[Current Magazine] As Malawi elects a new and female President, Joyce Banda, following the controversial death of her 78-year old predecessor, Deirdre Mulrooney reflects on her recent visit there.
Environment
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Doomed Nuclear ‘Renaissance’
Tony Lowes blogs on the ‘nuclear renaissance’ now underway around the world with nations and power companies, often global consortiums, scrambling to build more and more nuclear power stations – including the 113 reactors planned along the Asian Rim earthquake fault that just shifted and the 104 reactors built on fault lines in the USA. As George Mombiot writes that ‘As a result of the disaster at Fukushima, I am no longer nuclear-neutral. I now support the technology’, Lowes points out that the limited amount of uranium left means that in 60 years that too will run out – leaving us to count the cost in money and human health caused by not switching now to renewable energy.
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Funding Cuts: The Green Legacy
“Only 4% consider the environment the issue that will influence their vote”.
Assessments carried out by expert ecologists for the European Commission in 2008 found that only 7% of Ireland’s habitats examined are in good status, with 46% inadequate and 47% bad. Yet Budget 2011 saw a fall the Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government’s funding from €2.2 billion in 2010 to €1.6 billion in 2011 – a 28% cut. Under the National Recovery Programme, this will fall to €1 billion in 2014 – a reduction of more than 50% in 4 years…