Response to ‘Sustainable Rural Housing; Consultation Draft of Guidelines for Planning Authorities’

May 2004

This submission critiques the current Irish Rural Housing Guidelines, arguing that their formation lacked proper participation and consultation; they are based on insufficient information; they over-emphasise dispersed housing to the detriment of other types of housing, in particular that of small settlements and villages; they fail to acknowledge important environmental and social factors such as peak oil and the fact that dispersed housing is more likely to be built and inhabited by the relatively well-off; and they introduce a discriminatory planning system based on the provenance and circumstances of the applicant. It suggests that a Rural Housing Commission …

Debt, Climate and Global Justice: April 2004 conference

A conference jointly organised by Feasta and the Debt and Development Coalition Ireland on the links between climate change, the debt crisis and global inequity

Held in association with the New Economics Foundation, Jubilee Research, the Global Commons Institute, Friends of the Irish Environment and GRIAN, the Irish arm of the Climate Action Network. With contributions via a live video link from a simultaneous conference on the same topics in South Africa.…

FEASTA submission on Irish Renewable Energy Policy

Contribution to Consultation Process on Policy Goals – March 2004
Ireland’s renewable energy policy can only be developed intelligently if carried out within the framework of an overall energy policy. The latter, in turn, should only be shaped by people who have carefully examined the prospects for energy supplies from conventional sources for the next fifty years. (No shorter period can sensibly be taken in view of the fact that energy-using structures such as buildings, railways and roads built now will have a life of around that period and in some cases far beyond it. Some power infrastructure can also …

Submission on the Corrib Gas Application

To: Mr. Ian Douglas, Planning Office, Mayo County Council.
Re: Gas Terminal Planning Application, Bellanaboy, Co. Mayo.
Date: January 29th, 2004.

Dear Mr. Douglas,

The following is a brief submission by Feasta on the application by Shell E. and P. to construct a Gas Processing Plant at Bellanaboy Bridge, Co. Mayo. Feasta, The Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability, was established in 1998. It aims to explore and promote the characteristics – economic, cultural and environmental – that a society must have in order to be truly sustainable.…

The Little Earth Show

Tuesday, January 27th, and the 3rd, 10th and 17th of February 2004

On January 27th at 9.00 pm Donegal’s Highland Radio broadcast the first of four radio shows produced by FEASTA titled ‘The Little Earth Show’ . The following three shows werebroadcast on February 2rd, 10th and 17th.

Produced for a youth audience, the Little Earth Show is a four-part radio drama with a difference based partly on the best selling ‘Little Earth Book’ by James Bruges. Each episode takes a topic and analyses the issues from a global and local perspective.

The style of the show is a …