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A carbon bomb is defined as a project (mine, oil well or similar) which if allowed to go ahead will emit 1 billion tonnes of carbon over its lifetime. A guardian analysis suggests that there are around 200 of these so called carbon bomb mega projects around the world. This is the equivalent of 18 years of total global emissions.
Ugandan authorities are considering two roads that will pass through Bwindi. These roads are likely to have two devastating impacts.
Firstly, these roads are likely to splinter the park from the connected park across the border in the DCR. As with the proposed Serengeti road, neither side of the road is big enough for large ecosystems to survive long term, therefore you are threatening one of the biggest draws of tourists to the country – these tourists if well managed bring the means to pull millions out of poverty.
The other problem is that roads ease the progress of poachers deep into the park. It has regularly been shown that a road is often the easiest way to remove the wildlife that lives in an area.
There are still a large number of people with vested interests, who are arguing that climate change science is not settled and we need to wait a bit more.
How long should we wait?
Guy Callendar released a paper in 1938 – considered revolutionary at the time, which linked fossil fuel burning to the warming of the earths atmosphere. Indeed in 1896 Svante Arrhenius a Swedish scientist first predicted that increasing carbon emissions could significantly increase surface temperatures.
In other words it is now 126 years since a scientist predicted that global warming would be likely if we continued to release carbon emissions, and a paper was released 84 years ago confirming that Scvante Arrhenius prediction was correct.
So why are we still arguing about it? Does the free market truly allow profit to be prioritised over a scientific fact that was proposed more than a century ago, and confirmed nearly a century ago? Had the world dealt with carbon emissions back then we would be looking at a very different situation.
The British government promised to ban the imports of trophies in to the UK, yet they have given up after “wealthy peers” lobbied against the move and so it was dropped.
I have written on this issue many times over the last few years, as it was raised as an issue over and over again.
Should wealthy individuals be allowed to go and shoot members of an endangered species? I would argue no, never. However, we do not live in a perfect world. There are places where few tourists will go. If these incredible places can be protected by sustainably harvesting a small number of endangered animals I would argue that this is the lesser of two evils.
Continue reading “I am disgusted to be British after the latest move in parliament – hunting trophy import ban to be axed, but if we are ending the ban the British government must take responsibility”The Brexit referendum is now 6 years in the past. The continual calls from Brexiteers for “remoaners” to forget it and get with the program, have been gradually quietened as it has become clear that Brexit was won through a series of lies and promises – promises which have virtually all been broken.
The Conservative Party manifesto for the 2015 general election did say “We are clear about what we want from Europe. We say: yes to the Single Market.”
This was an important point that was made several times before the vote, yet after the vote everyone claimed that of course we all knew we had to leave the single market. While many would argue that it is too soon to see what damage Brexit will do (even though this was often said the other way before) It is clear that we were lied to, in order to leave. Before we actually completed the negotiations more than 50% of the population were expressing a desire to not leave.
Continue reading ““Net zero is net stupid” the latest foolish line from Nigel Farage”The recovery of wolves bears and lynx over the last several generations in western Europe has been nothing short of astounding.
In the 1960s the population of the iberian wolf did not number more than a few hundred, yet now there are 2500. Similarly, bears got very low but now more than 300 roam – though this still has some way to go. The Iberian lynx was not heavily hunted, yet was still almost wiped out due to human introduced diseases wiping out most of the rabbits in Spain.
France destroyed its wolf population completely, though they are back, having crossed from Italy about 20-30 years ago. Bears were similarly almost wiped out, except a tiny relict population in the Pyrenes. Unfortunately, this population has not done well and is essentially only there because of bear translocations from further east. Similarly, Lynx were eradicated by 1900 though this has been reversed by reintroduction projects. There are a couple of zones where lynx are found (a reintroduction project in Switzerland returned them to part of france), However, there is not going to be more than 130 lynx in the whole country and the population does not seem to be growing.
Italy retained a wolf population, though in the 1970s there was only 70-100 left. Nowadays, 1000-2000 wolves roam the country, and it is roaming members of this population that seeded the population in France. 80-90 bears remain in Italy (the Marsican bear), and while this is a more healthy population than that in France, it is still not enough to be secure. Lynx were eradicated but have been reintroduced, though they are not thought to have established a population that would be secure longterm without continued translocations.
Scandinavia could in some ways be thought of as a strong-point for all three animals in western-Europe, though there are still views that are not helpful. The encouraging thing here, is that the wolf is able to return from Russia. There are no more than 500 wolves in this area, and Norway has a relatively strange view of the wolf, with human hunting elk very popular, wolves are seen as a nuisance and kept at a minimum. Norway has a similar view of the bear, with them being far more common in Sweden. Lynx are widespread in this part of the world.
Why should we champion the return of these animals? They have the capacity to rebalance environments, as well as allowing forests to operate properly – in the UK, as we are missing these predators, replanting forests are often hindered by deer grazing them to much. There are other reasons though. These animals can be a big tourist draw, allowing people to make a good income, often in places where there is little other economic potential. In the UK, return of wolves and lynx would save hundreds of human lives each year by reducing deer collisions on our roads.
