In 2020, Trump gave responsibility for managing wildlife populations back to the states. Now one might argue that this is the right thing to do, after all it is democracy, but is it?
Wolves are a natural part of the ecosystem in Montana, with a stronghold in the Rockies, but this was a population that lost its protection under Trump
Many of the states in the USA are horrifically gerrymandered, with some having a small minority overruling the great majority. There are many intentional ways that this is done (republicans have been very good at it over time – there are been 2 times in recent years where democrats got more votes but lost.
Across France this is around 11gigawatts, or over the year almost 10 terawatt hours of electricity generation per year. This is a very sensible idea, as it is a second use of the land.
Might this become a common site in the UK as well as France (where it is required on all new car parks over 80 spaces)
In the south of England, there are now 2000 panels placed over car parking spaces. These offer a capacity of almost 1MW hour. Each parking space covered, has a capacity of about 2kw. In the UK, the countries target of solar by 2030 is to have 40gw of solar capacity, up from 15gw currently. It is estimated, that almost half the remaining target would be met by carpark roofing – which suggests that we could hit far more than 40gw of solar.
Usually in order to increase the power generation from anything, it needs new hardware – if you wanted to increase the amount of power from a set of solar panels on your roof there is little you can do, without replacing them (this of course pre-supposes that the panels are in a good location, and are not in the shadow of a tree).
That is why this is incredibly exciting. The idea of being able to roll our new rules about how wind turbines work, and instantly make 1% more energy is incredible.
It is true that, currently, wind only accounts for about 6.5% of electricity generation. Conversely, it accounts for 24% of renewable generation – which is quite likely to be a percentage that grows as we move towards 100% renewable electricity generation.
So, with this change it will only account for 6.565% what difference is that?
Well, last year the world generated 28500 terawatt hours, which means that 0.065% increase is 18.5 terawatt hours extra created through 100% green sources.
Now, between 2020 and 2022, the average carbon emissions per kwh was around 370g. As such, were all of this energy created in the USA (it is not the most expensive or the least, so we are going to use it as representative – even though this power would be generated around the world) this much extra green energy would save 0.370 time 18.5 time 10 to the power of 9 (there are 1,000,000,000 kwh in 1 terawatt hour) which means that this little modeling trick would have saved roughly 7 million tonnes of carbon emissions. Now while this is relatively small in global terms (with 50 gigatonnes of emissions in 2020) it is still not insignificant – indeed, it is equivalent to the total emissions of Botswana, or indeed Latvia in 2021. That strikes me as an easy move, perhaps looking at this in a different way, perhaps more importantly, for wind farm companies, this energy is worth roughly £340 million ($450 million)
The Christian Social Democrats believe that there is no place for wolves in Germany, and members of the party have called for their intentional extinction. Taking around 10% of the vote they are a small but relatively influential party – and given the way that elections work in Germany, coalitions are common. Unfortunately, coalitions will often give small parties an outsized voice, so this foolish position has the potential to become government policy faster than one would expect.
The Gir forest was the last refuge of the Asiatic lion. Back in 1893 it was thought that there were only 18 animals remaining. Thankfully that number has rebounded very well (there are scientists who doubt this extremely low number) and the Indian lion population is now thought to number about 600. The problem is, that the reserve is not particularly large at 1410 square km (544 square miles). Even in the Serengeti (which has one of the highest density of lions) there is about 1 lion for every 2 square miles, yet the Gir forest has more than one per square mile. This contributes to a mortality rate that is dangerously high, with 283 lions dying in the last couple of years.
As such it is not surprising that many of the lions live outside the reserve, and is thought that around 1 in 4 live outside the reserve.
This was one of the reasons that efforts were made to move some of these lions to other reserves, but Gujarat has blocked this despite loosing various court cases.
Wild Indian lions photographed on the beach
Now, it is not easy to live alongside lions, and the state government is both endangering the long term survival of the Indian Asiatic lion, as well as many of its human population by its determination to hold onto the whole population within its borders.
