News – Page 30 – See Animals Wild

March 15, 2022July 1, 2022

“Net zero is net stupid” the latest foolish line from Nigel Farage

The Brexit referendum is now 6 years in the past. The continual calls from Brexiteers for “remoaners” to forget it and get with the program, have been gradually quietened as it has become clear that Brexit was won through a series of lies and promises – promises which have virtually all been broken.

The Conservative Party manifesto for the 2015 general election did say “We are clear about what we want from Europe. We say: yes to the Single Market.”

This was an important point that was made several times before the vote, yet after the vote everyone claimed that of course we all knew we had to leave the single market. While many would argue that it is too soon to see what damage Brexit will do (even though this was often said the other way before) It is clear that we were lied to, in order to leave. Before we actually completed the negotiations more than 50% of the population were expressing a desire to not leave.

March 12, 2022July 1, 2022

What will the Ukraine war have on wildlife?

I do not know how many of my readers follow current affairs closely, though I follow them.

Whether the Ukraine invasion is to have a long lasting effect on the environment in Ukraine, this picture shows that at least in places the damage is significant

Are wars good for wildlife, or are they bad?

Unfortunately, it completely depends.

I suspect that on the whole, it depends on the wildlife in question. Several times during wars, it was thought that the European bison had been lost – due to soldiers having to camp in remote forests that they still survived. It is not surprising that soldiers with little to eat will take Bison that they encounter (one bison could feed a large number of soldiers). Indeed, it is certainly the case that many herbivores have been lost in this way.

Other species are different.

Mountain gorillas multiplied greatly during the period of the civil war. In similar ways, the Iron curtain that crossed Europe – along the edge of the Soviet Union, had a no mans land on either side of the barrier. This Green belt which ran for thousands of km across Europe, while not wide was never-the-less wide enough for animals to use. Indeed, it is thought that wolves and bears used this route as a highway – allowing them to recolonise land they had been exterminated from.

So, what do we think? Well, partly it depends on how long the war goes on. At the current time, it does not look like Russia will be able to last for long enough for this to have any big effect. If instead this was to go on for years, it might be a very different thing. This is because Ukraine lies between the Eastern Europe and the Carpathians, and the west. Should hunting in Ukraine cease for a few years, it is likely to accelerate the movement of wolves and bears and lynx from east to west. This process is likely to happen over time anyway, but a protracted war could accelerate it.

As I said above, though, it is highly likely that this conflict will not last long.

March 11, 2022June 28, 2022

Return of the bear wolf and lynx to France and western Europe

The recovery of wolves bears and lynx over the last several generations in western Europe has been nothing short of astounding.

In the 1960s the population of the iberian wolf did not number more than a few hundred, yet now there are 2500. Similarly, bears got very low but now more than 300 roam – though this still has some way to go. The Iberian lynx was not heavily hunted, yet was still almost wiped out due to human introduced diseases wiping out most of the rabbits in Spain.

France destroyed its wolf population completely, though they are back, having crossed from Italy about 20-30 years ago. Bears were similarly almost wiped out, except a tiny relict population in the Pyrenes. Unfortunately, this population has not done well and is essentially only there because of bear translocations from further east. Similarly, Lynx were eradicated by 1900 though this has been reversed by reintroduction projects. There are a couple of zones where lynx are found (a reintroduction project in Switzerland returned them to part of france), However, there is not going to be more than 130 lynx in the whole country and the population does not seem to be growing.

Italy retained a wolf population, though in the 1970s there was only 70-100 left. Nowadays, 1000-2000 wolves roam the country, and it is roaming members of this population that seeded the population in France. 80-90 bears remain in Italy (the Marsican bear), and while this is a more healthy population than that in France, it is still not enough to be secure. Lynx were eradicated but have been reintroduced, though they are not thought to have established a population that would be secure longterm without continued translocations.

Scandinavia could in some ways be thought of as a strong-point for all three animals in western-Europe, though there are still views that are not helpful. The encouraging thing here, is that the wolf is able to return from Russia. There are no more than 500 wolves in this area, and Norway has a relatively strange view of the wolf, with human hunting elk very popular, wolves are seen as a nuisance and kept at a minimum. Norway has a similar view of the bear, with them being far more common in Sweden. Lynx are widespread in this part of the world.

Why should we champion the return of these animals? They have the capacity to rebalance environments, as well as allowing forests to operate properly – in the UK, as we are missing these predators, replanting forests are often hindered by deer grazing them to much. There are other reasons though. These animals can be a big tourist draw, allowing people to make a good income, often in places where there is little other economic potential. In the UK, return of wolves and lynx would save hundreds of human lives each year by reducing deer collisions on our roads.

