The 20mph speed camera was installed by Plymouth City Council, having become fully operational on Monday 9 May.
Before it was activated, a trial period produced ‘really troubling’ results, with police issuing a warning about the ‘risk of serious or fatal injuries’ that speeding can contribute towards.
Round-the-world cyclist arrives in UK… and has bike stolen outside a Reading Wetherspoons two days later | road.cc
A British adventure cyclist who says he spent 835 days cycling around the world “through countries people repeatedly warned were too dangerous to visit” has had his latest adventure brought to an abrupt end… outside a Reading branch of Wetherspoons, where his girlfriend’s bike was stolen.
Josiah Skeats says he has covered over 40,000km by bike on his Instagram page, and was on only his second day of bike touring in England when he arrived in Reading on Tuesday.
According to the Reading Chronicle(link is external), Skeats was part way through cycling the new King Alfred’s Way route with his girlfriend, when the theft happened five metres away from where they were sitting outside the Hope Tap in Friar Street.
The last metro? Crossrail and the uncertain future of urban transit – ft.com
ft.com Gill Plimmer
The opening of the world’s first metro system in London in 1863 was a chaotic event: steam in the tunnels obscured signals and choked drivers, the gas lighting frightened travellers — and “there were so many anxious passengers trying to get on board, that there were fights for seats”, according to the Penny Gazette.
Nearly 160 years later, the British capital is hoping for a smoother launch this week of the newest 100km addition to its transport network: the £19bn Crossrail train line, designed to carry tens of millions of passengers between the west and east of London.
How Russian sanctions can help combat the climate crisis – Simon Pirani – opendemocracy.net
Simon Pirani
Three months into the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine, European politicians and officials are working out plans to reduce fossil fuel imports from Russia to zero.
This week, the European Commission published a plan to end Russian gas imports by 2027. Climate campaign groups say it can be done much sooner.This is a historic turning point. Gas imports from Russia started in the 1960s and came to symbolise not only a flourishing trading relationship with Europe, but also a geopolitical partnership that survived the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991.
How strong is the case for Europe’s labour movement and civil society to support sanctions against the Russian economy, and specifically against Russian fossil fuels? Which sanctions could be effective? And could an embargo on Russian oil and gas imports give a push to decarbonisation and the fight to prevent dangerous global warming?
Park the Car – New Initiative from Ford | Ford UK – ford.co.uk
‘Park the Car’ is a new initiative from Ford that launches today. It is probably the last thing many people would expect from an auto maker. However, driving responsibly is no longer just about safety. It’s also about caring for our environment and our health – and walking or cycling once a day, active travel, can bring about significant change.
According to the World Health Organization, half of European car journeys are less than 5 km and – especially in cities – these are often the kind of trips that could easily be made by bike or on foot1.
Walking or cycling instead of driving just once a day could reduce personal daily carbon footprints by up to 84 per cent2. This in turn could support an 8 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by cars – and help point towards a greener future for everyone3.
‘Ella’s law’ bill seeks to establish right to clean air in UK | Air pollution | The Guardian
Gary Fuller
A new clean air law is starting out in parliament after the Green party peer Jenny Jones won first place in the House of Lords ballot for private members’ bills.
Named Ella’s law, as a tribute to nine-year-old Ella Kissi-Debrah who died from asthma induced by air pollution, the bill would establish a right to clean air and set up a commission to oversee government actions and progress. It would also join policies on indoor and outdoor air pollution with actions to combat our climate emergency, and include annual reviews of the latest science.
Jones said: “Having a nice environment isn’t just a matter of ecology and science, it is a question of social justice. The clean air (human rights) bill would enshrine the human right to healthy air precisely and explicitly in UK law. A suitable date for the government to put it into law would be before the 70th anniversary of the Great Smog later this year”.
2021) Mayer Hillman in conversation with XR Activists | Extinction Rebellion UK
Mayer Hillman in conversation with Extinction Rebellion activists Clare Farrell, La Pethick, Becky Plenderleith and Jill Lewis.
Hidden Soundtrack highlights impact of noise pollution in capital – Transport Xtra
Climate charity Possible demonstrated the impact of noise pollution during an event in Shoreditch, London. Members of the public sat on the pavement at a cinema-style ‘auditorium’ while musicians performed across the road. During today’s event – called London’s Hidden Soundtrack – the audience wore headphones so they could listen to the performers over the sound of constant passing traffic.
Possible cites findings by the World Health Organisation (WHO) that noise pollution is second only to air pollution in terms of the size of the environmental health threat in Europe, with around one in three people being negatively affected.
Car clubs reduce car ownership and promote electric vehicle usage, says Enterprise – TransportXtra
A third of car owners who have joined a car club have got rid of at least one vehicle since joining, with more than two-thirds (68%) of those cars that were disposed of being at least five years old, according to a survey published by Enterprise Rent-a-Car. The research involved more than 4,000 Enterprise Car Club members across the UK and was carried out by shared transport charity CoMoUK.
The study showed that half (51%) of car club users also own a vehicle, but that car club membership gave…
Pliocene and Eocene provide best analogs for near-future climates | PNAS
The expected departure of future climates from those experienced in human history challenges efforts to adapt. Possible analogs to climates from deep in Earth’s geological past have been suggested but not formally assessed. We compare climates of the coming decades with climates drawn from six geological and historical periods spanning the past 50 My. Our study suggests that climates like those of the Pliocene will prevail as soon as 2030 CE and persist under climate stabilisation scenarios. Unmitigated scenarios of greenhouse gas emissions produce climates like those of the Eocene, which suggests that we are effectively rewinding the climate clock by approximately 50 Million years, reversing a multimillion year cooling trend in less than two centuries.
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