Down to Earth
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In this ever-changing world, Dr Cara Augustenborg brings us the very latest in environmental research and deciphers what it means for our everyday lives.
Separately, you can listen to the Down To Earth with Cara Augustenborg standalone podcast here.
Available episodes
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Oldest first
Sep 18, 2021
What Is The Economic Forecast For Ireland?
Earlier in the week we saw the headlines claiming “Carbon tax hikes and higher stamp duty are among measures being considered for the upcoming budget.” Is it time to tighten our belts or will the roaring 20’s be making a comeback? Economist Dan O'Brien gave us his economic forecast for the country.
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May 1, 2021
Economist Colm McCarthy Discusses Ireland's Reopening
Bobby discusses Ireland's reopening with economist Colm McCarthy. McCarthy stated that this downturn is similar to the housing crisis but with one distinct difference. All of Europe is in this together, every country in Europe has been equally affected by Covid.
Bobby pointed to the fact that the US have started doing well economically speaking due to the speed of their vaccine rollout.
Optimistically, the economist spoke about how the European Central Bank won't be looking to get back to balance immediately and so it would be incorrect for people to presume to expect austerity in the short term future.
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Sep 19, 2020
Martin O'Byrne & His Dedicated PPE Shop
Last week Dun Laoghaire saw one of Ireland’s first dedicated PPE shop open due to the incredible demand for hygiene products.
Bobby was joined by its inventive proprietor, Martin O’Byrne, to talk about his new venture.
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Jul 21, 2020
Down to Earth - a cake with a difference!
To mark Ivan's final episode of Down to Earth, Dr Cara Augustenborg baked him a cake.
However it was a cake with an environmental point: it was made with cricket flour!
Yes, instead of milled wheat flour, it was made of ground insects.
Take a listen to Ivan's taste test, and why Cara would make a cake with insects in the first place...
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Jul 14, 2020
Can Ireland learn from France when it comes to climate action?
On Down To Earth this week, we are celebrating Bastille Day, which marked a flash point for the French Revolution.
Our environmental expert, Dr. Cara Augustenborg saw it as a good chance to explain how Ireland could learn a lot from France today, particularly when it comes to food and agriculture.
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Jun 30, 2020
Down To Earth: Plastic Pandemic
As we enter a new normal of social distancing and hand sanitisers, resident environmental scientist, Dr. Cara Augustenborg joins Ivant o discuss the environmental fallout that’s beginning to take place via plastic pollution.
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Jun 23, 2020
Down to Earth: the poor wasp!
This week's Down to Earth features wildlife expert Eanna NiLamhna, who defends the stinging wasp!
Here she explains the life cycle and why you can end up stung if you interact with one.
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Jun 16, 2020
Down to Earth
Resident Environmentalist Dr.Cara Augustenborg explains to Ivan why Hemp might actually be good for the planet.
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Jun 9, 2020
Down to earth
Evironmental Scientest Cara Augustenborg shares her take on the Green Party in Government.
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Jun 2, 2020
Down To Earth: Burning down the house
Recent climate records broken in Ireland and across the globe Cara Augustenborg explains what this means.
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May 26, 2020
Down to Earth
Resident environmental scientist Cara Augustenborg returns for this week's Down to Earth.
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May 19, 2020
Down to Earth
Environmental Scientist Cara Augustenborg chats to Ivan about new ideas for tourism during this tough time.
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May 12, 2020
Down to Earth: A climate emergency
Ivan is joined by Environmental Scientist Cara Augustenborg for this week's Down to Earth.
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May 5, 2020
Down to Earth: why is 7% the magic number for reducing emissions?
The Green Party is looking for a 7% annual emissions reduction as part of their negotiations for Government. But why 7%? resident environmental expert, Dr Cara Augustenborg, explains.
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Apr 28, 2020
Down To Earth : Beyond The Sea
This month, researchers Vancouver, Canada reported that silence was proving “golden” for whales as lockdown reduces ocean noise. Resident environmentalist, Dr. Cara Augustenborg joins Ivan to explain what’s happening in our oceans as a result of quieter seas
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Apr 21, 2020
Down to Earth: World Earth Day
April 22nd 2020 marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day – an annual event celebrated in more than 193 countries to demonstrate support for environmental protection. Resident environmental scientist, Dr. Cara Augustenborg tells Ivan how she will be marking the day.
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Apr 14, 2020
Down To Earth: Forestry
The Hard Shoulder's resident environmental expert, Dr. Cara Augustenborg talks about the importance of forestry in Ireland.
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Apr 7, 2020
Down to Earth: Chocolate and Easter edition
Dr Cara Augustenborg explains why one of the ingredients in your Easter egg is not good for the earth.
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Mar 31, 2020
Down to Earth: How the planet is reacting to Covid 19
Dr. Cara Augustenborg breaks down the effect Covid-19 has had on the planet so far, which includes declining air pollution across the world.
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Mar 24, 2020
Cara's Veganuary results!
You may recall that our resident environmental expert, Dr. Cara Augustenborg, went vegan in January for Veganuary.
