Rishi Sunak – the UK prime minister is not planning for the future, having chosen oil and gas over renewables

The UK likes to toot its horn for its progress in climate change mitigation. It is certainly true that the country is in many areas moving in the right direction. Unfortunately, it appears that in many instances, this is despite rather than because of the British government. Thankfully in the UK the move to electric cars appears to be relentless, which will deal with a significant minor portion of the UK emissions.

The UK government has removed its support for solar panels, and withdrew most of the support for the green housing grant scheme before it was finished (this was despite its positive reviews and how many people wished to take advantage).

Despite the governments target of reducing emissions by 68% below 1990 levels, there is a significant gap between the target, and what the government is planning to do to meet it. At the current time (over 6 and a half years out) the government is admitting it will only meet 92% of its cuts, and this is considered a generous prediction.

So why is the government not ramping up its support of carbon cutting industries -not least because it has repeatedly been shown that if this is done effectively it can grow the economy and work out as the cheaper option.

Given our promise to reach net zero by 2050 we cannot afford to fall behind before 2030, yet this is what this review says our government is currently heading towards.

Happy Easter! next step – and beavers on holiday

I have been away with my family for 10 days.

Hopefully a handful of videos will drop in the next few days, with an attempt to raise our profile so that we can do what we set off to do.

Our first week was spent down in Devon, near one of the beaver lodges. Interestingly, the guide I reached out to stated that they did not operate this early in the year, as the beavers emerge to late in the evening. We decided to go down late in the week, anyway, on the off-chance. In actual fact we spent a couple of hours each evening down on the river with wild beavers in front of us for a significant part of the time.

Beaver watching is great for both adults and children. While the beavers return is incredibly good for the future of British ecosystems, it can also have direct impacts for humans. It is true that for most farms (largely all those not based on a flood plain) they gain more from the presence of the beavers, in terms of reduced flooding, water table management and increased insect health (for pollination).

We are building our beaver watching page up further, do take a look

Could old growth trees lock away more carbon than we thought?

A study in Oxfordshire last year, looked at how much carbon was locked away in 1000 trees. This study showed that old trees are more important than we thought, with them storing as much as twice as much carbon initially estimated.

For a long time the ecological benefit of ancient woodland has been known, but here we realize that ancient woodland is equally important for carbon sequestion

Why is this important?

Simple!

It shows that the destruction of the rainforest in Africa, Asia, and South America, cannot be offset by planting a similar number of trees in the north. Even worse, if the UK government decides to build a motorway that requires clearing an ancient woodland, replacing the trees one for one is not good enough.

This must rapidly be added to calculations

Subsidies are supposed to support what are good, and not what are bad, so why has the UK government spent 20 billion more on fossil fuels than renewables in the last 8 years?

The UK likes to be seen as a country pulling its weight when it comes to the climate change battle. Unfortunately, they give the game away though when they subsidize fossil fuels by 20 billion more than they do renewables.

What is worse, is that 1/5 of the money for fossil fuels went to directly support new extraction and mining.

In the last 8 years, 60 billion has been spent supporting renewable energy generation, however 80 billion has gone on fossil fuels. Indeed 2020 was the first year when renewables got more money than fossil fuels, but each year since fossil fuels are back ahead.

The government claimed that this analysis was misleading as we would still need some fossil fuels as part of our move towards our net zero target – while this might explain why we need some fossil fuel investment, it does not explain why this little need is greater than the money we need to put into renewables – which must eventually supply all our energy needs.

Despite the promise to reverse their insane ban on on-shore wind turbines, there are fears that this what is going to happen

On-shore wind-turbines are far and away the cheapest (currently) and easiest form of renewable power to roll out. The UK is targeting net zero emissions by 2050 (as well as a 68% reduction on 1990 levels by 2030), so any rejection of the cheapest and one of the simplest means of power generation goes against all this. More urgent, the aim is to have a power grid that is 100% green by 2035 – just 12 years away.

Why should a very noisy minority be able to stop the countries efforts to cut our carbon footprint.

The simple fact is, that farmers up and down the country can make good extra money by hosting turbines. Whether crops or grazing is the primary use of the land, wind turbines take up a tiny proportion of the land, and have no discernible effect on output.

Continue reading “Despite the promise to reverse their insane ban on on-shore wind turbines, there are fears that this what is going to happen”

Wildcats could potentially reintroduced into England for the first time in hundreds of years

Wildcats have been restricted to parts of Scotland for hundreds of years, despite once being found throughout the UK. Indeed, it is a problem where a significant number of people now refer to it as the Scottish wildcat, something that is only temporary, and should not be the case for ever.

Although looking sweet, British wild cats are impressive hunters, and can on occasion take deer
Continue reading “Wildcats could potentially reintroduced into England for the first time in hundreds of years”

Is the conservative party in the UK (and perhaps similar parties around the world) supporting of climate change doubt and climate change denial

The mountain of evidence which shows that climate change is real is enormous. The temperature has increased, and all of the evidence points towards carbon emissions being the reason.

If your MP is a part of this group then campaign to make sure that they loose their seat in the next election.
Continue reading “Is the conservative party in the UK (and perhaps similar parties around the world) supporting of climate change doubt and climate change denial”

Graham Stuart (UK climate minister) claims that UK fracking and oil drilling is good for environment

Graham made this statement as he informed MPs that he had awarded more than 100 licences for north sea drilling – and claimed that this was a green policy. He also claimed that this fossil fuel extraction will help the UK reach net zero by 2050.

why do we keep appointing fools who do not believe in climate change, to help us do something about it
Continue reading “Graham Stuart (UK climate minister) claims that UK fracking and oil drilling is good for environment”

Has Liz Truss appointed a climate change denialist? is this on purpose? Liz Truss “attack on nature”.

Recent positions taken by Jacob Reece-Mogg include ‘Squeezing “every last cubic inch of gas”‘ from the north sea, restarting fracking, rejecting windfarms (and instead preferring fossil fuels) has all been pushed forwards of his position. He has a history of accusing people of climate alarmism. Two other mps refused the role of the climate change minister (though eventually Graham Stuart agreed to take it on).

Jacob reece-mogg, sometimes named as the member of parliament for the 19th century, is no longer a back bencher. As such his insane views on climate change must be ridiculed, until he moves on, or starts behaving in the countries interests.

Conservative members who are concerned about climate change (so called Green Tories – my argument would be, that if any Tory is not concerned about climate change and global warming, should not be considered for a role in the cabinet. We cannot continue to tolerate climate change denialism in the UK government).

Continue reading “Has Liz Truss appointed a climate change denialist? is this on purpose? Liz Truss “attack on nature”.”

The UK likes to claim it leads the world on global warming mitigation right? Solar farms being refused more than any time in the last 5 years

Solar panels are now one of the cheapest way of generating electricity. This is basically a known fact, despite what is said. Now it is true that there has been some farmland that has been used for solar panels (one of the stupid things about this, is that if you make the solar panel stand longer, there are a whole range of crops that could be grown in the shadow of the panels.

It is a good thing to be moving to large amounts of solar panels. We should be covering all large roofs first
Continue reading “The UK likes to claim it leads the world on global warming mitigation right? Solar farms being refused more than any time in the last 5 years”
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