Will their recovery continue? I hope so, though it seems to very much be an area where progress is two steps forwards and one step back.
Currently, 70% of the land in the UK is given over to agriculture. Of this, just 15% is used to grow crops for human consumption. A further 22% goes towards feeding livestock. The rest is given over to livestock grazing.
This means that we give over 44% of the country to livestock, and a further 15% of the country to feed the livestock.
If growing food in a lab does indeed take off, 59% of the UK would suddenly be freed up – lab grown meat done properly could have a near 0 carbon footprint, and can be created in close proximity to the shop that will sell it -further reducing or eliminating the transport carbon footprint of food.
Now, assuming that this is to happen we would still need to keep some livestock. This would be needed to harvest cells. Never the less, we could still see a reduction of more than 99% of the livestock and land required. I do not believe that I am the only person who would be far happier satisfying my desire for meat, without the climate implications or indeed the fact that animals have to die to satisfy it (I am not a vegetarian, but over the last few years we have made efforts to reduce our meat footprint).
This would free up more than 50% of the country. What could we do with this?
Well my argument is that this land could be given over to rewilding. With this amount of land, we could suck up vast amounts of carbon a year. 50% of the UK is roughly 120,000 square kilometres. Now roughly speaking, forest suck up 500g per square m per year, or 500 metric tonnes per square km. Therefore, the UK could suck up 60 million tonnes a year. Now it is true that this is not huge compared to our emissions and we might have some other uses, never-the-less I am sure that I am not the only person that is frustrated by the lack of wilderness in the UK. Even just 10% of the gained land being given over to rewilding could make great progress in returning wilderness to the UK.
There is a great deal of corruption in many parts of the world. In many places politicians are almost expected to give themselves extra benefits – indeed those who do not, are often quite notable for standing out.
In this case, after arresting the politician his house was raided, when the animals were found.
The UK has plans to start reintroducing bison to the UK. While this is very exciting, these are large animals and when they are allowed to roam free they could hurt humans. This is highly unlikely for any one individual, but may occasionally cause significant injury when looked at as a whole.
Why do I bring this up? The main reason that wolves have not been reintroduced to the UK, is human fears. It is true that we would likely suffer low levels of predation of livestock, yet the main fear is of attacks on humans. While wolves can act aggressively towards humans on occasion, injury to the human is incredibly rare (the wolf will almost always run before the human gets close enough to be at risk).
Lynx is an even easier animal to suggest. There are no fatal attacks on humans as far as I’m aware, and as forest specialists they are even less likely to take sheep and wolves. What’s more, while a large links watching industry is likely to Spring up, these animals are incredibly hard to see. This means that without going to extreme lengths people are unlikely to encounter them and therefore be scared by them.
Beavers have been given the right to remain. Indeed genetically correct beavers (i.e. European beavers) are multiplying rapidly, and gradually spreading out from where they were first discovered on the River Otter in Devon, with the population thought to number at least 300-500. These animals are being reintroduced all over the place. The Tayside population in Scotland is thought number at least 1000 animals and these is spread across a large part of Scotland though they still have a long way to go. Beavers however, rarely threaten human life and while they can do some damage are easier to accept.
It’s thought that the UK population of boar number at least 4000, with between 1/3 and 1/2 of these living in the forest of Dean. A pair of boar can have as many as 30 offspring in one season- meaning that without regular culling the population could very rapidly explode. They are having very positive effects on woodlands in the areas that they exist, and my hope is that some of the animals could be moved rather than being shot. Boar unlike beavers can certainly be a threat to humans, though again will only hurt people when they feel threatened.
Other species like bears have had trials done, and likely would be far easier than lynx or wolves to live alongside. This is because as omnivores bears spend much of the year eating vegetation. It is true that some bears take to eating many sheep, but this is not common, and it is entirely possible to cull or move animals that take out this habit. Bears could also create vast tourism in areas that they live.
Animals such as pine martens should be given a helping hand. Locally extinct across much of the UK, they should be reintroduced to woodlands up and down the country. Apart from restoring a native mammal, the grey squirrel – an invasive animal which does much more financial damage each year than the pinemartin ever has, would be rapidly removed, this in turn could allow the red squirrel to start to repopulate the UK
I hope that by 2050 all these animals have thriving populations in the UK. If this was the case, then we would have rebalanced the natural world in the UK allowing it to thrive in a way that it hasn’t for centuries. Of course with precious little remaining wilderness we may find that we do not have space for anything more than a handful of some of these species. I believe even this would be of use.
Australia seems to have a group of politicians that are totally anti renewable. Australia is perfectly situated to use renewable resources for all their power. When Keith Pitt was asked if he still believed renewables didn’t work – he gave this ridiculous statement. The junior partner in the government is demanding they work towards zero carbon by 2050.
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