Tag: Climate Change

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Climate stripes

Climate stripes – a clear way to see global warming over time

This image is a fantastic way to be able to see climate change. Created by Professor Ed Hawkins in 2018, it shows the changing in temperature over the last 2 centuries.

Blue lines show years where the yearly average temperature is lower than the overall average (and the darker the further below the average). The red is the opposite.

While it does not need pointing out, can you see how dark it has got in the last few years.

Below is a short video about the stripes with their creator explaining them.

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Is the COP conferences a waste of time, if climate change deniers are able to lead it?

At the current time, countries in the region in which the COP is held will chose a president. In theory, that is fine, however, in practice if this is going to continue then the middle east should be banned from hosting the conference.

So, what precisely did Sultan Al Jaber say, which was so troubling?

Firstly, he claimed that a ‘phase-out of fossil fuels would not allow sustainable development “unless you want to take the world back into caves'”.

He then claimed that there is ‘no science’ to suggest phasing out fossil fuels is the only way to achieve 1.5C.

After being laughed at, over this utterly insane statment, he suggested that the comment had been misinterpreted. It should be noted, that this was in response to a question from a woman, which he was relatively rude about.

Do you think this woman misunderstood?

He even had the gall to suggest that the misrepresentation was undermining his desire to reduce carbon emissions (perhaps if this is true, it can start with his huge fossil fuel company can show this?). More than 100 countries are already supportive of this.

The worlds uptake of electric cars must accelerate. This is partly underway – last year around 67 million cars were sold, but 14% of these were electric, up from just 9% the previous year. The uptake is accelerating.

It should also be noted that apart from extreme heat in the UAE, continued global warming will also damage the UAE in extreme ways. The UAE economy is 0.5% of the global economy, in the end, places like this may refuse to accept the end of oil, and will have to be bankrupted, as cars move to 100% and many other industries clean up their act.

 

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Is global warming true – YES, and expert shows

As if it is needed, here is a list of evidence that global warming is true, laid out by someone with a doctorate in the subject material. Do share with friends who have suggested that there is not. 

It is simple, the world is warming and we are causing it by burning fossil fuels. We are responsible and so we can do something about this.

At a time, when there is a high probability that someone who denies all obvious facts on this subject, is leading the race to return to the white house, we need to stop debating facts and fix the problem.

USA, you are currently a pariah around the world, because you cannot pass meaningful climate action. You have 4.23% of world population, emit around 16 tonnes per head on average – which amounts to 14% of global emissions or around 1/7. It is true that China  (29.18% of global emissions), however India emits just 7.09% of global emission. Yet the per capita emissions of these countries are 7.44 in China and just 1.89 tonnes in India.

The UK, a similarly developed country, only has emissions of 5.6 tonnes per head

We’re hoping to return to a more normal amount of blogposts in the near future. Time is currently going into building a database of species of the world.

Common Minke

Common Minke Whale

The smallest species of rorquals and second smallest baleen whales in the ocean. It was originally ignored, a primary target of whalers in the Southern hemisphere. Also known as the Northern minke whales, it lives in the Southern hemisphere, but is not the Southern Minke as that one lives in the waters around the Antarctic. Its range expands far into the northern hemisphere, up into arctic waters.

Hybrids of the 2 species have been found on several occasions, and it appears that the offspring are fertile – whether this is a threat to the two species as climate change pushes them further together.

It is odd that the common minke whale is also known as the Northern minke whale, as there is a Northern Minke whale which is found in the northern hemisphere.

Links will appear below.

African forest Elephant

African Forest elephants

There are three species of elephant, the African savanna elephant, African forest elephant and the Asian elephant. 

With the African species, Forest elephants have declined 86% between 1986 and 2015, African Bush elephants declined 60% 1965 and 2015 leaving just over 400,000. African forest elephants are thought to number between 100,000 and 150,000.

Perhaps the most scary fact is that the African forest elephant was only declared as a separate species in 2021 only 2 years ago. These species are not particularly similar – indeed the Asian elephant is more genetically similar to the mammoth, than the African savannah elephant is to the African forest elephant! 

The African forest elephants population has declined precipitably in the last few years. Given the recognition that the forest elephant is a separate species only came 2 years ago, it is hard to get accurate historic figures. Never-the-less, the combined african elephant species population was thought to be around 26 million in 1800, and 1.34 million in 1976. The estimate is currently around 100-200,000 forest elephants. One of the problems, is that the African forest elephant is an essential part of the ecosystem. There are many trees, which rely on forest elephants to carry their seeds through the forest, so that they germinate a good distance from the original plant (more than a few of the same plant in the same area, causes the pest that feeds on the tree to multiply to the point where it can kill the tree. While it is true that other animals like gorillas and chimpanzees can do this, they do it far less. Should the forest elephant be lost, the African rainforest is likely to be far less capable of of handling the various changes, like climate change that is coming.

