Tag: Stupidity

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Tory MPs are arguing that the green transition is too expensive, an argument that has proved false many times over – currently being shown to be rubbish by the EU

It is a progressions that is very old

  1. Deny that there is a problem – in this case deny the increasingly clear evidence of climate change
  2. Claim that mitigation of the problem (which until recently they denied existed) is way to expensive – why would a sane person listen to some one who has been denying the problem for years
  3. Once the damage is done, say that it is too late anyway

Temperatures at some Arctic weather stations hit 30 degrees earlier this year. At the same time, down in Antarctica temperatures hit 40 degrees above normal. These readings are not anomolies. We have also seen mass coral bleachings on the great barrier reef (during a La Nina year, which is supposed to be cooler)

Scientists have predicted for decades, that climate breakdown will be incredibly fast when its starts in earnest, and at this point there will be little or nothing that we can do about it.

Have we crossed this terrifying point? We don’t know, but what we do know is that far from giving up saying it is too late and we just need to accept it, we need to accelerate our efforts to green our economy.

It is important to remember that the climate mitigation that was claimed to be too expensive, will be a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of living in a world that is subject to runaway climate change.

Despite what many right wing conservatives currently claim, if oil prices remain high we could be looking at a significant saving not a cost from these decarbonisation projects.

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The absurd case of a local mayor being imprisoned for trying to stop illegal deforestation, and how this happens all over the world

Often concessions that are granted to groups overlap with protected reserves. Obviously this should not be allowed, yet it continues. Often the company can then do great environmental damage before the error is rectified.

Ipilan Nickel Corporation began felling trees in its concession area in Brookes point Palawan, Mary Jean Feliciano moved to stop them. After sending cease and desist orders that were ignored (during which time 7000 trees were cut down) she used her authority to shut down the companies operations and demolish their onsite facilities. The company fought back, and the Philippine Ombudsman sided with the company and Feliciano was suspended for a year without pay.

By the time that the Department of Environment and Natural Resources issued a stoppage order 7000 trees in the village protected area, which operates as their water catchment area, had been cut down. This aea fell within the Mount Mantalingahan Protected Landscapes which is a recognized protected area.

The cutting started on May 2017. The village knew what was going on, but the mining company security guards would not let the village authorities in to stop the illegal deforestation.

What is more ridiculous is that the Companies environmental compliance cirtificate was rescinded on december 14th 2016, and on may 17, 2017 it was confirmed that the firm no longer had the permit to cut down any trees.

In July of 2017 hte Palawan Council for Sustainable Development reviewed a petition by Feliciano, recalled the clearance it had issued, and bowing to public pressure the council recongized that 80% of the mining companies claims fell within “core zones” of the protected forest – clearly illegal to cut down.

Civil rights groups praised Feliciano, but the Philippine Ombudsman found her “guilty of oppression or grave abuse of authority” and served her a year long suspension without pay. They claimed that while the EEC of the company had been revoked, they still had an appeal which needed to run its course before she undertook any action.

This suit brought by the company is a clear form of SLAPP litigation – the aim is to make everyone too fearful to try to get in their way.

Around the world companies are using legal actions to delay orders to stop damaging the environment. In many cases including deforestation, by the time an order comes through to stop cutting down forests, all the damage is done. There are places where companies will have to pay large reparations, as well as reforesting more land than they illegally deforested – this process must be rolled out worldwide.

It must become too expensive to risk damaging the environment. Another requirement is for these countries to put a system in place which stops companies delaying the answer why they carry out the work that environmental action is trying to halt.

How can we help? it is hard, but we must make our voices heard over the noise that comes from all around us.

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Tesla has been cut from the S&P 500 Environmental Social and Governance Index, what have they done (SARCASM)

So in theory an Environmental Social and Governance Index is important. This allows customers and investors to look at a company, and by looking at the size of one number they can tell if the company is doing well in these ways or badly. At least that is the theory.

Clearly it is not working in practice. The reason given for Tesla’s removal was claims of racial discrimination and crashes that are supposedly linked to its autopilot system. In the same rewriting, Twitter will be added to the list, alongside Oil refiner Phillips 66. Chevron and and delta airlines are also being dropped.

One of the main factors for Tesla’s dropping is the fact that it does not publish details related to its low carbon strategy or business conduct code.

Now, if you were being generous you could suggest that the company is following its rules without using its head, but this I believe is wrong.

It is true that an electric car has a higher carbon footprint in manufacture – batteries are energy intensive to create. What is also true, is that at the moment, even while giving fossil fuel cars every advantage possible (most calculations of their emissions treats petrol as though it appears on the side of the road, and ignores the extraction refining and transport which can as much as triple the carbon emissions for a tank of fuel) an electric car saves more carbon than the extra that it emits in manufacturing within the first 5000-10000 miles.

