Michael McCarthy



Profile:
Full name: Michael McCarthy

Area of interest:

Journals/Organisation: The Independent

Email: [mailto:m.mccarthy@independent.co.uk m.mccarthy@independent.co.uk]

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Website: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/nature_studies

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Networks: twitter.com/mjpmccarthy



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Current position/role: Environment Editor


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Awards/Honours: Has three times been Environment Journalist of the Year (1991, 2003 and 2006) and in 2001 was Specialist Writer of the Year in the British Press Awards. In 2007 he was awarded the medal of the RSPB for "Oustanding Services to Conservation" – the first time in the medal's 100-year history that it has been given to a journalist – and in 2009 he was given the Marsh Award for Lepidoptera Conservation.

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Current debate:A cloud of nuclear mistrust spreads around the world, After decades of lies, nuclear reassurances now fall on deaf ears, 16th March 2011



The Independent:
Column name: Nature Studies

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Email: [mailto:m.mccarthy@independent.co.uk m.mccarthy@independent.co.uk]

Website: Independent.co.uk / Nature Studies

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Day published: Thursday

Regularity: Weekly

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Articles: 2013

 * My unexpected first encounter with The Prince in the forest - I was taken aback by its size and its exquisite, fresh aniseed fragrance - 17th October
 * The holy grail of British moths is a real bolt from the blue - As a Lepidoptera lover I have longed to see it for years without success - 10th October
 * Thousands of knot in flight are one of autumn’s great spectacles - A murmuration of these birds is among the most beautiful sights in Britain - 26th September
 * Sorry, Sir David Attenborough. This isn’t the way to tackle over-population - Not the least unfortunate aspect of his remarks is that they will be used to attack a reasonable central thesis; that soaring population growth is a threat to the world itself - 19th September
 * Why Keats’s hedge cricket no longer chirrups autumn’s arrival - Crickets have gone from being among the most everyday insects, to become largely forgotten in Britain outside natural history circles - 13th September
 * The nature reserve with an atom bomb in it - Orford Ness, a promontory of vegetated shingle in Suffolk, is the nearest thing in Britain to Arizona, but it is richer environmentally than it looks - 5th September
 * The winged rainbow that shakes you with its sheer beauty - Occasionally the natural world can trigger feelings in us that are so intense they are hard to explain. These are not everyday sentiments - 29th August
 * A late summer marvel - the mysterious butterfly bush - Its long, vibrant flower sprays lure lepidoptera like nothing else - 21st August
 * Time again to bid a sad farewell to the darling birds of May - The swifts have gone from my part of the world, the south-west corner of London, and soon they will be gone from all of Britain - 8th August
 * Forget the royal baby – July’s real star was the humble butterfly - The blazing sunshine of July’s first three weeks was a godsend for lepidoptera - 1st August
 * No swallows to make a summer in a world without birds - Like music, the love of birds may be part of what it is to be human - 25th July
 * Heatwave: Spring was freezing. Summer’s boiling. We’d better get used to these surprises - The process is non-linear. There are too many intangibles - 18th July
 * If they came out by day, these moths would be famous beauties - There are 15 times as many larger moths in Britain as butterflies - 11th july
 * In the turmoil of Jerusalem who would have suspected this tiny oasis? - The tranquil Jerusalem Bird Observatory is is bang in the middle of one of the world’s great bird-migration route and has recorded more than 200 species - 3rd July
 * Mayflies offer gripping scenes of mass birth, mass sex and violent death - You don't need to go on safari in Africa to encounter a gripping wildlife spectacle. In England there's one coming to an end just about now - 20th June
 * Meadows are the wildflower experience taken to the ultimate power - If nearly all the medieval churches of Britain had been destroyed there would be an outcry. Our disappearing hay meadows deserve the same reverence - 13th June
 * Beautiful, bright, and on the way out, an elegy for the golden oriole - There is one recent bird immigrant which once seemed on the point of lighting up our springtime, but is sadly now on the point of disappearing completely - 6th June
 * The life that disappeared while baby-boomers had their fun - This uniquely lucky generation always felt a sense of radical specialness - but what did they do to the natural world? - 30th May
 * Cross the Atlantic in a ship? The beautiful Monarch can do better than that - To a British enthusiast, it's a once-in-a-lifetime encounter. Oxford don Professor EB Ford caught sight of one in 1941 and set off in frenzied pursuit - 16th May
 * The disappearing turtle dove - According to the latest analysis, this legendary bird has only eight years left till extinction. That's far too short a time to appreciated its breathtaking beauty - 9th May
 * Nothing signifies spring quite like blossom mixed with birdsong - It’s long been hard to find an image for the peculiar intensity of spring - 2nd May
 * Once upon a time, in a land before pesticide, wildlife was so abundant - Visiting the restored ecosystem of the Norfolk Estate, under which the grey partridge once naturally flourished is like stepping back in time - 17th April
 * Meet Chris – a totally new kind of cuckoo clock - The call of the cuckoo is the most musical sound in all of nature - but clock makers don't often capture it right - 10th April
 * This frozen spring has cost us the buzz of the English bumblebee - As you may have noticed, it's far too cold for our beloved bumblebees, but here's what to do while we wait... - 3rd April
 * Man is fallen and will destroy the Earth – but at least we greens made him wait - This will be my last week as Environment Editor after 15 years at The Independent. It has been a privilege to work for a newspaper which puts the environment first - 30th March
 * This Easter, don’t forget that resurrection is for flowers too - This marks the waking of the natural world after winter’s deadness - 28th March
 * Bukavu, Africa’s forgotten art deco jewel - Hercule Poirot would love the Art Deco buildings in the DRC city of Bukavu. He might be less keen on the gorillas - 22nd March
 * A revelation in Kew: these gardens are not just a landscape – but a soundscape, too - What does birdsong mean? - 14th March
 * Must we shoot Britain’s mad March hares all the year round? - For every other game species, there is a closed season. Why not for hares? - 7th March
 * Our most common bird: the tiny wren - Reading a scientific paper estimating the number of wild birds in Britain, our Environment Editor made a charming discovery - 15th February
 * Why we all love Attenborough - There are people in whose company, because of a million tiny signals, we quickly feel at ease; I would submit that Attenborough has that effect on the whole nation - 9th February
 * Soaring emotion in the silent music that is falling snow - They were not only wonderfully colourful but wonderfully exotic - 24th January
 * Climate change Obama can believe in - Michael McCarthy on the inaugural speech that could herald a new era in the fight against global warming - 23rd January
 * In the bitter cold, under a starry sky, a glimpse of a bird of mystery - The woodcock may be Britain's most secretive bird, but with the help of a leading expert it's possible to spot them on their nightly rounds - 17th January
 * The blackcap is a new bird in our midst. Take the chance to get to know it - This winter visitor has a fluting song, giving it the nickname of "lesser nightingale" - 10th January



