Speakers and Panellists
Fred Pearce
Fred Pearce is a freelance author and journalist based in London. He has reported on environment, science and development issues from 64 countries over the past 20 years. Trained as a geographer, he has been environment consultant of New Scientist magazine since 1992. He writes regularly for the Guardian newspaper, and in February published a 12-part investigation of the "climategate" emails affair at the University of East Anglia, which is about to appear in book form as The Climate Files. He is a frequent lecturer, having spoken on all six continents in the past four years, and is a contributor to US newspapers and magazines. Fred's books have been translated into 16 languages and won a number of prizes. When the Rivers Run Dry was listed among the all-time Top 50 Sustainability Books by the University of Cambridge's Programme for Sustainable Leadership. His other books include Confessions of an Eco Sinner, Earth: Then and Now, The Last Generation (on climate change), Deep Jungle and Peoplequake, published in February this year.
John Gibbons
John Gibbons is a journalist and specialist environmental writer. He contributed a weekly column on environmental issues for the Irish Times for two and a half years and regularly appears as a commentator in the broadcast media. His primary interest is in climate change and sustainability, as well as analysing the communication of science in the lay media.
John is heavily involved in the Irish Think or Swim campaign which aims to combat climate change.
Oisín Coghlan
Oisín Coghlan has been Director of Friends of the Earth Ireland since 2005. Oisín heads the panel of representatives of the Environmental Pillar of Social Partnership and sits on the National Economic and Social Council (NESC). Before joining Friends of the Earth, Oisín worked for 10 years in the areas of overseas aid and human rights and still sits on the Board of Fairtrade Mark Ireland. Oisín's primary degree was Sociology and Political Science in Trinity and he did a Masters in International Relations in DCU. He was elected to the Royal Irish Academy Committee for Climate Change Sciences in 2009.
Prof Frank Convery
Frank Convery is Director of the Earth Sciences Institute, University College Dublin, and chair of Comhar Sustainable Development Council. He is honorary President of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (EAERE) and has led the application of market instruments such as the use of price signals to reflect the scarcity of environment in the market place. His view is that markets destroy the environment unless they are adjusted to provide constant incentives to conserve. He served on the Irish Commission on Taxation which recommended a carbon tax on emissions from transport and heat in residential and business which was subsequently implemented by government. He is a strong advocate of water pricing for domestic users.
His recent book Pricing Carbon, Cambridge University Press, 2010 (with Ellerman and De Perthuis) is a forensic analysis of the creation of a carbon market in Europe. He has published a wide range of articles on the use of markets to protect the environment, including an analysis (with McDonnell and Ferreira) of the Irish plastic bags levy. He is leading an EU-funded analysis of energy efficiency policy in the US, Europe and emerging economies, which will provide input and proposals for the EU-US summit in 2012. He believes in the power of communication, and produces a bi-weekly Commentary for Comhar Sustainable Development Council which addresses emerging issues.
Brian Trench
Brian Trench is a senior lecturer in the School of Communications at DCU. He teaches modules in Science and Media, Science and Society and Research Methods. His research interests are online journalism and the social uses and representations of science and technology. He manages the Biosciences and Society research group within the National Institute for Cellular Biotechnology and has been a theme leader in the EU-funded ENSCOT (European Network of Science Communication Teachers) and MUDIA (Multimedia Content in the Digital Age) projects. Brian was a member of the government advisory body, Irish Council for Science Technology and Innovation, 1997-2003. He was a full-time journalist for 20 years before joining DCU.
Jimi McGrath
Jimi joined Cawley Nea/TBWA in 2005 after completing the MSc in Advertising in DIT. Since then he has worked on a number of national and international campaigns for clients such as Jameson, McDonald's, RTE and Paddy Power.
From 2007 - 2009 Jimi worked on the Change campaign, Ireland's plan of action on Climate Change with the Department of the Environment. During this time the team ran a number of awareness campaigns of the issue of climate change, launched an online calculator and encouraged members of the public to find their carbon number.
Danny Walsh
Communications Officer, Irish Environmental Network
Danny Walsh is a communications professional with over 12 years experience of the industry.
He has an honours Degree in Communications Studies from Dublin City University. In 2007 he was awarded a Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management scholarship to study for a Masters Degree in Communications Management at the University of Lugano, Switzerland. He received his Masters Degree in 2008. As part of this course Danny undertook a Branding communications consultancy project for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
Danny is passionate about the internet communications revolution and much of his work involves helping organizations harness the potential of social and interactive media. His recent work includes planning and implementing communications strategies for the Irish Environmental Network and the Environmental Pillar of Social Partnership. He was the publications officer for the Green Party from 2005 until the 2007 general election. During this time he was responsible for producing print and electronic communications materials for the party.