Now to put this in context, Exxon is listed in the top 10 on this list! Apparently, having concrete ideas on how to reduce your carbon footprint gets recognized but having already lowered it (and indeed the impact of your products reducing emissions by hundreds of tonnes over their lifetime is ignored).

Now, just to push the point home, Ark invest founder Cathie Woods slammed this removal. Cathie Woods is not only seen as incredibly effective an investment manager, but has been very clever in investing in clean companies. Indeed when asked for a quote she said “Ridiculous, not worthy of any other response”

Some commentators have suggested that this is just the Index protecting itself – several oil companies and similar are high on the list; Tesla creates an existential risk to companies like this.

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Montana has moved to limit wolf hunts after more than intended, but commissioners won’t reinstate quota ended by Republicans

The rules about hunting around Yellowstone, are like elsewhere quite absurd. When the animals roam across an arbitrary line, they can be shot. One side is fully protected land, the other side open season.

Now it is encouraging that the wolf hunt has ended early. The commission vote (passed unanimously) made a rule that hunting and trapping would end when 82 animals had been killed (76 had died at the time).

Montana wolf

23 wolves from park packs have been killed this year – more than in any season since wolves were reintroduced 25 years ago.

Continue reading “Montana has moved to limit wolf hunts after more than intended, but commissioners won’t reinstate quota ended by Republicans”
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An area twice the size of London is set aside for driven grouse moors in our national parks, why?

One of the most nature deprived parts of the UK is the driven grouse moors. While grouse are native to the UK these grouse moors are definitely not.

While national parks can be important places for conservation, and in Africa are the home of many of the big animals, in the UK that is not the case at all.

Driven grouse moors are regularly burnt of all their natural vegetation. In addition birds of prey in the area suffer pretty blanket illegal persecution.

Alarmingly, these areas makeup 44% of the Cairngorms national park,28% of north moors national park and 28% of the peak district.

If this huge area of land was given over to rewilding, far more of the British population could enjoy these areas. Furthermore, this land would hold vastly more carbon in its natural state, never mind the fact that with a proper balance, we could see many highly endangered animals return to thrive in the UK.

Boris Johnson pledged to preserve 30% of the UK for nature, and importantly included national parks in that total. If these driven grouse moors are not eliminated that is a claim that cannot stand. We are the only country in the world that undertakes this dangerous practice.

It really should not be the case, that large parts of public land are set aside for the extremely wealthy, who could afford to do this on their own private lands.

In the last year, the government has listened to the anger, stopping burning of moorland where peat is more than 40cm thick. While this is a good move from the environmental side of things it is not the sole thing that bothers the average person in the UK.

Grouse shooting interests point out that the industry supports 1500 full time jobs. This is good, but the 23 large scale rewilding sites in the UK have increased employment by 47% in the areas that they operate, which suggests that 1500 is probably a very low number of jobs to what could be supported.

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Use it or lose it rules on airport slots are requiring hundreds of thousands of empty planes to fly around Europe

It is thought that at least 100,000 flights with empty planes have been flown during the epidemic. These are referred to as ghost flights.

These flights have had to go ahead for airlines to retain their landing slots in major airports. The issue, is that these empty flights are thought to have emitted at least 2.1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. These rules by the EU commission must change. It is absurd to suggest that this emissions could not have been avoided.

Continue reading “Use it or lose it rules on airport slots are requiring hundreds of thousands of empty planes to fly around Europe”
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UK ministers have once again delayed the point at which a ban on trophy hunting will come in

Despite to much fanfare, announcing that in 2019 during a queens speech their plan to ban trophy hunting, the government has once again delayed this law coming into effect.

Clearly endangered animals such as lions tigers elephants and many more are shot for sport around the world in numbers above 10,000 per year. While some of the meat is often given to local communities, the reason for the hunt was to provide a trophy for the hunter.

I find it disgusting that British politicians announced this policy 3 years ago but have not brought the rule into force. They are attempting to get the global clap on the back without actually having the bring in the law.

There are few to no predators that live in large enough numbers to be able to afford hunting. For me (as well as I suspect many of my readers) hunting is a rather distasteful experience. There are a few areas on the planet where hunting is temporarily justified such as the Selous – but these should be short lived. In the long run making money from wildlife should be done with a camera and not with a gun

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Do 97% of climate change scientists believe in climate change?

While a 97% agreement rate amongst climate change scientists appears to be a very nice figure and reliable enough to base discussion of the future on, it seemed odd to me that 3% of the scientists disagreed. As such in this article I’m going to look at the study that was done which created this figure. I will also look at another study that was done more recently which suggests a far higher figure. Continue reading “Do 97% of climate change scientists believe in climate change?”

