Category: News

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Personal note: where to go on holiday

Travelling during the epidemic even if fully vaccinated is hard or even impossible.

We have been hoping to take our children back to South African for a few years, partly to show them the incredible places such as the Kruger, but also so that we can list many of the cheaper places to stay on this website. Unfortunately, that will have to wait (we hope only until next year.

So where will we go this year?

We are in the process of setting up our “in the shadow of mankind” and we are hoping to visit some places we would love to add.

We are thinking of heading to Scottish islands, possibly Skye and Shetland. What will we hope to see? Well Otters would be top of the list, but other creatures will include red squirrels and if were lucky orca and humpback whales.

What is happening on the website. While it does not always show on the surface we are hard at work in the background. We are building a system that will allow people to list their own wilderness place far quicker, which hopefully will allow this site to list enough places to move towards its original goal.

Watch this space

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Lightyear one

The lightyear one is an incredible car. It is a highly efficient electric car, and gets over 440 miles from a battery smaller than the one in the long range tesla 3 which only has a range of 353.

This image is a wikimedia photo of the lightyear one and is shared under their standard license

This is partly because it is an incredibly efficient car – each wheel has its own, in wheel, motor. However, even more exciting, the car is covered in high efficiency solar panels – it has 5 square meters of solar panels, which is allow between 25 and 45 miles on solar power alone.

Continue reading “Lightyear one”
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Can we save bonobos, the great ape most similar to humans? They are more endangered than we thought.

According to the African wildlife foundation estimates, there are 15000 to 20000 bonobos left in the wild. Bonobos or pygmy chimpanzees are thought to genetically be closer to humans, certainly their appearance – they are thinner, have thinner faces and a more noticeable crop of hair on their head, but are horrifically threatened.

Although these bonobos do not look human, they look very different to other chimpanzees.

Yet it would appear that even this estimate is too high.

Continue reading “Can we save bonobos, the great ape most similar to humans? They are more endangered than we thought.”
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Manchin has made millions from coal since joining the senate, and he may be able to block Biden’s plan to halve greenhouse gas emissions

This website was designed to simplify wildlife travel – and we are making progress on this (slowly- terrible timing, given the epidemic), however without significant and rapid cuts to the worlds fossil fuel emissions, impacts from global warming will destroy many wildlife habitats so it is of importance.

Climate change is increasingly causing changes in rainfall. This is turning rainforests to savannahs and savannahs to deserts.

Without dealing with climate change, there will be far fewer ecosystems in which to save the wildlife.

This is why the USA is important. At this point the USA emits roughly 16% of the worlds warming gases.

Continue reading “Manchin has made millions from coal since joining the senate, and he may be able to block Biden’s plan to halve greenhouse gas emissions”
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Think the UK is prioritizing the survival of the few mammal species left? think again

The UK government is in the process of changing the rules for property developers. At the moment, a range of wildlife from red squirrels, pine martens, mountain hares, water voles, adders and slow worms have special status.

Might adders become an even rarer site, or disappear altogether under these rules?
Continue reading “Think the UK is prioritizing the survival of the few mammal species left? think again”
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What should we do with companies like Exxon Mobil?

Despite having led the world on climate research, they were having board meetings about climate change and the impact of their activities 50 years ago, Exxon Mobil have spent the last half century putting out slick adverts and then carrying on with business as normal.

As the world wakes up to the incredible threat that climate change holds for the world, they are continue to fight hard against climate change mitigation or reduction in fossil fuel emissions – in private through professional lobbyists, but in public they act the good company taking their responsibilities seriously.

Continue reading “What should we do with companies like Exxon Mobil?”
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Cows fed on Soya are responsible for for much of the amazon rainforest destruction. How about cows fed on insects?

There has been much hesitation about insect based meats. For millennia in the west we have not eaten insects and so for us the idea is repulsive.

How about feeding the cows the insects? The efficiency of this is lower than if we were to eat the insects ourselves, but a study by the WWF has found that this move would reduce the Soya imports that the uk needs by a fifth by 2050.

In 2019 1 million tonnes of Soya were used, which are thought likely linked to deforestation.

Now this change will need legislation, as currently it is not legal to include insect protein for pigs and poultry. A rapid move by the government could mean that the UK leads the world in this move.

Tesco (a leading supermarket in the UK) worked on this report with WWF and has already put its money where its mouth is by supplying seed money to Entocycle among other similar moves.

We could easily have insect farms in the UK, so this could end up cutting cattle feed carbon footprint by roughly 20%.

Farms need to cut their footprint as well as the rest of the economy in the UK, it is possible that meat without the animal is coming soon, however in the meantime this would allow farms to make their own cuts in line with the rest of the country.

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The British government have decided to ban burning coal for electricity one year earlier in 2024

Coal is one of the dirtiest power sources, and increasingly around the world it is recognized that its burning must stop if we are to retain a planet easy to live on.

Later this year, there will be a climate conference held in Glasgow and the British government have been keen to make sure that it moves things forwards – if sea levels rise as much as predicted, life in the UK will change dramatically, not least as the UK could become an archipelago.

Continue reading “The British government have decided to ban burning coal for electricity one year earlier in 2024”
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Third Sumatran rhino sanctuary moving forwards

The Sumatran rhino is critically endangered. Just a few years ago, the last of the mainland Sumatran rhino died, leaving only the population on Sumatra itself.

Sumatran rhino photo credit Kat Jenkinson

This new sanctuary will be in the Leucer ecosystem, close to where the remaining wild rhinos live.

Much help is needed to reverse the enormous declines in this population which humans have caused – and if this help is not forthcoming in the next few years this ancient species will be lost for good.

It is a good move, but time will tell if it will be good for the Sumatran rhino and its future

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