Tag: Stupidity

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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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JBS a beef giant in Brazil has promised to go deforestation free – in 14 years; response?

Much of the deforestation that is occurring in Brazil is to make more room for cattle grazing. The promise of a beef giant to stop deforesting in 14 years is not worth anything. Apart from anything, it is likely that the have calculated that it will take 14 years to clear the land that they currently have access to.

A promise to reform your bad behaviour in 14 years is worth nothing. Indeed in a new Soy and Cattle deforestation tracker, JBS scored 1 point out of 100. As a point of context, its nearest competitors scored 40 and 46 out of 100.It has congratulated itself as the first company in its industry to make commitments, but no one else is impressed. They have had to many chances, now we must move away from buying their product.

The fact that they felt they needed to make a commitment would suggest that market pressure is working, clearly there has not been enough pressure bought to bare on this group. A boycott would likely be a good move. Morrisons Aldi Sainsbury and Lidl all buy meat from this company. My suggestion is that you buy your meat from companies which actually worry about things like this – If one of these companies are forced to drop this beef supplier, it is likely to force the others to do the same. They managed to get good converge last September, when they remade a commitment that they originally made in 2009 to halt deforestation through its suppliers – the bigger question should have been why havent you lived up to your 2009 pledge. It should be noted, the forests they are clearing are not grown for wood, they are old growth natural woodland, coming with it are the tens of thousands of species that are endangered or eradicated as their forests are lost.

JBS has consistently worked to keep their supply chain as opaque as possible, presumably to avoid being held accountable. They have now had enough time, and so it is time for action. If you shop at any of the food chains above, ask about where the meat comes from, and avoid any beef that does not have its origin clearly labelled.

We may not have rainforests to cut down in the UK, but if you continue to eat JBC meat, you may as well have got out the axe yourself.

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The former head of the British financial services authority has suggested population decline and smaller families are good for the Climate; and?…

According to Lord Adair Turner, population decline should not be feared. It is certainly true that if the population of the UK were to shrink, so would our carbon emissions. Of course, this suggestion might have come with more authority if it had been made while he was still in post.

We have, in the last couple of centuries, unfortunately set up the financial world in such a way as to need a growing population. An increasing size of financial market in each country is required (according to current expertise) yet while there are some gains to be had in efficiency by each person, it is not possible for people to become more efficient endlessly. Furthermore, by this metric, a falling population would be a bad thing, as this would necessitate a shrinking market – even if it were shrinking slower than the population.

Continue reading “The former head of the British financial services authority has suggested population decline and smaller families are good for the Climate; and?…”
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The British government claims that 30% of of UK land is set aside for nature; what rubbish

At the current time 26% of the UK is designated as a national park, area of outstanding beauty or other form of protected area. However, to claim that this whole area is set aside for nature, is absurd. British national parks, unlike African ones still have human habitation within them.

Continue reading “The British government claims that 30% of of UK land is set aside for nature; what rubbish”
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1 in 3 of the wolves living in Wisconsin were killed after they lost protection

More than 2000 hunt licences were given out in Wisconsin for the first season of wolf hunting.

They had an aim to kill 119 wolves, yet within 3 days they had shot or traped 218 wolves and so the season was brought to an early close. Added to these official numbers it is thought that Poachers killed around 100 more wolves within the state.

The alarming thing is that these illegal hunting numbers will works out on the assumption of extreme conservative estimates.

This only happened after the trump administration declare the wolf no longer endangered – ignoring virtually all science (they still occupy a very small portion of the range that they once had in the USA). Furthermore, the States department of national resources initially banned the hunt, and it only went ahead when a pro hunting group sud and a judge ordered the ban illegal.

Alarmingly this is not the worst case. Idaho’s new rule allows up to 90% of the world’s population to be killed. In no one’s books does this constitute a rational or long-term decision.

Bizarrely in Wisconsin the current rules state that a hunt must occur each year regardless of whether it is scientifically justified. It should not be controversial to suggest that hunting quotas be based in science and not written by those who benefits from more of the animals being killed, but unfortunately in the USA, this is often how it happens.

I would hope that president Biden looks at this ridiculous decision made by trump on the way out of the door, and put in clear scientific requirements before the wolf is pushed back towards the brink of extinction. It is in the interests of those who enjoy hunting, that the hunt is sustainable, as without, the hunt will cease again in just a few years.

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Did I miss the start of the end of the canned lion hunt?

South Africa has rather a problem. They have given over a large amount of their country to wildlife conservation, and many of the tourists who visit, come to see the wildlife.

However, South Africa also has an important hunting history. Now, if you go back 50 years the number of buffalo and similar was so high that they could sustain a certain amount of hunting (this cannot be claimed to be sustainable as it reduced populations to their current depressed state, and indeed there are species that it eradicated – for instance the Quagga a type of zebra). However, nowadays there are not these huge populations.

Most hunting reserves are relatively small, and therefore the number of animals that can be naturally hunted each year is also small. It is true that many of these places can sell hunts of antelope and similar, but the majority of big game hunters want to shoot one of the big five (lion leopard elephant buffalo rhino).

The result of this is the hideous industry of canned lion hunts.