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How can California be so stupid?

California is known for its forward thinking views on climate change. They have taken some of the biggest steps towards decarbonising, and being a country that receives a great deal of sun have the potential to make more electricity than they need, completely from green sources.

1.3 million houses already have solar. The California Public Utilities Commission is considering taxing everyone $8 per month per kilowatt of solar installed. Nothing else would change – for people with large arrays, they could have to pay $1000 dollars a year.

This has been a main aim for utilities for years. It is quite understandable. If for 5-10 thousand dollars you can create a solar array on your roof, which means that you become close to self sustaining the utility companies loose their market share. Furthermore, if they are required to pay for exported solar, then that eats into their profits. This of course is despite the fact that this solar exported is clean energy so is good for the planet.

The argument is that this money will go for upkeep of the grid, and that the customers are getting free use of the grid. Now there are several issues with this.

Firstly, this move is likely to push many people with batteries to go further off grid. This will hit utilities hard. Now not only will they not get cheap electricity but they will also not be able to supply night time power. However there is another issue. A connection to the grid once there does not cost a lot to maintain – also, whether exporting 1kw or 10kw the same wires is used. Therefore, the pricing if one was needed should be flat ($8 flat per month seems far more reasonable- $8 per kwh suggests the states are giving utilities the means to squash small energy suppliers.

Are big power companies going to be charged this as well? because if you are going to go to this system they must be. The Diablo Canyon Power Plant is 2256megawatt output, if we were to charge the same thing then they would have to pay slightly over $18 million a year. This is something that even on a large nuclear plant would threaten their future finances.

There is still a coal powered station in California, and 41mw of gas powerplant.

Powerplants which are still using fossil fuels should be forced out of business – this foolish move will likely greatly reduce the rollout of solar in the country, which would lead to problems. Indeed, this state is aiming for 100% green electricity by 2045, which means that they need all the solar they can get.

This is a foolish move and is likely to either damage California’s future, or will be reversed in the future. I feel that it is extremely similar allowing petrol stations to charge electric cars for their lost business.

Another thing that should be recognized, is that as the grid improves more and more power will be consumed locally. For most houses with solar panels, any power they export are used by their neighbours. In other words, Solar panel owners, use a few hundred meters of cabling, while the utility companies are sending power over thousands of miles.

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Google has more problems – Ads that look like search results are increasingly being used by fossil fuel firms

Last month, I wrote about how google was failing to deal with climate change deniers, now there is a similar related problem.

Google allows advertisers to pay to have their advert appear as though it is a search result. One in 5 ads served on 78 climate related terms were placed their by fossil fuel companies.

The study looked at 1600 articles and found that 20% of the adverts were placed by fossil fuel companies.

A survey back in 2020 found that more than half of those using this service could not tell the difference between the search results and these ‘disguised’ adverts.

Exxonmobil, shell, aramco, Mckinsey, and goldman sachs were among the top users along with a handful of other fossil fuel providers and their financiers.

This is highly concerning. Having been forced to abandon their ridiculous claim that global warming was not happening, they are now trying to influence the discussion of decarbonisation in their favour. Far and away the most regular seen ad was Shells which were seen 156 times, and appeared on 86% of the searches for “net zero” They also kept highlighting their promise to be net zero by 2050 and to align itself with the 1.5 degrees C target (something that virtually all scientists agree are incompatible – you cannot aim for 2050 net zero and 1.5 as waiting till 1050 guarentees we blow straight past the 1.5.

Furthermore, Shells only way to reach net zero appears to be through offsets. They intend to continue to extract coal oil and gas until the end of the century.

How can we reach a concensus about where we are trying to go in fighting climate change if so many people are being fed lies.

I believe that it is time to take google at its word. If they wont stop listing these sorts of lies, then they must be treated with the same contempt as the fossil fuel companies. Further more googles future must be the same – change or go extinct. The current problem is that google is such a dominant player in search and advertising, at the moment it is hard to avoid them.

Now, I should add that I did a quick search, and was not possible to duplicate these results. Further more, i got the same results in incognito. I am unsure if google has tweaked its algorithm since yesterday, but this is part of the problem. Given that a small tweak can transform the results, it is hard to get a proper window into googles behaviour.

We need more openness from google. They are making great strides towards taking their business to carbon zero. However, if they continue to influence the rest of the world to not do so, I believe that a significant amount of the blame is retained. Do they want to be seen as a green advocate? or as a climate change denier. It is not possible to sit on the fence, climate change denial needs to be demoted in their search terms.

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