One of the problems, is that for many people they have never driven an electric car. As a result the only experience that they have with electric vehicles is something like a milk float – quiet to be sure, but not exactly fast.
Hertz, however has realized that between the extra longevity of electric cars, and the reduced cost of servicing due to them being so much simpler, and the reduced cost of powering them, it is likely that they will make more money from an electric fleet, as well as helping the environment.
Tesla for their part, is not giving a discount, all these cars are being bought at full price. not only that, but once all these cars are on the roads, millions of people each year will experience them. This in turn is likely to increase the demand for many of those renters, who will buy electric next time they need a new car.
It has been stressed, that no paperwork has been signed, so this is an area which we will have to watch this space.
Extraction of peat, generally means that it dries up and then releases its huge store of carbon back into the air.
There are vast areas of peat in places like Indonesia, and the DRC, however there are also large areas of peat in Scotland. Peat is full of nutrients and so it is valued by gardeners. Peat will be used by professional gardeners until 2028.
In the UK Peat is our largest carbon store, trapping as much as a tropical rainforest per hectare. They are also important habitats and protect those further down stream from flooding.
This has been known as an issue that the british government has needed to address for some time. In the end, it seems that they failed to address this with the urgency that it requires.
Most of the peat in the UK is imported from Ireland. However, they have banned it so this is soon to dry up. A ban is thought likely to cut emissions over the next 2 decades by at least 4 million tonnes.
It is a good start, but we also need to restore those peats that have already been part extracted. This could keep much of the carbon in the ground if we act fast.
Fin whales were driven near to extinction in these waters a century ago, yet they have returned. A huge gathering of 1000 whales is not a regular site.
The UK is known as a democracy around the world. This is why there is increasingly alarmed commentary on a new bill working its way through parliament. The Police and crime bill like many bills is a large complicated piece of work. I am sure that it has some positive things inside it, but there are significant numbers of negative ones which will cause issues for many of the subjects that this website addresses.
On new years day Priti Patel announced that she was going to concentrate on cracking down on Eco protestors during 2022. The bill contains all sorts of astounding bits. Police will be able to stop or constrain protest – they will even be able to fine protesters for inadvertent breaches of restrictions that the “ought” to know.
Why is this a problem? Well, because as a world we are facing joint problems with the climate crisis, and the extinction crisis.
In neither field is the government pulling its weight! We are a wealthy country, yet we are doing little to help in either respect.
It is particularly concerning, that this law is being pushed through on the understanding that police need to be protected from violence – even though in most instances, the violence is both started by and mostly done by the police to the protesters. Upping stress levels in the protestors is also a regular method, which often naturally leads to violence -then blamed on the protestors. One such method is kettling where large numbers of people are forced into a small area and then not let out.
Delegitimising protest at this time is an afront to British freedoms. If the police (and the law) start viewing all protest as illegitimate it changes how they police it.
Currently, there are two substantial threats to a healthy planet earth. The first is climate change and the second is extinction rebellion. Extinction rebellion has on many occasions done things that are extremely disruptive, however, to basically give the police the power to delegitimize protest is far to large a step in the other direction for a free country.
What has the UK done to fight climate change?
Now we may well have done better than some other countries, however, look at the increase in emissions from imports. Last March it was announced that we had reduced our carbon footprint by 51% excluding aviation and the carbon footprint of our imports. We live in a global world- if we cut our emissions in the UK, but increase them abroad by getting other countries to make what we use, the impact is identical.
As you can see, this graph does not show the whole story
This strikes me as a perfect example of a government which needs to be challenged. Yet protests against the governments inaction will become illegal without approval – by definition not freedom.
Extinction rebellion has likewise caused many problems. Now like many of you, I have been inconvenienced by their actions in the past however they are raise an important issue. The more of the natural world we loose the worse it is for us. The natural world should be valued far more simply for being wild, yet there are huge services that the natural world supplies for us anyway. Rainforest loss will likely turn vast areas to desert, and cause large areas to be come incapable of growing crops. What untold medicines lie undiscovered in the last great rainforests -destined to be cut down before they unveil their secrets.
With politics as it is, it is often not in the interests of an elected government to do things that will only come to fruition in decades time, they need to be re-elected every 5 years. A democracy, particularly at times like this, must allow demonstrators. On these two issues the government is not acting with enough urgency
We must not be silenced! Now, I say this writing in a blog. The last time I looked, this blog is usually read at least a few thousand times. It is unfortunately far easier for the government to ignore these sorts of media.
