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There are currently no know Mexican wolves in Mexico, with the last 5 having been captured in 1980 to create a breeding program. It is possible that a few survived and have not been seen (there is a great deal of wilderness in Mexico), but from what is known they are none left in Mexico.
Anti-protest bills are obvious anti-democratic. Yet Republican run states have past bills prohibiting protest in 1 in 3 USA states in the last 4 years. The American Legislative Exchange Council helped write laws criminalizing protest against pipelines, gas terminals and other projects in 24 states in the USA. This is theoretically to protect critical infrastructure.
This is in response to successes in creating laws to keep fossil fuel companies accountable for the damage they do.
For the time being, laws in the USA have swung away from climate protection. We need the US central government to take up this cause, and reverse this issue.
The worlds international deals of all kinds rely on countries doing what they promise, though it is true that if a small country promises a big country, then the big country can make them fulfil their pledge.
What should happen here? It is by definition the case, that the poor countries are those that has been promised the money.
The USA and the UK will fall short of their pledge for 2022.
The amount of this support that each country was responsible was worked out, on the basis of historical emissions and their gross national income. In other words, this split was done as fairly as possible – getting those countries that are responsible for the majority of emissions over time to pay the most, taking into account the countries current ability to pay.
Unfortunately, the USA has the biggest gap between what it has paid, and what it owes. In 2020, the USA paid just 5% of its share, indeed, despite having an economy that is 40% bigger than the EU it paid just 1/12 of what the EU did.
While the UK did better, it is still in default. In 2020 we paid just half of its fair share, and the plan is for this to only reach 2/3 by 2025. Australia paid only 23% and Canada just 18%, and neither have pledged to improve this in the next few years.
The only rich countries that are paying what they owe, are Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, France and Japan.
Currently, of the promised $100 billion each year, only 83% is being met.
What is alarming, is the amount that was agreed (the $100 billion) is extremely small compared to the losses suffered by these poor countries as a result of the weather that has been triggered by global warming.
This is a big problem. If all these poor countries simply ignored science and destroyed their environment, it would be devastating for the west. Yet currently we are not doing what was promised.
Perhaps one of the issues with a parliamentary democracy is what happens when the leader of the party in power leaves.
The prime minister is the leader of the party which holds a majority in the house of commons. This means that if the leader of this party resigns, or is pushed out by his party, a small part of the country (those in this case that are Conservatives) get to vote on who leads the country. 0.1% of the country are in the Conservatives party, and are generally older, richer and less worried about climate change than the average person in the UK.
Unfortunately, as I have written, Liz Truss, the person who has just taken over this role is making many decisions which are going to be bad for us cutting carbon emissions and therefore us as a country (as well as the world as a whole).
Continue reading “More change in direction with the new UK PM”Solar panels are now one of the cheapest way of generating electricity. This is basically a known fact, despite what is said. Now it is true that there has been some farmland that has been used for solar panels (one of the stupid things about this, is that if you make the solar panel stand longer, there are a whole range of crops that could be grown in the shadow of the panels.
Argued back and forth for decades (since their local extinction in 1952), the idea of reintroducing cheetah has never gone away for India. For the government, it is clearly at least partly a matter of pride – as the only home of the Asiatic lion, claiming over 50% of remaining wild tigers living within its borders, more than 10,000 wild leopards and even 4-500 wild snow leopards, cheetah was the only big cat to be allowed to go missing.
Even Cheetah is derived from the Hindi word Chita which means spotted one.
Continue reading “Namibian cheetah on the way to India for reintroduction!”In the run-up to the Brazilian election, we will be looking at what is happening in this country. While only the people of Brazil have a say, what they decide is likely to have a big effect on the rest of the world:
Re-election of Bolsonaro will likely mean the end of the Amazon functioning properly or they can go with a former politician – both have issues, but Lulu appears on the cusp of taking over, and if this happens it is predicted to have a fantastic impact on deforestation (though it would be hard for any change to not be dramatic).
Given the huge impact this election could have on the rest of the world, there seems to be little coverage, maybe this will change as the time draws near.
Beavers have returned to the UK in the last couple of decades. Becoming extinct in the 16th century, Beavers were an important part of the UK ecosystem.
Beavers are incredible engineers. They build large pools, held back by dams, as well as canals running in many directions. One of the biggest bonuses of this behaviour, is to slow the speed that water has as it runs back into rivers and eventually the sea. This means that in areas where beavers exist, there remains plenty of water even in times during the year when there is little rain. The beaver pools are also fantastic for wildlife, from fish fry, to vast quantities of insects – which can increase farmers yields by pollinating the crops.
So what is the problem? Well, in many places in the country, farmers are now farming on low grade land, and some of this will be lost.
Given that beavers have only been in the UK for about 15 years, and the population only numbers a few thousand at most (while some populations like in Devon numbering in the hundreds or even approaching one thousand), in most of the country they are incredibly rare. Lethal methods of control should very rarely be required. In the vast majority of cases, the beavers should be worked around as the benefits they bring even to the farm are usually greater than the problems they cause. In the rare occasion where the beaver needs to be removed, then it is not necessary to kill it, with the numbers of beavers still so far below the carrying capacity of the UK, it would be relatively simple to catch it and to move it to a river which does not yet have enough.
While it may be cheaper in the short term, for both the farmer and the government, shooting the beaver is unlikely to deal with the problem. In many instances, it will not be long before another beaver takes up the area, which means that the problem is likely to occur again, furthermore, apart from the benefits for the local farm, the beavers behaviour has wider positive impacts.
If the government was to fund nature trusts in each county to help in this work, the price could be kept incredibly low, and the countries environment would benefit greatly
American Black bears are far and away the most numerous bear in the world by some margin. It is thought that at least 800,000 American black bears still roam the continental north America – though the closely related Asiatic black bear has a far smaller population of about 50,000 spread across south-eastern Asia and is therefore far more endangered (the spectacled bear is also thought to be relatively closely related).
In America, black bears are relatively common sites where they are found.
The queen has died suddenly at the age of 96. This is a good age by anyone’s standards, but understandably, across the UK and the many parts of the Commonwealth where the queen remains the head of state it is still disconcerting when things change.
What impact did the queen have on wildlife? Well unfortunately ruling a country like the UK, there is relatively little wildlife left to protect. Of course, the UK monarch while retaining many powers in theory has little sway over decisions in practice. Of course, in the Commonwealth this is quite different.
Continue reading “What did Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip do for conservation, and will things change under King Charles the third”
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