miscellaneous

What we learned this week

New Zealand has declared a climate emergency and that the government will try to get its own emissions to net zero by 2025. (It got less coverage, but Japan declared a climate emergency a couple of weeks ago too.) These are symbolic of course, but they are also a powerful statement of intent.

How adding seaweed to cattle feed can reduce emissions. The easiest way to reduce beef emissions is to reduce beef consumption of course, but this is useful too.

I learn from the Spokesmen Cycling Podcast that cargo bikes move 3.5 kph faster than vans in central London, making them a faster way to make local deliveries as well as a cleaner one.

“Rich countries have disproportionate influence when it comes to setting the rules of international trade and finance” writes Jason Hickel, highlighting the colonial influences in the IMF and World Bank.

Have you seen the front cover of The Economist this week? ‘Making coal history’ is the cover story.

I gave a talk last week on climate, race and privilege, for my friends at Christian Climate Action. With apologies for the quality of the Zoom recording, here it is. If people find this useful, I might try and record a better version.

This week’s post in case you missed them:

LATEST POSTS

What we learned this week

An interesting development in the story of nuclear fusion – Microsoft have agreed a power purchase agreement with a fusion energy company. A gamble of course, but if it pays off it will make commercial fusion power a reality by 2028. If fossil fuel companies had to pay reparations for the damage they have done…

Community solar on the Bottle Yard Studios

I haven’t done many ‘building of the week’ posts recently – apologies to those who love a bit of green architecture. Here’s one that might qualify, although it’s also about community solar and sustainable business. The Bottle Yard is so called because its main site used to be the bottling plant for Harvey’s Bristol Cream…

The moral outrage of climate change

in his book The Flag, the Cross and the Station Wagon, Bill McKibben describes an experience in Bangaldesh. There was an outbreak of Dengue fever in the capital, Dhaka. Dengue is a mosquito-borne disease that benefits from the warmer and wetter conditions that climate change is creating in places like Bangladesh, and so cases of…

Saving materials with universal batteries

At the weekend I went to assemble a new picnic bench for the garden and found that my drill has bitten the dust. The battery no longer holds a charge, and I borrowed a drill from my neighbour to finish the job. I noticed that his drill is part of the Power for All Alliance,…

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2 comments

  1. Yes indeed on e-bikes point: it reminds me of this: https://www.eav.solutions
    I saw an independent write up(s) of these people; I think major logisics firms are seriously interested because they have major advantages for ‘last mile’ delivery, which is the area logicstics firms are finding hard to crack (both economics and sustainability I think). Our ‘pipe dream’ for Chipping Norton is to have a ‘community last mile delivery depot’ run as a COMMUNITY social enterprise, using bikes like these.

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