Author name: Steven Edwards

Thousands of people have fled wildfires that are burning out of control in Greece and Turkey, including a large blaze just north of Athens that left one person dead, as a protracted heatwave turned forests into tinderboxes and flames threatened populated areas, electricity installations and historical sites.
Turkey’s wildfires, described as the worst in decades, have swept through swathes of the southern coast for the past 10 days, killing eight people.

Councils that remove active travel schemes before having given them a chance to work or without evidence they are failing could lose future central government funding, ministers have warned.

Following a number of councils removing cycle lanes and Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) in the face of vocal objections, transport minister Chris Heaton-Harris has formally written to the leaders of all English local authorities with transport responsibilities.
Heaton-Harris emphasises that active travel schemes supported by government funding need to be left in place long enough for their impacts to be properly monitored and assessed.
The letter, sent on Friday 30 July, warned councils that if cycling and walking schemes installed using central government money are hastily abandoned, this could affect future grants.

Tips from the Netherlands on how to build a nation of cyclist
As countries face pressure to reduce their carbon footprint, many climate experts recommend the promotion of cycling as an easy way to cut emissions. 

Sir, – In your article of this morning, upon the right of a police constable forcibly to stop a cyclist, you say “It is most undesirable that constables should get it into their heads that they are at liberty to stop, without warning, every cyclist who seems to them to be riding too fast. The cyclist is clearly entitled to be warned, and ought to be warned before stronger measures are resorted to,” &c.

The DfT has partially backed down in the face of our second legal challenge, agreeing to review its outdated roads policy which dismisses climate change (BUT see UPDATE below).

Buried in the DfT’s Transport Decarbonisation Plan was a concession to review the National Policy Statement for National Networks (NPSNN). We first asked transport secretary Grant Shapps to do this in March 2020, sixteen months ago. We realised that the NPSNN, which was approved in 2014, meant no new roads could be challenged on climate change grounds. Since then, the Department for Transport have messed us and our lawyers around so much that we have had to threaten legal action not once but twice!

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Parts of the UK have faced rain and localised flooding this weekend, but forecasters have said drier and sunnier weather could be possible by the end of the month.
Heavy downpours caused flooding in areas of London on Saturday, and the Met Office warned that torrential rain would continue to affect the south-east of England throughout the day.
There are also warnings of heavy rain, thunderstorms, flooding, lightning strikes, cold winds and hail in central and southern Scotland, northern England and Northern Ireland over the weekend.

An estimated one million tires were said to have been burned in blaze last week
Yasmena Al Mulla October 23, 2020 16:37
An estimated one million tyres were said to have been burned, as the fire blazed through 25,000 of the site’s million square metres, according to KUNA.
The aim of the visit was to reevaluate the current situation of the tire site, otherwise known as the tire graveyard. In addition, questions arose during the visit as to why there has been no development on the front to construct three factories that would recycle tryes, as well reduce the number of tires in the site.
Last year, the Public Authority for Industry transferred the responsibility to the Environment Protection Agency (EPA), who were tasked to find a solution to the tire graves. After taking over, the Director General of the EPA pointed out that there are around 20 to 40 million tyres, in Al Sulabiya, and that, “we will be able to deal with them all within a period of not more than a year.”

The first histories of the pandemic have been written, and they converge on a single truth. In March 2020, the scientific evidence became so overwhelming that conscientious western political leaders declared an emergency. They acted more radically than they had ever imagined.

Histories of climate action are being written too, and they read very differently. In the past few years, the scientific evidence became so overwhelming that conscientious western political leaders declared an emergency. Then they delayed — acting timidly, sporadically, belatedly.

The contrast is infuriating. In what sense is the UK government, or any other government, treating climate as an emergency? Where are the stark press conferences, the appeals to solidarity? Imagine calling out the fire brigade to a blaze, then watch