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While these fuels power much of the creation of electricity around the world, as well as most transport and heating, they all need to either be left in the ground or 100% of their emissions. Below is a roundup of a group of articles of importance on these subjects.
Uk’s £22 billion carbon capture pledge follows surge in lobbying by fossil fuel industry, records show
Continue reading “Oil, Gas and coal roundup ( more in future)”
The car industry has done a great job over the last roughly 30 years, of confusing people. It was once the case, that there were 2 different states – the first cars were electric (so suggesting that modern electric cars are a new technology is ridiculous) and then we developed internal combustion engine vehicles. This meant that there were 2 different types of propulsion 1. fossil fuels (petrol, diesel) or 2. electric cars, charged from the mains.
Toyota developed the Prius back in 1997. At the time, a huge step forwards – it only had a battery of 1.3kwh, but this was enough to store energy recovered from braking and release it back, when the car was able to start moving again. This was the first mild hybrid as it is now called.
Continue reading “Motoring body saying “UK needs to ban full hybrid cars by 2030 or face net zero ‘catastrophe’ (only cars that can drive on pure electricity)”
Large parts of Australia look like the above photo, beautiful in a rugged way, but quite useless for the survival of many of Australia species. Australia has a wide range of habitats, which means that there are many areas which need to be protected.
The problem is, according to this study, declaring an area protected appears to be having little change on what is happened.
1/3 of all land that is set aside for restoration and conservation, has got worse rather than better. Given the fact that so many species are just hanging on to existence, this could be very bad news.
In one area that was studied, the majority of the area was cleared paddock – a serious problem for the koala and grey-headed flying fox which called the area home.
In particular, the idea of this scheme is so called biodiversity offsetting – if you are to clear wildlife habitat, you protect a similar sized area elsewhere.
Continue reading “Analysis has found that 1/3 of land set aside for restoration is worse than before in Australia”
Wolves have only recently returned to Austria, with an estimated 80 wolves spread throughout the country. It is perhaps not surprising therefore, that animal welfare activists, took the government to court, when it set cull numbers at 20, or 25% of the population a year.
The Austrian government had pointed to a condition in the 1992 EU directive on protecting wildlife, which states that wolf hunting to prevent financial damage can only be done if the population is in a favourable conservation status – something certainly not true in Austria. This condition can only apply to a wolf population which is stable.
I would also suggest that plans to kill 25% of the population each year, should also damage this, but this is a discussion for another day – when the population is far larger than it currently is. Other countries like Holland have similar sized wolf populations, and so this ruling could be applied in a variety of places.
Regional governments have absurdly argued that the wolf is no longer endangered in Austria, and that therefore its protection should be reduced. had the government listened would a ruling similar to the USA have come forward? Such that open season could be declared?
It is a good thing that wolves are so good at holding on, as we have spent much of our time attacking.
It is funny to think, that it is estimated our relationship with wolves (in the form of domesticating them as dogs) likely goes back to a similar point to the advent of growing crops, and well before the time that we started to keep livestock.
Given our fondness of dogs has deeper roots than our fear of wolves, it seems odd, that wolf persecution ever really got underway. It is true that wolf populations do need handling, but their existence is more good than bad. Places like the UK where they are missing, show this (when looked at the situation rationally)
Wentworth Group of concerned Scientists estimate that for just $7.3 billion a year for 30 years, most extinctions could be avoided as well as repairing soil and restoring rivers. That sounds like quite a lot? Well, invasive species cost the Australian government $24.3 billion a year now.
Recovery of some of the endangered species, could well save more than they cost to save, in reducing this invasive species bill. This would also improve agricultural output, as a result of improved soil health.
Continue reading “Australias environment could be fixed for 0.3% of GDP”
There is a variety of different causes for deforestation. However, the majority of the work is usually done by individuals – often for subsistence farming, though often the land is only fertile for a short period of time, requiring more rainforest to be cut down.
However, if people on the ground know that cutting down the rainforest will make life worse, then they will not do it.
Efron Simanjuntak (click here to see a photo in a new window) was once a successful logger (illegally) in Sumatra. In 2017 he was caught, and in 2018 he was imprisoned for 2 years. In these two years, he had a lot of time to think, and realized the damage that he was doing.
Continue reading “Might the solution to deforestation be education? probably not everywhere, but clearly here in Sumatra”
What will it do?
This plan was dropped in March as a result of Hungary blocking it, as well as Austria and a variety of other groups. It is unfortunate, that often in order to meet an agreement, the environmental rules are often watered down so much as to become meaningless. It was cleared, after Austria changed its mind (it should be noted that the Hungarian MEPs were in favour and it is only the Hungarian government that got in the way – as they often are; unfortunately the leader of Hungary Victor Orban is not helpful, and is often the block for the EU. Whether this will change in the near future is anyones guess.
Still this will have to be implemented across the continent to be useful. Having said this, should it be successful it is likely to have a big impact.
