Europe – Page 15 – See Animals Wild

September 13, 2021June 30, 2022

Why are so many African countries on the government’s Covid red list

Out of the 54 countries in Africa 20 currently listed on the British government’s red list. This list is a list of countries that you cannot travel to without then spending 10 days in quarantine.

All well and good you might say, after all the government’s main concern is the health of its citizens. The problem is that this does not seem to be about the health of the UK citizens. Instead it seems more aimed at protecting against people’s misconceptions.

France is on the British amber covid list, yet this country alone has 115,000 death registered, or roughly two-thirds of the number of deaths recorded in the whole of Africa (between 150,000 and 200,000 depending which statistics are used. Indeed Germany is on the government’s green list and yet has had 90000 deaths and is currently running at 10,000 new cases a day. What is more given that these numbers are broken down by country, more than 80,000 deaths occurred in South Africa, even the rest of the African continent a share only about 100000 deaths.

The whole of Africa (a contingent of 1.3 billion people) only recorded roughly twice the number of daily cases recently to Germany – a country on the green list.

Now, it could be argued, these countries are only on the red list because the government cannot be sure of the data coming in.

Why is this a problem? Well, apart from the astounding level of institutional racism that this seems to show, tourism is essential for many African economies. As a result this failure to follow the science to have long lasting socio economic problems.

The problem is that China has been claiming virtually no cases for months. China is currently on the amber list, yet there is a little faith or put in the numbers they are quoting. It’s true that with some of the African countries, there is also a little faith in the numbers.

Why is this of concern to a wildlife travel and conservation website? It is simple! The longer these countries stay on the red list because of covid, the bigger an impact this will have on wilderness reserves and national parks. If only a few people are willing to enter the country and tolerate the quarantine on return, we run the risk that these countries will turn to hunting instead of photographic safari.

Time will tell if this is a racist move, allowing the government to appear to be taking covid seriously – without too much worry of backlash from the country in question.

Obviously the sooner these rules change (for me as well as the tourism sector in Africa) the better, however this is the same for the natural world. I just hope and pray that the government has better reasons than it appears for its current covid red list, and will open up travel to these relatively safe countries soon enough to save the wild places that they protect.

September 10, 2021June 30, 2022

Do over 50s want climate change addressed even if it costs more? Err, yes!

There have been a great deal of things that have happened over the last decade or two, which would suggest that the older generation don’t care what happens to the climate because they won’t be here to tolerate the effects.

Older generations also have a significant reputation for intransigence: adoption of new technology often spreads to the older people last. The problem with global warming is that the speed required to adjust is way too high to allow more senior members of society to wait.

This is why I found the results of a recent survey so encouraging. The survey wasn’t huge, only looking at 500 people, however it found more than two-thirds of respondents want ministers in our government to move faster even if it pushes up prices for services.

The survey found that these people were highly likely to be making adjustments to mitigate future climate change. These ranged from traveling less, to changing their diet and using less energy at home.

This is in some ways particularly encouraging, as the majority of home greening efforts take a significant length of time to pay off

If you are already advanced in age the benefit felt is unlikely to be by you.

Now of course for most elderly parents or grandparents, they are greatly interested in passing down their housing stock to their descendants – so any greening of the house can last longer. Nevertheless, for older people reducing the future carbon emissions of their house is less about their own financial interests – indeed the government should bear this in mind.

The other issue is that the majority of these people live in particularly large and expensive houses. These are often the houses that young people aspire to live in if they ever make it. Due to their size and age, many of these properties will cost several tens of thousands of pounds to upgrade and as such the current inhabitants must be thinking about their descendants if they’re willing to upgrade their house for the future fight on climate change.

September 7, 2021June 30, 2022

25 biggest European banks are failing on their own green pledges

Over the last decade or so, the laws of countries across the developed world have not kept up with changes in our knowledge of threats to the natural world. As a result, promises to not fund projects that destroy ecosystems are what consumers have to go on in choosing which bank to let use your money.

Yet, out of the 25 biggest European banks none are actually living up to their promises. ShareAction, the body which carried out the research, did state that some banks such as NatWest are doing well on net zero targets, and restricting funding for fossil fuel projects.

August 28, 2021June 30, 2022

There are roughly 50 billion birds in the world but just a few species dominate

Just four birds have a population over a billion, house sparrows European starlings ring-billed gulls and barn swallows.

At the other end, there are over 1180 species with 5000 or less members left.

The last time this survey was done was 24 years ago, the estimate was 200 to 400 billion birds, though it is clear that some of this reduction in numbers will be down to a more accurate survey – still many birds are heading rapidly in the direction of extinction.

The first thing to be done in conservation is to understand the current situation, so this is a great first step. Now the world needs to work hard on conserving what is left – unfortunately this is a rather bigger task. However now we know what needs to be done we merely need to get on with it.

