IT’S a bit worrying when the Chinese start building nuclear power plants next door and are given the full state banquet treatment by our neighbours in Downing Street and Buckingham Palace, writes Suzanne Harrington.

The confirmation that the Midlands wind farm project, involving anything up to 2,300 turbines, will not go ahead was inevitable once the British government lost faith in the capacity of wind to meet a significant proportion of Britain’s energy needs.

Here on Earth: A twin biography of the planet and the human race

A levy has curbed the Irish public’s consumption of plastic bags but 1m are given out every minute worldwide, writes Dan Buckley.

ANTHONY GIDDENS’ The Politics of Climate Change is about “nightmares, catastrophes and dreams”.

LIVING in a temperate climate we can easily forget how powerless we are in the face of destructive nature.

JAMES LOVELOCK has a long and noble history of defending the natural world and brings a gust of robust realism to the woolly green romanticism which passes for international environmental policy.

THE response by Adam Douglas (Letters, April 14) to my letter (April 5) is typical of the mindset of the anti–nuclear lobby.

I WISH to respond to Dr Philip Michael (Letters, June 11) and his statement that “nuclear energy is the most malignant form of electricity production”.

RENOWNED physicist Philip Walton (Letters, June 18) extolled the virtues of nuclear energy and lamented the negative attitude prevalent in Ireland towards its adoption as an alternative to unreliable fossil sources — oil and gas.

VIRGIN boss Richard Branson yesterday offered a $25 million (€19.2m) prize to scientists to find a way to help save the planet from climate change.

Former US presidential candidate Al Gore is in London to announce a new climate change initiative alongside Richard Branson.

ENVIRONMENT Minister Dick Roche has been pontificating again recently on the ills of nuclear power.