Author Archives: Adam Clare

Cities Address Climate Crisis Faster than Nations

bike parking

Your local city council is doing more to protect the future than your national leaders. Cities are on the front lines of the climate crisis and are working hard to ensue that their people are protected from the effects of a warming planet. Cities can react swiftly to climate related issues due to a variety of factors and by addressing issues head on cities can solve more than one problem at a time.

And by literally greening their cities, mayors solve a bunch of their citizens’ problems at once. In Quezon City in the Philippines, the government turned unused land into 337 gardens and 10 model farms, while training more than 4,000 urban farmers. The report also notes that Freetown, Sierra Leone, planted more than 550,000 trees, creating more than 600 jobs. In addition to significantly reducing urban temperatures, these green spaces also mitigate flooding by soaking up rainwater. “It is becoming clear, I think, to a lot of municipalities that this type of action will be absolutely essential,” said Dan Jasper, senior policy advisor at the climate solutions group Project Drawdown, which wasn’t involved in the report. “It’s not just about being uncomfortable. This is about protecting people’s lives.”

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Cargo Bicycles Are More Efficient Than Cargo Vans

Person riding a cargo bike while on delivery

Delivery vehicles are a significant cause of delays in city as they stop and block other transportation modes at a frequent basis. I’m sure everyone can relate to being frustrated while a truck or van blocks a bike lane (or car lane) while they unload. Urban planners and logistics professionals need to think more about using cargo bikes to help with the flow of traffic while also reducing gross emissions. Cargo bikes are actually more efficient than vans when it comes to urban deliveries. This is particularly worth noting when thinking of opening up streets to people as some argue that deliveries are a key reason we need to close streets to people (and only allow vehicles to be on the road).

When delivering goods in central Brussels the electric Bullitt cargo bikes covered 30% shorter routes, and travelled at 16 km/h versus 11 km/h for vans constrained by congestion, according to the study. The cargo bikes were over 2 times faster than vans using 48 min. versus 99 min. on a typical 8.5 km bike route in Brussels urban centre.

Over a month and a half, the cargo bikes delivered 10.1 packages per hour on average, while vans were able to deliver 4.9 packages per hour to the same destinations. Bikes bypass traffic jams, take shortcuts through streets closed to through traffic and ride to within 30 metres of delivery points on average, minimising walking time. Meanwhile, previous studies have shown that vans can spend up to 25 min per stop searching for parking.

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Video Games Don’t Harm Brain Development

Video games are fun, and they won’t cause harm to your kid’s mental development. Of course, moderation is key since it’s good to experience a multitude of things to do; however, the evidence that video games themselves harm development just isn’t there. So play video games and let your kid play video games.

It is currently the summer so perhaps you should play outside for now though.

“Overall, neither duration of play nor choice of video game genres had significant correlations with the CogAT measures. That result shows no direct linkage between video game playing and cognitive performance, despite what had been assumed,” said May Jadalla, professor in the School of Teaching and Learning at Illinois State University and the study’s principal investigator.

But the study revealed another side of the issue, too. Certain types of games described as helping children build healthy cognitive skills also presented no measurable effects, in spite of the games’ marketing messages.

“The current study found results that are consistent with previous research showing that types of gameplay that seem to augment cognitive functions in young adults don’t have the same impact in much younger children,” said C. Shawn Green, professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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Plant Based Diet Connected to Lower COVID-19 Rates

Covid-19 Transmission graphic

It’s been years that we’ve been living with COVID-19 and it looks like we missed the window to fully eradicate it, which means we need to adapt our lifestyles to ensure that rates of transmission are as low as possible. Of course, the obvious things involve collective action like improving indoor air quality and filtration. As an individual you should consider switching to a plant based diet.

Plant-based and vegetarian groups had a higher intake of vegetables, legumes and nuts, and lower intake of dairy and meat. After adjusting for important confounders, such as body mass index, physical activity and pre-existing medical conditions, the plant-based diet and vegetarian group had 39% (OR=0.61, 95%?CI 0.44 to 0.85; p=0.003) and 39% (OR 0.61, 95%?CI 0.42 to 0.88; p=0.009) lower odds of the incidence of COVID-19 infection, respectively, compared with the omnivorous group. No association was observed between self-reported diets and COVID-19 severity or duration.

Conclusion Plant-based and mainly vegetarian diets were associated with a lower incidence of COVID-19 infection. These dietary patterns may be considered protective against COVID-19 infection. (Study protocol registered in CAAE: 54351421.4.0000.0068.)

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Batteries Still Work in Winter

The myth that batteries are useless in the winter continues to spread despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. This myth has slowed the uptake of elective vehicles, which is a bad thing. The CEO of a an EV car company is trying their best to dispel that myth and get consumers to understand that batteries do work even when it’s cold outside. In fact, fossil fuel cars which are a direct cause of the climate crisis are worse than EVs in the winter.

“The number of stories that talked about EVs that weren’t operating properly in that time was staggering,” Scaringe said. “There wasn’t a single story about the thousands and thousands of combustion vehicles that didn’t start that morning because of the cold weather.”

While EVs have gotten a bad rap when it comes to cold weather, a recent study showed the challenges that EVs face from extreme cold weather are actually less than those encountered by gas-powered cars, concluding that EVs are “almost twice as good as fossil cars in the cold.”

“The desire to tell a negative story was so strong and so surprising to me — it was so biased,” Scaringe told TCD. “All we can do is continue to try to balance the story with the facts and a true story.”

Of course, the best thing to do is not drive any car; and we should focus on sustainable transportation solutions like bicycles and public transit. Cars are harmful not just because of their emissions.

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Thanks to Micheal!