News from Elsewhere

Beryl bikes and e-bikes will be available to rent using a smartphone app. The bikes will be located in designated parking zones across the two cities and on the Isle of Wight, with increasing numbers of bikes and e-bikes available after an initial launch period.

Portsmouth City Council and Solent Transport will introduce a Department for Transport-funded bicycle and e-bike rental scheme this summer. Southampton City Council and Isle of Wight Council will also join the scheme, with Beryl as the approved supplier for the Solent region.

Motorcars have enormous benefits for those driving them: extra speed, extra safety, and an easy way to lug possessions around. Many also love driving. But, when moving, they make roadways dangerous, loud, and polluted for other would-be users, to the point these potential users have been all but driven off. When parked, they take up valuable urban space.

16 April Matt McGrath

A key finding in the latest IPCC climate report has been widely misinterpreted, according to scientists involved in the study.
In the document, researchers wrote that greenhouse gases are projected to peak “at the latest before 2025”.
This implies that carbon could increase for another three years and the world could still avoid dangerous warming.
But scientists say that’s incorrect and that emissions need to fall immediately.
The IPCC’s most recent report focused on how to limit or curtail emissions of the gases that are the root cause of warming.
In their summary for policymakers, the scientists said it was still possible to avoid the most dangerous levels of warming by keeping the rise in global temperatures under 1.5C this century.
This will take a herculean effort, with carbon emissions needing to shrink by 43% by the end of this decade to stay under this threshold of danger.

When farmer James Baird read of Isabella Tree’s vision for rewilded land stretching from her Sussex estate all the way to the sea at Shoreham, he phoned up Tree and her husband, Charlie Burrell, and told them: “You’re going to the wrong bit of coast – I’ve got the last bit.”
Now Baird, a self-described “hard-nosed arable farmer” who owns virtually the last slice of undeveloped West Sussex coast at Climping Gap, the other side of Worthing to Shoreham, is the driving force behind the creation of a wildlife-rich green corridor linking the rewilded Knepp estate to the sea.
The Weald to Waves project aims to create at least 10,000 hectares (24,710 acres) of nature-friendly land in corridors running from the rolling hills of the Weald down the valleys of the Rivers Arun and Adur to boost biodiversity on land and in the sea.

More than 40 houses were destroyed by fires on Britain’s hottest day. Now there are calls for an urgent rethink on building safety laws

James Tapper
Fires that burned in several parts of the UK last week spread in the same way as those that led to the great fire of London and would have been far worse with stronger winds, a fire expert has said.
Fires in Wennington, Uxbridge and Erith destroyed 41 properties last Tuesday, when temperatures went above 40C to make it the hottest day on record in the UK, and fire services had their busiest day since the second world war.
Guillermo Rein, professor of fire science at Imperial College London, said that strong winds played a major factor in spreading the 1666 fire, which lasted for four days and ended when soldiers blew up houses to create fire breaks, and the strong easterly wind died down.

In collaboration with University of Westminster’s Active Travel Academy, we have published a report detailing:
• The problems experienced by disabled people in our cities. 

• The impacts of the low-car transition on disabled people.

• Pathways to achieving an inclusive low-car city.

With transport accounting for 27% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions, a transition away from mass private car ownership in cities is needed to tackle the climate crisis. Creating these low-car futures must be a process which actively involves disabled people in order to best overcome the daily challenges and barriers they face.

Just Stop Oil protestors forcing sections of the M25 to close on the day. Record breaking temperatures the day before. The stage was set for my presentation.
It can be challenging to know your audience but my job was to situate road transport and future investment in the context of climate change. I took an early straw poll in the room – how many answered ‘yes’ to the title question? Most if not all in the room. Phew. But am I now the mad guy trying to remind people the house is on fire, or will I be well-received with open, concerned minds? That I can’t share here. But let’s press on with what I had to say.