Building electric cars has a high carbon footprint: recycling can change this

Electric cars save carbon dioxide emissions over their lifetime. There are a significant number of fossil fuel producers and combustion engine car produces who will fudge their numbers and suggest the battery cars are actually worse for the environment than fossil fuel cars.

As you can imagine this is false. Electric cars are zero emission in themselves, so how dirty they are is entirely dependent on how dirty the electricity creation is. Detractors will use the dirtiest electricity in the world and round their estimates upwards, usually still coming out with electric cars slightly cleaner than combustion engines.

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Bushmeat and pet trade in the Congo basin has been known as a problem – now a horrific bonobo trade is coming to light

The bushmeat trade is not a nice industry. As a means of feeding your family in the past it worked – there were far fewer people and therefore the pressure on the wild ecosystem was small.

Wild Bonobo

It is not the case anymore.

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Why does the political leadership of USA ignore climate change despite 59% of Americans agreeing with it?

In America the number of people who agree that climate change is caused by humans and we must do something about it has risen from 42% in only 6 years.

Unfortunately this question is very easy to answer. While 85% of Democrats would consider this one of the greatest threats, only 27% of Republicans feel the same way.

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Reintroduced beavers, once extinct in the UK, could damage the ecosystem?

British fisherman and a number of other people have argued that reintroducing beavers or allowing the beavers that are here to thrive would severely damage the river and its ecosystem.

This is a peculiar argument and must be categorically and thoroughly rejected. Beavers are a native part of the British ecosystem.

While some people might argue a dam looks untidy, they have positive impacts on the health of the river
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An analysis of coal power plants finds almost half are losing money

It would appear that with increasing numbers of of coal powered power plants, the argument we must use them until they need retiring does not appear to hold anymore.

A Friends of the Earth study looking at 6,696 power plants around the world and a further 1,046 that are currently being built 46% will be unprofitable in 2020 up from 41% in 2019.

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Wind and solar will soon be cheaper in all markets than coal powered electrical generation

First of all this statistic is quite astounding. The drop in the cost of both wind power and and solar has been so significant over the last few years that once the preserve of wealthy countries it will soon be cheaper than anything else.

The astounding thing about this statistic though is that this is not only where you are building a grid from scratch, but wind and solar will soon be cheaper even if you have a prebuilt coal power plant. It is thought that this date will occur around about 20:30

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Increased concern for damage to indigenous communities from covid 19

Brazil has changed its tack under bolsonaro. He has been astoundingly derogatory about the indigenous Brazilian people ( indeed the way he talks you would only think he wanted the rule for the Descendants of European settlers) and this has been shown by his increasing support and push for invasion of their lands either forgiveness afterwards or promises beforehand that nothing will happen.

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In a human crisis the Natural World often does incredibly well

It would appear that corvid 19 has had a phenomenal good impact on the Worlds atmosphere. The fact that significant portions of of China have been under lockdown has meant that the factories are closed down. Satellite pictures of these places show significantly less pollution then is normally the case.

civit cat in a city

Similar impacts can be seen over parts of India and western Europe.

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