The world has got far smaller since the advent of the aeroplane. While many people that are writing on environment and wildlife (like me) would encourage you to avoid flying, By all means reduce it as much as possible, if your journey can be done in the car or by train do it this way. I understand the desire to fly – in just a few hours you can be on the other side of Europe.
Currently in development, while not a passenger jet, could replace many of the private jets around the world, with a rang of about 250 miles and carrying 11 people
However, most European trips can be done either on the train or in the car. Indeed, by train it is often faster than by plane – when you include the waiting time, baggage reclaim, and the time taken getting to and from the airport.
In many of the rich countries of the world, a great deal of effort is being put into reducing emissions. It is true, that these countries are responsible for a large amount of historical emissions. The problem is, that there are a number of so called carbon bombs that are being recognized around the world. Any of these could if unbalanced could emit so much carbon as to virtually eradicate the remaining carbon budget for the human race. These cover all sorts of things, but one that has been going on in the last year is very worrying.
Currently, the statistics state that the UK is emitting more carbon dioxide than all countries but 17. Turkmenistan however is far down the list with emissions at 47. Yet in 2022 methane emissions leaking from just two of their fossil fuel fields caused more global heating than the whole of the UK.
Flaring is blatantly done under our nose. What is clear however, is that it is far worse to let the methane escape
It is just 5 years since the Tapanuli orangutan was described. Despite this Orangutan being restricted to an area of Northern Sumatra, it is more closely related to the Bornean Orangutan than the Sumatran one. This might be the clearest indication of how long this species has been separate from its cousins.
Tapanuli Orangutan, only described in 2017 is still threatened by various projects in the area
The Tapanuli Orangutan split from its Bornean cousins around 670,000 years ago, while chimpanzee and Bonobo were split 1.5-2.2 million years ago. Baffling, the Sumatran Orangutan split from both the Borneon and Tapanuli Orangutan 3.38 million years ago. For context, Humans split from our chimpanzee ancestors 4-6 million years ago (so not much longer) and gorillas split from their chimpanzee ancestors 7-9 million years ago.
All this is to say, that while the Tapanuli Orangutan is relatively closely related to the Bornean Orangutan, it cannot interact with it as it is on another island; and the Sumatran Orangutan is too far removed to be able to interbreed.
It is thought that the Tapanuli Orangutan has faced population decline of 83% in the last few decades (three generations). Further threats are numerous. One of its biggest threats is a hydroelectric dam, which would remove much of the remaining habitat, but a gold mine, loss of habitat and an expansion of croplands are other threats.
Unfortunately little to nothing has improved in the last 6 years, they are probably closer to extinction now than ever. If you have followed this blog over the last 5 years, you will have seen that I have written on this new orangutan species a few times. We will continue to follow this animal on this blog – we must work to raise its profile and not merely chronicle its slide towards extinction.
This is a wonderful 8 minute documentary on the Tapanuli Orangutan, the 8th great ape
Before humans started cutting down the forests of the UK, the pine marten was likely one of the most common carnivores in the UK. This voracious arboreal hunter is the reason that our resident squirrel is so acrobatic – these skills would likely be tested every day.
Indeed, pine martens are less widely spread in the USA which is likely one of the reasons that grey squirrels are so incapable of surviving alongside pine martens. Thus, in the UK we have this perverse situation within the UK, where the only refuge of the red squirrel (apart from small islands which can be cleared more easily) are areas of the country where pine martens also survive on.
Is the day coming where a walking
In the UK, it has been long known that pine martens survive in Scotland. Protection of their forests must improve if we are to hold onto them for longer.
The wildlife of Indonesia now often looks like relatively unique to those islands. This is not the natural state of affairs. 60,000 years ago, a cousin of the orangutan lived on the mainland. Unfortunately, what appears clear, is that humans were responsible for the extinction of these animals as with so many more.
There are 2 species of Indonesian Rhino, the Javan rhino and the Sumatran rhino. Now it should be noted that these names are not an indication of a small range (or if it is, it is wrong) in reality, both rhino species were far more widely spread. Indeed mainland specimens lived within the 21st century.
