- Name
Michael McCarthy
- Bio
- Michael McCarthy, formerly the Independent’s longstanding Environment Editor, now its Environment Columnist, is one of Britain’s leading writers on the environment and the natural world. He has won a string of awards for his work, including Environment Journalist of the Year (three times) and Specialist Writer of the Year in the British Press Awards in 2001. In 2007 he was awarded the Medal of the RSPB for “Outstanding Services to Conservation,” in 2010 he was awarded the Silver Medal of the Zoological Society of London, and in 2011 the Dilys Breeze Medal of the British Trust for Ornithology. In 2009 McCarthy published Say Goodbye To The Cuckoo (John Murray), a study of Britain’s declining migrant birds.
More than 600 species of British flowers in bloom on New Year's Day
Nature Studies: In a normal winter botanists would expect no more than 20 to 30 plants to have been in flower
Michael McCarthy Sceptical about climate change? Just consider December’s weather
As flooded homes painfully dry out, we should reflect and wake up to the broader truth, based not on computer predictions but the evidence in front of us, that we are entering a new climatic age
Michael McCarthy The unexpected and cheering return of the red-backed shrike
It is a lovely mini-predator, known as the ‘butcher bird’, as it impales its prey on thorn bushes
Michael McCarthy 2015 brought one stand-out environmental hero
Much of the credit has gone to the French hosts of the conference where the Paris Agreement was signed; but the real architect was President Barack Obama
Michael McCarthy Why the Paris climate talks may set us on the path to a cooler planet
Michael McCarthy, our acclaimed environmental commentator, reveals his hopes and fears for next week’s conference
Michael McCarthy The commercial hunting trade has hit a new low
The animals are ‘bred for the bullet’, spending their lives in small, dirty, compounds
Michael McCarthy Is it possible to put a price on nature? And if we can, should we?
Does assigning monetary value to ecosystem services a method of preserving them? Or does it make them easier to sell off?
Michael McCarthy We care about the destruction of society, not the natural world
The first threat is that of the destruction of human society by global warming; the second is that of the destruction of nature by human society. They will do equal damage to the globe, but the international community cares only about the former
Michael McCarthy Kurt Jackson has reimagined nature painting
He has veered to the abstract, which means art critics treat it seriously
Michael McCarthy Fewer wasps to swat is a sign of an ecosystem in serious trouble
With summer gone at last after a blissful final fortnight of sunshine, I wish to advance a proposition with which many people may disagree: having fewer wasps around is not necessarily a good thing
Michael McCarthy My joy at witnessing the return of a beautiful carnivore
- Pine martens from the thriving Scottish population have been translocated to mid-Wales
- It is Britain’s first ever carnivore recovery scheme on a nationwide scale
Michael McCarthy Nature Studies: Why Cameron was right to pull out of this wind farm
Science has shown us that nature really does have a provable, measurable effect on how our bodies heal themselves. We can't trash its landscapes without an effect
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Michael McCarthy Nature Studies: Restoring natural habitats is expensive - but it's
If the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, then it seems the price of wildlife in modern Britain is going to be eternal management
Michael McCarthy Nature Studies: Campaigners are taking aim at grouse shooting, and
Although it's not actually the killing of grouse that is the problem – but the impact it has on one of their predators
Michael McCarthy Nature Studies: Centuries of decline in the UK’s wildlife can be
Reintroducing lost animals to the UK may be artificial, but it could be the only hope left for our catastrophically depleted wildlife
Michael McCarthy Nature Studies: The turtle dove is on the brink of extinction in
Intensive farming, hunting, and parasites have turned the loveliest member of the pigeon family into our fastest-declining bird