COP26 Diaries: Finally in the Blue Zone
Yesterday, armed with a blue lanyard and a ‘terrible’ photo Ciara Murphy was ready to take on the Blue Zone.
Yesterday, armed with a blue lanyard and a ‘terrible’ photo Ciara Murphy was ready to take on the Blue Zone.
Undertaking a pilgrimage is not usually done solely to satisfy the need to be surrounded by nature or to exercise but can result from deeply personal, spiritual and faithful decision. While the destination is important, the journey is equally so.
On October 4th, to mark the end of the Season of Creation and coinciding with National Tree Day, communities, schools and works across the Irish Jesuit Province were planting trees. We harbour no illusion that planting trees absolves us from the necessary, hard work of reducing our overall ecological impact. But this simple act… Read more »
COP26 – What is it and why should I care? COP26, the annual global climate summit, is scheduled to take place in Glasgow over the first 2 weeks in November this year. Our climate has already heated by 1ᵒ Celsius. Further warming is already baked in, so to speak, based on our past emissions. The… Read more »
Hope that things will change for the better is part and parcel of events like COP. If change was not possible, if the situation was truly hopeless, these meetings would not happen. What we need now alongside our hope is the will to take action.
“Climate change is widespread, rapid and intensifying” – IPCC Climate change is not an event; it is not something that just has arrived or will arrive in the few years. It exists on a continuum, on a scaling ladder of disasters with previously impossible events becoming normal. We are already on this ladder, experiencing extreme… Read more »
“Food is more than just what we eat. The ways in which we produce, process and consume food touch every aspect of life on the planet. It is the foundation of our cultures, our economies and our relationship with the natural world. Food has the power to bring us together as families, as communities and as nations.”
If you consider yourself a climate justice advocate, then it is also impossible to be ambivalent towards the destructive nature of war. It is a simple fact that suffering of the most vulnerable people is an injustice, whether as a result of climate change or armed conflict.
The most ambitious Irish commitment to emissions reduction to date, simultaneously falls short in committing us to doing our fair share in dealing with the climate crisis.
Less than three weeks into the nesting season, which is legally closed for gorse clearing, and Ireland has already experienced several serious incidences of wildfires in hills around the country. While the smoke may have cleared from the wild fires which ravaged the hills around Kerry, Laois and Wicklow the ecological devastation will remain for years.
Working Notes is a journal published by the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice. The journal focuses on social, economic and theological analysis of Irish society. It has been produced since 1987.