Fintan O’Toole’s column in Saturday’s Irish Times included the following: “it is somewhat ominous that the Green Party has had to do all the heavy political lifting on what ought to be a shared national undertaking”. What is this ‘shared national undertaking’? It is to respond to the urgent and…

The knotweed had a sign: Do Not Cut! Invasive Species! Don’t recall, she thought. Don’t go backwards into that dark night. Stay here. “Hey. How long’s the sign been here?” “The council put it up, about a year ago. You mean you never noticed?” “Well, it was high summer when…

It’s true that I often write about the shortcomings, obstacles, fears and crises that we face as a species. After all, I’m a philosopher whose focus is the ecological emergency. Even though I think the solution to the existential threat we all now face is based on being able to…

They have gone to bed early. It had begun to rain. At midnight, there is a scuffling at the tent and she whispers, “Who’s there?” A man’s voice. “Get up. Get into the truck. They’re coming. Now!” She grabs her rucksack, crawls out into the pouring rain, rips the drenched…

Free will is an illusion. Wait. I know it’s powerfully persuasive to think you’re in control, and responsible for your life. But all the evidence points the other way. The difficulty with accepting this lies in a sense of powerlessness. What if I really don’t control my life? …

Early evening. The heat was easing as the dark marched over the glowing sky. He had called his wife, who was incoherent with grief, to say that there was no doubt in his mind that the mutilated body he had found on the ground by the side of the road…

The last story I read, the story of the death of a man after he jumped off a bridge, witnessed by a firefighter, has haunted me. What are we doing? I had a call tonight from someone who I know talking about her anxiety. This person is successful by any…

She can hear them every time she goes into the shed. The lintel over the door is beginning to collapse, like teeth rotting to loose, jagged edges, before dropping in soft sections to the ground. It is their chewing she can hear, a faint rasping noise, and she can see…