Category: News

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Great Britain keeping the flame alive for democratic freedoms? Not if the government is not interested!

The UK is known as a democracy around the world. This is why there is increasingly alarmed commentary on a new bill working its way through parliament. The Police and crime bill like many bills is a large complicated piece of work. I am sure that it has some positive things inside it, but there are significant numbers of negative ones which will cause issues for many of the subjects that this website addresses.

On new years day Priti Patel announced that she was going to concentrate on cracking down on Eco protestors during 2022. The bill contains all sorts of astounding bits. Police will be able to stop or constrain protest – they will even be able to fine protesters for inadvertent breaches of restrictions that the “ought” to know.

Why is this a problem? Well, because as a world we are facing joint problems with the climate crisis, and the extinction crisis.

In neither field is the government pulling its weight! We are a wealthy country, yet we are doing little to help in either respect.

It is particularly concerning, that this law is being pushed through on the understanding that police need to be protected from violence – even though in most instances, the violence is both started by and mostly done by the police to the protesters. Upping stress levels in the protestors is also a regular method, which often naturally leads to violence -then blamed on the protestors. One such method is kettling where large numbers of people are forced into a small area and then not let out.

Delegitimising protest at this time is an afront to British freedoms. If the police (and the law) start viewing all protest as illegitimate it changes how they police it.

Currently, there are two substantial threats to a healthy planet earth. The first is climate change and the second is extinction rebellion. Extinction rebellion has on many occasions done things that are extremely disruptive, however, to basically give the police the power to delegitimize protest is far to large a step in the other direction for a free country.

What has the UK done to fight climate change?

Now we may well have done better than some other countries, however, look at the increase in emissions from imports. Last March it was announced that we had reduced our carbon footprint by 51% excluding aviation and the carbon footprint of our imports. We live in a global world- if we cut our emissions in the UK, but increase them abroad by getting other countries to make what we use, the impact is identical.

As you can see, this graph does not show the whole story

This strikes me as a perfect example of a government which needs to be challenged. Yet protests against the governments inaction will become illegal without approval – by definition not freedom.

Extinction rebellion has likewise caused many problems. Now like many of you, I have been inconvenienced by their actions in the past however they are raise an important issue. The more of the natural world we loose the worse it is for us. The natural world should be valued far more simply for being wild, yet there are huge services that the natural world supplies for us anyway. Rainforest loss will likely turn vast areas to desert, and cause large areas to be come incapable of growing crops. What untold medicines lie undiscovered in the last great rainforests -destined to be cut down before they unveil their secrets.

With politics as it is, it is often not in the interests of an elected government to do things that will only come to fruition in decades time, they need to be re-elected every 5 years. A democracy, particularly at times like this, must allow demonstrators. On these two issues the government is not acting with enough urgency

We must not be silenced! Now, I say this writing in a blog. The last time I looked, this blog is usually read at least a few thousand times. It is unfortunately far easier for the government to ignore these sorts of media.

Will Boris Johnson survive? Who knows, though it is clear that he should not. Labour is currently far ahead in the polls. However, as the Conservatives do not need to face the public in an election for another 3 years, it is not something that they need to worry about at the moment. For my British readers, do write to you MP! it is an alarmingly authoritarian step, and it must be stopped if we are to be able to pressure our government to act to save our planet from the worst of the potential damage.

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18 months ago, I wrote about the concern over the breakup of Thwaites glacier – now its getting worse

Cracks and fissures have appeared on Thwaites glacier, leading to fears of it collapsing. If it were to collapse, this glacier alone could raise sea levels by half a meter.

The issue with this glacier, is that it essentially operates as a dam for the vast ice floes behind it.

Cracks like this one may never heal, but instead trigger the start of the entire collapse

Of particular alarm, thwaites glacier operates a bit like a cork, blocking a whole collection of glaciers from collapsing. It is feared that with the collapse of Thwaites glacier, a large amount of the Antarctic ice shelf might slide into the sea – leading to global sea level rises of several meters.

To put this in perspective, if all the west Antarctic glaciers collapse, no coastal city in the world would escape. Over time every single one would be swamped and lost back to the sea. It was thought (until recently) that this glacier loss would take centuries.

In other words, what this does is make it clear – it is not just our children and grandchildren that are going to have to do something about global warming. If we don’t correct our behaviour quickly, we will make life far harder for ourselves as well

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Finally some pushback from leading conservation experts on the outright ban on hunting

I have written on the situation with the British governments attempt to put in an outright ban on trophies from hunting being imported into the UK (though bizarrely they continue to support hunting in the UK).

