See Animals Wild

I wrote recently about a suggestion that as we exit Coronavirus issues we invest around 50 billion a year, into reforestation biodiversity loss correction and and a network of observers to give us early warning of a future epidemic.

David Attenborough and 130 other people who are backing his suggestion, is calling for a 10 times higher investment each year in conservation. The call all is led by flora and fauna international.

Currently the world is the what to spend about 50 billion annually on on the natural world. While the original suggestion would have targeted the money to a a small number of targets, there’s still hopefully having a big impact, this new plan would require a step change. 

The the huge amount of money that has been suggested, would be more than available if countries around the world shifted funding from fossil fuels to the natural world. 

We know worldwide that fossil fuels must be abandoned if the world is to not warm to an unacceptable degree. While there is still a ridiculously high number of people who argue about this we cannot afford to wait.

The fact that country still feel it’s acceptable to elect people who ignore science like Donald Trump or Jair Bolsonaro, cannot be an excuse anymore.

The price to do something will only get worse as time passes, as the longer we leave it the faster we will have to act when we do.

My hope, is that with these two calls only a weeks apart, government’s around the world realize then action must be taken now. Whether we managed to raise the upper levels how to invest in the natural world or we stop at the absolute bottom end, we must do something, and if we only created an epidemic warning system we would be missing a chance to make a significant change that will be good for our children and descendants after then

I live in England, which is one of the reasons why why I write about English politics reasonably often. This blog being about wildlife, the only politics that concern me is is environmental and science based.

I realize that some of my readers have from other countries in the world, an England is a small country in a large world. Indeed England only has around 1% of the world’s population-and while we emit far more carbon dioxide in the average, we are far less bad on this front than many other countries. However there have been some very stupid decisions made in recent years, particularly in areas such as as a rooftop solar.

Generally the only other countries that I write regularly about the politics, are Brazil and the USA. This is for a very serious reason, something that I hope to cease to be in the near future. These two countries have presidents who have proved to be totally anti-science, and against trying to fight climate change. In Brazil’s case, this is largely due to the destruction of the rain forest.

However in America, it is because of climate science denialism amongst the republicans who currently control both the presidency and the senate.

It will be a few years before Brazil can course correct and unfortunately despite a recent study working out that Brazil and the USA join only India in the top 3 countries in terms of financial impact from global warming. It is hard to tell what is going on in Brazil as bolsonaro does a good job of drowning out other voices.

Thankfully that is not the case in America. As things currently stand Biden is thought to be around 14 send ahead. Even ways the advantage that the the electoral college gives republicans, this is likely to lead to a huge advantage to democrats, which hopefully will give them the ability to course correct,and move the USA from being a climate change pariah back to a country fighting for the future of humanity.

So why do I look at these countries when thinking about the survival of wildlife? Unfortunately it is a simple fact that in jungles around the world can only exist in a relatively stable environment. As we heat the atmosphere these jungles dry out, which unfortunately leads to them being far more flammable.

What is foolish is that while making these adjustments to fight climate change is expensive they’re likely to lead to a better world for us (particularly in healthy breathing air) as well.

It is a simple fact that because countries of the world the run by governments politics is always going to come in to the preservation of wilderness and wildlife and saving endangered species. This means that we must be up on our information, about what is happening in-country governments far from our own. I will endeavour to fill you in on occasions when something is particularly concerning me. I hope that this concern is is shared and that therefore these articles are of use to my readers in the UK and around the world.

For now most of us can simply hope that sense will prevail in the States. There are many people who love Trump, there are many people who hate Trump. While there are indeed many decisions he’s made strike me as illogical, my biggest concern if he got a second term, would be that America joining the fight against global warming would be pushed off for a further 4 years (a timescale that may well make stopping the damage almost impossible), as well as a disgusting disregard for the the critically endangered status they are pushing many animals into.

I will continue to write about politics in countries which emit significant quantities of carbon for two reasons. the first group are countries in the west such as the USA which emit far more carbon per person than any other country on earth, and countries such as china whose emissions are catching up fast. The other group of countries whose politics should concern us is those who currently have large areas of rain forests- supporting these countries and assisting in not deforesting are essential if we are to not face run away global warming.

A medium-sized average new car now costs between £20,000 and £35,000. Bearing in mind gas cars are replaced on average every 8 years, while it is expected replacement rate for electric cars will be nearer to 15 (they simply last longer), so we are actually talking £40,000 to £70,000. the average family car will need between 1000 and 2000 pounds of petrol a year, let’s say 1500 (£22,500 over 15 years).

So if we add this up we are talking somewhere between  £62,500 and £90,000.

I’m going to make a few assumptions to simplify this calculation. Generally electric cars are more expensive to to insure, the cost of maintenance is significantly less. As such over the timescale I am going to assume that insurance plus upkeep is roughly the same between the two vehicle types (as insurance companies get used to electric cars the price disparity on this front is likely to reduce, however the maintenance savings of an internal combustion engine will not change,this is likely to become a further saving in the future).

Now looking at electric cars, Tesla 3 and y both come in at around £50,000, there are far cheaper electric cars but let’s use this number as a start. A full charge of a Tesla 3 or y from home costs around £5, so over 15 years this is going to be out of £6250. It’s means that with the cheapest internal combustion engine you are looking as a saving of £5000 over 15 years. With a more expensive car the numbers become even more in your favour.

Having already shown that electric car will save money, there are actually several ways to reduce this further.

If you install solar panels you can essentially drive for free (minus the cost of installation). This does also not take into account the facts that as electric cars come in automation is also arriving. If you pay for full self-driving in your car, in the future it may well be able to earn you money while you sleep acting as an autonomous taxi.

