An Outside Chance

Colour in the eye of the beholder

Photo Post The marshes are a sea of green, wild and garden flowers are coming into bloom, and one 24-hour period this week saw a burst of nesting activity by the Snapping Turtles. Notwithstanding all the vivid hues, the tranquility of many midsummer days comes across beautifully in photos of minimal colour. In our … Read More

light lines

PHOTO POST Bright light and shadows run through this week’s post, with photos from garden and forest, marsh and lakeshore. This Mullein plant, lit from the other side by early morning sunlight, grows just beneath a bird feeder. The spot is a favourite hangout for squirrels, who encourage the Blue Jays to spill as … Read More

Kings of the Yukon: a travel story as deep and wide as the great river

Also published at Resilience.org. It’s a simple truth: the slower you travel the more you see. This was impressed on me in the summer of 1988, as I traveled through the Yukon Territory at the frenetic pace of a bicycle tourist. Where the highway occasionally crossed the Yukon River, I sometimes shared campsites with a … Read More

The edge of summer

PHOTO POST While a few migratory birds are still stopping by on their way to nesting grounds far to the north, some resident birds have already hatched big broods. Meanwhile woodland flowers are hurrying to develop before the leafy canopies above cast a blanket of shade. A few days ago a pair of Dunlins paid … Read More

Don’t blink, you’ll miss it

PHOTO POST Spring is a long time coming this year, especially along the lakeshore – so we can expect it may give way to summer in a great rush. In the marsh the vegetation looks brown and dry – but a muskrat can still find a fresh green salad, simply by uprooting a cattail. Underneath … Read More

First principles for sustainable and equitable transportation

A review of Beyond Mobility Also published at Resilience.org. Subway systems, trams, Bus-Rapid-Transit, high-speed trains, cars – these can all play useful roles in well-designed transportation systems. But we must not forget what still is and what should remain the world’s most important transportation method: walking. That is one of the key messages of Beyond … Read More

The mobility maze

Also published at Resilience.org. Mobility is good, so more mobility is better, right? If only it were so simple. Mobility, after all, is generally less important to people than accessibility. When we go somewhere it’s not the movement that’s valuable, it’s the access to something – a school, shopping, a workplace, a friend’s house or … Read More

A measured response to surveillance capitalism

Also published at Resilience.org. A flood of recent analysis discusses the abuse of personal information by internet giants such as Facebook and Google. Some of these articles zero in on the basic business models of Facebook, and occasionally Google, as inherently deceptive and unethical. But I have yet to see a proposal for any type … Read More

3 cheers for A2Bism: a review of ‘Copenhagenize’

Also published at Resilience.org. How do we get beyond the dependency-inducing trap of car culture? After 100 years in which auto-oriented infrastructure has dominated public works spending and reshaped civic life, how can we make our streets safe and healthy spaces? These questions were suggested in discussion with a reader following my last post, Speeding … Read More

Speeding down a dead end road

Also published at Resilience.org. Since the birth of car culture more than a century ago, lavish consumption of energy has not been a bug but a feature. That’s now a feature we can ill afford, as we attempt the difficult and urgent task of transition to renewable energies. Notwithstanding all the superlatives lavished on Elon … Read More