Articles: 2012

 * Our generation has seen a great thinning that we can’t quite name - Young people just can't register how much of our wildlife has disappeared - 20th December
 * Extravagant, yes, exotic, certainly – but black swans aren't as rare as you may think - next year will see the publication of the most in-depth survey of the breeding and distribution of Britain’s birds ever carried out - 13th December
 * What is behind the catastrophic decline of our hovering raptor? - It used to be that buzzards and falcons were struggling, while kestrels flourished. Now the situation has reversed and this proud bird faces extinction - 6th December
 * So many shades of grey – but none is lovelier than this bird’s - The shrike is a scarce winter visitor to Britain, so keep your eyes peeled - 22nd November
 * The greatest book about mushrooms you'll ever read - A beautiful book could change attitudes to Britain's great variety of mushrooms - 15th November
 * World Energy Outlook is bad news as far as climate change is concerned - This year's World Energy Outlook (WEO) may look exciting to economists, with a new oil and gas renaissance meaning the US is soon to overtake Saudi Arabia and reclaim its position as the world's leading producer of hydrocarbons. But to anyone concerned about climate change, it is distinctly depressing - 13th November
 * If we can find a new species of whale, just think what else could be out there - The beaked whale is among the most mysterious of nature's creatures, and long may it remain so - 8th November
 * The betrayal of John Kahekwa: how Britain let down an inspirational conservationist from Congo - Five years ago our Environment Editor travelled to Bukavu to meet a man who has dedicated his life to lowland gorillas. What happened after is a tragic farce - 31st October
 * My chance to worship at the feet of the great nature writer Ronald Blythe - Nature Studies: He was the Grand Old Man whose mesmerising work captured a world of 1960s farming that was pivotal to the green movement - 25th October
 * The badger cull failed because Defra insisted farmers pay for it - The core reason for the current failure of the Government’s badger cull policy is simple - 23rd October
 * An odyssey of 3,400 miles, from Wales to Cameroon, and our brave cuckoo runs out of luck - Of the 13 birds being tracked on their incredible migratory journey, six, maybe seven, have succumbed to the dangers of their journey - 18th October
 * Forget all those 'polite' landscape paintings and let the great Kurt Jackson show you how to do it - The brilliant 51 year old, a committed environmentalist, comes to landscapes through ecology - which makes him interested in more than mere surface appearances - 11th October
 * There was much to enjoy in 50s Britain that won't be seen again - sadly, wildflowers have joined that list - As a result of intensive farming and development the reign of Elizabeth II has witnessed, in wildlife terms, a vast impoverishment of the fields of Britain - 4th October
 * From Wales to Niger via the Po valley. Twice - After a 1,700-mile journey to nowhere, Indy's signal showed him in Tunisia - 30th August
 * These brave park rangers make me seem like a traffic warden - I was grumbled at and occasionally roundly abused. But I never got shot - 16th August
 * If your wish is for the wild, St Kilda will fulfil it - It is the remotest part of the British Isles, 40 miles into the Atlantic - 9th August
 * Cuckoo-style decision-making is a thing of wonder - On his way to Africa, Indy did something astonishing - 1st August
 * A Western Isles idyll where wild flowers grow in profusion - I was bowled over by the machair. It is unparalleled in the British Isles - 26th July
 * Nature Studies: The unbearable lightness of dolphins - Their intelligence is obvious, and when they really turn on the playfulness, they spark a fellow-feeling in us - 12th July
 * Rain stopped play - why birds aren't breeding in the wet - There are reports of problems with tits and chats and pipits and larks - 5th July
 * Moths are just as worthy of our wonder as butterflies - Our human prejudices often lead us astray in looking at the natural world - 28th June