I strongly disagree with this situation.

While the idea of hunting is relatively repugnant, and I far prefer the excitement of walking in the presence of these animals, but then leaving with them continuing to get on with their lives. I should add in this vein, that during my families trip to the Kruger later this year, I will be going on a 3 day 2 night wilderness trail. This will mean my going to a very small remote camp, and then walking for the 3 days – the likelihood of close encounters with many animals is relatively high.

Anyway, this group of conservationists have just written to the government to get them to reconsider their position.

There are many activities that should be banned outright. Canned lion (or any other animal) hunts should cease to exist. Going into a relatively small area, to kill an animal that in many cases has not been living wild for more than 6 months is not what I call brave, but I would say its disgusting. Another behaviour I dislike, is where a hunting outfit buys a small area on the side of a reserve, then as animals walk out of the reserve onto this hunting area they can be shot. Hunting outfits, should only be able to hunt animals which can fit on their land.

One prime example is the Selous: the largest hunting reserve in the world. Here, they protect an area of land large enough to have a lion population of 5000 or so Lions. From this they kill perhaps 50 out of the estimated population (about 1%) of course this relies on their estimate being accurate. Brink et all (2012) estimated the lion population was about 4300, with the range from 1900 up to 6900. though they admit this was extrapolated from a survey of only 1%. Other surveys have put the number between475 (absolute lower bound) up to 4953. This means that even with hunters wanting to kill the big adult males (deaths of pride leading males almost always lead to deaths as a new male tries to take over, firstly all young cubs are likely to be killed so the new male can sire his own offspring, and then often several mothers who try to defend their cub – 1 male killed might lead to 5-10 deaths as a result).

Never-the-less the Selous does not look like its lions are in danger of extinction. A different place to look at is the WAP complex. This includes 10200 square miles spread out across an area of Burkina Faso, Niger, and Benin. It includes 5 national parks and 14 hunting reserves. Given the lion population is 400 here, and the west lion (recently found to be the same subspecies as the indian lion) is so endangered, having a healthy take here is far harder. It is hard to find sensible numbers on hinting here, but a take of more than 4 per year would be very foolish.

In conclusion, while I would prefer that no one in the world ever went hunting animals for sport (generally all the meat is given to local communities, though this is not the reason for the hunt) there are some places which are so hard to reach or infested with unpleasant parasites (the Selous has an insect that carries something called sleeping sickness), I will accept it with clear documentation from places that can support it. This is because often a hunt will bring in so much money for local communities. However (and this is a big proviso) I believe that there are very few places where this is truly the case: The Selous is one, there are probably areas within the KAZA park that are similarly alright. Similarly in Europe, while I would never wish to hunt a wolf myself, the Sierra de culebra has provided a refuge where the wolf would not be exterminated – specifically because a handful of wolves were killed each year. This new rule that the government is bringing in is too simple, it does not take into account the unique situation in each country. My suggestion would be that each hunting organiser needs to get their hunt approved- perhaps some sort of hunting body, but for now in the UK the government would have to employ someone. That person would have to analyse the whole hunt plan, check that the area has a viable population of the animal in question and any other details. This would enforce far higher standards, so that we could be sure when the wealthy go to hunt that they arent going to create the extinction of a species.

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End the practice of giving livestock to poor families abroad – or at least make sure where it is going it will help

For decades there have been schemes, where people from wealthy countries give someone a gift of a gift for those elsewhere. In most cases, the gift is a goat or cow to a family living in one of the poorest countries on earth.

while giving a goat or other livestock can seem like a good idea, it can often make the situation worse in the long run.

In theory, this is a lovely idea. The family is better off and well fed. In practice it seems that it can often do more harm than good.

In many of the areas that these livestock are sent, there is little water. These livestock need a lot of water, so their introduction can quickly change the water balance in the area, and push it towards desert.

Often the animal cannot be found enough food or drink, and veterinarian care is completely missing.

Much more useful is to support seed hubs, water irrigation systems and soil regeneration. While these do not produce the sweet picture, they are likely to benefit hundreds of people rather than one family, and often for decades to come.

That is not to say goat gifts are useless, in places with plenty of water, they can produce milk and meat, and can also have 6 kids a year which can be sold. A goat gift in the wrong place is worse than useless.