Her dietary challenge went beyond one month and she joined Ivan to discuss what affect veganuary had on her overall heath and wellbeing.
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Mar 10, 2020
Down To Earth: Medical Mess!
The crisis of coronavirus has even our climate warrior focusing on the medical field.
Dr.Cara Augustenborg discusses how our healthcare affects the planet, arguing health care is one of the leading producers of environmental pollutants worldwide.
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Feb 18, 2020
'They are vital to the ecosystem..."
Should we be re-introducing wolves to Ireland?
Padraic Fogarty is campaigns officer with the Irish Wildlife Trust, and on this Tuesday's 'Down To Earth' he explained why they are so important to the ecosystem.
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Feb 11, 2020
Down To Earth: A Test For Ivan!
Dr. Cara Augustenborg has been taking Ivan Down To Earth every week for 2 years.
To celebrate their 99th slot together Dr.Cara Augustenborg quizzed Ivan on how much he has learned in two years.
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Feb 8, 2020
Executive Chair: Steve Tormey, CEO of Toyota Ireland
In this week's Executive Chair we are joined by Steve Tormey, CEO of Toyota Ireland to talk about the ever-evolving world of the automotive industry, what changes Toyota and the wider market has seen in the last few years, and making that transition from traditional engines to greener hybrid and electric vehicles.
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Feb 4, 2020
Down To Earth: GE2020 climate analysis
With only four days before Ireland goes to the polls, resident environmental scientist and UCD Environmental Policy Cara Augustenborg joined Ivan to discuss how the climate policies in each party manifesto stacked up.
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Jan 28, 2020
Down To Earth: Wine!
Every week we go Down To Earth with Dr. Cara Augustenborg, and this week she joined Ivan to discuss a topic close to Ivan's heart off the back of a screening at the IFI this Thursday night of the French movie “Wine Calling."
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Jan 7, 2020
Cara Augustenborg goes Vegan - reluctantly!
Our environmental scientist Dr Cara Augustenborg has been encouraging us to be more mindful of our fragile environment for more than two years on our Down to Earth weekly feature.
You'd be forgiven for assuming that she's vegan, but she has resisted the change up to now.
However she's decided to take part in Veganuary, but with a scientific approach.
Take a listen to her explain her experiment to Ivan, and you can follow her vegan experiment here: https://www.facebook.com/CaraAugustenborgGreen/
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Dec 10, 2019
Dr Cara Augustenborg: dairy farming is the real culprit in the beef crisis
The beef protests continue this week, with more picketing by the IFA.
Dr Cara Augustenborg took a broader look at the agri sector overall to see where she believes the real issues lie, and she's set her sights on dairy farming.
Ivan, however, disagreed completely! Listen to their debate here
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Dec 3, 2019
Down to Earth: A Green Christmas
We've survived Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but there's still another 22 days until Christmas, so our resident environmentalist Dr.Cara Augustenborg joined Ivan to discuss how to stay green through the Mayhem.
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Nov 26, 2019
Down To Earth: Bug Apocalypse
Several reports have come out this year proclaiming that the number of insects across the globe is declining rapidly, with 41% of our one million known insect species globally now facing extinction. It’s even been referred to in the media as the “unnoticed apocalypse”, here to convince Ivan why he should be paying more attention to these creepy crawlies is our resident environmental scientist, Dr. Cara Augustenborg.
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Nov 12, 2019
What is climate change doing to our food supply?
Our resident environmentalist Cara Augustenborg joined Mark Cagney on this evening's edition of the Hard Shoulder to tell him about the effects that climate change is having on food - even the little green island of Ireland!
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Nov 5, 2019
Climate change is displacing 24 million people a year
Dr Cara Augustenborg joined Ivan to talk about climate refugees and how it could affect Ireland in terms of internal displacement, and what our obligations are to help people from other countries who find they can't stay anymore due to drastic climate changes.
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Oct 29, 2019
How will climate change impact our heritage sites?
Cara Augustenborg explains to Ivan how climate change could impact our monuments and heritage sites
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Oct 22, 2019
"Ministers should drive electric vehicles before making policies..."
This Thursday, October 24 is Ireland’s annual Electric Vehicle Summit in Croke Park and our resident environmentalist, Dr. Cara Augustenborg (an EV owner herself), is speaking at the event alongside Green Party’s Eamon Ryan and others.
Now, she already caused a bit of a stir in the Business Post last week with her views on whether Electric Vehicles really are the transport solution to climate change.
She thinks our Ministers shouldn’t be making policies about them until they’ve had to live with one for 3-6 months!
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Oct 15, 2019
Down To Earth: Not such great gas
When Leo Varadkar was at the UN Climate Summit a few weeks ago, he announced Ireland would no longer explore for more oil off our shores, but for the moment, would continue to allow for gas exploration. This announcement, along with several other announcements from the Government about gas recently, was a key focus of the Extinction Rebellion protest last week and was part of a heated debate in the mansion house last night hosted by Stop Climate Chaos called “The Great Gas debate”.