Will Boris Johnson survive? Who knows, though it is clear that he should not. Labour is currently far ahead in the polls. However, as the Conservatives do not need to face the public in an election for another 3 years, it is not something that they need to worry about at the moment. For my British readers, do write to you MP! it is an alarmingly authoritarian step, and it must be stopped if we are to be able to pressure our government to act to save our planet from the worst of the potential damage.
Cracks and fissures have appeared on Thwaites glacier, leading to fears of it collapsing. If it were to collapse, this glacier alone could raise sea levels by half a meter.
The issue with this glacier, is that it essentially operates as a dam for the vast ice floes behind it.
Cracks like this one may never heal, but instead trigger the start of the entire collapse
Of particular alarm, thwaites glacier operates a bit like a cork, blocking a whole collection of glaciers from collapsing. It is feared that with the collapse of Thwaites glacier, a large amount of the Antarctic ice shelf might slide into the sea – leading to global sea level rises of several meters.
To put this in perspective, if all the west Antarctic glaciers collapse, no coastal city in the world would escape. Over time every single one would be swamped and lost back to the sea. It was thought (until recently) that this glacier loss would take centuries.
In other words, what this does is make it clear – it is not just our children and grandchildren that are going to have to do something about global warming. If we don’t correct our behaviour quickly, we will make life far harder for ourselves as well
I have written on the situation with the British governments attempt to put in an outright ban on trophies from hunting being imported into the UK (though bizarrely they continue to support hunting in the UK).
I strongly disagree with this situation.
While the idea of hunting is relatively repugnant, and I far prefer the excitement of walking in the presence of these animals, but then leaving with them continuing to get on with their lives. I should add in this vein, that during my families trip to the Kruger later this year, I will be going on a 3 day 2 night wilderness trail. This will mean my going to a very small remote camp, and then walking for the 3 days – the likelihood of close encounters with many animals is relatively high.
Anyway, this group of conservationists have just written to the government to get them to reconsider their position.
There are many activities that should be banned outright. Canned lion (or any other animal) hunts should cease to exist. Going into a relatively small area, to kill an animal that in many cases has not been living wild for more than 6 months is not what I call brave, but I would say its disgusting. Another behaviour I dislike, is where a hunting outfit buys a small area on the side of a reserve, then as animals walk out of the reserve onto this hunting area they can be shot. Hunting outfits, should only be able to hunt animals which can fit on their land.
One prime example is the Selous: the largest hunting reserve in the world. Here, they protect an area of land large enough to have a lion population of 5000 or so Lions. From this they kill perhaps 50 out of the estimated population (about 1%) of course this relies on their estimate being accurate. Brink et all (2012) estimated the lion population was about 4300, with the range from 1900 up to 6900. though they admit this was extrapolated from a survey of only 1%. Other surveys have put the number between475 (absolute lower bound) up to 4953. This means that even with hunters wanting to kill the big adult males (deaths of pride leading males almost always lead to deaths as a new male tries to take over, firstly all young cubs are likely to be killed so the new male can sire his own offspring, and then often several mothers who try to defend their cub – 1 male killed might lead to 5-10 deaths as a result).
Never-the-less the Selous does not look like its lions are in danger of extinction. A different place to look at is the WAP complex. This includes 10200 square miles spread out across an area of Burkina Faso, Niger, and Benin. It includes 5 national parks and 14 hunting reserves. Given the lion population is 400 here, and the west lion (recently found to be the same subspecies as the indian lion) is so endangered, having a healthy take here is far harder. It is hard to find sensible numbers on hinting here, but a take of more than 4 per year would be very foolish.
In conclusion, while I would prefer that no one in the world ever went hunting animals for sport (generally all the meat is given to local communities, though this is not the reason for the hunt) there are some places which are so hard to reach or infested with unpleasant parasites (the Selous has an insect that carries something called sleeping sickness), I will accept it with clear documentation from places that can support it. This is because often a hunt will bring in so much money for local communities. However (and this is a big proviso) I believe that there are very few places where this is truly the case: The Selous is one, there are probably areas within the KAZA park that are similarly alright. Similarly in Europe, while I would never wish to hunt a wolf myself, the Sierra de culebra has provided a refuge where the wolf would not be exterminated – specifically because a handful of wolves were killed each year. This new rule that the government is bringing in is too simple, it does not take into account the unique situation in each country. My suggestion would be that each hunting organiser needs to get their hunt approved- perhaps some sort of hunting body, but for now in the UK the government would have to employ someone. That person would have to analyse the whole hunt plan, check that the area has a viable population of the animal in question and any other details. This would enforce far higher standards, so that we could be sure when the wealthy go to hunt that they arent going to create the extinction of a species.
