Dr Tadhg O'Mahony

Blog

  • Putting nature and farmers first, calling for a strategic approach at Oireachtas Committee

    I was invited to appear at the Irish parliament’s Oireachtas Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action on Tuesday 24th of October 2023, alongside Dr. Martha O’Hagan Luff of TCD and Dr. Emer Ní Dhúill of Natural Capital Ireland. The Committee were considering the recommendations contained in the Citizens’ Assembly on Biodiversity Loss Report relating… Read more

  • Draft Dublin City Centre transport plan, a step in right direction but much more needs to be done

    The consultation for the draft Dublin City Centre transport plan to 2028 is now open until the 1st of December. It’s a step in the right direction, seeking to reclaim the city from being one of the most car congested cities in the world, and all of the problems that has created. It doesn’t work… Read more

  • More efficient technology is not delivering, understanding the ‘rebound’ effect

    Energy efficiency is a major plank of policy efforts to reduce carbon emissions worldwide, but has not been delivering on its promise. This has long been a topic of research, for more than 150 years, since William Stanley Jevons noted the invention in Britain of more efficient steam engines meant that the use of coal… Read more

  • Wise management and the myth of “what gets measured gets managed”

    In today’s world, the challenges and opportunities faced by public and private organisations, both governments and business, have been growing. It was this increase in volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous, or ‘VUCA’ problems, that led to the emergence of futures studies as a field about 80 years ago. But while future studies has spread somewhat,… Read more

  • The IPCC 2023 and the urgent need to begin systems transformation

    27 March 2023| carbon emissions, climate action, Development, development path, Economic growth, greenhouse gas emissions, IPCC, Structures, Sustainability, sustainable development path, Systems Thinking, transformation Image copyright IPCC (2023) The synthesis of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) landed in recent days, prompting enhanced reflection on where we need to go if… Read more

  • Can economic growth be infinite?

    9 March 2023|Degrowth, Economic growth, post-growth ‘Green growth’ theory is interpreted as proposing that change in systems and technologies can be sufficient such that economic growth can proceed indefinitely into the future (Hao et al. 2021). Environmental and social systems are already at critical thresholds globally, and some locally and regionally (Persson et al., 2022).… Read more