Category: Politics

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The former head of the British financial services authority has suggested population decline and smaller families are good for the Climate; and?…

According to Lord Adair Turner, population decline should not be feared. It is certainly true that if the population of the UK were to shrink, so would our carbon emissions. Of course, this suggestion might have come with more authority if it had been made while he was still in post.

We have, in the last couple of centuries, unfortunately set up the financial world in such a way as to need a growing population. An increasing size of financial market in each country is required (according to current expertise) yet while there are some gains to be had in efficiency by each person, it is not possible for people to become more efficient endlessly. Furthermore, by this metric, a falling population would be a bad thing, as this would necessitate a shrinking market – even if it were shrinking slower than the population.

Continue reading “The former head of the British financial services authority has suggested population decline and smaller families are good for the Climate; and?…”
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Will Cop26 over shadow Kunming?

Cop26 is essential, there is no doubt, however there is a similarly important threat that the world is facing, and if we are not careful we wont start fighting it until it is too late.

What is Kunming there to fight? It is there to fight loss of biodiversity. Biodiversity is essential for the well running of ecosystems around the world which can often collapse without enough biodiversity.

Indeed, it is actually a problem that Kunming and Cop26 have been split. What we need is for the two fights to be fought side by side.

I have written in the past, about the problems for the Congo rainforest that have been caused by the local extinction of forest elephants. Without many of the wild animals that exist in these landscapes the forests and peat lands and grass lands will fail, releasing their huge carbon stocks back into the air.

These two must be tied together

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Only 10% of the $17 trillion spent on Covid recovery went toward projects that would cut carbon emissions and restore nature

There is a constant complaint from vested interests, that the price of greening the world economy is just too high. Of course, when the world-wide economy needs a boost, these concerns go out of the window (until the emergency is over, then even these costs might be used to argue against saving the planet).

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A tesla plane? what impact would this have

Elon Musk has talked about creating an electric plane, I think that this is a fantastic idea, but not from a tesla fanboy point of view.

Electric planes are in their infancy. There are a range of extremely light weight aircraft for learning to fly. There are also an increasing number of island hopper jets, which can allow easy access for small communities – at prices that are affordable, and therefore long-term as well as the far more environmentally friendly setup.

The other big move in this arena, is Ryanair. They are a budget airline operating throughout Europe, but they are building an aircraft which should be able to carry 186 people (31 rows of 6 seats) that would cover 80% of their routes. My hope is that this is a move into them behaving in a more compassionate way – they have a reputation of treating people poorly (I have experienced that first hand but that is another story)

Elon Musk envisaged a vertical take off and landing aircraft, and one which would fly high enough to travel at supersonic speeds. He did state that he thought batteries needed to reach 400wh/kg and the batteries that run tesla cars are currently 260wh/kg, so were still some way off. Having said that, tesla has some of the best battery research going on, and they are confident that the batteries will be ready in the next 3 or so years.

So what impact would a tesla plane have? Well what Musk is describing is largely a private jet, not a passenger jet. Never-the-less Tesla cars started and high cost and came down. It is likely that a Tesla plane would do something similar. Certainly, with the weight Tesla can bring to bare, it is likely that any involvement by Tesla would push the electrical aviation market place to new heights.

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Gains in the Virunga national park of the DRC are encouraging but threats continue

For the last 3 years there has been a significant baby boom in the forests of the Virungas. This is highly encouraging for the long term survival of the mountain gorillas that live here.

Unfortunately many threats remain. Parts of the park are potentially about to be reclassified for mining, and there are invading armed groups in various parts of the forest.

Currently, the DRC section of the park contains roughly 350 gorillas, though this number includes all mountain and lowland gorillas. However, the armed groups often make money by hunting wildlife both for bushmeat and the pet trade.

In recent years, Mountain gorillas have been moved from critically endangered, to the endangered list. However, this generally is in relation to the reduction of the population over the last few years. If the population reaches a small size, then reductions of any level are likely to wipe them out. This has not happened, thankfully, but given a population of only 350 animals, it is foolish to think that this wildlife population is out of danger, quite the contrary, it would take very little for this population to disappear – STILL and so we must not relax.

Current threats thought to exist for the park long term, do not worry about poaching, so much as land lost to oil and mineral extraction. Remember that an area can be deforested in a matter of a few weeks, it can take a century for the forest to return.

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I wrote in the past looking at consensus on human caused climate change – new study

There is a constant argument that we should not be acting on climate change because we have not reached consensus. This really is not the case.

A look at 90,000 studies which looked at the climate found that 99.9% of them agreed that humans were the cause. The degree of certainty is now the same as that on evolution or on plate tectonics -the debate is over.

It is true that you can still find supposedly learned men and women who will disagree, but we are now at the point where it is akin to arguing the world is flat. Yes there are thousands of “flat earthers” worldwide, but those denying climate change should be put in the same category as those who deny the shape of the earth (and think that the millions of people who would have to be in on it are all dutifully keeping quiet.

This study has been compiled by Cornell University and shows that the miniscule minority still fighting against this truth, is now just a small number of noisy voices.

This is terrifying! In the USA there are 30 US senators and 109 representatives who “refuse to acknowledge the scientific evidence of human-caused climate change”.

It is now time for Facebook and twitter to stop giving an unchallenged voice to purveyors of falsehoods. Denying the science of climate change is likely are more dangerous for the future of the human race than denying the obvious facts about vaccines.

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Rhino poaching in the Kruger continues, decimating the population

When my wife and I spent 3 months on the edge of the Kruger in 2007, there was thought to be over 10,000 white rhino left in the park – around 90% of the worlds wild population.

A white rhino (a correct translation would be wide rhino – this one has a wide mouth unlike the black rhino) Copyright GPA photo archive

Unfortunately, the poaching started in earnest in the following years, and now this population is thought to be 3,529, with about 268 black rhino.

Are we once again going to see the white rhino recover, or will this be its last few years?

It is absurd, as the horn doesnt have any of the medical benefits that it is claimed to have. The rhino is in danger of going extinct due to superstition.

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Government in USA killed a pack of wolves despite it having been adopted by a school

The US department of Agriculture wildlife service branch has killed 8 pops from a wolf pack in Idaho, this despite the pack having been tracked by a school for 18 years.

Wolves are an essential part of Idaho’s ecosystem, yet they are being removed anyway after they have returned
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A scheme earlier this year, which purportedly gave protected land to local residence has been shown to be a scam

The regulation that was issued earlier this year for Cambodias KohKong province supposedly took land from protected areas, and gave it to local people. Developments since, show that actually this was a scheme to benefit the political elite.

Politicians and companies have been grabbing the available land. In particular, a pocket has been bought by a company thought to be working for APP the huge palm oil company. They would clearly wish to raze this forest to the ground and replant with palm oil.

Koh Kong forest clearance alongside still standing forest

The area in question, accounts for around 500 square miles of land.

See Animals Wild