 * Good luck, Indy – the cuckoo that's carrying our name to Africa - I thought he was beautiful beyond description. And then I let him fly - 21st June
 * The shy woodcock, our most mysterious bird - Setting eyes on a mystery is always memorable, perhaps even more so at dusk - 7th June
 * Love that dare not speak its name – butterflies - Butterflies are back. For me the greatest blessing of the return of the warm weather this week, has been that they are once more on the wing and visible - 24th May
 * If the blackthorn is sugar, then the hawthorn is cream - I grew up with a whacking great hawthorn hedge at the end of the garden - 17th May
 * We've lost touch with the tiny, microscopic things - Ask your child what a tyrannosaurus is, or a velociraptor, and you'll probably get an intelligible answer. Movies have made dinosaurs familiar to millions. But ask them what a rotifer is, or a tardigrade, and you'll get a blank stare - 10th May
 * Cuckoo miracle - from Norfolk to Congo and back - Giving names to Clement and the other four birds was a masterstroke - 3rd May
 * From ants to birds to whales, there's a soundscape to be marvelled at - In nature's collective voice, we can locate the origins of human music, even language - 19th April
 * Prepare to be amazed - spring is nearly sprung - When exactly is spring? - 12th April
 * Bees, pesticides and Defra's weasel words - The coming together of a major problem and a leading problem-solver can be a significant moment - 5th April
 * Refusal to heed scientists' warnings is indefensible - It is 50 years since the American biologist Rachel Carson began the global environmental movement with the publication of Silent Spring, her searing indictment of the US pesticide industry. In it she described the devastating effect on wildlife caused by the indiscriminate spraying of products such as DDT - 30th March
 * It's springtime for the swingers of suburbia - One of the most fascinating things we have learned about life in the past 50 years is that the principle purpose of all living things, in so far as they have a purpose at all, is to reproduce - 22nd March
 * Reason to be cheerful. It's rook-building time - It sometimes seems a pity that there are only four official seasons - 15th March
 * Sense and sensibility – birds have lots of both - You think you know the world, at least the general shape of it, the way it works, yet sometimes you are struck by just how far you are from truly comprehending it - 8th March
 * Ireland's corncrakes - no longer in every acre - Are we divided by the same language? There is no doubt that the British Isles – that is, Britain and Ireland combined – constitute a geographical entity - 1st March
 * Cherish these rivers - they may soon flow no more - The idea of a river dying is not a common one - 16th February
 * For the first time, we can see spring coming from 4,000 miles away - Over six months, the mystery of where cuckoos winter has revealed itself - 9th February
 * Huhne's departure will sadden all who care about the environment - His brilliant brain was never put to better use than when he saved the day at the Cancun talks - 4th February
 * Just because Nessie is a myth doesn't mean we can't dream - Nature has powers of persistence, even when all evidence points to a vanishing - 3rd February
 * We think swans are beautiful. So why not ducks? - Why do we laugh at ducks? Why do we find them funny? - 26th January
 * More badgers, fewer hedgehogs. Coincidence? I don't think so - A badger's powerful front claws can uncurl the hedghog's tight ball of spines - 19th January
 * It's been mild recently – but butterflies think it's spring - When you first become interested in butterflies, you naturally enjoy their vivid colours and concentrate on recognising them, but as you become more involved, you start to look at subtler things - 12th January
 * No sensible person would want this destruction. Yet it's worth it, to give rail a future - Parts of the economic case are dodgy, not least the cost-benefit analysis, plucking figures from air - 11th January
 * We all know what they look like, but have you ever really seen a mole? - It is the only mammal to spend most of its time underground - 6th January



