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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
Yesterday, I wrote an article on whether the Lynx should be returned to the UK (returning to the home page will allow you to read it). As a medium sized cat, that hunts by ambush and restricts itself to forests, reintroducing it should be a relatively simple decision. The wolf does not fit into this framework. I do however believe that it too should return to its rightful place as part of the fauna of the wild Britain.
Wolf pack photographed in france
How are wolves similar to Lynx? Well they are predators. Indeed, like Lynx they are at the top of the food chain. So why do we need more than one predator?
I am always interested when one of the biggest newspapers in the country, echo a sentiment that I have been talking about in this blog. Do not worry, I have no thoughts of grandeur – there news has not been prompted by this blog. However, it is highly encouraging when someone else is saying the same thing.
This blog is devoted to encouraging the protection and rejuvenation of wild ecosystems – through helping recognize the benefits and (obviously still a work in progress) hopefully creating a way to advertise you wilderness and have people visit (while you offer some service, from access to your land, to food or accommodation (tent or other)) thereby making the wildlife that people share their land with a financial benefit to the rest of the business.
However, one of the big issue that ecosystems have throughout the world, is holes as a result of human caused extinctions.
In the UK we have no predators larger than foxes and badgers. While these animals might take a tiny abandoned deer fawn, they are incapable of taking much more than this.
In the past we had wolves, bears and lynx.
European Lynx rarely leave their woodland home
I will talk about wolves and bears in other articles, but the lynx is different. This is an in depth look at some of the issues that are at play here. As such, this article is perhaps a bit longer that this blogs articles normally are.
Lynx are virtually exclusively forest animals, which means that for the most part they did not prey on our livestock. Indeed it has been shown that far more often than not, a Lynx walking the edge of a woodland will not attack sheep 10m outside. This idea is confirmed by what happens in Romania; there is a population of around 1300-2800 lynx (I realize that this population range is wide, this is the problem with dealing with a species rarely seen), and it is estimated that in the worst areas of the world lynx might kill a sheep once every 2 years – or an annual loss of perhaps 2000 out of 9 million that live in Romania.
We continue to hear ” fighting climate change is to expensive” in one form or another.
Problem is that this looks at this issue wrong. Sure, right now it is pay to fight or not, but if we don’t in a couple of decades our children will have to pay terms of times more to undo or damage.
In other words, the decision is pay a little now, or make our children pay huge amounts.
What parent makes that decision? What will future generations make of our collective ambivalence?
