Wildlife and conservation new, wild travel information and links for booking
We are off, traveling in Europe. By the time you read this, we should be deep in the wilds of the northern Italian Alps, and with any luck will have spotted some bears or wolves.
We will be back in about 12 days when things will continue. Hopefully with plenty of stories to tell
We have live sightings maps for many of the largest reserves in Africa, as well as the Alps and the Carpathians in Europe.
We are keen to slowly build this site up as a resource for wild study and are keen to operate as a place to put together sighting data. While all maps are currently live, we are keeping an eye on poaching and will remove animals that are in danger from showing up. In the future some of this information may well disappear into the members area, but for the time being – ENJOY
The UK, and England in particular has a continual growing population. At the current time, and for much of the last few decades, this population growth is mostly as a result of immigration.
The government has laid out plans to build 300,000 new homes a year in order to handle the growing population. The problem with this plan, is the fact that house building is a carbon intensive activity, which means that we would use up all of the current carbon budget (in order to stay below 1.5 degrees Celsius.
What does this mean? Well, frankly, there are 2 choices. Either we do not build the houses, or we need to cut our emissions elsewhere, so that we can have the carbon budget for this.
I would like to see the transportation industry and electricity generation to move to green sources faster. Another thing that is essential, is to increasingly build ground based thermal and other expensive carbon neutral heating systems, and then send this heat into peoples homes.
Finally, the government needs to increase the rules on new build homes, so that they are as close to carbon neutral as is possible.
As if to underline this issue, the British high court has recently ruled that the UK government has acted unlawful in its climate strategy. The case was brought by ClientEarth, Friends of the Earth and Good Law Project, The chief judge (Mr Justice Holgate) finds that the Net zero Strategy which sets out plans to decarbonize the economy, does not meet the governments obligations under the Climate Change Act. This will require the government to update its plans. During the court proceedings, it was discovered that calculations showed that it would fall 5% short from what was promised. While 5% does not sound big, in actual fact this is 75 million tonnes of carbon emissions.
Will the government correct this? we all need to be writing to our MPs on this matter.
Sorry for the quiet over the last week, we have been working hard on improving various sides of the website. Firstly, you should find that the menu is easier to use, whether on mobile or a desktop computer. Secondly, a lot of work has gone into the species watch tab. Now all currently listed animals has a page associated, we still need to find more people to help with visitors, but progress is being made.
Do consider joining us, the task is huge.
This creature has been seen off the coast of the UK by divers and snorkelers, but it is thought to be the first time that one was found in a UK rock pool. This is just more signs of our warming planet.
The occasional visitor may not do damage, but it is very possible that if the seas continue to warm enough might arrive to start damaging the prospects of other native wildlife.
Last year the number of cars sold in the UK dropped by 2%. Never the less, electric car sales continue to grow, now accounting for 17% of new cars in the UK (a little more than 1 in 6). Now quite rightly, some would argue “why are we celebrating 1 in 6 cars being electric, particularly as that only accounts for around 2% of cars currently on the UK roads. I would argue that this is something to celebrate for 2 reasons. For the first, look at the graph below:
The government of the UK has been talking the talk for a significant period of time. At times they have suggested some policies that should move in the right direction, unfortunately they have often reversed these relatively quickly.
An example of this is the governments green housing grants – advertised as intending to improve the UK housing to work more efficiency. Unfortunately, it was cut too soon, had perhaps 1% of the investment needed to get the whole job done, and proved to merely be a handout to building companies.
So what has caught my eye this time?
How is Australia doing?
We need to start reducing emissions at some point – this seems self evident, if we are to meet any of our carbon reduction goals. In Australia the labour and Greens have done a deal that might actually improve policy covering Australia’s biggest polluters.
While the new ideas is complicated, it changes the safeguard mechanism to take the country closer to meeting the goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050.