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Monkey revenge? dogs attack at their peril

Two monkeys have been blamed for hundreds of puppy deaths and have now been captured. There was an incident where a group of dogs caught and killed a monkey, last year so it is thought that these monkeys have been on a revenge trip.

Langur monkey carrying a dog, likely to its death

Now, firstly, this should permanently do away with any idea that humans are the only group who grieve, or scheme or carry out plans over a few months. The two Langurs were reported after they were watched targeting dogs, carrying them to significant height and then dropping them. It is thought that 250 dogs have been killed in this way, over the last few months. Other puppies were abandoned at height to start or die of thirst.

Two monkeys, thought to be the culprits, have been caught and translocated, and this appears to have worked

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Another foolish article about the superiority of ICE vehicles over Electric

The horrific traffic catastrophe in Virginia in the ice has lead to another foolish article about the supremacy of ICE over electric.

I havent heard of the author Charles Lane but the article is similar to dozens I have read in the past “here is an anecdotal situation that occurred to me, doesnt it show how electric cars are rubbish”.

Vehicles are seen on an icy stretch of Interstate 95 closed as a storm blankets the U.S. region in snow. Are you really better in an ICE vehicle than an electric?

In this situation a 48 mile traffic jam appeared on the interstate 95 in Virginia. A trucker found his cab door being knocked on by a woman who was in an electric car and hadnt enough food or water. They were worried about running out of charge while trying to keep their vehicle warm. With kids in the car they had got out to ask other vehicle drivers for blankets or anything else (outside temperatures were minus 7 degrees).

So why was this a foolish article to write? Essentially the lorry driver is saying, look at this situation where ICE cars were better than electric, therefore no-one should buy electric.

So lets look at this situation.

1 Given an electric car can be charged at home, and an ICE vehicle needs refilling at a fuel station, which is most likely to be near full of fuel in an emergency? Many people do a small top-up every night so keep their car at around 85% permanently, except when going on a long journey. Generally people only refill their tank when it is nearing empty.

2 Electric cars are almost 100% efficient with a heat pump as many of these cars use. A tesla 3 heat pump could keep its inhabitants warm for 36 hours on a full charge. In an ICE car it would entirely depend on how recently it was refilled- depending on the size and efficiency idling fuel usage can be anything from 1 litre an hour in a small car, up to as much as 5 or more in a big car (or a sports car like a dodge viper). A Hyundai Kona uses about 1 litre an hour and has a tank of 38 litres, so would last about a day and a half. Even in big cars the fuel tank is not normally bigger than 70 litres, which would suggest 14 hours,

As such, in actual fact the odds of running out of fuel (charge or gas) in a sticky situation is likely to be far higher in an ICE vehicle. Once in the situation, unless you are in the right car for this rare situation, electric is far more likely to safely keep you warm till the road clears.

Now it is true that should your electric car drain completely to zero, it is more bother to recharge an electric car than it is an ICE vehicle, as the latter merely needs a walk to the nearest petrol station. Why do so many writers grab every chance to take a swipe at electric? Probably because they know that they will be paid well – however as these stories start to look more and more stupid, I think it is going to be harder to find someone to write your hit piece.

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The carbon footprint of space exploration- its not as high as you think

There has been much made of the idea that given our need to cut carbon emissions, space flight should go out of the window.

However, would you be surprised to hear that a SpaceX rocket emissions is roughly equivalent to 1 large jet crossing the Atlantic. Given that last year there was an average of roughly 1700 transatlantic flights each day in 2018, that is actually a relatively small amount.

Continue reading “The carbon footprint of space exploration- its not as high as you think”
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UK has once again delayed its ban on Ivory sales

To much fanfare, the British government decided to ban the sale of Ivory 3 years ago. This is certainly a good thing. Unfortunately, they have just delayed its introduction again – and we are already 3 years after this law was supposed to come into effect. Admittedly, this time the delay is only supposed to be for 2 months, but it sends the wrong message.

Forest and Savannah elephant populations across west and east Africa have been decimated over the last decade or two.

Ivory trade is (most of us will be surprised to hear) is still going in the UK, Will lord Goldsmith keep to his promise this year? And how many elephants will die before he does – in the hope of adding ivory to our trade?

Ministers claim that background work has not been carried out, but given they have had 3 years this is inexcusable. Someone should be fired for this.

At the moment elephants are being killed at the rate of one every 15-25 minutes or 50-100 a day. The UK is the largest exporter of Ivory. Also much ivory from recently poached animals is passed off as antique – avoiding the rules.

