See Animals Wild – Page 74 – Wildlife and conservation new, wild travel information and links for booking

April 5, 2021March 23, 2021

The EU is bringing in laws that require products to last for a decade

At the current time, we have a highly inefficient system. There is no requirement as to how long technology is required to last. In the past, that has perhaps been less noticeable, as the advance in the capabilities has been so fast, that an upgrade generally became desired long before the product wore out.

However, there has been an alarming trend which has seen manufacturers removing manuals to allow products to be serviced, and or sealing parts of the product, so that batteries cannot be replaced or in some other way making DIY fixing hard or impossible.

April 5, 2021March 23, 2021

Using sewage to heat homes?

Thames water in London UK is hoping to use excess heat from sewage treatment plants to provide the warmth needed for 2000 homes in Kingston-upon-Thames.

What normally happens, is that once the water has been fully treated, it is returned to the river. The problem with this, is that the water is at a higher temperature than the river, and this is not good for its ecosystem.

April 4, 2021March 23, 2021

Life has been discovered living beneath the Antarctic ice sheet

Having drilled 900m through the ice this team of scientists found something incredible. Despite no light making its way through the ice, they found a boulder surrounded by sponges as well as 22 other species (including barnacles). Immobile life has not been found below the Antarctic ice before.

April 2, 2021July 1, 2022

What to do about the wild animal market in China

The Coronavirus is thought to have emerged in one of the wet markets of Wuhan, China. Much of what went on in these markets was never fully legal. Indeed this $13 billion a year trade has often operated in the grey areas of the law.

However, it has become clear that these are actually rather dangerous. It is one thing to enter a wild area to see the animals that live there. However it is something quite different to go in and kill animals to eat. These wild areas often harbour odd viruses or bacteria and by taking animals alive or dead out of these ecosystems you bring out these threats so that we can contract the illness.

April 2, 2021March 23, 2021

Could many hills in the UK become the batteries of tomorrow?

A new system can transform thousands of hills in the UK into large batteries. A team of engineers have developed a system which would allow Hydropower to store and release power within gently sloping hills and without the huge dams currently needed.

The idea of these small hydropower systems, is that we could build many of these tiny dams for far less than just a few large ones. More importantly, it would come with far less negative issues to those that come with historic large dams (for instance the proposed dam which threatens the future of 8th great ape species the Tapulani Orangutan).

April 1, 2021March 23, 2021

There are now 5 embryos created to save the Northern white rhino

Until recently there were only 3 viable embryos, so it is encouraging that these two new ones have be able to be created. There are currently just 2 remaining northern white rhino left. The last two both live at Ol Pejeta conservancy in central Kenya.

March 31, 2021March 23, 2021

Donald Trump spent his time in the White house saying America couldn’t afford climate mitigation – what a foolish position

Through out his time in the white house, Donald Trump attacked climate change science foolishly mocked it by pointing out hot weather and generally undermined the long-term leading position that the American government has had in the climate change fight. It is of course true, that what ever words presidents have said about climate change, they have not invested enough in doing something about it. As such, despite having roughly 5% of the worlds population, the USA is the second biggest emitter, emitting roughly 15% of the world emissions each year.

March 31, 2021March 23, 2021

Paris agreement for nature?

At the beginning of January an new agreement was signed by 50 countries who pledged to protect 30% of the earths land and oceans. The intention of this agreement is to stem the flow of extinctions that human activity has been causing for the last few centuries.

The hope is that this agreement can form the basis of a larger agreement at the UN, building on the early commitments from nations such as Nigeria Pakistan Costa Rica Canada and many more.

March 29, 2021March 23, 2021

While great progress has been made in greening much of the worlds industries, aviation is one of the few that has made little progress

How can we cut the carbon cost of aviation? There are several possibilities. It is unfortunately unlikely that battery power is ever going to be able to replace fossil fuels on long haul fights (I hope to be proved wrong). Easyjet is aiming to be flying a single isle battery powered plane on 80% of its routes by 2040, and is hoping to be flying routes under 500km on battery planes by 2027 (they are well on the way to this target).

March 27, 2021July 1, 2022

Creating animal crossing of roads must improve

Roads help connect our world, however without carefully thought through plans a road can split one endangered but viable population of a species into 2 unconnected populations that are likely to disappear over the long term.

Genetic studies have shown that only one bear has managed to cross between these two Spanish bear populations. While there are only 3 major roads, there are plenty of large areas unfriendly to bears crossing through. What should put this in context, is that one bear has also managed to cross France unaided to join this population.