The last strongholds are in Gabon (a survey last year suggested Gabon has 95,000 forest elephants, rather than the 60,000 that was originally thought) and the Republic of the Congo and Democratic republic of the Cong, with smaller populations remaining in other African countries (Cameroon, Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea) and Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia and Ghana in west Africa. There is much space for forest elephants to greatly recover, if the poaching is able to stop.

Below this, you will see a video on this species, and below this is a list of any times that the african forest elephant has been mentioned within this blog.

Below this, at the bottom of the page, we hope to list places where you can go to see this species in the wild – if you work in conservation or tourism around this species, do get in touch. we would love to list you, and it costs nothing to be listed, we merely work on commission.

Lynx (canada)

Canada lynx

The Canada lynx is one of 2 new world species, and is found through much of Canada and Alaska, throughout the Boreal forests of spruce and fir. They are hunted but the harvest is worked out on the basis of the population, so it rises and falls quite a lot. Climate change is effecting its northern range, and unfortunately is bringing this cat and the bobcat into more common contact, leading to an increasing number of hybrids along the area that they meet. There are thought to be 10-12 thousands of the Canada lynx across its range.

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China has cleaned up its grid, so why is it also making lots of coal power stations

China is planning 100 new coal PowerStation. Given their drive to reduce carbon emissions, and the fact that China manufactures many of the worlds solar panels, this seems to be a foolish step.

China is leaping into carbon neutral power, with around 1/3 green, up from just 28.8% in 2020.

A drought last year has apparently spooked the managers, as they didnt get as much hydropower as was expected.

What is the result? Perhaps China will want all these plants online by2030 when their emissions are supposed to peak, that way the issue is pushed back, with their net zero target of 2060.

Will it happen? I suspect if the Chinese people started to complain it might happen fast. Certainly, it is foolish, as it has already been clearly demonstrated that green electricity generation is cheaper than any fossil fuel creation.

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Conservative corruption in the UK? £3.5 million donations linked to pollution and climate change denial

There have been many suggestions that the scientific consensus has not been reached, when it comes to climate change, either to its existence or humans effect on it,

The one debate on climate change, before the last election in the UK, and the Conservatives skipped it
Continue reading “Conservative corruption in the UK? £3.5 million donations linked to pollution and climate change denial”
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Is the soft power of the fossil fuel industry slowing our move away?

The first papers linking carbon emissions and fossil fuel burning were released a long time ago. How long ago? Try John Henry of the Smithsonian Institution at the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in 1856. Entitled, “Circumstances affecting the heat of the sun’s rays,” the paper was the first research linking increased carbon dioxide with warmer air.

That is 166 years ago!

We recognize that fossil fuels are the problem, yet their paid lobbyists continue to get access to politicians across the globe.

It is true that fossil fuel companies usually have little real power. Instead, they rely on the power they get through donating money to people of influence. How can we break this “soft power”?

What have they done?

  • Spent literally billions on controling the conversation about global warming, and changing the topic of the conversation. For instance what is your carbon footprint? Is something that they have pushed hard – by making everyone think about their own carbon footprint, they move who needs to act, from them to their customers. They also include creating so-called climate solutions, taking tiny percentages of their profits -in an effort to look like they are working for humanity.
  • They have also invested huge amounts into so-called education of the next generation (obviously in their way of thinking).
  • Funding of sports and other things that might influence young people, and in a similar way, arts and culture. Even allowing an oil companies logo to be put on a wall of a museum without explanation is likely to give them a subconscious boost, quite unfair – and something that the museum should never wish to do.
Continue reading “Is the soft power of the fossil fuel industry slowing our move away?”
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Thwaites or “doomsday” glacier is disintegrating faster than expected

The Thwaites glacier is an important glacier in western Antarctica. It is already thought to account for about 4% of global sea level rise. This glacier has suffered a rapid retreat from the land shelf in just 6 months – a process that can naturally take several centuries.

The bigger problem that Thwaites glacier currently brings, is the fact that this glacier seems to largely be the dam wall, holding much of the ice back. As a result, while Thwaites glacier can increase water levels by an alarming amount, a collapse is predicted to increase global sea levels by between 90cm and 300cm.

In other words, this glacier alone, with a full collapse, as much as 5% of the worlds population will have to move as their home will be under water. Unfortunately far more people may well find that their way of live is no longer possible.

Regular readers of this blog will remember me mentioning this not long ago, unfortunately the last 6 months has shown the situation to be far worse.

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