Biking Archives - Achieving Sustainability

SustainabLINKS November 2, 2014

November 2, 2014November 3, 2014 by Aaron Redman

Ever wondered what people where talking about with this Anthropocene. Michael Schoon has a nice brief overview.
Vox.com discusses why bike share users tend to be wealthier despite the fact the poor are more likely to use bikes as their main form of transportation.
Earlier Vox also featured an interesting discussion of possible reasons why carpooling has declined in America. I wonder how the so-called sharing economy will even further effect this trend.
Vox was really on a Sustainability tear this week with an interesting article on dams stemming out of a new paper cataloging dam building plans around the world.
Climate Change as always merits several mentions:
- The big news this week was the release of the IPCC’s Synthesis report. For a synthesis of the synthesis check out National Geographic’s five takeaways or Vox’s seven.
- Ruth Graham reflects on how a previous energy transition (from wood to coal heating) can assist us in the one we confront now.
- If Chile can do it why can’t we? Chile implements a carbon tax cover more than half of their emissions.

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SustainabLINKS September 8, 2014

September 8, 2014September 8, 2014 by Aaron Redman

Food news: Christie Wilcox covers in more depth what I wrote about briefly, how concerned should we be about pesticide residue on food? “To date, there is no scientific evidence that eating an organic diet leads to better health.” Two interesting graphics-how the world wastes food and a fun set of glimpses of what a … Read more…

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The World Leaders in Bike Sharing Programs are really all in China

August 27, 2014August 27, 2014 by Aaron Redman

I must admit that I generally greet the regular semi-sensational internet titles about how China is Achieving Sustainability such as “China has just built 20 million miles of high speed rail when the USA can’t build any” with a large degree of skepticism. For this I have three main justifications: Authoritarian governments can make absolute … Read more…

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SustainabLINKS August 18, 2014

August 23, 2014August 18, 2014 by Aaron Redman

Stimulus money spent on rail has gotten nearly as much scorn as Sloyndra but Michael Grunwald¹⁾Who wrote a whole book defending of the impact of the stimulus. that this is completely undeserved.
Buying bottled water from drought stricken California. Crazier than buying water from Fiji?
“For more Americans to choose healthier food they must have a basic sense of security about their future.”
A decade and a half after Bowling Alone (which I reviewed here), our un-neighborliness continues to increase–with consequences for our health and our politics.
If you have tried to walk anywhere on windy, overly wide suburban roads with no services for miles, you know the frustration that would make anyone give up walking-and active lifestyles overall.
The small minority of scientists who maintain contrarian views on climate change are asked far more frequently to pontificate to the media than their peers, which feeds the continuing unbalanced coverage in the media of climate change–see John Oliver for a more balanced approach.
Meanwhile, the worst case scenarios for climate change are looking worse as Antarctic ice has the potential to cause more sea rise and faster than previously thought.
Is air-conditioning Sustainable (in the multi-faceted capital-S sense)? Well we can certainly agree that it has remade us.
Title says it all: “Not a single person has died using bike share in the US.”

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SustainabLINKS July 14, 2014

July 18, 2014July 14, 2014 by Aaron Redman

A geologist’s view on climate change: we are not going to destroy Earth, it has gone through bigger shifts before. That is why Sustainability has to be people focused.
Raising the tax on gasoline would be the best solution for so many different reasons yet instead
congress is moving to further de-link highway funding from driving.
Biking and walking are most popular among the lowest income groups in America: one can really see this to an extreme here in Leon where biking is essential for the poor but unheard of once a car can be afforded.
A new report out from the UN lays out a serious global roadmap for how we can decarbonize our economies and stave of the more drastic possibilities of climate change. The New York Times has a good summary
One thing that we could all do is eat less meat, as a new study dramatically points out.

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