On this edition of Enviro John and the Panel discussed a range of important issues and events.

• Update on the Peace Forest Ireland Project and the launch of Phase Two of this project which took place in the Mansion House on Tuesday 15^th. May.
• The supermarket frozen food Iceland is removing palm oil from its own brand products by the end of 2018. To date palm oil is used in 50% of all supermarket products. Pal m oil is used in 70% of global cosmetics. Companies such as Unilever and L’Oreal have promised to work with sustainable palm oil product by 2019-See BBC recent film on the destruction of Orang-utans habitats. A survey by the Rainforest Foundation updated in 2017 showed that Tesco Asda and Morrisons all use palm oil in their bakeries. Other products include chocolate, washing detergents (source Wed 18 April Irish Independent)
• Hemp add in newspaper: John referred to an ad for Hemp products in a newspaper circulating in the area, which shows that people are being made aware of this very useful plant for medicinal, environmental, construction clothes manufacturing paper and a whole range of uses.
• Passing of botanist and Ecologist David Goodall at 104 years. He raised concern about climate change and population growth long before they reached the political agenda. On the subject of climate change he said in 2016 “They ought to have thought about it at the start of the last century, then we would have been able to make some changes, but now we can’t. David Goodall carried out a whole range of research which has proved invaluable to the development of environmental and ecological knowledge.
• US President Donald Trump has chosen Gina Haspel to lead the VIA. She has a notorious record, among other things of supervising water boarding and other harsh torture techniques in the past
• Asian lions once roamed from the Middle East to India. Ancient Hind text refers to them as gods. The numbers of these animals has jumped down to dangerous levels. See article in the Sunday Times 5/5/18

Presenter: John Haughton

Panellist:  Joe Dunne