An Outside Chance

First principles for sustainable and equitable transportation

A review of Beyond Mobility 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 Mobility: Planning Cities for … 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

An enthusiastic embrace of a mysterious planet

Also published at Resilience.org. Let’s face it, most of us don’t love the environment most of the time. More often than not, the environment is too cold, too hot, too buggy, too dry or too wet, and we try to keep it safely on the far side of a window or a TV screen. Bicycle … Read More

Acoustic conditions, conservation planning, and the St. Marys mine

How much external noise can you add to a wetland environment before the wildlife inhabitants really start to suffer? Relatively little scientific research appears to have been conducted on this subject. Yet an understanding of cumulative noise pollution is essential to properly assessing the long-term impact of the proposed St. Marys Cement under-the-lake mine south … Read More

A fascinating, flawed look at limits

A review of The Wizard and The Prophet Also published at Resilience.org. Charles C. Mann has written consecutive bestsellers of popular history writ large. His 1491 surveyed the civilizations of the pre-Columbian Americas, while 1493 looked at how post-Columbian America has affected the whole world. The Wizard and the Prophet at first glance shows Mann … Read More

what goes up

When you live beside a wide-open lake, you can’t really tell yourself “It’s a dry cold.” Even on Tuesday morning, with the temperature at –17°C, plenty of moisture rose from the warm waters and condensed on any handy object – tiny dust particles in the air, for example, or leaves and stems in the waterfront … Read More

The climate revolution: a manual for head, hands and heart

Also published at Resilience.org. How many people in North America and Europe have known for at least 15 years that climate change is dangerous, that it is caused mostly by our burning of fossil fuels, and that we must drastically reduce our fossil fuel consumption? That would be most of us. And how many of … Read More