Mark Sutton6 August, 2021A new body of research conducted by Westminster’s Active Travel Academy, with support from climate orgs the KR Foundation and WeArePossible has shown cargo bike delivery to have significant potential for unlocking congestion and city spaces, saving businesses time and money, but also contributing a surprising amount to reducing co2 emissions.
New York air quality among worst in world as haze from western wildfires shrouds city | The Guardian
Oliver Milman
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.
Tyre Fire Video (No Information confirmed – Kuwait ?) – Extinction Symbol (Twitter)
(Possibly Spain, but more likely to be Kuwait:
eg. Oct 23, 2020 Huge fire at Kuwait’s tyre site visible from space SE}
Walking and prioritised in new Highway Code – BBC News
1 day ago By Joseph Lee
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”.
Norwich considers introducing a congestion charge – BBC News
BBC News 2 days ago
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.”
Disused railway bridges to be saved after outcry | The Times
Friday July 30 2021
Plans to block dozens of bridges on disused railway lines will be suspended under proposals to reopen the routes for cyclists and walkers, it emerged today.
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.
Our biggest enemy is no longer climate denial but climate delay | Ed Miliband | The Guardian
Ed Miliband
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 Safe as Judge Rules Road and Tunnel Development Unlawful — Sacred Earth Activism
Christa MackinnonJul 30
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.
Sadiq Khan’s party tells him to halt ‘polluting’ Silvertown Tunnel in overwhelming vote | The Independent
London Labour’s regional conference passes motion calling on Mayor to cancel PFI project
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”.
1.5 Degree Lifestyles | Aalto University
If the world is to keep climate change at manageable levels before the middle of the century, changes in lifestyles are not only inevitable, but would need to be radical, and start immediately. Considering current consumption levels, citizens in many developed countries would have to cut their lifestyle carbon footprints by about 80-90% or more, and some in developing countries by about 30-80% within the next 30 years. This is one of the key messages coming from the report “1.5-Degree Lifestyles: Targets and options for reducing lifestyle carbon footprints,” just launched by a group of experts from an international consortium of research and policy institutes.