Adam Clare

Winds of Change in Power Generation

Wars fought over oil and wars funded by oil sales are both problems we’ve seen in the 21st century. Fighting over a depleting planet-destroying energy source may soon be a thing of the past as we increase the use of renewable energy the world over. Expect the use of wind power to continue to grow in the coming years, already the rate of installation of these efficient systems has increased. Some countries that didn’t embrace wind before due to a lack of land are now building offshore installations which allow for bigger, better turbines.

Help bring peace to the world by cutting back gas use while increasing renewable energy sources.

The potential to deploy both onshore and offshore wind capacity depends on a country’s geography.

Among the leading offshore wind locations, Britain has plentiful coastlines, Germany can take advantage of its location between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, and China uses its expansive coastal regions to good effect.

But when offshore and onshore wind capacity are combined, a different picture emerges.

Global onshore and offshore wind generation totalled 732 gigawatts by the end of 2020, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.

Visualize the Supply Chain of Every USA-Based Company

COVID-19 revealed to many the precariousness of modern “free trade” supply chains, indeed the pandemic supply chain issue is still impacting us to this day. Various international deals that favour profits over people put us in this situation, so how do we get out of it? This is the question many are trying to answer and now there’s a website to help. Import Yeti lets NGOs, companies, and anyone examine the supply chains of any company based in the USA.

Bill of ladings are public information that every large eCom owner or FBA seller I know uses but they are too cost prohibitive, challenging to obtain and difficult to use for the average joe. ImportYeti’s goal is to solve that problem.

SF’s Busiest Street Removed Cars and Traffic Improved

Market Street in San Fransico connects many communities within the city, yet using it to navigate from place to another was a slog. Until they got rid of cars last year. The removal of cars on the popular main street made getting around the city faster, easier, and healthier. Anyone who lives in a city knows how much space cars take up so it’s a logical thing to ban them from streets that are best serviced by public transit, bicycles, and pedestrians.

A renewed Market Street will anchor neighborhoods, link public open spaces and connect the City’s Civic Center with cultural, social, convention, tourism, and retail destinations, as well as Salesforce Transit Center, the regional transit hub. The vision is to create Market Street as a place to stop and spend time, meet friends, people-watch while sitting in a café, or just stroll and take in the urban scene.

Instead of Pesticides, Use Plants

This is the year nobody should use pesticides, if you’re on the fence about using pesticides I’ll remind you that they do more harm than good. They negatively impact human health, kill unintended species, and even taint groundwater. Many smart gardeners already avoid using the killer chemicals and you too can be a smart gardener. Why use dangerous chemicals when you can use plants?

Over at PopSci they’ve complied a list of what plants in North America you should plant to protect your garden from pests.

You can find examples of pesticide plants stretching back thousands of years. Native Americans, for example, may have developed companion planting as early as 10,000 years ago, long before home gardening became a pastime. Although synthetic chemical-based pesticides have become common, you don’t need to follow that trend.

When you use plants to keep pests away, you’re employing a proven gardening technique backed by scientific research. Installing the right plants in your garden is fast, easy, and (the best part) extremely fun. If you’re not sure where to start, we have some suggestions for every planting zone in the US.

Building Superblocks Can Save Cities

Barcelona’s urban layout of “superblocks” has proven to be a great way to make cities liveable, efficient, and environmentally friendly. We’ve looked at the brilliant design in Barcelona before, and now the question is how to take this urban design to other cities. Can car-focussed cities like Atlanta, Toronto, and Sydney benefit from the person-focussed approach in Barcelona? Of course they can, and so can other places like Mexico City and Zurich. The question how to implement the design approach and at what scale.

We’re all one step closer to living in a 15-minute city.

“Density is important, as the superblock model focuses on districts where many people live to allow active street life,” says Eggimann. Having enough people in one area also makes public transportation efficient, he says, and good public transportation is part of what makes the superblock possible. The design doesn’t work well in sprawling neighborhoods that only have single-family homes—even if those neighborhoods have a perfect street grid, as is the case in Atlanta and many other American cities.
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While cities are taking a variety of approaches to rethinking traffic on streets, Eggimann thinks that superblocks can be especially useful. “I think the superblock model is particularly interesting as it strives for combined tackling of multiple challenges neighborhoods and cities are faced with—mobility, noise, walkability, urban green space—and that it is a model which envisions city-scale wide and broad transformation, going beyond single street transformation,” Eggimann says.