Paul Brownjohn @Paulos_the_fog@social.cleverlibre.org

Dr. Christian Brand from the University of Oxford, a contributor to The Climate Book, offers some positive ideas about the future of "active travel."
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Focusing solely on electric vehicles and technology that is not proven at scale is actually slowing down the path to zero emissions — it diverts resources and political will away from other solutions. In reality, if we are to meet the decarbonization targets of the Paris Agreement by 2050, we also need to focus on the movement of people and goods — and look at introducing traffic reduction targets.

Only by curbing all motorized transport, particularly private cars, as quickly as possible can we tackle the climate and air pollution crises — or so my colleague and friend Jillian Anable and I argue in a chapter of Greta Thunberg's recently published The Climate Book.

Transport is one of the most challenging sectors to decarbonize because of its heavy fossil fuel use and reliance on carbon-intensive infrastructure — such as roads, airports and the vehicles themselves—and the way it embeds car-dependent lifestyles. One way to reduce transport emissions relatively quickly, and potentially globally, is to swap cars for cycling, e-biking and walking — active travel, as it is called.

As many as 50% of car journeys are of less than five km and could easily be replaced by active travel. Electric bikes increase this range to 10 km or more. They have become more popular over the past few years as prices have come down. These bikes allow older people to cycle and help riders cycle in hilly areas. But they still provide physical activity. They could be the answer to our commuting problems.

In our own research, we have shown that people who walk, cycle or use e-bikes have lower carbon footprints from all their daily travel, including in cities where lots of people are already doing this. Strikingly, the carbon footprint for daily travel is up to 84% smaller for people who walk or cycle than for people who use other modes of transport. Emissions from cycling can be more than 30 times lower for each trip than driving a fossil fuel car, and about ten times lower than driving an electric one.
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FULL ARTICLE -- https://phys.org/news/2022-11-expert-comment-future-electric-fast.html

GET THE BOOK -- https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/709837/the-climate-book-by-greta-thunberg/

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateAction #Pollution #Bike #WarOnCars #BanCars

Properly jaw-dropping moment this evening: an e-mail from my US publisher saying that "since it's a science book", they'll publish Blue Machine WITH METRIC UNITS. So I don't have to convert everything to foot pounds per square elephant. In YEARS of writing for the US, this is the first time I have ever had a hint that there is a world outside feet and inches. Progress! #Books #Metric #Science

Solidarity with all striking workers this week ✊

If you are inconvenienced by industrial action, remember to blame the bosses not the workers. If people had proper pay and working conditions there wouldn’t be a need to strike in the first place.

#strikes #strike #StrikingWorkers #EnoughIsEnough #IndustrialAction #TUC #Drawing #Illustration #TheRaggedTrouseredPhilanthropists

#PrivateEye #ToonDrop #Cartoons #BillTidy

@AuldFoggerty I live in Germany and there is a similar scheme here for deposits on plastic bottles and cans. If I drive 20 minutes down the road to the Netherlands they have their own scheme even though both countries are within the EU Single Market.

Now, whilst I would agree that having a single scheme would be beneficial, there is absolutely no problem in the two countries operating their own bottle return systems.

This action serves only one purpose: to undermine the Scottish Parliament.

1776-1933 - major bank crisis every 10 years

1930s - FDR bank rules enacted

1930s-1980s - no major crisis

1980s - rules rolled back

1980s-2010 - major crisis every 10 years

2010 - Dodd-Frank rules enacted

2010-2018 - no major crisis

2018 - rules rolled back

2023 - crisis?

It’s wild that during Reagan’s presidency everyone watched the first generation of families that required two incomes to survive and we had to come up with terms for us kids left alone at home but Reagan isn’t seen as the guy that drove the death of the middle class in America to enrich the wealthy when he clearly accomplished that.

🎨 Gary Lineker sees red as ref misses off-the-ball incident - NationalWorld cartoon

Suella Braverman and Rishi Sunak's attack on asylum seekers went unnoticed as the Match of the Day host was sent for an early bath...

#UK #News #Politics #GaryLineker #MatchOfTheDay #SuellaBraverman

Ok now that Lineker and the BBC have sorted out their differences, can we talk about the Government’s new Immigration Bill which is reminiscent of the laws of 1930s Germany?

#ToryFascism
#ImmigrationBill #BravermanIsAFacist

Red Squirrels Boycott BBC over Attenborough Censorship

Reports are appearing in the Hundred Acre Wood media that red squirrels are refusing to appear in any more BBC wild life documentaries in response to an episode of David Attenborough's latest series The Wild Isles being dropped.

Leader Squirrel Nutkin said "F**k the Tory b*****ds."

#Attenborough #BBC #censorship #wild isles

You know it's a crazy day when #SkySports are the ones offering perspective on the #GaryLineker

#KavehSolhekol absolutely eviscerated the #BBC in this little segment.

The size and intrusiveness of the state surveillance apparatus required to enforce abortion bans will be truly horrifying. The Patriot Act will look like mild, inoffensive snooping by comparison.

The government will monitor mail, phone calls, text messages, internet searches, —everything.

All courtesy of the party that claims to love freedom.

I look forward to the day when people are free of theocratic fascism and the GOP.

https://www.texastribune.org/2023/03/10/texas-abortion-lawsuit/