August 27, 2021June 30, 2022

British Banks have funded more than 800 million tonnes of carbon production a year

Alarmingly this quantity is twice the amount that the UK emitted in the same year, indeed British banking would be the 9th highest emitter in the world.

In this day and age it is not good enough to merely be environmentally conscious yourself. Many of these products would not been able to take place without funding from the UK.

These banks must change their policies. For one it is severely damaging the worlds, however even if the banks are not interested in whether they are damaging the world, these Investments are clearly poor, as they will have to stop being used long before they make their money back.

The British public must take action. If banks and companies that are investing in in industries that are emitting large quantities of carbon, they are destroying our future. We must take action by defending them completely so that they either change their behaviour or go out of business.

I encourage you, to look into your banks behaviour, and move your money if they are not acting in the planets best interest – make sure they know why you are moving.

August 27, 2021June 30, 2022

Analysis shows offshore wind is likely to be cheaper than nuclear within a short time

Looking at a series of nuclear plants in the UK, it was found that each were going to be charging roughly £60 per megawatt hour by 2050.

Offshore wind however was predicted to be charging £39.65.

These are both in the ballpark of what is currently charged for coal. This means that whether the future clean energy is largely wind and solar based or is based on nuclear, the price is going to be lower than what it currently costs through coal.

This information should be used to encourage other countries, particularly places like China, that it is more expensive to continue to burn coal. Not only is it better for the planet, but it is cheaper for your consumers – as well as not risking their health through large quantities of emissions.

August 27, 2021June 30, 2022

Does the UK government care about River pollution?

New rules on polluting rivers came into force in the UK in 2018. Despite a documented 243 cases of unauthorised pollution not one fine was issued.

One argument is that the environmental agency is being poorly funded by the government, and therefore doesn’t have the resources. Of the roughly 10000 environmental agency staff in the UK only 40 are responsible for inspecting farms, meaning that each farm should be inspected roughly once every two centuries.

In defence the environmental agency said that well no fines or prosecutions were mounted 14 letters of warning were sent. The idea that this is a defence of their success rate is quite peculiar. It is clear that in its current form the environmental agency is completely incapable doing the job it is given to do. This needs to change in fast if we are to have a country that has a good environment for both us and the animals we share the the land with.

August 26, 2021June 30, 2022

How can an average UK household reduce their carbon footprint?

The average UK household has a footprint of around 20 tonnes. Now it is true, that this is well below USA emissions as that is for 4 people – so average emissions of around 5 tonnes per head.

However, with relatively small adjustments, this can be cut dramatically. 12.3% of emissions come from heating, and a further 10.4% comes from electricity.

Furthermore, a significant cut can be made through replacing beef mince with Turkey mince. This can reduce your food carbon footprint by as much as 50%, and given that most mince is eaten in dishes with other foods, it is often unnoticeable

August 24, 2021June 30, 2022

In Britain, the may gales allowed record amounts of electricity to be made from wind turbines

One of the real pushes in the UK towards clean energy is through the vast wind turbine farms placed out in the North sea.

With expectations of these growing dramatically over the next decade, these areas are very windy and therefore an incredibly reliable source of electricity generation.

Due to more and more wind turbines being built this record will not hold. At the moment wind power makes up roughly 20% of Britain’s energy generation. Over boxing day during a large storm, wind power produce more than 50% of the UK’s electricity.

Last year was the first time that more electricity came from renewables (wind water sunlight and wood) which produced 42% of the electricity in the UK compared to the 41% that came from fossil fuel sources.

This clearly suggests the UK has some way to go. However as the UK increasingly brings more and more wind farms online, and the pace of solar generation starts to pick up again after the government’s foolish eradication of financial support, it is conceivable that in the next 20 years the remaining 41% of our power generation reliant on fossil fuels could fall all too close to zero.

One of the big advances in recent years is the vast batteries that are starting to come online. In the past peaker plants (these are power plants that come online to support high periods of demand) have been the most dirty power. These are likely to quickly be replaced by batteries as they are expensive to run.

For the first time the idea of running a carbon-neutral economy, does not seem that far-fetched when looking at our current setup

August 20, 2021June 30, 2022

Should bears be returned to the wilds of the UK?

If you follow this blog regularly, you will have read yesterday and the day before on the reasoning for reintroducing Lynx and Wolves.

As I wrote, Lynx should be a simple choice. I believe that Wolves follow a similar logical route, that suggests that the reintroduction would either save or make far more money that any negatives might cost.

Brown bears are highly intelligent omnivores. They could thrive in the UK, and give much needed job opportunities in remote parts of the UK

Bears are also locally extinct in the UK, how does the arguments about reintroducing them go? Well, I would argue that actually the cost of bear reintroduction would be significantly lower.