While the dingo made look like part of the native fauna of Australia, that is not the case. They were bought there by aboriginal people.
Continue reading “Recent evidence suggests that dingoes arrived in Australia 1500 years later than first thought: why is this important and should it give us more courage in repatriating Tasmanian devils to the mainland”The Florida manatees are facing significant threat to the long-term survival
Runoff from farms has caused an algae bloom which has not left space for enough sea grasses – the primary food of the manatee.
Without food the manatee population is severely endangered and likely to suffer mass starvation. 12 manatees have already died this year due to this poisonous algae.
The united fish and wildlife service changed the conservation status of manatees from endangered to threatened in 2019: this was clearly not a good move.
A considerable number of Floridians are blaming the current administration and Rick Scott who has determinately reduce the budget of of these environmental protections. Without a significant changing governmental behaviour this is unlikely to be reversed anytime soon.
Deforestation particularly in protected reserves has happened at an increasing rate in the democratic Republic of Congo
Unfortunately deforestation in the largest remaining African rainforest seems to be going on more and more. Unfortunately not only is this happening in general, at a large quantity of this over the last two decades has also occurred within protected areas.
If this happens across the DRC, there will be many problems particularly as the amount of carbon dioxide released would largely lock in in an unacceptably large amount of temperature rise. However in the natural world, it would also severely damaged the long-term future of gorillas chimps and the last of the bonobos.
There are roughly 50 billion birds in the world but just a few species dominate
Just four birds have a population over a billion, house sparrows European starlings ring-billed gulls and barn swallows.
At the other end, there are over 1180 species with 5000 or less members left.
The last time this survey was done was 24 years ago, the estimate was 200 to 400 billion birds, though it is clear that some of this reduction in numbers will be down to a more accurate survey – still many birds are heading rapidly in the direction of extinction.
The first thing to be done in conservation is to understand the current situation, so this is a great first step. Now the world needs to work hard on conserving what is left – unfortunately this is a rather bigger task. However now we know what needs to be done we merely need to get on with it.
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.
Does the UK government care about River pollution?
New rules on polluting rivers came into force in the UK in 2018. Despite a documented 243 cases of unauthorised pollution not one fine was issued.
One argument is that the environmental agency is being poorly funded by the government, and therefore doesn’t have the resources. Of the roughly 10000 environmental agency staff in the UK only 40 are responsible for inspecting farms, meaning that each farm should be inspected roughly once every two centuries.
In defence the environmental agency said that well no fines or prosecutions were mounted 14 letters of warning were sent. The idea that this is a defence of their success rate is quite peculiar. It is clear that in its current form the environmental agency is completely incapable doing the job it is given to do. This needs to change in fast if we are to have a country that has a good environment for both us and the animals we share the the land with.
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?”1% of the world’s population cause 50% of aviation’s annual emissions
We need to find a way to add in the cost of carbon emissions onto airline flight prices.
If just 1% of the world’s population is flying so frequently that they make 50% of the annual emissions from flying, you would suppose that the majority of these people could afford to pay more for the ticket.
Continue reading “1% of the world’s population cause 50% of aviation’s annual emissions”A logging company based in in Borneo taking a bizarre action
The company in question, which has no rights to do any logging, is now suing the longtime inhabitants and owners of land it wants to clear, for trespass.
This is obviously quite peculiar, and a case that should be laughed out of court. The community alleges the company has encroached on community land, has withheld key documents about the certification process, and failed to obtain free, prior and informed consent of affected communities during the certification process.
This should be very simple, if they have permission and they got it legally without dishonesty they will be able to prove it. All of the evidence would suggest that that is not going to be possible, and therefore they should be laughed out of court, unfortunately that is not likely to happen.
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