The forest that the National Trust will create from this tree planting effort if all placed in one area would more than cover Manchester.
Given the amount of land under the national trusts care this move could potentially have occurred earlier, and well we should applaud them for this start there is much more that they could to reduce the carbon footprint of their properties, particularly as most of their properties are not serviced well by public transport and therefore there is a great deal of carbon used in travel to visit them.
While Germany has made great progress in greening its power grid, it still has a substantial amount of coal power plants, and to stand any chance of meeting Germany’s carbon reduction goals these will need to be phased out before they would naturally have come to the end of their life. The German government has proposed spending several billion pounds compensating these facilities for the lost revenue that they would have got.
For those of you who have been reading this blog for a while you will remember I have in the past talked about the ocean cleanup.
In simple terms the ocean cleanup is a group whose aim is to remove the plastic from the world’s oceans. The majority of this plastic is caught in relatively small parts of the ocean compared to it’s full size. Because the ocean currents carry these plastics to these small areas, it is a simpler job that is otherwise might be (though still huge).
Reintroducing beavers into the UK would be a very sensible move. As a natural part of our ecosystem the fact that they are no longer there has an impact. Apart from the substantial reduction in flash floods that will occur should beavers be reintroduced across the UK, they also have a huge impact on biodiversity and the general river ecosystem as well as acting as a filter meaning that the water further downstream is substantially cleaner virtually eliminating all farm runoff.
However at the moment all British schemes to do with reintroducing beavers consist of putting the beavers into relatively small enclosures and then watching their impacts and how well they do.
One of the ingredients used to create electric devices batteries, is cobalt. Cobalt is something that is often mined in central Africa, and there is a significant issue with child labour. However, this is a stupid argument against electric cars.
The electric car companies have been concerned about this, and so have reduced the amount they use.
However, a far more significant use of cobalt, is to remove the sulphur from petrol and diesel! The fossil fuel companies are arguing you should use electric cars because they use a little cobalt (this doesn’t need refilling, it isn’t used up), but at the same time are using vast amounts of cobalt to remove the sulphur from their exhausts- because it is bad to breathe in.
What is more ridiculous is that this process of removing sulphur uses up the cobalt, which it’s why the fossil fuel companies need so much. So far from saving cobalt, fossil fuels consume lots more and require a constant supply .
Over the last couple of decades, the UK had gradually reduced the amount of co2 emissions. Unfortunately, over the last couple of years the number of people driving large suv cars, which use far more fossil fuel has increased dramatically.Â
This recent increase in fossil fuel suv use, has increased co2 emissions so much, as to eradicate the gains of the last 2 decades. If the UK is to meet its carbon reduction targets, the government must be paying more attention, and we must start increasing taxes on fossil fuel SUVs so that they are not a good option for most people, making the electric alternatives for economically viable.
Drought hit animals too, and in this instance a Drought in Zimbabwe has hit hwange national park so hard that the animals have started to die in large numbers.
While the number of tourists that come to Zimbabwe have fallen dramatically since Mugabe started doing his more destructive policies, these fall in tourists has started to reverse again. Furthermore, with the economy gradually on its way to recovery people can afford to buy food and thus the pressure on wild areas from poaching has decreased significantly.
The translocation is not insignificant, plans to move 600 elephant 2 prides of lions a pack of wild dogs, 50 buffalo 40 giraffe and 2000 Impala.
In other parts of Africa water is pumped into these areas to refill the watering holes. It is unclear whether this was impossible in this case or merely prohibitively expensive- though the cost of moving this many animals will be significant and does not solve the water problem permanently so so a longer-term solution must be found.
Zimbabwe is calling for the relaxation of rules about utilising animals (in ways other than photographic tourism) , and while this would be capable of giving the Zimbabwean government the money needed to protect these animals given the way they have behaved in recent years the international community cannot be sure that the Zimbabwean government will will behave responsibly towards their are flora and fauna.
It is certainly true that looking after animals like elephants that can hurt humans ( in recent years as much as 200 people have died in human animal conflict) is not cheap, however before the disastrous policies of Mugabe the animals of Zimbabwe bought in a large amount of money for it’s people. Returning to this situation can allow the animals to thrive alongside a higher income for people of the country.
Zimbabwe moving 30 young elephants to China, more to follow
Zimbabwe is also under pressure for sending roughly 30 young elephants to China deal in a did with a country. Supposedly this has to be done for the health of the animals as hwang national park where they come from is suffering from a horrific drought that has killed many elephants. However undercover camera work has already shown these young elephants in concrete and metal enclosures having their will broken, flowers to be more easy to control the circuses and zoos in China. Unfortunately it appears that despite Mugabe having left power in Zimbabwe the current government of Zimbabwe still looks on the wildlife as simply a commodity to be traded away and not say something to be preserved for the future. Tourists should look very carefully before being prepared to spend money on safari in Zimbabwe. In total 90 elephants have been moved to China and Dubai in return for 2.7 million dollars.
We seem to be playing wack-a-mole when it comes to feedstock for farmed animals. In most of the world, livestock can graze for perhaps ¾ of the year. However, in countries with seasons, often in the winter the animals are in barns and are fed.
Often, this feeding fattens up the animal faster than grazing and so in many places is used all year round. However, from a nutrients point of view, this is highly inefficient and it’s far better for humans to simply eat the crop (the land needed to raise feed stock cattle could feed far more people if they simply ate the crop of food). In other places, this feed is made from meat.Â
In recent years, this foodstock has started to be made from fish, caught off the coast of south Africa.
This, however its not proving good for the local food chain. The majority of these fish are naturally eaten by African penguins, but with these being fished out, they are catching less fish, and having to swim further. As you can imagine, this is significantly affecting the penguin population, having significantly reduced the number of chicks that are raised significantly.
Without rapid action, we could see the eradication of many African penguin colonies. If the fishing continues long-term, it may well guarantee a slow decline to extinction. It is ironic as for many farmers, they switched to fish based feed, to avoid damaging places like the Amazon, which is otherwise cut down to grow the feed stock for cattle.
Humans are aging co2 and other warming gases to the atmosphere at an increasing rate through our activities.
Much of these warming gases come from travel, though in the long-term this will be significantly reduced, by electrification.
Other activities appear harder to reduce emissions. One such area is farming. There are all sorts of issues in farming, but as far as emissions are concerned this issue, is methane, which comes from the animals (essentially cows breaking wind).
All sorts of solutions have been suggested, including fitting cows with a device to store the gases for use later (usually burnt for heating).
However, a recent study has suggested a novel solution. They found by adding a small amount of seaweed (around 2% of volume) into the cattle feed, can reduce the gas creation in their stomach by as much as 70%.Â
This would be a relatively cheap solution, that can cut farming emissions dramatically, and potentially adds an industry for coastal communities as well. It is also likely far simpler and cheaper than farmers trying to collect the gas for future use.
Mc Donald’s has made a big issue out of the fact that they are no longer buying beef from amazonia. I fully approve of this move, but it appears that they are now importing large quantities of soy grown in the Amazon, and still requiring deforestation.
Huge monoculture of soy, are as damaging (possibly more) than cattle ranching, as ranches often retain small pockets of forest and individual trees, so while most of the wildlife is lost, with soy plantation virtually all its lost.
I am sure mc Donald’s understands that British people have an issue with deforestation, not with beef ranching. Better choices must be made. We must all make noise and complain about this underhand behaviour- and force them to improve their behaviour, if this doesn’t work, boycotting their restaurants might be the only way to stop ir.
