Author: Cian White

A potential scientist, with interests in ecology, evolution and philosophy.
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Nature and Wellbeing

A Long Read by Cian White

Photo by James Orr
Credit: James Orr

For anyone living in a city during a pandemic, the benefit of parks to your physical and mental health is obvious. There is space to properly social distance, space to meet up with friends, space to exercise or kick a ball around, benches to sit on, air to breathe, life to live. Then there is the life in the parks, the trees and shrubs and birds and insects, all the stuff that comes under the vague heading of greenspace or nature. So, to celebrate World Cities day and in the interest of public health, let us explore a very interesting area of research developing at the intersection of ecology and psychology: meaningful nature experiences.

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A Scientist Goes to Court

A very interesting case has been underway in the high court the past week. Last Thursday and Friday, the Friends of the Irish Environment (FIE), a conglomerate which represents Irish environmental NGOs, have been laying out their case that the Irish State’s actions on climate change are inadequate. They argue that that the government’s approval of the National Mitigation Plan in 2017 was in violation of Ireland’s Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act, the Constitution, and human rights obligations. Basically, climate change is a thing, and Ireland hasn’t acted adequately to decarbonise the economy, putting the lives of its citizens at risk. Today the state was responding, so I went along to hear how they were going to defend their record. Continue reading “A Scientist Goes to Court”