While Australia’s government has been talking the right talk recently, the Australian newspapers have published fear mongering by the fossil fuel companies – forcing up prices, put domestic gas supply at risk, destroy jobs and “kill foreign investment” in the coal industry, The Daily Telegraph published a story which claimed the changes to the safeguard mechanism would risk $96 billion of energy projects – and that should be seen as “coal hard facts”.
One coal boss told the Australian that the changes to the safeguard mechanism were built on a political objective to push a “base demonisation of fossil fuels” that would threaten Australias role as a “Reliable energy exporter” for the region. This is so completely illiterate of the science as to be laughable (if it was not for the fact that many people will listen).
A former editor of the Australian Chris Mitchel wrote that Environmental journalists and the “left media” were “in a frenzy” over the most recent release from the UNs climate panel – he claimed that they are missing the elephant in the room, that climate change has failed to arrive.
Despite what many in the fossil fuel industry wish to claim, it is not hard to see climate change, indeed it is all around us. Mitchell claimed that the world would not, and could not do without fossil fuels – though if you don’t believe that the climate has been effected, then this is an easier position to reach.
What is clear, is that while the voices against doing what i needed to leave a world we wish to for future generations, have not shut up, in most instances they are not winning.
it is thought that the worlds oceans hold 2.6 x10^11 tonnes of lithium. that works out at 325 tonnes of lithium for every person on the planet. Even if every vehicle on the planet went electric we would still have probably 95% of it left.
Ah, you say, but we have not found a way to extract it.
That is the news: despite being 0.2 parts per million in the ocean, a team at King Abdullah university of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia have found a way of extracting lithium at far lower prices. While the ocean contains 5000 times more lithium than on land, it is still a very small fraction. They found by using a very carefully designed electrochemical cell containing a ceramic membrane made from lithium lanthanum titanium oxide. When this and several other processes have occurred, the lithium reaches concentrations of more than 9000 parts per million. By then adjusting the ph of this solution, solid lithium phosphates containing only trace other elements are formed. these are pure enough for battery manufacturers to take over.
Incredibly, this method would only take $5 of electricity to create 1 kg of lithium (and the hydrogen and chlorine that are by-products are already worth this amount. One kg of lithium is currently worth about $35, making this a very profitable venture.
In the last few months I have read 3 articles from the Guardian (one of the few UK “broadsheets” which put a significant amount of money into its environmental journalism (I would argue that this is concerning, given the large number of threats that are currently future problems for humanity).
In the west, for a large portion of the population a not insignificant proportion of their nutrients come from dairy. Unfortunately, though, this dairy requires various livestock to be kept, which are causing the methane emissions that are such a problem.
I have written before about milk without the cow, but this appears to be making some progress.
A company called Imagindairy is using a technique called precision fermentation. In a similar way to brewing beer, it uses microorganisms that have been genetically modified to produce casein and whey proteins, which is what makes up milk. A similar company called perfect day, is already creating similar products in the USA. However, with no lactose, hormones or cholesterol, which might one day make foods such as mozzarella or cream cheese a healthy option to eat. With the capacity to cut emissions on dairy products by as much as 97% it could also make it as good for the environment as vegetables.
The human race has set itself the target of keep temperature rises to under 1.5°C. It is therefore an issue if just 3 of the food products could push us past this target.
Why are these 3 foods such a problem? Methane!
While it breaks down in the atmosphere over a matter of a few decades, until it does, it has a warming impact many times greater than carbon dioxide. A study has found, that if current food emissions continue to the end of the century, they will result in another 0.7°C of emissions, on top of the estimated 1°C that food production has already caused.
However, the same study found that this rise could be cut by 55% by cutting meat consumption in rich countries – to what is medically recommended, by reducing emissions from livestock and their manure (I have spoken in the past about an additive from seaweed which could be added to cattle diets, which would greatly reduce their methane production.) and by using renewable energy in the food system (this last one should be guaranteed, though unfortunately it isn’t, because the whole earth should be converting to 100% renewable.