Author: Adam Clare

It’s Time to Destroy Highways to Build Cities

People make cities an interesting place to be. It’s the people that produce culture and economic prosperity, yet many cities have highways going right through them. These highways make the city worse in every regard.

Now, cities in America will be getting funding to repair the cities from the damage done by highways. Hopefully other parts of the world will see that highways are a thing of the past and we need to build cities for people.

The future of the country’s highway system is about much more than those neighborhoods, too. It will also affect public health and climate change. And the debate is happening at a fascinating moment: Many of the midcentury highways are reaching the end of their life span, and attitudes toward transportation are shifting.
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“As recently as a decade ago,” said Peter Norton, a University of Virginia historian, “every transportation problem was a problem to be solved with new roads.” That’s not always the case anymore.

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Quebec Cancels Planned LNG Operation to Protect the Environment

Forest

The waters of the Saguenay and the St. Lawerence have avoided great harm thanks to the cancellation of a massive natural gas facility in the area. People had been protesting the development for years and the government finally listened. The project would have taken bitumen from the tar sands in Alberta across the country to be exported via ships in the Saguenay out to the Atlantic. It’s good to see a project that would have increased carbon output get cancelled in favour of protecting the planet. (Fun fact: I took the photo above along the Saguenay)

In March, the province’s independent environmental review agency issued a report that was critical of the plans to build a plant and marine terminal in the Saguenay.

The project was likely to increase greenhouse gas emissions in Canada by eight million tonnes annually, the agency concluded.

Last month, federal environmental agencies determined the project, which would involve large tankers transiting along the Saguenay River, threatened beluga whales.

And last week, three Innu communities vowed to oppose the project because of the negative impact it would have on the environment.

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Reducing CO2 Emissions by Targeting the 5% of Power Plants

Electric energy production using non-renewable processes produces an immense amount of carbon, and as a civilization we can’t afford to put more carbon in the atmosphere. Researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder set out to figure out how much pollution do power plants actually produce and what can we do about the worst ones. They found that 73% of pollution came from just 5% of power plants, unsurprisingly those plants used coal. So let’s shut them down!

According to the authors of the research, the emission intensity of the ten worst plants exceeded those of other fossil fuel power plants in their home countries in 2018 at a rate 28.2 percent to 75.6 percent higher than their counterparts. This suggests that the plants are very inefficient in burning coal, the research showed.
“Why these relatively inefficient plants are used so heavily is a topic ripe for future investigation,” the authors wrote.

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Given the IPCC Report, Let’s Ban Oil Propaganda

industry

Today the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released data that proves the world has rapidly warmed 1.1 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels, and is now careening toward 1.5 degrees. They are calling it a red alert for the planet. Obviously this isn’t good news.

The oil industry along with the oil-consuming automobile companies spend billions every year telling us to spend more to kill the planet. This should stop. Over at the National Obseror they ask a very simple question: “are we letting fossil fuel companies sell us our own demise?” They propose an all out ban on adversting oil and gas consumption like we did with tabacco.

Advertising works. That’s why it’s a multibillion-dollar business, and it’s why oil, gas, car and airline companies spend as much as they do seeking our favour. According to one study, over a recent 30-year period, the world’s five biggest oil companies spent US$3.6 billion on ads specifically aimed at shoring up their reputation as green-friendly. Ads are one reason why gas-guzzling pickup trucks are so popular, even among those with no genuine need for them. As Quebec environmental group Équiterre found in a study released earlier this year, aggressive advertising helps to explain why light-duty vehicles — SUVs, pickups and vans — now account for 80 per cent of new vehicle sales in Canada, which in turn is a big reason greenhouse gas emissions from transportation are still rising. 

Because advertising matters so much to the fossil fuel corporations, it ought to matter to the rest of us, too

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Want Better Communities? Get rid of Homeowners

The North American dream often hinges on owning the shelter you reside in, but with raising home prices this is a challenge for many. It may work out in the long run though as we should be creating systems that favour renters over owners since homeowners tend to hold back progress. Of course, we will need to protect renters from evictions and so on. Regardless, over at Vox they have an interesting analysis on home ownership which is worth considering:

Researcher Rachel Bogardus Drew points to more than a century’s worth of messages praising the benefits of homeownership, “everything from personal freedom and self-determination, social equality and inclusion, personal and economic success, and a better quality of life.”

One of the messages Drew cites is from a 1916 article in the Hutchinson News telling readers: “Owning a home raises one in the estimation of his neighbors and associates. … Nothing gives a man a better standing in a community than the fact that he is a house-holder, a payer of taxes on real estate.”

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