“I’m wondering if something subliminal has happened after reading Bicycling Monterey. I’ve been riding the Rock Island Greenway Trail for the last week and a half. Just a wonderful and beautiful ride! It’s not Monterey, California, but a real gem for Peoria, Illinois.”—Richard Coers
The idea that you can have transit extend the range of walking distance without embracing bikes as a transportation utility, in the sprawling american suburbs, is just delusional. But it's the delusion that most of our city budgets and plans are built on. Biking in Portland is faster than walking+transit for most values of A to B but I can nearly guarantee you need to elbow your way through car traffic somewhere on that trip. Land use and transit need bikes for glue.
@pleaseclap there's actually a lot of good reasons beyond #ClimateChange and #CarbonEmissions for cities to invest in bikes as #transportation, geometrically the #HousingCrisis needs more density because multi-level streets for cars are extraordinarily expensive and we've maxed out the drive-and-park model that much of the US grew and developed under. #GeometryHatesCars so the only way out of traffic #congestion, also solves #AirPollution, #VisionZero is viable alternatives to driving, is bikes
Really important article here about how big oil companies, including ExxonMobil, knew plastic recycling was BS since the'70s, but kept pushing the lie anyway.
"New research by the Center for Climate Integrity reveals that the plastics industry knew this plastic waste crisis was coming. And so petrochemical manufacturers worked hard to persuade the public that we could recycle our way out of the problem."
"Twenty petrochemical companies generate more than half of all the world’s single-use plastics. They include major oil and gas companies such as ExxonMobil, the world’s leading producer of single-use plastic waste.
...
"Behind the scenes, however, they were admitting all along that such efforts were “virtually hopeless.” For more than 40 years, they knew that plastic recycling is not technically or economically feasible at scale. More than 90 percent of all plastic has ended up in landfills, ecosystems, or incinerators.
...
"Since the 1970s, these companies, their trade associations, and their front groups promoted recycling “solutions” using misleading advertising, inaccurate educational materials, performative investments, and commitments that they knew they were unlikely to meet.
...
"Internal documents reveal that the industry knew by 1986, for example, that “recycling cannot be considered a permanent solid waste solution [to plastics], as it merely prolongs the time until an item is disposed of.” In 1994, an Exxon employee warned staffers at the American Plastics Council that they did not “want paper floating around” saying they could not meet recycling goals, since the issue was “highly sensitive politically.” These compelling admissions and many more are grounds for a thorough investigation.
...
"Plastics are a product made from fossil fuels. As the world moves away from fossil fuels in a race to avert climate catastrophe, journalists have shined a light on how oil companies promote recycling, in part because plastics are their 'Plan B.'"
These days, the CEO of ExxonMobil likes to gaslight the public and blame activists:
"Frankly, society, and the activist—the dominant voice in this discussion—has tried to exclude the industry that has the most capacity and the highest potential for helping with some of the technologies."
Well, these same companies knew about the problems with toxic fossil fuel pollution since the 1970s. That's both greenhouse gas and microplastic pollution.
And they deliberately and knowingly lied to delay action.
When user experience meets climate impact awareness:
🐙 Octopus Energy is using the browser battery API to let me know about high carbon emissions and suggest I stop charging my phone.
One thing that keeps getting ignored in the debates about getting farming businesses to pay for their #CarbonEmissions - like all other businesses have to - is that farmers aren't obliged to emit fucktons of carbon.
There are farmers whose operations emit far less than the average. We're not trying to "punish" farmers, we're trying to help fund the cost of helping them adopt lower-carbon #farming methods, and build an incentive to do so into their finances, instead of just obliging them by law.
To users of #ActiveTransportation in #MontereyCounty — or visitors or residents who'd like to, IF ONLY the infrastructure were safer and more convenient:
Letters of support sent by Jan 16 to Todd Muck at Transportation Agency for Monterey County can strengthen TAMC's grant proposal to #Caltrans. Email your letter to Todd; questions can be directed to Janneke Strause. https://www.tamcmonterey.org/staff
"The #oceans absorb 90% of the heat trapped by the #CarbonEmissions from the burning of fossil fuels, making it the clearest indicator of global heating.
The ocean surface temperatures in 2023 were “off the charts”, the researchers said. The primary cause was another year of record carbon emissions, assisted by El Niño. Over the whole year, the average temperature was 0.1C above 2022, but in the second half of 2023 the temperature was an “astounding” 0.3C higher."
Appreciating that the home heating bill will likely drop this winter because of this hat! Don't want to take it off, even indoors.
It was a gift from family this week, and it's super soft, warm, and so comfortable. And the craftsmanship — #indigenous made in #Canada, Skukum Designs by Carol Young — is supreme.
I maintain that trying to live as sustainably as possible is important for my sanity, but reading about yachts that emit more than a small African country does make carrying your own cutlery and using ecological laundry detergent feel a bit futile.
Carbon pricing would raise trillions needed to tackle #climate crisis, says #IMF
"Diverting the trillions of dollars by which the world subsidises #FossilFuel production each year, and putting an implicit price on #CarbonEmissions, would generate the vast amounts of cash needed to tackle the climate crisis, the head of the International Monetary Fund has said."