Articles: 2011

 * The debt I owe to Dodder, Baldmoney and Sneezewort - Recently I was put in mind of the first story, the first proper book, with which I completely engaged - 23rd December
 * Another way to appreciate turkey - There are two ways of looking at turkeys, it dawned on me one day in the Yucatán peninsula in Mexico - 16th December
 * In a birder's paradise, I thrill to the sight of a myna - Mynah birds (then spelt with a final h) were once popular in Britain in the days when every other family had a budgie in a cage and antimacassars on the back of the sofa - 9th December
 * How a single paragraph caused a storm - Ridicule was heaped on the UN's climate science body, the IPCC, two years ago, when its latest report turned out to contain a forecast that all the glaciers in the Himalayas would probably have melted by 2035 - 7th December
 * What this pyramid says about us and climate change - Abraham Maslow was a scholar of human behaviour, generally known for one particular imaginative insight into how people behave: his hierarchy of needs - 2nd December
 * Climate change isn't a left-wing cause – the Iron Lady knew that - Why is Thatcher’s climate change legacy rejected by her successors? - 26th November
 * When one beast must die – to let another live - One of the attributes of young schoolboys is the impulse to gather round when a fight erupts in the playground - 25th November
 * Medical myth is dooming the rhino to extinction - Can nobody stop it? Can no major political leader or other public figure realise what is happening and have the guts or find a moment to speak out about the horrific, heartless, headlong slaughter of the world's rhinos which is now running out of control? - 18th November
 * Why extinctions should worry us as a species - You probably missed it on the news, three weeks ago, the item about the Vietnamese rhinoceros going extinct; it didn't make a lot of noise - 11th November
 * Exhausted, deforested landscapes show the truth about over-population - I imagine most people would be hard put to place Burkina Faso on a map; it neatly fits that cliché of a faraway country of which we know nothing - 4th November
 * Can we really manage all the fracking risks? - New energy bonanza or new energy nightmare? That's the swing in extreme opinions about shale gas, the "unconventional" fuel which has boomed in the US and now could be taking off in Britain - 3rd November
 * Coming to terms with winter is part of growing up - More's the pity we haven't evolved the ability, like bears, to snooze until the damn thing is over - 28th October
 * There's beauty, and mystery, in any river's flowing waters - I cannot see a river, any river, without a quickening of the spirit, and this is such an automatic reaction that I sometimes wonder if it is hardwired into the genes, from our previous existence as hunter-gatherers - 21st October
 * Are we just going to talk our way to oblivion? - At Durban in eight weeks' time, the world's gaping split over climate change will be clear - 14th October
 * In a city of falcons, it's worth looking up - City of royalty, city of riches; city of poverty, city of squalor. City of billionaire Russian oligarchs; city of hate-filled Islamist preachers; city of English gentlemen's clubs. City of 300 languages. City of black cabs, red buses, green parks. City of blue plaques, marking the homes of its famous inhabitants. City of endless variety. London's been called all of those - 7th October
 * A glorious burst of the warm south - It's an extraordinary event, is it not? This miniature summer granted us weeks after what was meant to be the summertime, but was a chilly washout, is over and gone - 30th September
 * Betrayed by an act of despotism - Why should a government set up and pay for an independent organisation that is likely to criticise it? In terms of realpolitik, of course, there is no reason whatsoever, which is why in tyrannies such bodies do not exist - 23rd September
 * Saving the Pole – not such a strange idea - A curious notion, is it not? Save The Pole. Certainly a much less tangible one than Save The Whale or Save The Planet - 16th September
