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

Picturing where microplastics come from

Here’s an image I came across on social media recently that I found useful. Yes really, something useful on social media. That doesn’t happen often anymore, though I should point out that it was LinkedIn, which used to be the most boring and staid of all social media platforms and now feels like the only…

Osmosis, the other other renewable energy

I’ve been writing about renewable energy for twenty years, and just this week discovered that there’s a whole other kind that I didn’t know about. This is the climate nerd equivalent of my daughter finding a new Pokemon. Usually when we’re talking about renewable energy, it’s wind and solar that come to mind. Biomass is…

Easy energy comparisons

Back when the climate movement was young, we got a lot of tips for cutting carbon with very little context around them. My personal favourite was at LiveEarth, where celebrities offered their favourite eco actions. One of them was to switch off your phone charger at the wall when you’re done. This was recommended to…

It’s not solar that competes with farmland

One of the big hesitations around solar farms is that they take up land that could be used for food production. It’s an argument that’s made by climate sceptics who oppose renewable energy, but those on the green side of the equation worry about it too. My response has always been that if you’re displacing…

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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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