my view on this is that publishers should stop it with the 80k wordcount obsession, so many contemporary non-fic books are obviously 40-50k pieces of work stretched to the extent that they become very boring to read - just let people write cheaper, shorter books! www.theguardian.com/books/2025/d...
EU adopts -90% emission reduction target for 2040, and max 5% of that by 'high-quality international targets', i.e. reductions elsewhere. 14 years to go and a *lot* of work to be done!
Never forget, the electric car is here to save the car industry, not the planet.
Read this thread.
Have you noticed how navigation apps include walking & waiting for public transit, but excludes parking & walking for driving? After being late a few times 😅, we finally did. We got curious: what if these apps account for parking?
"Despite the Council's own 2023 report stating that vehicles were damaging the ecosystem and recommending access be closed off, nothing has been done for more than two years..." - read my latest column in the @hampshirechronicle.bsky.social 👇
Yesterday morning kids were sent running from their bus stop in panic because ICE showed up. This guy at today’s ICE Out of Lindenwold protest is a must watch 😭. @maddow.bsky.social
The hotspots where Lime e-bikes clog up London streets In some boroughs the rental firm has more than double its agreed limit, fuelling complaints of blocked pavements and residents sick of the clutter
There is, one study estimated, 5.5 square miles of London used for on-street car parking. Rather than whinge about the massive popularity of a sustainable, healthy form of transport, boroughs could instead just do more to accommodate it.
Liam Downer-Sanderson @DownerSanderson Another one bites the dust. @LBHF The parklets on WBR are constantly hit, cause accidents and cost residents money. The local Conservatives are opposed to them and will remove them on day one of winning the council in May. Sign the petition👇 https://hfconservatives.org.uk/campaigns/demand-removal-wandsworth-bridge-road-parklets 12:50 PM · Feb 11, 2026 .... accompanied with two pictures of huge bright green planter boxes broken because **drivers** have crashed into them
Hammersmith's Tories: "we'll reward dangerous drivers who crash into stationary objects"
... what a manifesto.
(WBR = Wandsworth Bridge Road")
Existing wording to “give priority first to pedestrian and cycle movements” sounds nice, until you look at recently built housing estates and realise those words have proved as ineffective in the real world as SLOW markings on thousands of roads.
actionnetwork.org/letters/dema...
The promise of more solar farms is a ray of sunshine in a dismal and wet winter that has seen homes and farmers fields flooded across the UK. Solar farms will cut the emissions that are driving climate extremes, lower energy bills and take up less than 1% of land.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Modern housing in Amsterdam: apartments on the left, a wide footway with rain-retaining greenery, and a wide bidirectional cycleway with priority over cars entering the development. Trees, bins, cycle parking and furniture collection spots separate it from the road, helping prevent fly-tipping.
Victoria Embankment this morning. Why should hard working cyclists taxes go on these wide car lanes when motorists don't bother using them?
Struggling to find the words to describe the utter reckless vandalism of this sickening move - deliberately making millions of people sicker & less secure in order to enrich billionaire polluters
Councils have a unique power to help residents live sustainably & support businesses in adopting low carbon solutions. 🌳
Here's what our 2025 Action Scorecards reveal about council collaboration & engagement: councilclimatescorecards.uk/sections/s6_...
Ok, let’s do this🙄
We’ll start with an explainer covering:
🕒What is a 15-minute city
🏫What on Earth is going on with Oxford
👽Where the conspiracy theories have come from
And then we’ll look at the Telegraph article
🧵
1/25
This acadamic exposes how closely J D Vance is copying the nazis' path, to ethnicly cleanse Ohio open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p...
Change: Opmerkelijk: Zelfhelend materiaal laat windturbinebladen wel honderden jaren meegaan
www.change.inc/transities/c...
Gosh, if only there were a constitutional mechanism for removing a president who is mentally ill and unfit to hold office.
Me: "My apartment is too small for my grand piano. I'm going to store it on the sidewalk."
City: "Citation issued for illegal dumping"
Me: "My garage is too small for my SUV. I'm going to store it in the street."
City: "Sounds great, no worries, just move it once a month, ok?"
More resignations in the DOJ--these from career officials in Minnesota office objecting to DOJ's push to investigate the widow of Renee Good and reluctance to investigate the shooter, Ross. A seismic scandal - This is the biggest politicized mess of a case in memory and it's not going away.
🚨Thames Water is on the brink of collapse.
🙋We asked its customers what should happen next.
54% think the water regulator Ofwat should put it into special administration. And over two thirds (68%) believe that Thames Water should be run in the public sector.
Read the full results here.
The Planning and Infrastructure Bill: a small but significant win for nature greenallianceblog.org.uk/2025/12/10/t...
Donald Trump just removed Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth from the list of free entry days at national parks.
They are being replaced with Trump’s birthday.
Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and elsewhere, this is where the future lies. Scotland needs to stop arsing about with roads and start building public transport infrastructure for the future.
Don’t forget, for many years #Uber insisted loudly that it would reduce traffic in cities. Instead, Uber drivers cruise without passengers 40% of the time. Uber and Lyft no longer claim they reduce traffic. They now admit they increase congestion.
So much for “making cities better…”
Via @wsj.com
Active travel groups call for clear targets on walking and cycling in England Exclusive: Groups including British Cycling call for active travel strategy to be put on equal footing with road and rail
Cycling & Walking Investment Strategy 3 (CWIS3) Dear Secretary of State, Active travel directly advances all five of the Government’s missions — improving health, creating opportunity, delivering safer streets, driving economic growth and meeting our decarbonisation commitments. To realise this potential, the forthcoming Cycling & Walking Investment Strategy 3 (CWIS3) must move from good intentions to a clear, long-term, fully deliverable national plan comparable to other strategic transport programmes. Currently, CWIS3’s proposed objectives, “ensuring people are safe to travel actively” and “ensuring people feel it is an easy choice”, are open to interpretation and not measurable.
List of signatories
NEW: 50+ transport and health groups have written to the Government calling for clear targets in the upcoming Cycling & Walking Investment Strategy 3, as well as a comprehensive plan for a national active travel network, matching the long-term strategic focus given to roads.
Keep this in mind when people claim cars mean business — closing Central #Madrid to cars over holidays resulted in a 9.5% boost in retail spending on its main shopping street: STUDY.
There was also a 71% drop in air pollution.
Via @carltonreid.com in @forbes.com. #citymakingmath #citiesforpeople