Continue reading “Did I miss the start of the end of the canned lion hunt?”
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Does the UK government care about River pollution?

New rules on polluting rivers came into force in the UK in 2018. Despite a documented 243 cases of unauthorised pollution not one fine was issued.

One argument is that the environmental agency is being poorly funded by the government, and therefore doesn’t have the resources. Of the roughly 10000 environmental agency staff in the UK only 40 are responsible for inspecting farms, meaning that each farm should be inspected roughly once every two centuries.

In defence the environmental agency said that well no fines or prosecutions were mounted 14 letters of warning were sent. The idea that this is a defence of their success rate is quite peculiar. It is clear that in its current form the environmental agency is completely incapable doing the job it is given to do. This needs to change in fast if we are to have a country that has a good environment for both us and the animals we share the the land with.

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A logging company based in in Borneo taking a bizarre action

The company in question, which has no rights to do any logging, is now suing the longtime inhabitants and owners of land it wants to clear, for trespass.

This is obviously quite peculiar, and a case that should be laughed out of court. The community alleges the company has encroached on community land, has withheld key documents about the certification process, and failed to obtain free, prior and informed consent of affected communities during the certification process. 

This should be very simple, if they have permission and they got it legally without dishonesty they will be able to prove it. All of the evidence would suggest that that is not going to be possible, and therefore they should be laughed out of court, unfortunately that is not likely to happen.

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Why does the debate continue to be pay to fight climate change or … don’t?

We continue to hear ” fighting climate change is to expensive” in one form or another. 

Problem is that this looks at this issue wrong. Sure, right now it is pay to fight or not, but if we don’t in a couple of decades our children will have to pay terms of times more to undo or damage.

In other words, the decision is pay a little now, or make our children pay huge amounts.

What parent makes that decision? What will future generations make of our collective ambivalence?

Continue reading “Why does the debate continue to be pay to fight climate change or … don’t?”
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Daily mail fear mongering over taxes on electric cars

The daily mail, a British tabloid newspaper, has a habit of writing sensationalist articles.

They have published an article today which states “Families could face new £765 annual green tax on cars as ministers plan new levies for electric vehicles to fill £34billion black hole left by the death of fuel duty” as its title – with details saying the figure comes from the AA later in the article (AA is a roadside rescue firm).

Now this is clearly click-bait. The article is written to make out that electric cars are going to have to be taxed far higher, in order to make up the governments funding. Now there are several problems with their arguement.

  1. The government spends roughly 1 trillion pounds a year, so 34 billion is roughly 3%. While this is significant, it is amongst the governments total spending, a rounding error. There are many places that the government could raise this money
  2. Public sector spending on roads in the United Kingdom reached 10.94 billion British pounds in 2019/20, an increase of 820 million British pounds when compared with the previous year.
  3. The improvement in air quality could see a noticeable improvement in health from a breathing point of view. Currently 11 billion is spent a year, on conditions caused or exacerbated by pollution. It would be conceivable, that the benefit to the countries health could alone increase productivity by 3%
  4. The reduction in carbon emissions is likely to lead to a reduction in money needed to be spent on mitigating the damage done

This is the standard form of article that the daily mail puts out, and indeed while there are very occasional articles that share concern for climate change, the daily mail has put out far more which take swipes at electric cars and any other way that the government might try to change our behaviour.

From an article as early as 2010, the writer claimed that the range will never be good enough bizarrely stating that they can drive their diesel car 800 miles on a tank – at motorway speeds, even assuming speeding that is 10 hours during which time you will need at least a handful of stops for food and a toilet break. Modern electric cars can gain 200 miles range or even more in 15 minutes charging.

Indeed, even last year they published an article claiming that 1 in 3 cannot afford an electric car. Now they quoted a figure of at least £2100 spent on their current car as the point at which electric cars would become affordable. By 2030 there are likely to be far more ‘runabout’ cars and similar, but the simple fact, is that most people will be spending at least £1500 on fuel a year. Given that electric cars last longer, and these people they are referring to, are likely to hold onto their car as long as possible, and probably do not buy new anyway we can assume the car is kept for at least 10 years. Electric charging is much cheaper, so you can be expecting to save at least £1200 per year, an amount that more than makes up for the initial higher price of purchase (the article states that entry level electric cars are around £5000 more expensive, so a purchaser will be better off after 4 – 5 years). There may have to be a change in car loan terms, to make borrowing more affordable, but this is all.

Articles on the difficulty of charging, range longevity and many more, are published every few weeks (or more regularly).

What is the daily mails problem?

Every country around the world seems to have a similar publication. Yes electric cars create slightly more emissions at manufacture (though this gap is narrowing) and yes they can be more expensive however prices are falling and the cost of ownership over the lifetime of the vehicle is significantly lower. Importantly environmental costs are far lower, and given the situation that the human race finds itself in, having to cut our emissions to zero pretty fast – caused I should note, largely by the sort of companies that newspapers like the daily mail praises constantly- we have no choice. The best impact that the daily mail can have is slowing the change. Given that the daily mail is based on a island, a place which stands to loose much from extreme global warming not least in terms of land. This sort of slanted analysis is only useful for confirming your biases.

It should be avoided (though the daily mail gives plenty of subjects to write on)

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