Crops around the world are under threat from climate change. Chocolate and coffee may merely be crops that the western wealthy countries enjoy, however palm oil in particular has been planted with the specific aim, in many cases of providing carbon neutral fuels. This is of course stupid as in many of these areas vast carbon sinks have had to be destroyed, releasing vast quantities of carbon, meaning that these palm oil plantations will have to produce oil in places for more than a century before they get back to carbon neutral.
Continue reading “Chocolate coffee soya and even palm oil appears to be under threat by climate change”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.
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
Continue reading “How can an average UK household reduce their carbon footprint?”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
Why does the debate continue to be pay to fight climate change or … don’t?
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?
Continue reading “Why does the debate continue to be pay to fight climate change or … don’t?”Will climate change kill the forests of Africa?
There are many threats facing the great apes of Africa, from habitat destruction and fragmentation, to hunting for bush meat. Unfortunately, it is now thought that Chimpanzees gorillas and Bonobos face a still greater threat (assuming humans avoid killing off what remains of their population) the loss of about 94% of their remaining habitat due to forest die off from the warming that we are creating.
Even under our most rosy scenario, they stand to loose 85% of their range.
The same studies suggest that as areas become unsuitable, there are likely to be other that become suitable. Unfortunately, dealing with slow adapting animals this will not help at all without significant assistance from humans.
What is even more scary is that this loss would occur by 2050.
I find this horrifying. I have not been able to yet visit any wild great ape populations, and now it looks as though their future is severely limited. It also looks like, by the time my children have children the huge forests of Africa teeming with wildlife, will be no more.
We must act now!
Human communities which live alongside great ape populations must benefit. Of course these communities must not grow and crowd out the wildlife, but if a similar system can be set up that worked for the mountain gorillas, perhaps many of the great apes could be saved and at the same time, pull millions of Africans living in poverty, into more sustainable and profitable lives.
This is not something that must be left to African governments. Indeed, it also must not be just left to tourism. Governments around the world, need to help in this work.
As well as replanting and recovering rainforests across the globe, the human population as a whole needs to work together to save the remaining tropical rainforests which are so precious to our future and that of our descendants.
A French company Biotope is working on sustainable cohabitation between chimpanzees and local communities in the highlands of western central Guinea.
The west African Chimpanzee once numbered around 2 million. Currently there are roughly 500,000, but without urgent action that number is liable to move quickly down to close to zero.
Conservation for its own sake is all very well for those people living on the other side of the world. For those who live close by it is a different matter. Ending the population explosion that is occurring in Africa, is essential both for the human and wildlife populations that share this continent. Similar programs could do the same thing in south America and Asia.
I am well aware that even if successful, this website will only be part of the solution, but I hope that with your support we can do some good.
A hydrogen powered world?
Hydrogen is an incredibly energy rich fuel. When Hydrogen is mixed with oxygen, a large amount of energy is released and the only waste is pure water.
The problem for many years has been that virtually all the hydrogen on earth is locked up as water. For a long time, it has been known that by running a current through water you can split the oxygen and hydrogen. Unfortunately, this process is incredibly energy intensive. Indeed it takes more energy than it gives.
Continue reading “A hydrogen powered world?”Biden has unveiled his clean energy plan
It is frankly bizarre, that there is not huge support for green energy. Who benefits from the status quo? Well the power companies do, but few others do. Of course, one group that does continue to gain are the fossil fuel companies.
So what would Bidens emissions cuts do? He has made it a goal of the USA, that by 2030 80% renewable energy use by 2030!
Continue reading “Biden has unveiled his clean energy plan”Daily mail fear mongering over taxes on electric cars
The daily mail, a British tabloid newspaper, has a habit of writing sensationalist articles.
They have published an article today which states “Families could face new £765 annual green tax on cars as ministers plan new levies for electric vehicles to fill £34billion black hole left by the death of fuel duty” as its title – with details saying the figure comes from the AA later in the article (AA is a roadside rescue firm).
Now this is clearly click-bait. The article is written to make out that electric cars are going to have to be taxed far higher, in order to make up the governments funding. Now there are several problems with their arguement.
- The government spends roughly 1 trillion pounds a year, so 34 billion is roughly 3%. While this is significant, it is amongst the governments total spending, a rounding error. There are many places that the government could raise this money
- Public sector spending on roads in the United Kingdom reached 10.94 billion British pounds in 2019/20, an increase of 820 million British pounds when compared with the previous year.
- The improvement in air quality could see a noticeable improvement in health from a breathing point of view. Currently 11 billion is spent a year, on conditions caused or exacerbated by pollution. It would be conceivable, that the benefit to the countries health could alone increase productivity by 3%
- The reduction in carbon emissions is likely to lead to a reduction in money needed to be spent on mitigating the damage done
This is the standard form of article that the daily mail puts out, and indeed while there are very occasional articles that share concern for climate change, the daily mail has put out far more which take swipes at electric cars and any other way that the government might try to change our behaviour.
From an article as early as 2010, the writer claimed that the range will never be good enough bizarrely stating that they can drive their diesel car 800 miles on a tank – at motorway speeds, even assuming speeding that is 10 hours during which time you will need at least a handful of stops for food and a toilet break. Modern electric cars can gain 200 miles range or even more in 15 minutes charging.
Indeed, even last year they published an article claiming that 1 in 3 cannot afford an electric car. Now they quoted a figure of at least £2100 spent on their current car as the point at which electric cars would become affordable. By 2030 there are likely to be far more ‘runabout’ cars and similar, but the simple fact, is that most people will be spending at least £1500 on fuel a year. Given that electric cars last longer, and these people they are referring to, are likely to hold onto their car as long as possible, and probably do not buy new anyway we can assume the car is kept for at least 10 years. Electric charging is much cheaper, so you can be expecting to save at least £1200 per year, an amount that more than makes up for the initial higher price of purchase (the article states that entry level electric cars are around £5000 more expensive, so a purchaser will be better off after 4 – 5 years). There may have to be a change in car loan terms, to make borrowing more affordable, but this is all.
Articles on the difficulty of charging, range longevity and many more, are published every few weeks (or more regularly).
What is the daily mails problem?
Every country around the world seems to have a similar publication. Yes electric cars create slightly more emissions at manufacture (though this gap is narrowing) and yes they can be more expensive however prices are falling and the cost of ownership over the lifetime of the vehicle is significantly lower. Importantly environmental costs are far lower, and given the situation that the human race finds itself in, having to cut our emissions to zero pretty fast – caused I should note, largely by the sort of companies that newspapers like the daily mail praises constantly- we have no choice. The best impact that the daily mail can have is slowing the change. Given that the daily mail is based on a island, a place which stands to loose much from extreme global warming not least in terms of land. This sort of slanted analysis is only useful for confirming your biases.
It should be avoided (though the daily mail gives plenty of subjects to write on)
Lightyear one
The lightyear one is an incredible car. It is a highly efficient electric car, and gets over 440 miles from a battery smaller than the one in the long range tesla 3 which only has a range of 353.
This is partly because it is an incredibly efficient car – each wheel has its own, in wheel, motor. However, even more exciting, the car is covered in high efficiency solar panels – it has 5 square meters of solar panels, which is allow between 25 and 45 miles on solar power alone.
Continue reading “Lightyear one”