 * Don't underestimate the power of tiny things - It is a strange fact, not often remarked upon and indeed, strongly counterintuitive, that among the wild beasts of Africa, herbivores are much more dangerous to humans than carnivores - 9th September
 * In search of another great moth snowstorm - One of the lousiest aspects of the lousy summer which ended yesterday, for me at least, was that for yet another year, there was no chance of witnessing the moth snowstorm. Not in England, anyway - 2nd September
 * red berries and a literary curse'' - Three years ago, in 2008, human history passed a significant milestone: the proportion of the world's population living in towns and cities, rather than the countryside, exceeded 50 per cent for the first time - 26th August
 * loveliest living creature'' - You may well not have heard of it - 19th August
 * best discoveries canbe entirely accidental'' - It seems to me a curious part of the human psyche that we more deeply enjoy special things seen casually and accidentally, than those which have been expressly sought out - 12th August
 * badgers and cuckoos that really matter'' - It is a curious sensation, to be working in the middle of a national newspaper newsroom convulsed with the noisiest scandal for years, involving public outrage, gross malpractice, a media group in meltdown, Scotland Yard in turmoil and the political system in ferment, and to be writing about badgers and cuckoos - 22nd July
 * estuaries we must protect'' - In the ugly litany of environmental crimes, perhaps the worst is the destruction of a whole ecosystem - 15th July
 * solutions in one to a string of problems the free market could not deal with'' - There are lots of things the market will do for you, like lowering consumer prices or making companies lean, mean and keen, but one thing no one pretends the market will do is give you a clean planet - 13th July
 * summers conceal a terrible surprise'' - Aerosol is a word most people associate with the bathroom, the kitchen or the garden shed: we tend to use it to mean a spray can, for deodorants, cleaners, weedkillers or whatever - 8th July
 * – the rare, refined beauties of the plant world'' - Might the day ever come when it would be thought inappropriate to express open and unqualified admiration for an orchid – I mean for its beauty, its elegance and its glamour? Well, stranger things have happened - 1st July
 * flower whose smell brings back boyhood'' - Curious that a plant should have two separate smells: few living things present two quite different versions of themselves to our senses - 24th June
 * being awake at 3am to hear this sound'' - 17th June
 * in the splendour that is the month of May'' - 29th April
 * birdsong that's like blossom in sound'' - 22nd April
 * is a destroyer but can fix things, too'' - 15th April
 * disasters that are fundamentally different'' - 13th April
 * world cannot allow these species to die out'' - 11th April
 * so magical as the song of the nightingale'' - 8th April 2011
 * overcoming a poisonous prejudice'' - 1st April
 * science cannot account for beauty'' - 25th March
 * quintessence of early spring'' - 18th March
 * bird that offers a clue to mankind's destiny'' - 11th March
 * do sparrows thrive in America but not here?'' - 4th March
 * small-leaved lime, lost tree of England'' - 25th February
 * time Man stopped to consider Earth's health'' - 18th February
 * winter is a time to savour small pleasures'' - 11th February
 * government ever – that's a sick joke'' - 4th February
 * 21st century bodes ill for non-human species'' - 28th January
 * all our conservation failures, this is the saddest'' - 21st January
 * the dingy footman, and other such creatures'' - 14th January
 * we learned nothing since 'Silent Spring'?'' - 7th January



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News & updates:

 * Letter from the editor: Goodbye to Michael McCarthy, the man who made nature sing in the pages of The Independent. Chris Blackhurst, 30th March 2013
 * The green movement at 50: Can the world be saved? Population growth and climate change are the big problems facing the earth in the next 50 years. But are there any solutions? The Independent, 15th June 2012