Dr. Cara Augustenborg joined Ivan to highlight all the issues around gas debates in Ireland right now is our own environmentalist and UCD’s environmental policy fellow.
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Oct 8, 2019
"Carbon tax is just enough to be annoying but not enough to have impact."
Budget 2020 was rumored to be a “green” one, so now that it’s official our resident environmental scientist Dr.Cara Augustenborg and fellow in Environmental Policy crunched the numbers to find out just how green Budget 2020 really is.
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Oct 1, 2019
"Buying second hand you increase the value of a product"
Dr Cara Augustenborg talks to Mark Cagney about National Re-Use Month
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Sep 24, 2019
Environmental impacts of the gym
As the summer winds down, fitness fanatics are taking their routines back into the gyms. But, what is the environmental impact of going to the gym? Dr. Cara Augustenborg, our resident environmental scientist, told us in today's Down to Earth.
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Sep 17, 2019
Down To Earth:Solar Energy
Every Tuesday we go “Down To Earth with Dr.Cara Augustenborg” but on this evenings Hard Shoulder Ivan was joined by Robert Goss
Sales and Marketing Director of Solar Electric to discuss the benefits of solar energy.
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Sep 10, 2019
How Green is Your Home?
Cara Augustenborg looks at how you can re-do the whole house in an eco-friendly way
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Sep 3, 2019
Have things improved at Electric Picnic?
Electric Picnic is over for another year.
There was plenty of furore last year over the amount of litter, as well as used tents, that were left over at the end of the festival.
Was this year any different? And what would our environment expert do to help the cause?
Cara Augustenborg joined Ivan once again on Down To Earth to give her views, as she insisted that enough is being done to stop this scourge.
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Aug 27, 2019
"A burnt area the size of Cork"
Cara Augustenborg joined Ivan to discuss the impact of the fires raging in the rainforests of Brazil
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Aug 20, 2019
Down To Earth: Bees
Our Down To Earth slot is back after a three-week summer break, where our resident environmental scientist, Dr. Cara Augustenborg, and her 9 year old daughter, Eva, spent their time at “Bee Keeping Summer School” and in this weeks Down To Earth Cara is back to day Buzzing with enthusiasm for all things Bee related.
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Jul 23, 2019
Down to Earth: Invasive Species
The headline on the front page of the Wicklow Times last week said ‘Attack of the Giant Hogweed’ and reported of an invasion of giant hogweed in the Garden County which caused toxic burns on an 11 year old girl. Our resident environmental scientist, Dr. Cara Augustenborg, joined Ivan on this evenings Down To Earth to discuss this and other kind of invasions making their way to Ireland.
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Jul 16, 2019
Down To Earth: How to measure your carbon footprint
We've heard all about Minister Bruton's Climate Action Plan this month but just how hard will it be for us to lower our individual carbon footprints to the level Bruton says we must address climate change?
Our resident environmentalist and fellow in environmental policy at UCD, Dr. Cara Augustenborg joins Ivan with the math on our carbon footprint challenge.
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Jul 9, 2019
Down to Earth: Climate Protestors
Every Tuesday we go "Down to Earth" with our residential environmentalist Dr Cara Augustenborg. This week Cara tackles the topic of climate protesters- what methods work? And do they go too far?
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Jul 2, 2019
Down to Earth: Having a Green Summer
Summer is most definitely here now and with sweltering heat being experienced across the continent and more of this to come in the future due to climate change, our resident environmental scientist, Dr. Cara Augustenborg, joins Ivan with her top tips to have an Earth-friendly summer holiday here in Ireland.
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Jun 26, 2019
Down to Earth: Forestry
Last week, the state-owned Forestry company Coiltte announced formation of a new not-for-profit wing ‘Coillte Nature’, whose first project involves the conversion of nine commercial forests in the Dublin mountains into recreational and biodiversity use.
Our resident environmental scientist and UCD Fellow in Environmental Policy, Cara Augusteborg takes us Down To Earth following this new announcement to let tell Ivan whether our Forestry business is really getting closer to nature.
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Jun 26, 2019
Is Ireland's forestry business up to scratch?
Last week, the state-owned Forestry company Coiltte announced formation of a new not-for-profit wing ‘Coillte Nature’.
Their first project involves the conversion of nine commercial forests in the Dublin mountains into recreational and biodiversity use.
Our resident environmental scientist and UCD Fellow in Environmental Policy, Cara Augusteborg joined Ivan to take us Down To Earth following this new announcement and let us know whether our Forestry business is really getting closer to nature.
She isn't totally convinced.
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Jun 19, 2019
Down to Earth: Climate Action Plan
Minister of Communications, Climate Action and Environment -Richard Bruton – unveiled his “All of Government Climate Action Plan” on Monday which some in Government are calling a “landmark moment in Ireland’s climate change awakening”. On this weeks Down To Earth our own resident environmental scientist and UCD Environmental Policy Fellow, Dr. Cara Augustenborg joins Ivan to give her thoughts on what this means for Ireland.
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