Month: December 2020

Back in 2015, my family and I visited the area that Cantabrian bears live in (this is in patches along the North and west of Spain. I was excited to hear that the bear population had been growing well in the previous decade. Back in 2005 this bear population was estimated at 150 animals, by 2015 this number was thought to be around 250.

How many times do we have to go through this? The ways to make fossil fuel cars better for the environment than electric ones, generally follow these instructions.

1. Count up environmental costs of electric car manufacturing, roundup everywhere you can, assume the worst
2. Forget to count up the carbon emissions of creating the fossil fuel car- usually about 80% of what an electric car emissions would be
3. Don’t bother to count the emissions for extracting and transporting the fossil fuels that run the cars
4. Assume that the electricity that the electric car runs on is the most dirty in the world
5. Point at the result

Only lying about an hour North of Otterton, one of the places that the Devon beavers have started to call home, Exmoor national park authorities have reintroduced a few beavers-translocated from the population in Scotland. Having already created a dam and a wonderful instant wetland, it would appear that they are feeling right at home.

There are many sports Hunters around the world. A significant portion of them live in the States and western Europe-it is generally a rich man’s (and woman) game.

There are certainly parts of the world for which hunting is a sensible use of the land. However this is not true across the vast majority.

A model has as suggested that the future of our planet is a warming place regardless of what we do with our emissions.

It has come to light that two of the biggest paper pulp companies TPL and APRIL have been intentionally mislabeling their export materials.Paper grade pulp which they claimed to be exporting is used to make paper and packaging. However dissolving pulp, which they were actually exporting is far more valuable.

As such they have cheated the Indonesian government out of more than 168 million dollars of tax. Will this have any impact on the vigor that the Indonesian government will defend their horrific environmental record?

I have spoken in the past about the ecosystem impact that wolves can have, creating what is called a landscape of fear.

The threat of being hunted means that prey change their behaviour far more more than simply the effect of direct predation.

A few weeks ago the British newspaper the guardian, wrote on this subject. I include a link below.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/24/landscape-of-fear-why-we-need-the-wolf-rewilding-scotland

This is a highly important Ecological concept. It has started to be recognized around the world, and many countries have been reintroducing predators to reserves, from which they were eliminated, sometimes centuries ago. This work is essential, and from Yellowstone and the return of the wolves to reserves across Africa and Asia the same is seen.

When will the government recognize this fact of nature, and do something similar in the UK?

Coronavirus recovery money has been spent twice as fast on fossil fuel projects as it has on environmentally friendly and carbon free electricity production.

The Indonesian government has decided to change the designation of large parts of the country from protected forest to available for food production.

Trump is going to kick start the process of selling rights to drill oil in the arctic refuge on the 6th of January.

Whats more, in the lame-duck session, he is desperately keen to get this process so far along, that it is impossible for Biden to undo this stupid move that is totally anti-democratic.