For decades there have been schemes, where people from wealthy countries give someone a gift of a gift for those elsewhere. In most cases, the gift is a goat or cow to a family living in one of the poorest countries on earth.
while giving a goat or other livestock can seem like a good idea, it can often make the situation worse in the long run.
In theory, this is a lovely idea. The family is better off and well fed. In practice it seems that it can often do more harm than good.
In many of the areas that these livestock are sent, there is little water. These livestock need a lot of water, so their introduction can quickly change the water balance in the area, and push it towards desert.
Often the animal cannot be found enough food or drink, and veterinarian care is completely missing.
Much more useful is to support seed hubs, water irrigation systems and soil regeneration. While these do not produce the sweet picture, they are likely to benefit hundreds of people rather than one family, and often for decades to come.
That is not to say goat gifts are useless, in places with plenty of water, they can produce milk and meat, and can also have 6 kids a year which can be sold. A goat gift in the wrong place is worse than useless.
Two monkeys have been blamed for hundreds of puppy deaths and have now been captured. There was an incident where a group of dogs caught and killed a monkey, last year so it is thought that these monkeys have been on a revenge trip.
Langur monkey carrying a dog, likely to its death
Now, firstly, this should permanently do away with any idea that humans are the only group who grieve, or scheme or carry out plans over a few months. The two Langurs were reported after they were watched targeting dogs, carrying them to significant height and then dropping them. It is thought that 250 dogs have been killed in this way, over the last few months. Other puppies were abandoned at height to start or die of thirst.
Two monkeys, thought to be the culprits, have been caught and translocated, and this appears to have worked
The horrific traffic catastrophe in Virginia in the ice has lead to another foolish article about the supremacy of ICE over electric.
I havent heard of the author Charles Lane but the article is similar to dozens I have read in the past “here is an anecdotal situation that occurred to me, doesnt it show how electric cars are rubbish”.
Vehicles are seen on an icy stretch of Interstate 95 closed as a storm blankets the U.S. region in snow. Are you really better in an ICE vehicle than an electric?
In this situation a 48 mile traffic jam appeared on the interstate 95 in Virginia. A trucker found his cab door being knocked on by a woman who was in an electric car and hadnt enough food or water. They were worried about running out of charge while trying to keep their vehicle warm. With kids in the car they had got out to ask other vehicle drivers for blankets or anything else (outside temperatures were minus 7 degrees).
So why was this a foolish article to write? Essentially the lorry driver is saying, look at this situation where ICE cars were better than electric, therefore no-one should buy electric.
So lets look at this situation.
1 Given an electric car can be charged at home, and an ICE vehicle needs refilling at a fuel station, which is most likely to be near full of fuel in an emergency? Many people do a small top-up every night so keep their car at around 85% permanently, except when going on a long journey. Generally people only refill their tank when it is nearing empty.
2 Electric cars are almost 100% efficient with a heat pump as many of these cars use. A tesla 3 heat pump could keep its inhabitants warm for 36 hours on a full charge. In an ICE car it would entirely depend on how recently it was refilled- depending on the size and efficiency idling fuel usage can be anything from 1 litre an hour in a small car, up to as much as 5 or more in a big car (or a sports car like a dodge viper). A Hyundai Kona uses about 1 litre an hour and has a tank of 38 litres, so would last about a day and a half. Even in big cars the fuel tank is not normally bigger than 70 litres, which would suggest 14 hours,
As such, in actual fact the odds of running out of fuel (charge or gas) in a sticky situation is likely to be far higher in an ICE vehicle. Once in the situation, unless you are in the right car for this rare situation, electric is far more likely to safely keep you warm till the road clears.
Now it is true that should your electric car drain completely to zero, it is more bother to recharge an electric car than it is an ICE vehicle, as the latter merely needs a walk to the nearest petrol station. Why do so many writers grab every chance to take a swipe at electric? Probably because they know that they will be paid well – however as these stories start to look more and more stupid, I think it is going to be harder to find someone to write your hit piece.
There has been much made of the idea that given our need to cut carbon emissions, space flight should go out of the window.
However, would you be surprised to hear that a SpaceX rocket emissions is roughly equivalent to 1 large jet crossing the Atlantic. Given that last year there was an average of roughly 1700 transatlantic flights each day in 2018, that is actually a relatively small amount.
