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Yesterday, I was writing about a new wolf pack that had established itself in northern California – this is exciting, because wolves have only started recolonising California in the last couple of years and they seem to be thriving (as one would expect). Indeed, wolf recovery in America is highly likely (assuming policies like Trumps delisting of all wolves, is never taken up).
Wolves appear to have successfully recolonised the Czech republic!
A small new wolf pack has formed in northern California. This pack, known as the Beckworth pack has established itself in Pumas county. The pack consists of a 2 year old female wolf born in California and two others.
This is only the third wolf pack to establish itself in California in the last century. California and their authorities have been heavily supportive of the recovery of wolves in the west of the USA and have publicly decried decisions made by its neighbours – moves which make wolves returning to the endangered list a significant possibility.
Continue reading “New resident wolf pack in northern California”There is an increasing disconnect between countries trying to do the right thing over global warming and those who are not.
The majority of developed countries have fully recognized the problem and are working towards a solution (certainly now that America has re-joined the effort). What should we do with those countries whose leaders continue to ignore it?
Australia have spent the last few years denying science that shows the earth is warming. I say Australia, I should say the current leaders of their parliament. The view from people in the country is broadly in line with that from elsewhere.
It seems that the period of denying global warming is over. Now we seem to be moving into delaying any need to act.
Continue reading “We have seen companies deny global warming what do we do when countries do the same thing?”Current prediction is great apes will lose 80% of their habitats by 2050
Of the great ape species, 3 out of the 4 non human species live in Africa. This is why it is so alarming the current estimates are that by 2050 great habitat will have reduced by 80%.
This is also a huge concern for the rest of the world. An 80% reduction in rainforest cover in Africa could make halting global warming impossible.
Obviously there are multiple strands of global warming and halting species loss. Unfortunately this could sink both problems into impossible or near impossible to solve.
Furthermore, there are other sad facts about this idea. Farmland rarely benefits the people who live in its vicinity. The huge plantations of Indonesia have destroyed the rainforests but they have not lifted living standards, indeed in many places they have eradicated the ability for locals to live – forcing them to leave their home.
Game reserves require significant staff to look after the guests. Furthermore, there are a great deal of resources that can be extracted without destroying the trees above. This allows locals to increase their standard of living, while at the same time allowing the rainforests to stay standing and the wildlife that lives there to continue to thrive.
It would seem that it should be possible to dig deep mines under rainforests without cutting the forest down first. Obviously we come back to the problem of poaching that might increase with the mine workers, but the simple fact is that most mines do not disturb the surface (except for the mine entrance). It likely increases mine costs, but given the wealth of minerals that are thought to lie under the Congo rainforest it should be more than worth it.
I do not want to have to explain to my grand children, why there are no great rainforests left in Africa. I have only visited one rainforest (that of the Udzungwas in East Tanzania), but apart from the environmental services that these places provide there are many parts of the planet which rapidly turn to desert if you remove the rainforests covering the ground.
The world is warming. This is something that is now essentially settled. Despite fossil fuel companies arguing the reverse, it was their research 40 years ago (and more) that brought the concerns of global warming first to the attention of humans (though initially they kept these discoveries quiet, and it has only come to light in recent years).
This new research shows that the world is now trapping twice as much energy as it was just 15 years ago.
As around 90% of this energy ends up in the oceans, this is a big problem. While the southern ice cap sits largely on land, the Northern icecap floats on the oceans. This is unfortunately one of the feedback loops that we know about. Ice reflects sunlight (and therefore heat) back into space. As the oceans warm this ice melts, replacing white reflective surface with deep blue absorbing surface – meaning that the oceans then absorb still more heat.
The unfortunate conclusion of the study was that unless this uptake of heat slows fast bigger shifts in climate should be expected.
One of the biggest issues that have been recognised, is that a similar route to prosperity is not open to the developing world. As Europe and north America developed their economy they emitted huge amounts of carbon – much of our power was created by burning coal.
In order to help developing countries jump this stage completely and move straight to renewables, the west had promised money. Developed countries had together committed to 72 billion a year to make this happen. While this sounds like a great deal, when you remember that without it, we are on course for devastating levels of global warming, it comes more into balance.
It was hoped that the G7 could boost this process in advance of Glasgow COP26. Given the G7 accounts for 60% of the worlds wealth, but its population accounts for only 10% of the global population, you would think that we could afford roughly 10 billion a year to be able to continue to live in a hospitable environment. Now of course, this is not all that we need to do – we also need to cut our own emissions to zero as fast as possible, however, there is much money to be made in this work.
The COVID epidemic has taken everyone’s attention off global warming. This is understandable, but we now need to refocus and make the changes that are required as quickly as possible.
Home to one of the two remaining populations of mountain gorillas as well as eastern lowland gorillas and chimpanzees. It is one of the best protected central African rainforest, yet satellite imagery shows significant amounts of deforestation.
In April last year, 12 Virunga rangers and 5 civilians were killed in clashes over this environmental destruction.
As in other places, the locals see little benefit from the park, rather they see large amounts of land that they have lost access to. Locals must benefit from the park, as well as efforts made to feed the local population
A lobster diver suddenly found himself in the mouth of a humpback whale.
Large whales on earth feed exclusively on small sea creatures, and have baleen sheets that stop larger creatures being swallowed.
As such after diving a distance, the whale surfaced and violently shook it’s head to empty it’s mouth, and the man was pulled back into his boat.
While episodes like this might happen from time to time, whales remain animals generally without any animus towards humans. They can not eat us, and now we are not exterminating them they do not fear us.
They are, however, very large and as such can accidently hurt people if they get too close
Freight shipping has a huge carbon footprint. It is true that the carbon footprint is far lower than freight carried by air, however this does not help.
However, it is also true that these ships do not travel particularly fast. With the new kite sails designs where a kite with roughly 100 square meters area, and the ability to be flown above 100m – an area where the wind speeds and directions are far more reliable.
It does seem to be rather self-serving, if you are putting together a exhibition on the threat that the climate crisis is producing, and you allow one of the biggest oil and gas companies in the world to fund it.
Much of the exhibition talks about carbon capture and storage (something that has not been demonstrated at significant scale, and yet would have to be catching billions of tonnes of carbon per year if it is to have a chance of helping) as well as nature based solutions.
The police cleared the building at the end of the day, ending what had been intended to be an overnight occupation.
It certainly seems that shell is trying to whitewash their company (should that be greenwash) and this should not be allowed. Rather, shell should be spending thousands of times more money on actually solving the climate crisis. Furthermore, ideas like carbon capture should not be allowed to be touted, until it has been demonstrated at scale. Finally, there is another problem. As far as the climate crisis is concerned, any captured carbon should be locked away for millions of years, yet at the moment the majority is either used to help with oil and gas extraction, or is turned into synthetic fuels – neither of these help in any way with forestalling the continued move towards run-away climate change.
SHELL MUST DO BETTER.
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