Will their recovery continue? I hope so, though it seems to very much be an area where progress is two steps forwards and one step back.

March 10, 2022June 28, 2022

Re-wilding in the UK

Currently, 70% of the land in the UK is given over to agriculture. Of this, just 15% is used to grow crops for human consumption. A further 22% goes towards feeding livestock. The rest is given over to livestock grazing.

This means that we give over 44% of the country to livestock, and a further 15% of the country to feed the livestock.

If growing food in a lab does indeed take off, 59% of the UK would suddenly be freed up – lab grown meat done properly could have a near 0 carbon footprint, and can be created in close proximity to the shop that will sell it -further reducing or eliminating the transport carbon footprint of food.

Now, assuming that this is to happen we would still need to keep some livestock. This would be needed to harvest cells. Never the less, we could still see a reduction of more than 99% of the livestock and land required. I do not believe that I am the only person who would be far happier satisfying my desire for meat, without the climate implications or indeed the fact that animals have to die to satisfy it (I am not a vegetarian, but over the last few years we have made efforts to reduce our meat footprint).

This would free up more than 50% of the country. What could we do with this?

Well my argument is that this land could be given over to rewilding. With this amount of land, we could suck up vast amounts of carbon a year. 50% of the UK is roughly 120,000 square kilometres. Now roughly speaking, forest suck up 500g per square m per year, or 500 metric tonnes per square km. Therefore, the UK could suck up 60 million tonnes a year. Now it is true that this is not huge compared to our emissions and we might have some other uses, never-the-less I am sure that I am not the only person that is frustrated by the lack of wilderness in the UK. Even just 10% of the gained land being given over to rewilding could make great progress in returning wilderness to the UK.

March 7, 2022July 1, 2022

Glass is capable of being endlessly recycled – but some countries are better than others

Making new glass from cutlet (small glass pieces) saves significant energy. This is partly because it needs a lower temperature to melt. While it is true that much of the materials that go into glass are not in short supply, it is still more sensible to reuse, particularly if your energy requirements are lower. Apart from energy uses, other benefits of recycling include 20% less air pollution and 50% less water pollution. It also means that glass does not have to go into landfill – we need to reduce rubbish going to landfill down to as close to zero as possible.

Glass can be endlessly recycled so why is a country like the USA so far behind many others in this important field

March 6, 2022June 28, 2022

The British government has promised to go carbon neutral by 2050 how much to generate all electricity from wind?

How can we produce all our electricity through wind and solar? These are the two most wide-spread possibilities in terms of green electricity generation. It has been calculated, that in order to power all UK homes from wind, we need funding of 50 billion.

Now while this number is huge, the British government spent over a trillion pounds last year. This means that the investment required to generate 100% of our power from wind is about 5% of one years spending. This strikes me as incredibly cheap. This investment, would allow about 4 times as many turbines to be added as there currently are.

There would obviously be other costs, such as storing electricity for when the wind is not blowing. The important take away, is that this is negligible. Indeed with debts of over 3000 billion, adding 50 more is not a big step.

More importantly, it is calculated that doing nothing could cost the UK alone trillions of pounds. If we invested this money over the next say 8 years (so that all the money was available by 2030 and all the turbines were up and running by 2035) it becomes quite a small investment in government spending terms (though it is still a large amount of money).

It is estimated that by 2050 climate change could cost the UK up to £20 billion a year. Of course other countries around the world will likely have to pay far more. The UK has the 12th highest electricity use in the world as a country, this means that while each country will need a lot of money to go fully green electricity, it is not necessary to break the bank.

Different countries will have different ways to reach net zero, and we should help and encourage this move – but why dont we start planning the necessary investment, make sure that the UK leads the way in eliminating our electrical carbon footprint?

March 5, 2022June 28, 2022

Carbon footprint of the UK ghost flights during Covid

What are ghost flights?

These are flights that are totally empty. These flights took place because airports demanded that a certain percentage of take-off slots were filled in order for each company to retain ownership.

Why is this problematic?

The Average plane emits about 53 pounds of carbon per mile, and flies on average 500 miles. As a result, the average flight emits roughly 25000 pounds of carbon per flight. Roughly speaking, an empty plane uses 20% less fuel, so we can say that each ghost flight emitted roughly 10 tonnes of carbon. Over the 15,000 flights that flew empty, that is 150,000 tonnes of carbon – with no purpose except allowing airports to keep raking in the profits.