He has also produced training videos and written radio advertising scripts.
Peter O'Brien
Peter O'Brien has been engaged with social and environmental activism since he gave up professional golf and music promotion about ten years ago. Along side much activism he is an established social entrepreneur and from 2005 has launched various companies, first Visionaries then Energy Futures which evolved into another start up called Edenbee in 2007, a social networking space for people and organizations to collaborate online around green actions to reduce impact from the bottom up. In 2009 he reclaimed Dartmouth Square for the community and runs community events from Yoga to Open Air Cinema, there an in other green spaces, an idea that is taking off all around the city. All event profits go into greening schemes in the area that they take place, a model that Peter believes can spread quickly using the online tools at our disposal. Peter believes that we are coming to a tipping point and is driven with an army of others to push this over the line through collaboration and the collective approach.
Karin Dubsky
Karin Dubsky is a marine ecologist, staff in Civil, Structural and Environmental engineering TCD and head of the environmental group Coastwatch. She has worked professionally in environmental education, and in research and practical projects ranging from wetland protection, over waste, oil and litter prevention and control, coastal zone management, environmental law and biodiversity policy. She co designed the Blue Flag for beaches award and set up the Coastwatch Europe survey as international volunteer eco-audit of the coast. She has lectured and partnered in projects across Europe and the US.
Damian O'Broin
Director, Ask Direct, a direct marketing agency with substantial experience using online tools in the not-for-profit sector
Widely regarded as one of the country's leading experts on non-profit communications and fundraising, Damian started Ask Direct early in 2006 after nearly 15 years working on advocacy, fundraising and communications campaigns for some of Ireland's largest and most well known charities and non-profits.
Damian is a member of the Institute of Direct Marketing, an associate member of the Institute of Fundraising, and currently sits on the board of Friends of the Earth Ireland.
Ask Direct is a fundraising and direct marketing agency. Over the last two years they have helped raise over €6 million and recruited nearly 20,000 new supporters for their clients. They work with some of the best and most dynamic charities and non-profits in Ireland - helping them to tell their stories, find new supporters and build better and deeper relationships with their donors.
James Kelly
Web film producer and director, Feenish Web Films
James Kelly is a Dublin based independent filmmaker. A graduate of UCD and of Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium), his work has screened nationally and internationally, and has been funded by, amongst others, TG4, RTE, BAI, the Arts Council and the Irish Film Board. James currently acts as Audience Advisor to the Arts Council, and was festival director of the Stranger Than Fiction Documentary Festival (Irish Film Institute) from 2007 to 2009. James lectures in Independent Colleges and Griffith College Dublin, and over the years has lectured in UCD, IADT, and the American College.
Mike Walker
Communications Manager for the Pew Environment Group, which co-ordinates the Ocean 2012 coalition, a pan-EU NGO for reform of fisheries with a substantial web presence.
Since September 2008, he has been responsible for communications for the Pew Environment Group's European Marine Programme (pewenvironment.eu). The focus of their work is the reform of the EU's Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) and strengthening of the EU's ban on shark finning. In order to achieve this they have initiated and are co-ordinating the coalition OCEAN 2012 (OCEAN2012.eu).
Tadhg O'Corcora
Conservation Officer with the Irish Peatland Conservation Council (Comhairle Chaomhnaithe Phortaigh na hÉireann). IPCC were founded over 25 years ago with the aim of conserving a representative sample of living intact Irish bogs and peatlands for the benefit of the people of Ireland, and to safeguard their diversity of wildlife. Tadhg looks after the policy side of things at the IPCC as well as running the charity's successful year-old Facebook campaign, which is being used to promote the IPCC’s work to new audiences and recruit volunteers.
Eddie McVeigh
EU Commission. Will discuss a new online lobbying information website for NGOs
Dan Boyle
Green Party Senator. Dan Boyle is Deputy Leader of the Seanad and Party Chair of the Green Party. He is well known as an active user of Twitter.
Jeff Colley
Jeff Colley is the editor of Construct Ireland, the pioneering Irish sustainable building magazine and winner of the 2010 Green Leader award. He is also a founding director of Éasca, the Environmental and Sustainable Construction Association. During his time as editor of Construct Ireland, Jeff has consistently campaigned for sustainable building in Ireland.
He has been credited by environment Minister John Gormley and energy minister Eamon Ryan as playing a key role in achieving 40% energy reductions and mandatory renewable energy usage under building regulations, accelerating the introduction of Building Energy Ratings (BERs) for new homes by two years and influencing the design of the formative National Retrofit Programme. Some of his recent campaigning has focused on a new advertising requirement for BERs and the green public procurement action plan.