some of their usual purchases – tea, coffee, chocolate and bananas for example – for a Fairtrade Certified product,” says Peter Gaynor, Executive Director, Fairtrade Mark Ireland.

“Thousands of Irish consumers have already made the big swap; regularly switching some of their spending to Fairtrade products and in doing so making a real difference to the lives of producers indeveloping countries.” (more…)

NUI Galway (NUIG) and the University of Limerick (UL) yesterday unveiled details of how they plan to work closely together in what was touted as an unprecedented collaboration in Irish higher education, due to the sheer scale of the venture.

The significance of the new strategic alliance was underscored by the presence of Taoiseach Brian Cowen at the announcement in Dublin yesterday, along with Tanaiste Mary Coughlan and Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe. Mr Cowen described it as a “key building block” for the country’s ’smart economy’ project and promised it would make a major contribution to economic and social development. (more…)

This is what the failure of the climate talks means.

The last time global negotiations collapsed like this was in Doha in 2001.  After the trade talks fell apart, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) assured the delegates that there was nothing to fear: they would move to Mexico, where a deal would be done. The negotiations ran into the sand of the Mexican resort of Cancun, never to re-emerge. After eight years of dithering, nothing has been agreed.

When the climate talks in Copenhagen ended in failure just last December, Yvo de Boer, the man in charge of the process, urged us not to worry: everything will be sorted out “in Mexico one year from now.”(1) Is Mexico the diplomatic equivalent of the Pacific garbage patch: the place where failed negotiations go to die? (more…)