Ireland has thus far been spared the ravages of the eight-toothed spruce bark beetle, which has killed hundreds of millions of spruce across Europe.

But the insect is now edging closer to Irish shores, posing a dire risk to the €2 billion timber industry.

My new story for The Irish Times:

It's true that the suffering of children hits differently after you become a parent.

I can hardly imagine anything more heinous than letting a toddler starve.

To meet its climate goals, Ireland must radically expand tree cover. To that end, it offers generous incentives to farmers who forest their lands. Most can earn more money from forestry than from raising livestock.

Despite this, tree planting is at its lowest level since 1946.

My new story:

I think a lot about what Carl Sagan said in one of his final interviews.

A short, insightful read:

This is clever:

Donate here to support the Ukrainian Defense Forces:

Massive encroachment by Bezos into The Washington Post’s opinion section - makes clear dissenting views will not be published

I still have not felt encroachment on my journalism on the news side, but if Bezos tries interfering with the news side I will be quitting immediately and letting you know

A valuable read. (It's brief.)

The environmental damage from the war in Gaza is devastating — most farmland decimated, 80 percent of trees lost — but has received scant attention.

Fred Pearce's report is essential reading:

You can judge how bad things are by the number of historians quoted in news stories.

We are currently at a 9.6 on the Historian Index.