Horizons

Getting with the organic programme:The Organic Centre in Rossinver, Co Leitrim, reopens next week with a busy programme of events for the year. Innovative and committed to reaching out, the centre was one of the first places to provide courses in organic school gardens and community food gardens (working with Sligo Institute of Technology on the first community garden at a third-level college).

Popular courses include its month-by-month hands-on guides to growing your own vegetables and fruit. New this year are cook-and-surf weekends, tuition in growing organic flowers, and organic gardening courses in partnership with Festina Lente in Bray, Co Wicklow. Check it all out at theorganiccentre.ie or telephone 071-9854338.

A chance to turn up the heat on fuel poverty

The charity Energy Action will host a conference on fuel poverty at Dublin Castle this Monday and Tuesday. The conference will examine the health implications of fuel poverty and consider solutions to the ongoing problem of cold, damp homes that are expensive to heat. The aim is to give policymakers, local authorities, builders and energy companies a chance to meet, debate the issues and plan ahead. For full details call 01-4545464 or see fuelpovertyconference.com.

Termites: the last word in cooling systems

In an article in the current issue of Construct Irelandmagazine, the architect Seán Harrington draws inspiration from termites, those wood-eating insects that build earth nests up to seven metres high (above).

“When the central core of the nest becomes too warm or the air too stale, the termites unblock openings to ventilation shafts to start the draft that drives the system,” he writes. “In extreme heat, the system is supplemented by evaporative cooling as the termites travel tens of metres down tunnels to the water table to collect minute quantities of water to place into the system for cooling.”

The magazine also considers life without central heating: will passive homes be the buildings of choice in the future? Check it out on constructireland.ie.

WHAT'S ON

This is the final Horizons. We’ll still be covering green events, but in the What’s On column, each Thursday. If you’d like to submit an entry, please e-mail it to whatson@irishtimes.com at least 10 days in advance. You can also browse past columns at irishtimes.com/archive