In the USA, much to the frustration of many politicians, it is possible to attach legislation to another bill, even when there is nothing that links the two. In this case Jo Minchin’s legislation would have deregulated and changed permitting reforms for fossil fuel projects, and were supposed to be attached to a must pass defence bill. This ability to attach irrelevant legislation must be ended.
In other words, had he been allowed to do it, the bill would have had to be passed, as the defence part was required.
One proposal, is named as half earth. The idea is to set aside half of the land on earth as a human-free nature reserve in order to preserve biodiversity, proposed by Eo Wilson.
In the UK, despite the vast majority of the population fully understanding what is happening to the climate as a result of emissions, there are still a number of high profile groups that are arguing against the status quo. The problem is when we give charitable status – which allows them to increase donations by reclaiming tax (among other benefits).
This is why it is so encouraging that a cross party group of MPs have added their voice to the call for the “climate sceptic thinktank” to be stripped of its charitable status. This claim has been put forwards by the “Good Law Project” which has put forwards an argument that this “thinktank” does not meet its aims as a charity and is simply a lobbying organisation.
Wolf numbers have increased by 1800% since the 1970s with a total of over 17,000 now inhabiting the continent. Bears started from a less precarious place, but have still increased by 44% over the same period
While wolves were missing for some time from France, they are well and truly back and we who share the space must recognize that and adapt
Among herbivores, beavers are one of the big success story (and unlike many of the others are living in the UK once again in large numbers in a series of populations from Devon right up to Scotland.
The clean energy transition is accelerating in some parts of the world. It is often cheaper to install solar or wind turbines, than to continue to buy coal to keep using the coal power plant, never-the-less this has not stopped developing countries from failing to make the change.
This article is a few months old, which is why it is so encouraging that since it was released, the Australian people have risen up, and thrown out the government of Scott Morrison.
Why should he draw so much ire? He worked incredibly hard, while in office to both blame states for not doing the right thing, while at the same time making it as hard as possible. He made comments attacking many of the necessary changes that were going on.
Following on from my last post, we are trying to deal with the problems which have been pushing the website offline – it is in hand, but for now the website is still fragile. When all is sorted, we will go back to trying to move forwards with fulfilling the aims of this website. For now, as much as possible I am able to post some entries.
For a long time, governments in the west have injected bonds into the market in order to get it going in times when it is struggling. Between the Covid epidemic and various other issues there are far more countries that are trying to do this.
There is a constant tug of war, between developed countries which are encouraging developing countries to continue to protect their wildernesses, and the developing countries wish to be able to develop – to lift their citizens out of poverty.
Granted, the majority of deforestation does not benefit the people on the ground, but it does not stop politicians in these countries arguing that those in the west cannot stop development by demanding conservation of ecosystems.
However, the amount of land that has been deforested in Brazil, is far in excess of what is needed for cattle pasture and experts have calculated that Brazil (the worlds number one Soy producer, and biggest beef exporter) could increase the amount of land used to grow Soy by a third without cutting one extra tree down.
We can only hope that with the election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the unregulated deforestation will stop. There is a great deal of space in Brazil for intensifying agriculture, which would allow a significant increase in productivity and goods coming from the agriculture lands, without cutting down any more rainforest.
Of course, this is partly a matter of survival. While some people on the ground in Brazil may wish to cut down more rainforest in order to have more cropland, the more forest is cut down, the less rain the remaining forest produces.
Time will tell how good Lula is, but the world has had a reprieve!
WE MUST KEEP OUR EYE ON THIS SITUATION, BUT FOR NOW WE CAN RELAX
Lula, the new president of Brazil – it would be hard to be worse than Bolsonaro
So what has Brazil turned its back on?
Jair Bolsonaro time in office was characterized by attacks on:
Democratic institutions (from human rights institutions to deforestation watch, many more)
The Media
The Left (given Bolsonaro was far right, this means virtually every opponent politician)
The Amazon rainforest
So what did Lula run on?
Social Justice
Environmental protection
Defending democracy
Reunifying the country
Will there be a peaceful handover of power? No one knows. Jair Bolsonaro, like Donald Trump before him has stated many times over the last few months, that he cannot loose a fair election. As an outsider, it is hard to see how he would ever win a fair election but there we are.
He has the support of much of the army (a former soldier himself) and there is much concern that he could throw the country into chaos, and would have a far greater chance of actually overthrowing the government than Trump did in the USA.
He only won with a margin of 2%, and as of yet Bolsonaro is still yet to comment on the results. If Lula is allowed to retake the presidency, then it will mark the end of an incredible comeback,
Lula was president from 2003-2010. After this, he spent time in prison for corruption convictions – later annulled.
Pro – Bolsonaro Truckers have blocked highways across Brazil in protest, but nothing worse has yet occurred.
