Hi Everyone,
This blog was created to support an undergraduate course I used to run at Trinity College, University of Dublin called Living Sustainably. The course evolved from a series of ad hoc lectures from 2000 onwards and was offered as a comprehensive course lasting a semester from 2010 for a number of years before my retirement. The course notes were published by Springer under the title Facing up to Global Warming: What is going on and How You Can Make a difference?
Our understanding and the world we now live in has changed significantly over the past decade, but the book has been fairly accurate in its predictions so far. The posts in the blog have covered a huge range including how individuals are making small but significant changes, and were written largely by the students themselves. They vary in quality but generally offer insight and hope. The ones I enjoy the most are the personal definitions of sustainability, of which there are quite a number. The last post was in November 2019 and I am ashamed to say that I let the blog run down partially I think because I had exhausted myself on the topic and felt that there was now a natural groundswell of interest and that I no longer had to battle to create attention about the risks of global warming induced climate change; Secondly I simply wanted to concentrate on other areas of research and writing. Things have moved on enormously and courses and even degrees in climate change have proliferated However, I think we are still in denial about our role, with climate and other scientists among those with the highest aviation footprints for example, and usually the highest carbon footprints. The madness of COP meetings is testament to that. So I have decided to reactivate the blog and invite others to contribute material if they wish. Many of the posts I will put up are meant to update the existing text of the course book where research has offered new insights. So I hope you will get involved.
May your carbon emissions be in constant decline.
With best wishes,
Nick Gray
