Specific to the Irish context, with articles analysing current issues in some depth, we have the Local Planet quarterly http://www.localplanet.ie/ , published in Birr Co Offaly, and also the half-yearly Sustainability http://www.sustainability.ie/magazine.html, published from Mayo. Both of these are sources of relevant arguments and ideas for Friends wishing to deal with the energy/climate crisis, whether at the basic lifestyle level, or by organised active socio-political lobbying.

The political dimension can be explored via the Irish Green Party (Comhaontas Glas) which is an all-Ireland organisation, with representation in the Dail and in the Stormont Assembly; see their website at http://www.greenparty.ie/en.

People interested primarily in problems of energy might like to visit the Feasta site: http://www.feasta.org/.

The Quaker conference centre at Woodbrooke near Birmingham runs courses, many of which are supportive of development of understanding of the sustainability problem; their site can be visited at http://www.woodbrooke.org.uk/index.php

The Christian Ecology Link is a multi-denominational UK Christian organisation for people concerned about the Environment: http://www.christian-ecology.org.uk/

QCEA has drawn our attention to the following sites which also may be of interest:

The Sustainable Energy Security project seeks to galvanise Quaker action on sustainable energy use at all levels across Europe; see:

http://www.quaker.org/qcea/energysecurity/index.html

The Living Witness Project (LWP) aims to support the development of Quaker corporate witness to sustainable living and explore ways of taking it to the wider community in Britain and elsewhere. In its initial phase (2002-2005) the project was funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. It built up a network of 24 Quaker groups around England and Wales, participating in regular link group gatherings and experimenting with approaches in their meetings. Since April 2005 the work has been funded by participating meetings and the network has grown to over 60 groups; see http://www.livingwitness.org.uk/index.html

Towards and eco-economy: a blog inviting an exchange of global Quaker experience: http://mecteam.blogspot.com/

Quaker Earthcare Witness is aimed at changing US public policy: http://www.quakerearthcare.org/

The Quaker Institute of the Future (QIF) in Canada launched the Moral Economy Project (MEP) in 2005 to address Friends' concerns about the human prospect in a world of unbridled growth and increasing ecological degradation: http://www.moraleconomy.org/

The Quaker Institute for the Future is based in California: http://www.quakerinstitute.org/pages/t1.asp?PID=91

To get a feel for US conservative Quaker thinking, see http://journal.earthwitness.org/ published by the Great Plains YM in Omaha, Nebraska.

The Friends Committee for National Legislation in Washington DC publishes http://www.fcnl.org/energy/

David W Orr is a professor and chair of the Environmental Studies Program at Oberlin College, School of Natural Resources, University of Vermont. In the Spring Seminar Series 2003 on Ecological Economics he wrote:

"The concept of sustainability first came to public notice in Wes Jackson's work on agriculture in the late 1970's, Lester Brown's Building a Sustainable Society (1980), and The World Conservation Strategy (Allen, 1980). The Brundtland Commission made it a central feature of its 1987 report defining it as meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to do the same (1987). Their definition confused sustainable growth, an oxymoron, and sustainable development, a possibility. Ambiguities notwithstanding, the concept of sustainability has become the keystone of the global dialogue about the human future. But what exactly do we intend to sustain and what will that require of us?..."

Get the rest of this at http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/4CofS.html

We also have here a site giving access to the ongoing global discussions relating to climate change, accessible with referenced souces, on a daily basis: http://climatedebatedaily.com/