Philip Boucher-Hayes

Plantain Could a little grass-herb, dismissed in the past as a weed, play a key role in solving Ireland’s livestock/water quality issue? With Thomas Moloney, DLF Seeds; Thomas Duffy, dairy farmer.

The mighty little herb that might go a long way to solving river pollution.

Field trials show that Ribwort Plantain can absorb anywhere between 30% and 90% of the nitrogen in cow’s urine.

Listen: 👉 www.rte.ie/radio/radio1...

Greenhouse gas emissions per capita. The broken grey line is the path required for 2030 targets. Ireland is miles wide of it. The nearest neighbours are crushing it.
#climate

More than 520 chemicals found in English soil, including long-banned medical substances Fertilising arable land with human waste leaves array of toxins that could re-enter food chain, study finds

98% of sludge from #IrishWater’s sewage plants is spread on land. While we have done a lot of research on impacts on #water quality I found very few researchers working on what it does to #soil and #food. Seems like a bit of an oversight now 👇

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

#Bluetongue Virus's arrival in Ireland is a #climate change story as well as an animal welfare concern.

Endemic in sub-tropics, but unheard of in Europe until the late '90s. Changing humidity and temperature allowed the infected midges to survive in ever more northerly areas.
Graphic: WOAH

A Ukrainian climate scientist gave me a baseball cap to mark their 2023 research expedition to Antarctica. Yep, 2023, you read it right. #priorities

Ep 27 - AMOC The evidence for and against the Atlantic's overturning current reaching a tipping point this century.

Iceland has assessed the possible tipping point this century of the Atlantic’s overturning circulation as a national survival issue.
I made a programme about how scientists have arrived at that conclusion.
Listen: 👉 www.rte.ie/radio/radio1...
#amoc #climate #climatecrisis

Gas men in Meath A new anaerobic digester in Meath, one of the first of many, raises questions about where will all the grass to feed them come from? Minister Darragh O’Brien promises to publish the long awaited Land ...

500,000 hectares forestry. 100,000ha rewetting, 68,000 acres solar panels, 1000 onshore wind turbines, 120,000ha grassland for Anaerobic Digesters etc.

Where will it all go?

Minister O’Brien says we’re getting the (long awaited) Land Use Review for Christmas.

Listen: 👉 www.rte.ie/radio/radio1...

Feed him. He’ll never ever come back if you’re extra generous.

Without my 17yo penetrating insights in the margins it’s just not Soundings.

a blue and white penguin standing in the rain with the word pengw in the corner ALT: a blue and white penguin standing in the rain with the word pengw in the corner

More sadness than anger.

I am 53. My copy of Soundings was stolen over a quarter of a century ago. The hurt has not dimmed.

Big rain prompts big decisions.

A month’s worth of rain fell on this Kildare farm in a few days last week.

Listen: 👉 www.rte.ie/radio/radio1...

Nitrates derogation Back in the early nineties all across the EU a rule was introduced to protect rivers and streams from agricultural run off. At the last count 7,000 out of 137,000 farms in Ireland had received a derog...

Over the 19 years Ireland has had a derogation from the nitrates directive we have backed ourselves in to a corner. Which now leaves us having productive and economically viable farms or cleaner rivers and lakes, but not both.

Listen: 👉 www.rte.ie/radio/radio1...

I visited a farm outside Monasterevin on Saturday after #StormClaudia. Met Éireann told me this area received the November monthly average of #rain in the space of five days. Full interview on #Countrywide on RTÉ Radio on Saturday.

How to get Ireland to take #Climate Action:

Point out the Brits are beating us hands down.

(Emissions per capita world rankings)

This version has the Irish scenes removed and new material in its place.

YouTube video by Al Jazeera English Inside the planet’s fight to end fossil fuels | Global Warning E3 | Featured Documentary

Ep 3: How do we unscrew it? 👇

youtu.be/TlNuYqrXNS0?...

3/3

YouTube video by Al Jazeera English Inside the planet’s race to adapt | Global Warning E2 | Featured Documentary

Ep 2: How do I stop it screwing me? 👇

youtu.be/PwgqVoFhVNM?...

2/3

YouTube video by Al Jazeera English Inside the planet’s most urgent climate warning | Global Warning E1 | Featured Documentary

How screwed is the climate, how do we stop it screwing us, how do we unscrew it.

Three episodes of Global Warning has considered answers to all the above, and @aljazeera.com has made it free to watch on YouTube.

Ep 1: How Screwed Is It? 👉 youtu.be/F8vI5_gN90g?...

1/3

Are we doing enough to protect our National Parks? Padraic Fogarty, Ecologist and Author and Christopher O’Sullivan, Minister of State with responsibility for Nature, Heritage and Biodiversity

“I can assure you, and I have the full backing of an Taoiseach, Micheál Martin on this … that we will fund the Nature Restoration Plan”
- Minister Christopher O’Sullivan

A promise worth making a note of. It happened in this conversation. 👇

www.rte.ie/radio/radio1...

First dog grooming business in history to be charged with wasting Garda time?

I’ve heard the fish farms are being decimated by Siphonophores more than any other Jellyfish. Nasty sting I’d imagine?

What’s your preferred solution on your land? Is it possible to evenly balance competing interests of productive harvests, endangered birds, nitrates management?

Back of an envelope answer, John: If you’d had to do it in 2018 and 2023 what would the impact have been?

That’s a shocker. Imagine finding out “one size fits all” national solutions don’t always work everywhere. Colour me surprised.

I need somebody to explain this to me like I’m really really thick. Or is it just that it’s a complex marginal call whether cover crop’s benefits to water quality do or don’t outweigh the benefits of leaving a field in stubble for the birds?

An answer that doesn’t make me look thick would be nice.

Vietnam city sets national record with 1.7 m rain in 24 hours The central Vietnamese city of Hue recorded more than a metre of rain in a 24-hour period, smashing a national record set over two decades ago, the environment ministry said Tuesday.

Vietnam: Five and a half feet of rain in a day. Smashes previous 24 hour record by two and a half feet.

www.france24.com/en/live-news...

YouTube video by Al Jazeera English Inside the planet’s race to adapt | Global Warning E2 | Featured Documentary

Two years and one month ago I recorded the interview in this programme with him in Dhaka. Brilliant, generous and wise. Terrible loss.

youtu.be/PwgqVoFhVNM?...

Bill Gates makes a stunning claim about climate change | CNN Business In a stunning and significant pushback to the “doomsday” climate activist community, Bill Gates, a leading proponent for carbon emissions reductions, published a remarkable essay Tuesday that argued r...

The secret to good comedy is . . . . .
. . . . Timing

Bill Gates argues against decarbonising to avoid #Climate Change on the same day that a hurricane nearly violent enough to be called a Category 6 hits Jamaica.

www.cnn.com/2025/10/28/b...

YouTube video by Al Jazeera English Inside the planet’s most urgent climate warning | Global Warning E1 | Featured Documentary

“But there’s no interest in #climate change any more!”

Barely a fortnight on YouTube and Global Warning has already been watched half a million times. Plus look at the appetite in the comments for more reliable info. @aljazeera.com has made them free to air so share them.

youtu.be/F8vI5_gN90g?...