Replacing fossil fuel cars with electric cars is not the solution to our climate woes, we need way way fewer cars. However, those that do get replaced could have benefits beyond emission reductions, like plugging back into the power grid and acting like mini power plants.
Sometimes, making a difference doesn’t require a huge budget, new technology, or incredible innovation. Sometimes you just need to notice a need and look at existing services and equipment. This is what happened and is still being perfected in suburbs of Seattle, with the creation of specific bus routes to get people from various neighbourhoods to mountain trails, where they can enjoy nature and get some exercise. When you think about it, it’s pretty obvious that it’s a kind of service that should exist elsewhere, and that “transit agencies need to ensure that whatever their limitations, people can access public lands with public resources like transit.”
There are a lot of ways in which people frame a reaction to the climate crisis: building a circular economy, becoming more resilient, more sustainable, greener, etc. Often, whether from the start or through influence by various vested interests, the discourse and action or even potential actions are pulled towards consumerism. For example the original idea of sustainability is a great one, but sustaining what? When the concept is pulled towards sustaining the same lifestyle, just slightly less damageable, it becomes a delaying tactic, not a way forward.
Such a beautiful project, and with unusual partners. The US Forestry Service, whose mission is conservation, worked with social enterprise Humanim and furniture retailer Room & Board to put together a process of deconstruction of empty houses, rather than demolition, addressing a grave problem in Baltimore.
At the height of lockdowns around the world, a number of people moved to smaller cities or villages, in some cases simply to find more space, in others to move back with parents or in cheaper places. Some had the privilege of a second home, while others moved ‘for good.’ Such a movement happened in Italy, temporarily revitalizing some long suffering and shrinking villages. Now there are new villagers, mayors, and other politicians hoping they can use the opportunity to keep this new life around.
