RX3, Ireland’s first ever conference on recycling industries and initiatives, was held in Dublin recently. Politico went along to hear the key-note speaker,the founder and CEO of Terracycle and America’s foremost eco-capitalist Tom Szaky, talk about his revolutionary concept: recycling as big business. By Edward O’Hare.

It all started with worm excrement. Eight years ago Tom Szaky the head of Terracycle, the fastest-growing and most lucrative green industry in the world, was just another guy trying to nurture a couple of cannabis plants in his basement. When Szaky left home he put his precious plants in the care of a few friends.

At first frustrated at the plant’s poor health, Szaky’s friends suddenly stumbled upon the solution: worm excrement. This humble material proved an incredibly rich fertilizer and before long Szaky was back with his friends raiding canteens for waste food for the worms to eat. Within six months Terracycle became a legitimate business and was all ready to enter the market place when it hit a snag.

A scientist and economist have linked the current financial crisis to an increase in oil consumption. Ireland's energy strategy is utterly inadequate, says Eddie Hobbs. By Vincent Ryan.

Global daily oil consumption could be represented thus: an unbroken thread of oil barrels, standing lip to lip, looped around the equator, embracing the globe. It would take only 80 million barrels, three million less than is consumed daily. Humanity has bound itself to oil, and as production falls and consumption rises the bind will tighten.

Dr Colin Campbell, a retired British Petroleum geologist living in Cork, wrote The Coming Oil Crisis, which is credited with having convinced the International Energy Agency of the importance of peak oil (see panel below). Dr Campbell believes peak oil has already passed, and he attributes the current financial crisis to a spike in the price of oil.

The Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources Eamon Ryan appeared before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Climate Change and Energy Security yesterday, 24 March, to discuss a number of key issues in relation to energy and electricity needs.

Chairman of the Joint Committee, Seán Barrett, said in advance of the meeting, “Our recent report ‘Meeting Ireland’s Electricity Needs Post-2020’ highlighted the need for Ireland to exploit its available wind resource and concentrate research efforts on the development of ocean energy where it could derive competitive advantage and become a niche player”.

Websites and movements such as the Freecycle Network and the Freeconomy community have created further interest in the concept of the gift economy and made living for free a distinct, if difficult, possibility, writes Joseph Galvin.

It doesn't look like much when you first open it up. A bland beige backdrop with a series of classifieds both looking for and offering a wide range of items. Toasters, sofas, cabinets, computer parts...all the usual suspects fill out the list. So far, so Buy and Sell. The difference is that everything is absolutely free.

Many of the business and government leaders who gathered in Copenhagen for the United Nations climate talks believe that market forces in general—and consumers in particular—will drive the transition to a low-carbon economy. It’s a comforting thought, but I wouldn’t count on it just yet. Having coined the term “green consumer” in 1986 and co-written the million-selling book, The Green Consumer Guide in 1988, I clearly believe in the effectiveness of well-targeted consumer action in tackling environmental issues—but I also fear that anything today’s green consumers may do will be swamped by the actions of hundreds of millions of tomorrow’s new consumers in the emerging markets, particularly in China.

Climate change sceptic and Professor of Geology, Ian Plimer and Guardian journalist George Monbiot finally engaged in a live debate on climate change this week. The pair have long been at odds over the science behind man-made global warming; indeed, the quarrel itself warmed considerably in the months following the publication of Plimer's latest book, 'Heaven and Earth', which says that there is no evidential basis to anthropogenic warming of the atmosphere.

The United Nations climate-change summit is a vital moment in the world’s effort to avert catastrophe. openDemocracy authors reflect on what needs to happen and how much Copenhagen can achieve. By Sue Branford, Ian Christie, Andrew Dobson, John Elkington, Øyvind Paasche, Oliver Tickellof OpenDemocracy.org.

Talks at the Copenhagen climate conference were suspended for a period today after a coalition of developing countries withdrew their co-operation. The crucial talks, which had just resumed after a weekend break, were disrupted when the African countries, supported by the G77 and BASIC bloc, staged a walk out, angered that the conference was weakening in support for the Kyoto Protocol. Although, negotiations have since resumed, today’s debacle is just another episode in a conference plagued by drama, bravado and very little real progress.