David Graeber and David Wengrow https://www.eurozine.com/change-course-human-history/ The story we have been telling ourselves about our origins is wrong, and perpetuates the idea of inevitable social inequality. David Graeber and David Wengrow ask why the myth of ‘agricultural revolution’ remains so persistent, and argue that there is a whole lot more we can learn from our ancestors. Quite independently, archaeological evidence …
The Frustration with Productivity Culture: Why we’re so tired of optimizing our work lives, by Cal Newport
In 1999, the management theorist Peter Drucker noted that the productivity of the manual worker had grown fiftyfold during the last century. “On this achievement rest all of the economic and social gains of the 20th century,” Drucker concluded. In other words, the increase in productivity is why today most Americans own a smartphone, while a century ago they didn’t have indoor plumbing. By Cal …
Riding a Bike Has One-Tenth the Impact of an Electric Car: A full life-cycle analysis shows that EVs still have a significant carbon footprint
By Lloyd Alter, March 31, 2021, Fact checked by Haley Mast A recent study with the unexciting title The Climate Change Mitigation Effects of Daily Active Travel in Cities comes to the unsurprising conclusion that “cyclists had 84% lower CO2 emissions from all daily travel than non-cyclists.”1 The lead researcher, Christian Brand, jazzed it up a bit in his summary in The Conversation, …
Democrats Seek $500 Billion in Climate Damages From Big Polluting Companies
Under a draft plan Democrats are circulating, the Treasury Department would tax a handful of the biggest emitters of planet-warming pollution to pay for climate change. By Lisa Friedman, NYTimes, Aug. 4, 2021 WASHINGTON — Democrats in Congress want to tax Exxon, Chevron and a handful of other major oil and gas companies, saying the biggest climate polluters should pay for …
Biden’s Climate Pledge and EV plan: Details, drama and doubts
By David Iaconangelo | 08/06/2021 E&E News President Biden delivering remarks at the White House yesterday on the administration’s efforts to boost electric cars and trucks. Win McNamee/Getty Images President Biden presented his vision yesterday for putting electric vehicles at the heart of the U.S. car industry, but some policy experts said that the target would do little to transform the industry (hybrid …
Renewables are getting cheaper, but taking these fossil fuels (common resources) out of the ground and selling them is still more lucrative. We’ll need radical intervention, as big oil companies are driven by profit and won’t decarbonize by themselves.
Comment: Big oil companies are driven by profit – they won’t turn green by themselves by Brett Christophers, The Guardian. May 26, 2021 Tue 25 May 2021 551 Last week, the International Energy Agency (IEA), the world’s leading energy authority, laid bare the scale of the challenge in keeping the world on track to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050: a massive acceleration …
FHWA Air Quality, Sustainable Transportation and Resilience Team, also EDC: Safe Transportation for Every Pedestrian
FHWA Headquarters Air Quality and Transportation Conformity Team Cecilia Ho, Cecilia.Ho@dot.gov (202) 366-9862, Team Leader Edward Dancausse, Edward.Dancausse@dot.gov (919) 747-7026 Mark Glaze, Mark.Glaze@dot.gov (202) 366-4053 David Kall, David.Kall@dot.gov (202) 366-6276 Victoria Martinez, Victoria.Martinez@dot.gov (787) 771-2524 Karen Perritt, Karen.Perritt@dot.gov (202) 366-9066 Aileen Varela-Margolles, a.varela-margolles@dot.gov, (305) 978-7780, noise specialist FHWA Headquarters Sustainable Transportation and Resilience Team Mike Culp, Michael.Culp@dot.gov, (202) 366-9229, Team Leader John Davies, JohnG.Davies@dot.gov, (202) 366-6039 Elizabeth Habic, Elizabeth.Habic@dot.gov, (202) 366-1701 Connie Hill Galloway, Connie.Hill@dot.gov, (804) 775-3378 …
Shared Mobility update Feb 2021
The failure of “free market” energy that has many considering the benefits of sustainable alternatives from decentralized microgrids and community solar fields to rural electric co-operatives. New York’s MTA may be applauding its own efforts in accessibility improvements for the city’s transit network, but advocates and transit leaders think they’ve stopped far short of following through with ADA recommendations. LA …
Results show that interventions that focus on social, cultural, and moral norms have the most significant effect on travel behavior
“Dear diary, I took the bus today!” – Cost-efficient travel behavior influencers, June 15th, 2020 By Saumya Jain “Soft” transportation policy measures can influence a significant reduction in personal car use, according to a new research published in Transportation Research Part D. The Behavioral Toolkit identifies six psychological variables that can affect travel behavior: attitudes; emotions; habits; social, cultural, and moral norms; knowledge and awareness; …