The UK has set a hard target of 100% green electricity by 2030, but unfortunately, at the current time, its investments are not keeping up with its targets.
It is estimated that the UK need £48 billion to get to this target in time. This target would require a doubling of the onshore wind capacity, a tripling of solar power and a quadrupling of offshore wind capacity.
The current thinking, is that the UK is just half way to the wind energy target in 2030, however with solar it is worse. Currently we have roughly 15GW installed capacity, but it is predicted that we need 70GW to meet our target. Current progress suggests that we will hit 44% renewable by then, which is far short of the 69% that would be required.
What is worse, is that at this rate, gas will still account for 29% of energy which would be more than the individual contribution of Solar, onshore wind or offshore wind. It should be noted, that it is thought that meeting this target on time, will be worth far more in savings, but there does not seem to be enough urgency from the UK government to push this forwards.
It should be noted, that we have just had a change of government, and if Labour continues as it has started, we should get back on track.
In the summer, a government report found that the policies put in place by Rishi Sunak were only good enough to meet roughly 1/3 of the carbon reduction that we had pledged to make in the Paris climate agreement of 68%.
Recognized as an incredibly popular species, with a great deal of conservation effort being put into its survival. The Queensland conservation council is urging the state government is calling for its remaining habitat to be protected, as logging continues.
Calls are being made to create a park to protect the species.
The Miles government promised (in June) to turn 50,000-60,000 hectares of high value ecosystems into a greater glider national park. Unfortunately, this plan gave detailed listings of where timber would be extracted, but did not include clear maps for areas to be protected. Quite understandably, conservationists are calling foul – it is not possible to deforest an area, and then call for its conservation.
The population of this species is estimated to have halved in just the last 20 years, which should officially declares it as vulnerable to extinction (it is true that this is often decided over 10 years, but still is a very bad sign). Other issues, is fragmentation of their forests – they are generally very unwilling to come down to ground level to travel to other trees. They can stay in the air for around 100m, but this means that a gap greater than this can isolate the population. They require eucalypt forests (this is almost all they eat, with plenty of large tree hollows to make home, and retreat into.
Will Australia step up, or will this species get pushed into planned extinction? Time will tell, though given Australias track record, we should not expect big things without a great deal of pressure from conservation groups, and publicity on what is happening, from around the world.
The wolf disappeared from Holland around 1870, though their decline was rapid – in 1760 (just over 100 years before) people in Brabant talked of a wolf plague). In 2015, the wolf was first sighted in Holland, and while some people had said that Holland was to densly populated to allow the wolf to return, this seemed to be wrong. Wolves have returned to many of the countries around Holland, and so it seems quite odd to think that it wasn’t considered that they would cross into Holland.
In 2022, there were thought to be 4 packs of wolves (including 16 pups) as well as an individual wolf. This number has, however, grown fast in the time since, and the current number is thought to be 9 packs. What is even more exciting, it is predicted that the country can support between 23 and 56 wolf packs at a minimum – which as a wolf pack contains 6-7 wolves on average, means a total population of between 138 and 392. It should be noted, that this number is not likely to remain genetically healthy into the long-term, however Germany has a wolf population of over 1000, and while these are mostly based in the East of the country, wolves disperse great distances, so it is likely that genetic material will arrive naturally, relatively regularly. There is also a founding (if small) population of wolves in Belgium, thought to number between 15 and 24 (it is also predicted to grow by 30% a year.
There is a problem, the Hoge-Velue is one of Hollands biggest reserves, but it is owned privately. They have decided that wolves are not welcome, and are making efforts to kill those that get through their fence. This is because, without the wolf, deer are easily seen within the reserve, and they believe that the number of tourists will dry up, if it becomes hard to see the red deer, as well as the roe deer and boar.
I find this attitude rather baffling and perverse. Furthermore, when we were there last year, we spent time in the government owned reserve, which borders the Hoge-Velue, this is government owned, and wolves have settled here. I spent a number of nights within the reserve in a hide. I did not get to see a wolf (though I met a local who had a wide range of fantastic shots he had taken over the previous years), but while watching and waiting in the hide, I saw red and roe deer, as well as wild boar, in significant numbers. The idea that someone would believe that the amount of tourism visiting after wolves return would decrease, seems quite contrary to what usually happens elsewhere.
Wolves are a part of Hollands animal food web, and while it is likely to take some time to get used to living with them present once again, it is going to allow the whole ecosystem to thrive. I feel frustrated, that in the UK, we do not have a similar situation, where wolves can simply wander across an unmarked border. I do believe that in the end, wolves will return to the UK (our food web is horrifically out of balance because of a lack of predators), however, on the last occasion that it was debated, numbers from a very specific country were used to block any further discussion (Click here to read a previous article on this subject, or visit the wolf page here to get a complete list of all occasions that they have been mentioned on this site)
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