A study by Bristol Uni has shown that mask wearing and distance are the best protection. The virus loses its potency as it dries out. Thus high humidity increases the risk of infection. In dry offices it can lose 50% of infectivity in 5 seconds. After 20 minutes the virus infectivity has dropped to 10%.
FARMING
I suspect that most farmers voted Brexit seeing the onerous task of form filling as too much. We are now more than 5 years since the referendum and yet have not come up with anything more than a wish list to replace CAP. CAP was perhaps the area of the EU that I personally thought needed most reform. £3 billion paid mainly to big farms (= rich farmers?). Many of the rules were eminently sensible regarding wildlife, but seem to have not made the majors impacts needed.
USA WILDFIRES
WEATHER
Oh so warm – but temperatures will drop into the new year to the average for the time of year. Some possibility of frost in the last third of the month. A New Years wish is for better weather for our wildlife, especially butterflies and insects; and favourable winds for migrating birds like the swifts and swallows and martins which seem to need a bumper breeding season.
PLASTIC
Can we make 2022 the year we finally reduce our use of plastic. I was a very grateful recipient of Fresh-Lock Lids which can replace cling-film and tin-foil. The packaging says they stretch to 3 times their original size which I have got no where near – but I will never buy cling-film again. I suspect these are still plastic but can be used thousands of times. Single use plastic needs to be phased out asap.
We have wheelie bins for waste – but why put everything in a black plastic bag first? Food waste also has to be put in bags first.
All my clothes are now bamboo. Toothbrushes wooden and bamboo. Razor bamboo – but with metal!!!
CLIMATE CHANGE – A PLEA
There are many scientists and others studying climate change. Can we have a monthly bulletin with statistics – I am not sure people understand them but they are influenced by them. Sea level rise, global temperatures, renewable energy generation, electric car sales, butterfly counts, etc. just keep the topic at the forefront of peoples minds.
CHRISTMAS 2021
James Webb
The $10bn James Webb telescope has left Earth on its mission to show the first stars to light up the Universe. Amongst the dark days of winter clouded by covid it is a beacon of light. Human beings have the potential to make the world a better place. Happy Xmas.
JAMES WEBB
Something to look forward to Space telescope tinselled up – Final preparations are under way for the launch of the James Webb space telescope, built to peer back through space and time to the first stars and galaxies that lit up the universe. Regarded as the successor to Nasa’s Hubble space telescope, the mission is scheduled to blast off on Christmas Eve from Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. More than 30 years in the making, Webb will orbit the sun, unlike Hubble, which circles the Earth. Its destination is the second Lagrange point, or L2, where the balance of gravitational forces will hold it in place between the Earth and sun.