I hope over these two articles I have shown that from the practical driving point of view and the financial point of view, the sensible car is already electric. Adding in the fact that this allows you just stop adding to the carbon emissions by driving your car and therefore a helping keep emissions below acceptable levels and the choice really is clear (though of course without affordable finance this may become irrelevant for most people, as they can’t afford to pay so much of their are driving costs upfront).

There has recently been a large amount of coverage about a new documentary, made by David Attenborough, called ‘extinction: the facts’

Prince William sat down with his family to watch it, but he ended up turning it off because Prince George was becoming so distressed. The royal family have an incredible opportunity to fight for the wilderness and wild animals of our planet, so it is encouraging that this will likely continue with the next generation.

The simple fact of the matter is, there is no other logical response: it is devastating what humanity is doing to the natural world. Furthermore if we survive the damage that we are are causing to the planet we will have to spend billions or trillions a year doing things that nature used to do for us.

Indeed we are already looking at a world, where many of the creatures we can see in zoos are coming close to disappearing from their wild habitats.

See my little coming soon on the decline in the 4 biggest cats in the world, for example.

There are already many species that now only exist in captivity.

Frankly, prince George’s reaction is the only logical reaction to take. Looking at programs like zoo quest from 60 + years ago, show a world that likely won’t exist again. I find it depressing, and I show my children wildlife and wilderness as often as I can afford to encourage their love of it and desire to protect it for their children and grandchildren.

A team have driven from the southwest tip of Cornwall to the most northern point of Scotland in a Tesla model 3. One of the arguments against electric cars is that they take too long to recharge. Despite more than 90% of the average drivers journey being easily short enough to be done without fully depleting the battery,everyone seems to worry about the one or two trips a year that go long-distance and how it won’t be possible. 

I have not yet had the money to upgrade to electric, however this is an issue that will affect us. Most populations of wild animals live a significant distance from the UK, for a car to be able to suit our needs, these set of journeys need to be commonplace.

In this case the journey was 1367 kilometres (850 miles) which is far more that can be done on one charge of the batteries. The team spent 1 hour, 31 minutes and 32 second charging on the route, easily breaking the previous record by more than 2 hours.

850 miles driven non-stop at 70 miles an hour will take more than 12 hours. Over this time scale, even with two of you alternating driving, you are likely to wish to stop for an hour and a half or so over the journey, between food and toilet breaks.

In other words with a huge advance in charging speeds that the Tesla 3 and y get with the version 3 superchargers, recharging is no longer the thing that slows you down-instead it is the humans in the car.

In other words, there is now essentially no reason to stop you buying an electric car. It will be able to do anything that you wish it too. I will look at the finance comparison in a separate article

Ever since electric cars started to go more mainstream there has been a desperate attempt by the internal combustion engine car producers to knockdown the green credentials of these cars.

Continue reading “Is the Tesla model 3 worse for the environment that a Mercedes C-Class? According to one study yes, but…”

APP or Asian pulp and paper have been responsible for much of the deforestation in Indonesia over the last few decades. The clearing began back in August 2018 and has continued to June this year, there was also burning in this concession, yet Asian pulp and paper has promised two-phase both out of there are own concessions and those they buy wood from.

Continue reading “The South Eastern branch of Greenpeace have identified around 15 square miles of deep peat that has been deforested by APP”

Friday evening on the 11th september was clearly a very strange confusing time in the Brazilian parliament. The Bolsonaro administration house and announcement stating it would defund all deforestation and fire fighting (total loss of about 60 million dollars). However within hours they did a full about turn and reinstated all the funding.

As well as the strange about face, payments on cost-cutting don’t seem to hold any water as in other places they were increasing payouts to landowners who claimed land actually owned by the Brazilian government (up to 4 times has generous) at the same time.

Questions still exist, but suffice to say that the Brazilian government is continuing to ignore all scientific knowledge, and while these decisions may make money in the coming days it will cost heavily in the future.

Prince Charles recently came out and pointed out that the impact of climate change on the global economy is likely to be many times worse than the impact of coronavirus. This is for a huge variety of reasons beginning with

Continue reading “So you I think the corona virus was bad for the economy, wait till you see the impacts of climate change”

The concept of a tipping point is quite terrifying. Essentially what it proposes, as if humanity allow warming to a certain point there could then become a feedback loop, making us regaining control next to impossible.

For instance, in the Arctic currently the sea ice reflects a great deal all of the sun’s energy straight back into space. The concern is that as the sea is substantially darker than the ice, as our warming continues the ice cover the arctic seas will soak up more of the sun’s energy. This in turn will lead to more sea ice melting, and so it goes on.

Another arctic tipping point of concern is the vast quantities of methane that are trapped in the permafrost. At one time the Arctic was far warmer and therefore had a great deal of plant matter, much of this is lying under the permafrost. However without the permafrost layer all this methane will escape. Being a substantially more efficient warming gas than carbon dioxide this could have a dramatic impact on the world’s temperature-melting more permafrost and allowing even more methane into the atmosphere.

Both of these feedback loops could have terrifying results for the human race. You would think therefore that we would do something to stop it happening. Yet because of a significant vocal minority, that exists in almost all countries on earth we are not doing this. In the USA much of this climate doubters have found a home in the republican party. Unfortunately in the UK these people have found a home largely with the conservative party, and while they have made an effort to scrub this climate change denying side of their party it still pulls many of the strings. One such example was David Cameron’s attempt to rebrand the conservative party has been good for the planet- with it’s little tree icon-followed only a few years later with David Cameron notably saying I’ve had enough of this green “bleep”.

To make progress and avoid these horrific feedback loops, the world’s population must stop voting for short-term gain and elect political leaders who are actually going to try to leave a better world for our children than they found.