As usual in Canada, we’re rather behind the curve when it comes to active transportation, but at some point we’ll catch up — and this innovation will catch on.
Brigitte Pellerin Jul 05, 2021
Here’s a fun question to start your summer the right way: Do you believe we should make it easier for people to be happy and safe when they move around town, especially in the busier areas closer to the core? And how much do we want to reduce traffic and carbon emissions while we’re at it? A lot, right?
‘Ocean on fire’: Flames erupt in Gulf of Mexico after gas pipeline ruptures (video) | The Independent
12 hours ago
Footage of the fire – appearing to boil the ocean’s surface with bright orange flames – went viral on 2 July before the fire was extinguished roughly 150 yards from a drilling platform in Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, the company reported.
The company said that “no injuries or evacuations are reported.”
Pemex reported a leak at 5:15am on Friday in the submarine pipeline near its Ku-Maloob-Zaap’s Ku-C satellite platform in the Campeche Sound.
Leo Murray on Ealing Councillors failure to act on multiple environmental crises – Twitter (thread)
Replying to Leo Murray @crisortunity This thread will have a go at explaining why, and what @_petermason and @EalingCouncil would do instead if they actually cared about the multiple environmental crises bearing down on us, or had any intention of doing anything about them. I’ll try to keep it positive. Sigh 2/
Nowhere is safe, say scientists as extreme heat causes chaos in US and Canada | The Guardian
Matthew Taylor and Leyland Secco
The devastating “heat dome” has caused temperatures to rise to almost 50C in Canada and has been linked to hundreds of deaths, melted power lines, buckled roads and wildfires.
Experts say that as the climate crisis pushes global temperatures higher, all societies – from northern Siberia to Europe, Asia to Australia – must prepare for more extreme weather events.
Sir David King, the former UK chief scientific adviser, said: “Nowhere is safe … who would have predicted a temperature of 48/49C in British Columbia?”
A sale every 3 minutes: Electric bikes outsell electric cars in UK during 2020 – Cycle Industry News
Mark Sutton24 June, 2021
Electric bike sales outstripped sales of electric cars in 2020, according to an annual review of the market presented by the Bicycle Association today.
Revealing that 160,000 electric bikes were sold in extraordinary conditions last year, the recap on the year reveals that one e-bike sold every three minutes. Electric cars tallied 108,000 sales with a subsidy to buy attached.
Utilising its Market Data Service, which pools anonymised retail sales data, the BA has forecast that the trend is only just warming; a forecast to triple sales is now outlined in just three years.
As part of this trend, electric cargo bikes are identified as one area that stand to grow in the face of fast growing van mileage; a 30% contributor to NOx and particulate emissions. Bike shops, possibly due to the space burden of stock, are not committing big as yet – 8% will invest more in 2021 than previously, according to CI.N’s market report. The BA assisted in the Government in the creation of a £2 million eCargoBike Grant scheme, designed to give businesses the chance to buy in for business use.
The Guardian view on getting to net zero: the crunch is coming | Editorial | The Guardian
Sun 27 Jun 2021
Targets are all very well. But not if there is no way of reaching them. In which case, they are a sham. This is the problem now confronting the government. The UK’s stated goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 78% by 2035 compared with 1990 levels is very ambitious. “Remarkable” was the word used last week by Lord Deben (the former Conservative environment secretary John Gummer). He chairs the climate change committee (CCC) that advises the government. Its latest reports make an unflattering contrast between impressive aims and the absence of plans to meet them.
/The impact of Covid on transport has been tumultuous and requires addressing in a number of ways if increased pollution from road traffic is to be avoided. The Labour-led Welsh government struck the right note last week with a promise to freeze all road-building plans. The UK government’s £27bn plans for new roads must now be revised, while London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, should follow Wales’s example by cancelling plans for a new tunnel under the Thames. Higher taxes on flying are unpopular, but necessary if people are to be persuaded to use trains instead. Meat consumption must be reduced.
The scientists hired by big oil who predicted the climate crisis long ago | The Guardian
As early as 1958, the oil industry was hiring scientists and engineers to research the role that burning fossil fuels plays in global warming. The goal at the time was to help the major oil conglomerates understand how changes in the Earth’s atmosphere may affect the industry – and their bottom line. But what top executives gained was an early preview of the climate crisis, decades before the issue reached public consciousness.What those scientists discovered – and what the oil companies did with that information – is at the heart of two dozen lawsuits attempting to hold the fossil fuel industry responsible for their role in climate change. Many of those cases hinge on the industry’s own internal documents that show how, 40 years ago, researchers predicted the rising global temperatures with stunning accuracy. But looking back, many of those same scientists say they were hardly whistleblowers out to take down big oil.
UK lags behind Europe in cutting road deaths – transportxtra
Deniz Huseyin 29 June 2021
The UK has one of the worst records in Europe for reducing road deaths, according to a report by the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC). Road deaths in the UK fell by 14% in 2020 compared with 2010, making it the second worst country for progress after the Netherlands, which saw a 5% decrease over the 10-year period.
The report reveals that 18,844 people lost their lives in road traffic in the EU in 2020, 10,847 fewer than in 2010, representing a 37% decrease.
Housing developer puts e-Bikes at “heart of masterplan” in deal with Orbea – Cycling Industry News
Mark Sutton21 June, 2021
Welsh government suspends all future road-building plans | The Guardian
Deputy minister for climate change announces move as part of plans to reach net zero emissions by 2050
Steven Morris
The Labour-led Welsh government is freezing new road-building projects as part of its plans to tackle the climate emergency, and an external panel will review all proposed schemes.
The deputy minister for climate change, Lee Waters, told the Welsh parliament on Tuesday: “Since 1990, Welsh emissions have fallen by 31%. But to reach our statutory target of net zero emissions by 2050, we need to do much more.
“In the next 10 years, we are going to need to more than double all the cuts we have managed over the last 30 years if we are going to keep temperature rises within safe limits. That means changes in all parts of our lives. Transport makes up some 17% of our total emissions and so must play its part.
“We need a shift away from spending money on projects that encourage more people to drive, and spend more money on maintaining our roads and investing in real alternatives that give people a meaningful choice.”