At a time when we are all trying to cut carbon emissions this is horrendous. Is it a large portion of our countries annual emissions? no, it is less than 1%. However, at a time when everyone is being encouraged to reduce their carbon footprint as much as possible this is an absurd waste.

Alarmingly, ghost flights are not only a British thing in many countries around the world they have been a far bigger thing. What is worse, is that this was belatedly recognized by the EU reducing requirements temporarily in the middle of the epidemic.

Things must change – if in the future we have an epidemic which reduces passengers flying to zero, we must also have a reduction in the emissions and flights to zero as well.

March 4, 2022July 1, 2022

An arrested Sumatran politician – arrested for bribery, was found to have a pet Orangutan among a group of other exotic pets

There is a great deal of corruption in many parts of the world. In many places politicians are almost expected to give themselves extra benefits – indeed those who do not, are often quite notable for standing out.

In this case, after arresting the politician his house was raided, when the animals were found.

Keeping wild animals as pets can carry a 5 year jail sentence, in this case it must -he must not escape penalty for this

March 3, 2022June 28, 2022

Have we been underestimating emissions from deforestation? Perhaps by as much as 100%?

In a world where we are worried about global warming and carbon emissions, it is insanity that we are still cutting down trees. Recent research shows it even more insane – the carbon footprint of deforestation has been shown to have doubled in the last 2 decades.

Unfortunately, this problem is for simple reasons. Generalizing, the majority of people who are worried about global warming are in developed countries – few of these countries have an significant rainforest left, as they cut them down (often centuries ago).

In developing countries, people are less worried about global warming. Are the stupid? No, of course not. In the developed world, for the vast majority of people, we do not need to worry about where our next meal is coming from (sure there are varying levels of poverty, but on the whole dying from starvation in the west is rare). In developing countries, however, starvation is still a problem that occurs from time to time. Terrible famines have occurred within living memory, which means that the populations in these countries are more concerned with plans to stay alive, not with concerns over how difficult they are making their descendants lives.

The worlds forests contain more than a century of human carbon emissions (from fossil fuels). In other words, if we cut it all down we will blow past all possible safety points and will be well in to runaway global warming. We need to help the countries which still contain rainforest – even one off payments in the billions are not enough. The west needs to assist countries with large rainforests, particularly the Democratic republic of the Congo, Indonesia, and Brazil in growing both their economies and food production in the smallest amount of space possible, alongside significant regular payments for retaining their rainforests.

Unfortunately, this is unlikely to happen. There is also significant differences between concern from individuals on the ground and the government. If this site succeeds we will create a marketplace for those living by rainforest to benefit, however if the government decides to cut down the forest this will not matter.

What is clear is that not only do we need to end deforestation, but we need to reverse deforestation in many places. This is not only necessary for global warming, but also for rainfall and the whole host of other reasons that benefit local people.

March 1, 2022June 28, 2022

Can the red sea teach us how to save the worlds corals?

The coral itself is actually usually quite a dull colour, the brilliant colours of coral reefs come from the algae that lives within its coral tissue. These algae’s are called Zooxanthellae and in return for their home, the algae supply most of the corals nutrients.

The problem, is that these algae are very sensitive to temperature changes, and so if the sea remains unusually warm or cold for more than a few days, the algae leaves the corals and this is called a bleaching. This bleaching has occurred more and more recently in the last few years.

As a result of this, it is feared, that up to 90% of the corals worldwide will be lost by 2050.

This is where the red sea corals become so interesting.

The red sea coral reef looks the same as any other reef, but it appears that there is a difference, that might be the key to saving reefs around the world

Just 2 years ago, researchers found some corals in the Gulf of Aqaba, a trench between Israel, Jordan and Egypt which could withstand higher temperatures for longer. Just 1 degree above normal, sustained for a week can be enough to cause bleaching. If the temperature does not fall quickly, the corals will die. Yet here, corals have been seen to survive temperature rises above 7 degrees. It is thought that these corals have developed these abilities because they regularly suffer large temperature changes.

If they can identify corals that have this ability, and translocate them into new reefs, they will cross-breed. As the heat resistant corals are heat resistant, they are likely to survive far longer and therefore be able to pass on their heat resistant trait into the whole reef.

Given the rapidly warming planet, we only have about 30 years to act. Apart from their own intrinsic value, coral reefs are also worth roughly $600,000 per square kilometre each year, through protecting coastlines, increased tourism, medication and a whole lot more effects.

This is a fantastic possible save for the worlds reefs, time will tell if it works.