There are species of penguin found in New Zealand. However Adelie penguins are not, they live in Antarctic waters. As such there is some confusion as to how one ended up there.
Antarctic penguin washes up in New Zealand
The Asiatic cheetah species is not closely related to the African one as previously thought
11 years ago a DNA assessment was done on the Iranian cheetah. This cheetah population is the last Asian cheetah population remaining.
It was thought that all cheetah went through a bottleneck 10,000 years ago, meaning that all cheetah were closely related. However this is not as all encompassing as we thought.
UK ministers have once again delayed the point at which a ban on trophy hunting will come in
Despite to much fanfare, announcing that in 2019 during a queens speech their plan to ban trophy hunting, the government has once again delayed this law coming into effect.
Clearly endangered animals such as lions tigers elephants and many more are shot for sport around the world in numbers above 10,000 per year. While some of the meat is often given to local communities, the reason for the hunt was to provide a trophy for the hunter.
I find it disgusting that British politicians announced this policy 3 years ago but have not brought the rule into force. They are attempting to get the global clap on the back without actually having the bring in the law.
There are few to no predators that live in large enough numbers to be able to afford hunting. For me (as well as I suspect many of my readers) hunting is a rather distasteful experience. There are a few areas on the planet where hunting is temporarily justified such as the Selous – but these should be short lived. In the long run making money from wildlife should be done with a camera and not with a gun
Academics fear that if Bolsonaro is re-elected in October, the Amazon rainforest will collapse during his second term
The signs of collapse are getting more and more clear. Fires droughts and land clearances are all pushing the Amazon towards collapse. Yet Jair Bolsonaro is not interested having put his head in the sand. Instead he is busy placating powerful agribusiness lobby and trying to get the global economy to reward his bad behaviour.
The blows to forest protection have come fast in the last year. It is unclear how much of the Brazilian population understands how big the threat is that Bolsonaro is ignoring.
Continue reading “Academics fear that if Bolsonaro is re-elected in October, the Amazon rainforest will collapse during his second term”Do 97% of climate change scientists believe in climate change?
While a 97% agreement rate amongst climate change scientists appears to be a very nice figure and reliable enough to base discussion of the future on, it seemed odd to me that 3% of the scientists disagreed. As such in this article I’m going to look at the study that was done which created this figure. I will also look at another study that was done more recently which suggests a far higher figure. Continue reading “Do 97% of climate change scientists believe in climate change?”
Worlds 26 richest people own as much as the poorest 50%
The increase of wealth in a few people is shown by the number of people that it takes to reach 50% of humans wealth reducing over time. in 2016 61 people were needed to reach 50%, in 2017 43 were needed.
Why does this matter? well it means two things. Firstly a large proportion of humanity has few physical resources. When you are living hand to mouth, doing anything else is impossible. The second, is that those few with enormous resources have vastly bigger carbon footprints: this is not just thinking of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and their rocket rivalry (it is not hard to make an argument that space could help save us in the future), but 22,000 with private jets and the many millions more who are emitting tens of tonnes of carbon each year.
Those with extreme wealth therefore need to offset a great deal more than just their own carbon footprint. Billionaires should be throwing money at people sequestering carbon – it will protect their own future just as much as the poorest on planet earth
Land speculators are moving into Camps Amazonicos National park
Deforestation has leapt 37% over the last 5 years. Large numbers of people have been moving into this park in the hope that Bolsonaro will loosen its protection, and then their land claims will become legal.
This is unfortunately the effect that often occurs when a new administration doesn’t care about conservation.
In various moves, the current Brazilian government has encouraged these land seizures by not punishing or indeed legalizing the seizure.
Who has contributed the most to historic global emissions? Lets try to be fair
We are currently putting a great deal of pressure on emerging countries such as the BRICS (Brazil Russia India China South africa) and a whole host of other countries.
It certainly is true that these countries are emitting huge amounts of pollution, but perhaps a more fair way of looking at cuts is to see who has emitted the most carbon dioxide over history.
Continue reading “Who has contributed the most to historic global emissions? Lets try to be fair”The far right is now fear-mongering over extreme climate change, after letting go of climate denialism
Across much of the developed world, far right parties have gradually let go of their stupid climate change denialism and switched smoothly into waving it around as a way to increase peoples fear of immigration.
From Nigel Farage in the UK with a range of parties (so little success he has never managed to get elected to Westminster- though he scared the Conservatives enough to scare them into carrying out his suicidal plans of Brexit, also particularly odd his fear of immigration given his recent ancestry in Europe hence his name) as well as the BNP (who claimed to be the only green party as a result of their focus on immigration (no I dont follow this one either) Germanys Alternative for Germany (they have switched mockery of climate science to warning of harsh climatic conditions in Africa and the Middle east which will lead to a gigantic wave of immigration) Frances National Front (who has switched derisive climate change denial for a pledge to create the worlds “leading ecological civilization”).
This trend is not restricted to Europe but is repeated all over the place (including often in countries that are almost entirely descended from recent immigration in just the last few centuries).
In the UK, while we don’t have one of these far right parties in change Boris Johnson often seems far to comfortable stealing their policies.
Generally concern for the environment is considered a left wing thing, though it isn’t the first time that the far right has tried to appropriate something that is the cause of the left. Now care needs to be taken, as David Cameron is the person who is famous for saying “get rid of all that green crap”.
The changes that have to be made to the global economy will be far reaching. This is something that the extreme right often uses to scare people into voting for them. We need to educate those around us so they are not taken in by the empty words coming from all these parties.
Bears should be given more respect as predators
It is often suggested that bears are merely opportunistic when it comes to meat eating. The suggestion is that bears are vegetarians who are capable of scavenging from dead animals.
Now, of course we need to be careful as bears have a wide range of intelligences. Brown bears have an intelligence on par with chimpanzees, where as black bears are far less bright (though they are still one of the brightest animals).
