Daily Quick Read - July 3, 2019

Coal is by far the dirtiest of all fossil fuels.  It is a major contributor to global warming and burning coal has been linked to other detrimental effects including acid rain and respiratory disease.  So, you would expect that members of the G20 (Trump excepted) would be loath to continue to subsidize coal mining and power plants.  You would be wrong.

Titled “G20Coal Subsidies: Tracking Government Support to a Fading Industry,” the report documents that G20 member countries have given about $63.9 billion in subsidies per year to the coal industry— and that’s the money that can actually be traced.

Average daytime temperature in Anchorage, Alaska is 10 degrees warmer than San Diego, California.  The 10 day forecast for both cities says Anchorage is the place to be if you want to enjoy fun in the sun.  There is a bit of a downside however.

Record-breaking heat across Alaska is pushing tourists to beaches, and sending flames across the unseasonably hot, dry state.  Alaska’s heating has a cascading effect. As ocean temperatures rise, the coasts heat up, with potentially catastrophic consequences on land and in the water. And all that local heat contributes to faster planet-wide warming.

And about those 4th of July fireworks.....

Alaska is no stranger to large wildfires, and so far this year’s fire season is only slightly worse than average. But with about a quarter-million acres burned in roughly the last week, nearly 120 fires still uncontained, and the heat still rising, authorities aren’t taking any chances.

With resources spread thin and fearing further sparks, the state fire marshal’s office issued a statewide ban on the sale and personal use of fireworks ahead of the holiday.

Alan Turing was one of the great mathematical geniuses of the 20th century.  His code breaking work in WWII led to the enigma machine that allowed the Allies to intercept and decode German military radio messages.  He pioneered the development of computers.  His contributions to biology are less well known.

In fact, his last published paper became one of the founding theories of mathematical biology, a subject devoted to understanding how nature’s mechanisms work by finding equations that describe them, from species population changes to the way cancerous tumours grow.

Botswana has historically been a safe haven for African elephants.  In fact as human development has encroached on their territory, Botswana's "safe" elephant population had increased to numbers considered unsustainable in the available territory.  So, facing pressure from farmers, Botswana restored controlled trophy hunting.  However, now comes evidence of a serious poaching threat.

Less than two months after Botswana lifted its ban on elephant hunting, a new study has confirmed that poaching is on the rise in the country that around one-third of Africa's savanna elephants call home.

The study, published in Current Biology, used aerial surveys to conclude that the number of fresh elephant carcasses had increased by 593 percent between 2014 and 2018 in northern Botswana. The report authors confirmed that 156 elephants had been poached for ivory in 2018 based on skull damage, and estimated that at least 385 were poached between 2017 and 2018.