News from Elsewhere

Cross refencing the notoriously rigours data keeping of inner-city cargo delivery firm PedalMe, the headline data in the report revealed a 1.6 time faster delivery rate over vans, which over a period of 98 days saved an estimated 3,896 Kg of CO2 and over 5.5 kg of NOx entering the atmosphere.

New York City air quality was among the worst in the world as cities across the eastern US were shrouded in smoke from wildfires raging several thousand miles away on the country’s west coast.

Smoke from more than 80 major wildfires burning in the US west has caused hazy skies and plunging air quality in eastern American and Canadian cities including Philadelphia, Washington DC, Pittsburgh and Toronto, as well as New York, causing fiery sunrises and even bathing the moon in an unusual red tinge on Tuesday night.

Extinction Symbol @extinctsymbol 9:30 AM · Jul 31, 2021
(Possibly Spain, but more likely to be Kuwait:
eg. Oct 23, 2020 Huge fire at Kuwait’s tyre site visible from space SE}

New changes to the Highway Code will give pedestrians greater priority over cars at junctions and crossings, the transport secretary has announced.

Under the current code, motorists only have to give way when pedestrians step onto a crossing.
The new code will also ensure cyclists have priority when travelling straight ahead at junctions.
And a “hierarchy of road users” puts more responsibility for road safety on more dangerous modes of transport.
The DfT said the changes, along with a £338 million funding package to boost cycling and walking, will help to sustain the increase in active travel during the pandemic.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said cycling and walking help people keep fit, reduce congestion and help the environment, so he was determined to keep the trend going by making them easier and safer.
The changes to the Highway Code, due to be published in the autumn, will affect England, Scotland and Wales. Northern Ireland has its own version of the code.
The DfT said the code’s new hierarchy of road users would ensure “road users who can do the greatest harm”, such as those in cars, vans and lorries, “have the greatest responsibility to reduce the danger they may pose to others”.

A congestion charge and other measures to curb carbon emissions in Norwich are to be put to a public consultation.

The Transport for Norwich joint committee discussed the idea as part of a transport strategy for the city.
Other suggestions included workplace parking levies and banning certain vehicles from the city centre.
Lib Dem county councillor Brian Watkin stressed the need for balance between achieving the zero-carbon target and economic growth.
“We’ve got to try to move away from single-car occupancy, particularly at peak hour times,” he said.
“That will involve behavioural change and it will only happen if public transport is good, frequent and reliable.”

Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, has intervened to pause work on up to 69 bridges across Britain after mounting anger over the programme.

Highways England, the government-owned roads company, has identified bridges it claims are at risk of collapse, saying that the structures need to be infilled to protect the public.
However, heritage campaigners have opposed the move, insisting that most bridges are in good working order and many are on disused lines that are earmarked as future cycling and walking routes. Some could even be reopened as full passenger railways and blocking them off will ruin future plans, it is claimed.
They fear that the policy is being pushed purely because Highways England no longer wants to be liable for the structures.
Anger mounted after tonnes of concrete were poured beneath a bridge at Great Musgrave near Warcop, Cumbria, with the work being criticised as “vandalism”. Campaigners claimed that it would have cost only £5,000 to repair it.

Future generations will look back on the climate events of 2021 and say: “That was the year they ran out of excuses.”
Heatwaves and flooding here in the UK, temperatures topping 50C in Pakistan, hundreds killed by a heatwave in British Columbia, deadly floods in Germany and China. All within a single month. Add to that the recent dire warning from the Met Office that the age of extreme weather has just begun.
The wake-up call that this offers is not just the obvious one: that climate breakdown is already here. It also illustrates that we, in this generation, are in a unique position in the history of this crisis. Climate breakdown can no longer be plausibly denied as a threat etched only in the future. And all too soon, avoiding it may be a luxury lost to the past. The window to avoid catastrophe is closing with every passing day. We’re in the decisive decade in this fight, and we must treat the climate crisis as an issue that stands alone in the combination of its urgency and the shadow it casts over future generations.

Stonehenge campaigners are celebrating victory after a judge ruled that Government planning approval granted to a £1.7 billion road and tunnel development at the sacred site was unlawful.
The finding by High Court Judge Hon. Mr Justice Holgate followed a judicial review of transport secretary Grant Shapps’ consent to the scheme last November against the recommendation of planning officials. The legal challenge was brought by Save Stonehenge World Heritage Site (SSWHS), which is part of campaign group the Stonehenge Alliance.  

5 days ago
Sadiq Khan’s party has urged him to halt construction of a new road tunnel in London that campaigners say will make it impossible to meet climate targets.
In an overwhelming vote at the London Labour regional conference on Saturday delegates called for the Silvertown Tunnel to be scrapped by 74 per cent to 26%.
The twin-bore road tunnel under the Thames is planned to link Silvertown to the Greenwich peninsula, with an expected opening date of 2025.
Transport for London says it will reduce congestion in the nearby Blackwall Tunnel but environmentalists say it will induce more demand and lead to worsening air quality and car dependency.
Experts have warned that that project is incompatible with Mr Khan’s rhetoric on climate change. It is opposed by the Green Party, Liberal Democrats, some Conservatives, and many of Labour’s own MPs and mayors.
Delegates at the conference, where Mr Khan spoke, approved a motion calling on the mayor to “cancel this project” on the basis that “evidence shows the tunnel would worsen air pollution, traffic congestion, carbon emissions and is also financially unviable”.