Our Blog - Waving not Drowning
A Shared Vision of a Just Recovery
Posted on October 19, 2020 by Oisín Coghlan
In recent weeks, Friends of the Earth was privileged to be involved in an amazing collaboration to produce “A Shared Vision for a Just Recovery”. This was published just before the budget last week and endorsed by 14 national coalitions and 50+ organizations from all sectors of Irish civil society, from trade unions to women’s and youth advocates, to community and homelessness organizations.
Together we laid out six principles for a fair and sustainable recovery from the social and economic shock of the Covid-19 pandemic. Read more here.
Introducing the joint statement to the media, I commented:
“The coronavirus pandemic has turned the world upside down. It has exposed not only major weaknesses in Ireland’s economy and health services but also deep-seated inequalities.
Permanent link | Categories:
Catch up on Community Energy - October 2020
Posted on October 19, 2020 by Kate Ruddock
After years of campaigning on Community Energy, things are now looking bright! Last month Eirgrid held the first ever Irish renewable electricity auction, which gave the go ahead to 82 wind and solar parks, including two community owned solar parks from our partners at Community Power.
Community Power is Irelands first every 100% renewable and community owned electricity provider. You can switch your home or work electricity provider to Community Energy and know that you are supporting the change with clean, green and sound energy.
Permanent link | Categories: communityenergy • energy
Catch up on Movement Building - October 2020
Posted on October 19, 2020 by Meaghan Carmody
The Growing Together project winds down for Friends of the Earth this month, but the group that formed through this project will continue on to advocate for food sovereignty and sustainable solutions to our broken food system through creative activities.
As you can imagine, the end of summer and harvest has been a busy time for the Growing Together agri-activists with seed saving workshops (including an online seed saving webinar that you can watch back here), farm visits and food sovereignty online theatre performances. They have also been busy researching and interviewing farmers around the country and have curated the latest research to establish a path to a more sustainable food system for Ireland.
Permanent link | Categories: activism
Catch up on No New Gas - October 2020
Posted on October 19, 2020 by Meaghan Carmody
We have 10 years to radically transform our energy system. Cutting our ties with fossil fuels to lower emissions and enable cleaner energy solutions is vital.
Through our work on the No New Gas campaign we have been busy doing extensive research and issuing submissions to European consultations to keep the pressure on decision makers to end fossil fuel dependency.
Permanent link | Categories: energy • gas
Catch up on Climate Action - October 2020
Posted on October 19, 2020 by Oisín Coghlan
On October 13th 2005 we launched our very first e-action to get all 166 TDs in the Dáil to sign a Climate Pledge promising that Ireland would do its fair share to tackle global climate change. And last week marked our 15 year anniversary! This e-action enabled the public to email their local TDs urging them to sign the pledge for the very first time.
Now fast-forward 15 years to today and our team is working away to ensure the Government pass a strong Climate Law. And emailing TDs and taking e-actions has become the bread and butter of our campaigns!
Permanent link | Categories: climatechange
Catch up on Movement Building - October 2020
Posted on October 17, 2020 by Claudia Tormey
The Growing Together project winds down for Friends of the Earth this month, but the group that formed through this project will continue on to advocate for food sovereignty and sustainable solutions to our broken food system through creative and fun activities.
As you can imagine, the end of summer and harvest has been a busy time for the Growing Together agri-activists with seed saving workshops, farm visits and food sovereignty online theatre performances. They have also been busy researching and interviewing farmers around the country and have curated the latest research to establish a path to a more sustainable food system for Ireland.
Permanent link | Categories: activism • foodandfarming
Catch up on Plastic - October 2020
Posted on October 17, 2020 by Claudia Tormey
The Sick of Plastic campaign has been working hard supporting communities across Ireland to take action against the excessive use of plastics in our supermarkets.
Sadly, our annual Shop and Drop was cancelled this year – but that didn’t stop local Sick of Plastic groups from taking action in their communities.
This summer thousands of people took part in our Postcards to Supermarkets campaign, calling on supermarkets to eliminate unnecessary plastic and support reuse.
Demands to Supermarkets:
- Reduce the amount of plastics in store
- Offer loose fruit and veg at affordable prices
- Offer more produce like loose washing detergent and dry goods
- Support reuse by accepting reusable containers
If you didn’t get to any of the 40 hubs to sign a physical postcard, there’s still time to sign your name digitally here at this link.
Permanent link | Categories: waste
Climate Justice: A discussion
Posted on October 16, 2020 by Deirdre Duff
Climate justice is a term that has been bandied around a lot lately. But do we really understand what it means? And when we use the term, are we really upholding the principles of climate justice? Despite its recent popularity, climate justice is not a new term. The ideas that underpin climate justice in its original sense have been developed over decades by social movements such as environmental justice, trade justice and peasant movements. Key climate justice concepts such as ”climate debt” and “equity” have been developed and refined, largely by movements in the Global South - often with pushback from the Global North. With that in mind we’re hosting a webinar at 6pm on 28th October to examine the meaning of climate justice. You can join us by registering for the webinar here.
Permanent link | Categories: activism • climatechange • learning hub • book club • webinars
Watch it Back - Two webinars on Irish Climate Law
Posted on October 02, 2020 by Deirdre Duff
We saw the power of legislation to hold the Government to account in August when the Supreme Court struck down the Government’s hopelessly inadequate 2017 climate action plan because it didn’t comply with the provisions of the 2015 Climate Action Act. That 2015 law was the result of 8 years of campaigning by Freinds of the Earth and the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition.
Now, at our urging, the Government parties have promised to publish a new, stronger climate law within the first 100 days of their administration, by 5th October. Ahead of this milestone, Stop Climate Chaos hosted two webinars to delve into Irish climate law and legislation.
Permanent link | Categories: climatechange • webinars
Join our new Learning Hub!
Posted on October 01, 2020 by Meaghan Carmody
Can you remember a time when you learnt something that changed your perspective forever?
In Friends of the Earth we are committed to a process of consistently learning and unlearning about the systems of power and oppression that influence our lives and the world around us. We believe that we need to understand systems in order to effectively change them.
We also believe in challenging ourselves to consistently create more welcoming spaces for people to engage in a process of interrogating the root causes of global injustice. By doing this we aim to help grow and work with a more critically informed network of change makers across Ireland.
Permanent link | Categories: activism • learning hub • book club