The EU is now considering acting on this pressing issue. Our original advance has been destroyed, and we now look like we are incompetent.

It is currently down to issues creating the technical standards for exempting legal ivory.

My proposal would be to ban all ivory sale until this system was in place. This would put pressure on people to finish it quickly (and I would be surprised if it wasn’t solved very fast).

Lord Goldsmith wrote in a letter that he committed to enacting the bill by the end of 2022, though similar things were said 3 years ago.

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Was Bulb as clean as it claimed? how can we tell?

In the UK (and I am sure in plenty of other countries) as the grid has cleaned, there have been a whole host of firms that have sprung up as a middleman – buying green electricity and providing it to their customers. There is nothing particularly unusual about this – we get our electricity from Octopus on a similar scheme. With many of these firms, they supply the electricity and gas, but often have few holdings themselves.

Octopus is busily investing in all sorts of green electricity generators, but the problem exists that if you do not own any of the electricity generation, then in tough times this can be your undoing.

Now, many of these claim to be fully green, but are not necessarily. The reputable ones match each unit used to a unit of renewable generation that went into the grid (Ofgems renewable energy guarantee of origin REGO). Alongside this, the reputable ones also invest in renewable generation.

So was Bulb as green as it suggested? Well the complaint came from the fact that only 5% of its power came directly from renewable energy projects, the rest was bought on the open markets through the aforementioned REGO. The point is, the electricity grid does not consist of electricity traveling like emails to specific places – it is supplied everywhere jointly by all the producers. This means that provided a supplier is paying for enough green electricity to cover all its customers uses (and has the REGO certificates to prove it) by definition, it is fully green.

Would it be better if the company had some green generation of its own? probably, but provided the scheme works it does not have to. It allows green electrical generation to be used as it is created – by who ever needs it, exactly as our grid is designed.

This problem has arisen because the government allows green electricity and the certificate of it being green to separate people. However, provided the certificates only cover the amount of green electricity that is being created, it is not counted twice it is merely worth more to the creator.

What is wrong with this? If creators of green energy are aware that they can make more money than those burning gas, many will switch. This still does what is needed, and provided green electricity certification is accurate it wont be double counted.

Possibly, the last nail bulbs coffin, was caused by the government setting out plans to make this loophole smaller. These so called pale green energy tariffs – where green energy was not bought directly from a renewable energy project are supposed to be eliminated.

I think the British government needs to be careful here. It is quite possible that in the near future, these providers will not be necessary as all the electricity in the grid will be green. However, for the time being it is worth continuing to offer this premium to green electricity creators and the ability for suppliers to make sure they have covered their promises.

Now in the case of Octopus they are also replanting and rejuvenating a section of the Amazon rainforest to offset any gas emissions. It is currently unfortunately true that it is far cheaper to heat using gas – heat pumps are likely to greatly change this, as they are 300% or greater efficient (in terms of electricity in, and heat out) however for now gas is used. A reforestation scheme can be guaranteed to suck up the carbon it is promised to capture.

Our guaranteed green electricity and offset gas monthly cost is roughly £5 more than the best price on the market, and for us £60 a year to know that our electricity and gas use is not increasing the problems of global warming. Having said that, we are still trying to reduce our use through: Smart devices, added insulation and when we get them installed – solar panels and thermal solar panels. The other advantage with a scheme like this, is it guarantees you a price for you exported electricity – so if you have solar, and are currently not being paid for anything that you export perhaps now is the time to switch. This essentially means that you can use Octopus as a battery.

If you are interested in transferring to this or another Octopus scheme please click on the link. This will give you a £50 credit on your account, as well as on ours – thereby supporting the site, without costing you a penny

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Australia is risking several of the most pristine marine environments

Australia has an incredible range of wildlife. Indeed, a great number of people visit Australia because of this. From their fascinating land mammals -kangaroos and koalas, as well as many more, to the great barrier reef and the wide array of other sea life.

They also have areas of Australia which are already almost unusable, because the temperature is too high. You would think therefore, that conservation would be a high priority. Unfortunately under the current government that is very much not the case.

Rowley Shoals is one of the most intact reefs in the world

From mining projects and farming, wildlife is shown to have low priority. In recent times, a firm was given permission to dump material from dredging inside a marine park (and submerging parts of a coral reef – something that will kill it.

Continue reading “Australia is risking several of the most pristine marine environments”
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