Category: Politics

Posted on

Norway keeps demonstrating that they are not good conservators of the wildlife on their land

At the beginning of the year, a census showed that the population of wolves in Norway was about 81. This (you would think) is a population way to small to need a cull. Indeed at this population, you would think that even for trophy hunting, if you hope to be able to sell hunting permits again should be kept to single digits. In the Sierra de culebra is a hunting reserve: this reserve hosts around 80 wolves, and they allow at most 10 wolves to be hunted each year.

Norway announced that it would allow 51 wolves to be shot – about 60% of the population. This is totally insane, and indeed, they were taken to court. What is more ridiculous, is that the wolves live within the “wolf zone” an area of nature set aside to protect the predators. In virtually every country in the world, the idea of killing animals in an area set aside for their survival seems counter-intuitive. This zone makes up 5% of the country.

The appeal was rejected, and over the weekend hunts went on. A total of 9 wolves were shot.

9 Wolves killed over the weekend in Norway after a cull ban was lifted by the government

This is foolish for Norway’s global reputation, as well as being foolish in terms of managing the local ecosystem. Furthermore, while a small level of culling may be required to control predation of livestock, Norway is likely to be able to make a great deal of money from wolf tourism – many people visit the country to see the wonderful scenery, and the return of the wolf could have increased these wild tourism numbers

Unfortunately all three Nordic countries have similar plans, with Finland suspending plans to kill 3 packs of wolves just last month – citing European legislation.

Sweden has shot most of their annual quota of 27 wolves (this is the country in which I had the best view of a wolf, by chance while sitting in a bear hide).

Pressure on the Nordic nations should be brought to bare, to halt this unnecessary slaughter from being repeated

Posted on

The federal protections of grey wolves that Trump removed, are returned making them protected once again across much of the USA

Federal protection for wolves has returned across much of the USA. A US District judge ruled that the US Fish and Wildlife service had failed to show wolf populations could be sustained in the Midwest and west without the protection he was removing.

Given the near eradication of the wolf in many places, this seems to be an understatement. The ruling does not affect (directly) the wolves of the northern rockys – areas of Montana and Wyoming, as well as small parts of a few other states. These remain under state jurisdiction.

Bizarrely, Biden (who has made an effort to undo many of the short-sighted moves of his predecessor, defended Trumps rules. They argued that wolves are capable of rebounding rapidly even if the population drops dangerously low – a foolish view, to say the least.

Of particular concern, 23 wolves have been killed in Montana, after they crossed out of yellowstone. The animals have no idea that they are leaving protected land, and arbitrary lines beyond which hunting is permitted can threaten the future of the animal in that part of America.

Trumps move was both way to soon, and without any controls. There are still many states, where wolves are still missing or only just beginning to recolonize -they were once found in all states. In particular, California, Colorado, Oregon among others are just having wolves move back into the state. California currently only has about 3 wolf packs, so wolves are only recolonising. Their absence from California, alongside the grizzly has impacted the ecosystem, and their return should fix many problems

Posted on

NatureScot has found that there are more than 1000 beavers now living in the wilds of Scotland

Beavers are well and truly back in Scotland. With a population of more than 1000 animals, they are having a big impact on the environment. Less welcome news was that 115 of these animals were killed under licence. Now a population of this size can probably cope with deaths at this level, but it hard to believe that in all these cases this was necessary. At this point, as the population is slowly growing, you would think that translocation would have been a better option. There have also been 31 beavers that were trapped and moved to official reintroduction projects in England and Wales.

Protections must remain in place but beavers are rapidly re-establishing themselves across parts of the uk
Continue reading “NatureScot has found that there are more than 1000 beavers now living in the wilds of Scotland”
Posted on

Green projects in the UK are being endangered because of unfair transmission pricing

Transmission charges are paid when transporting electricity from where it is made to where it is used.

This is quite normal, and it is the way that the power grid has worked for centuries. This will become ever more important, as the distance between generation and consumption of electricity increases.

Why is this distance increasing? When you build a coal or gas powered power station, it does not need anything in particular to be able to make power. So long as it has a ready supply of what ever it uses to power its generators, electricity continues to flow.

Renewables are different. Wind turbines need to be erected in places where there is a lot of wind – this is why the UK has built so many off the coast. Solar power is generally either placed on large roofs (factories and such) or out in fields. We need to have more roofs filled and fewer fields – It would be possible to power all the UK power needs if all rooftops were covered, but that is a different subject). Fields are generally expensive near cities and cheap far away.

This is where the problem arises. The UK is capable of generating more than enough power for the British population. However, if electricity generated in Netherlands France and Germany are all let off transmission charges – as they currently are, but our own power generation has to pay it, this is the equivalent of giving all foreign electricity a significant discount. This is obviously insane, as it means that we discourage our own power generation, at a time where we should be investing billions in green power generation.

