Climate action clashes with tradition in Ireland’s peat bogs | Environment

As wind turbines on the horizon churn out clean energy, John Smyth bends to stack damp peat – the cheap, smoky fuel he has harvested for half a century.

The painstaking work of “footing turf”, as the process of drying peat for burning is known, is valued by people across rural Ireland as a source of low-cost energy that gives their homes a distinctive smell.

But peat-harvesting has also destroyed precious wildlife habitats, and converted what should be natural stores for carbon…