Conor Dowling
The existential challenges of the Nature and Climate emergencies drive me to make an impact for our community. We need to improve our mitigation, and prepare adaptation to make the place we call home habitable for our children.
Against a backdrop of record temperatures hitting the limits of human heat tolerance across the world; I have imagined the kind of world my little girls grow up in. The criticality of leaving an earth that is habitable for my daughters’ generation to grow up in is what drives me to make an impact on Green issues. Our actions today will dictate the degree of warming, there is still time but we need meaningful action from government. Anois an t-Am.
Ensuring our bathing water is safe for swimmers
Promoting healthy active travel and safe school routes
Connecting Blackrock with the seafront
Preparing preventative defences in flood risk areas
Advancing sustainable business and the circular economy
Experience
I have lived in Blackrock all my life, it's where we have chosen to raise our family and I could not be more proud of the area. I grew up in Stillorgan Park, attending Carysfort National School and UCD Smurfit. I am an active Blackrock Tidy Towns member and love swimming at Seapoint.
Working towards my PhD, I developed an insight into the complexity of our city's systems, their vulnerabilities and how they interrelate. Building on this I established ‘Smart Dún Laoghaire’, which puts forward climate resilience and active travel solutions for our community. I lecture in Trinity College Dublin, and develop new nature-based approaches for managing our towns so we have a 'just-transition' to a sustainable Ireland.