Analysis shows that on average EU power firms pay 48p per megawatt hour in the transmission system. In Scotland the average is £6.42 – more than 13 times the price. In the windiest parts of Scotland it is £736 per MWH

OFGEM needs to bring in rules that encourage the UK net zero target. This must happen fast. Without, we are likely to end up not building the tens of thousands of wind turbines necessary as it will cost more to export than it is worth.

Right now, we are essentially subsidizing imports and heavily taxing domestic power. This is a quick way for the government to kill off this entire industry.

Posted on

The Democratic republic of Congo has had a moratorium on logging since 2002, the current minister of environment has suggested ending this

Deforestation is rarely good for local communities. Having lived on the land often for hundreds or thousands of years, the deforested land is usually sold off. Furthermore it can no longer be used as a resource for food gathering – and often without the forest the rains are less reliable so local farm crops fail.

Containing enough carbon to cause serious problems worldwide, the Congo rainforest also houses 3 of our closest relatives

It is thought that as much as 70 million hectares could be lost if this goes through. This is 270,000 square miles an area the size of Morocco lost.

Even with the moratorium in place three logging leases have been given to Chinese companies.

What makes this threat even greater, is that some of this area that would be deforested lies in the peatland areas, which could mean the end of the peatlands and the release of billions of tonnes of carbon (these peatlands are thought to contain 30 billion tonnes of carbon

Posted on

Tiger doubling from 2010 aim review – Sumatra

Indonesia is a archipelago of islands. Once connected to the Asian mainland, animals were able to make their way along the peninsular. When sea levels rose in the ancient past they were marooned on the islands.

Once they were found on a few islands including Bali and Java. They are now only found Sumatra. Sumatra is thought to have 400 tigers in 2010. This is down from as many as 1000 back in 1978.

San diago zoo estimate the number remaining in the wild at 400-600, but I cannot find any reason for this higher band.

It is possible that the tiger population has increased a bit, but in certainly has not doubled.

Posted on

2 and a half billion trees died after the El Nino of 2015-6 in the Amazon

El Nino are natural weather phenonium generally occurring between every 2 and 7 years. It would appear that as predicted, the El Nino is getting worse as a result of climate change.

This mass die off released carbon dioxide greater than the annual emissions of a country like the UK or Australia.

The fear is that this will become a common event as the planet warms.

The problem is that with this much carbon released, the Amazon as a whole was flipped from being a net absorber toa net emitter of carbon.

Posted on

Tiger doubling from 2010 aim review – Thiland

As with many of the other countries on this list, precise population numbers do not seem to be available. What is clear is that in 2010 the tiger population was thought to be in excess of 100. Their current population is around 177 ( the population grew by 50% over the last 2 years).

Rapid growth of the population appears to be possible thanks to an improvement in their habitats health.

Posted on

Montpelier a city in France realized its error, and dropped an order for 51 hydrogen buses for electric instead

Montpelier had set aside $33 million for this project, over 2 years. This decision was made, after local officials realized that electric buses would be 6 times cheaper to run. This price included the building of a plant to make the hydrogen.

In terms of cost, it was estimated that the buses (for which the council was given help buying but not for running costs) would cost 3 million euros to run, yet only 500,000 for electric. The per mile price was 0.15 euro instead of 0.95.

Although they were going to be helped in purchasing, the hydrogen buses are also between 150000-200000 euros more to buy in the first place.

The myriad reasons that hydrogen is not a good idea have been obvious for some time. Green hydrogen (much of hydrogen is taken out of gas- obviously a nonstarter if your aim is reducing carbon emissions) requires a great deal of electricity to split water, and it would be far more efficient to just put that electricity in batteries and use them. Another issue is the compression of the gas. The only possible place where hydrogen might be useful is in aeroplanes.

Posted on

Apparently Low-carbon ambitions must not interfere with ‘normal life’

According to Xi Jinping, low-carbon ambitions must not interfere with modern day life! If this is true, then we are unlikely to get the cuts that we need.

Now, it is not unreasonable for a country to want to raise its standard of living. However, China is likely to be hit very hard by climate change. While you do not think of China as a low lying country like Bangladesh, 67,000 square km (about 26,000 square miles) lie 1m or less above sea level – and 67 million people live in this area. It is true that this only accounts for about 5% of Chinas population but given how crowded this country already is, this is likely to cause a lot of issues. More to the point Shanghai is only between 3m and 5m above sea level,

Around the world about 600 million people live close to the sea. Of course we understand that each country must look after its own citizens – but that includes protecting them from global warming. China currently accounts for 26% of global emissions, and the rest of the world cannot cut enough to make their emissions irrelevant.

Now, it is entirely true that the president may be trying to keep his own population on side, but we need the whole world to work on this problem. China accounts for 15% of the worlds GDP, then can not take a back seat.

See Animals Wild