John Sweeney
The first EMS Award for Achievements in Journalism was presented to John Sweeney, Ireland.
John Sweeney has had a large impact on communicating climate and meteorology to the people of Ireland. He tackles the important issue of communicating climate change science to the public with a calm and accurate manner. He reaches radio and television audiences by using easily understandable examples without distorting the underlying scientific message, thereby bridging the gap between the scientific community and the public. His ability to explain difficult concepts clearly and accuratly, without loss of detail, is especially noted with this award.
John Sweeney is Emeritus Professor at the Irish Climate Analysis and Research UnitS (ICARUS) at the National University of Ireland Maynooth. For the past few decades he has been the main communicator of information about climate change, extreme weather and other meteorological information to the Irish public through all forms of journalistic media.
See some examples of his interviews and articles:
- Looking Back and Looking Forward: Newspaper article dealing with aspects of the extremely cold winter 2010/2011 in Ireland (appeared in Sunday Business Post)
- Daily breakfast news programme on TV3 (Ireland): discussion around the role of jet streams in producing the wet summer conditions over Ireland in 2012 [mp3, 8.9 MB]
- John Sweeney warns about climate problems on National television news bulletin (RTE Ireland)