-
🔗 Why did renewables become so cheap so fast?
by JamesFossil fuels dominate the global power supply because until very recently electricity from fossil fuels was the cheapest. This has changed dramatically. In most places power from new renewables is now cheaper than new fossil fuels.
Fascinating read.- Tagged with
- renewables
- solar
- wind
- electricity
-
🔗 The Revenge of the Hot Water Bottle
by JamesImagine a personal heating system that works indoors as well as outdoors, can be taken anywhere, requires little energy, and is independent of any infrastructure. It exists – and is hundreds of years old.
Reminds me I should use my yutanpo more. But truth be told, Sophie always sleeps by me feet, so I already have a Sophie-tanpo. -
🔗 How we changed our roof and cut 1.5 tons of CO2e.
by JamesSince Oct 01, 2021 we have saved 2,300 kwh, equivalent to 720 kg CO2e (assuming a 0.3g of CO2e per Kwh of heating gas). At current trend, we would save 5,200 kwh, equivalent to 1,600 kg CO2e until Apr 15, 2022. To put that number in perspective, a French emits about 9,000 kg of CO2e per year. Not bad for a roof.
Fascinating how much easier we can cut with upgrades to the house that reduce carbon and improve comfort. Beautiful roof, too. -
Response to
by JamesI went to the dentist and when I returned to the bicycle rack I discovered my broken lock laying on the pavement. No bike. I looked at the security guard standing by the door, pointed, and gave him a look. He said, “Oh. That was your bike?”
...
But San Francisco has lots of hills and the difference between a fast easy bike ride vs. an arduous uphill journey is rendered moot with just a teeny tiny bit of extra oomph.There's heaps of hills in Yokohama, too, and the extra oomph makes all the difference. It's so much easier to navigate and park our bikes than a car. And with the assist even with 15kg of kid on the back, the steepest hills remain surmountable without breaking a sweat. This machine fights climate change 🚲.
Also so nice to see the photos, of just how common e-bikes are becoming in US. And those bike lanes and some proper infrastructure. 😍 -
Picking Your Mode of Transport
by JamesI can get from my house to the in-laws three different ways: by car, by subway, and by bike.
The drive from my house to the in-laws, according to the Honda app linked to my car, emits about 200g of carbon into the air. That's not including the other externalities such as local air pollution, noise, and just being traffic. It costs about ¥100 in fuel and maintenance. This is only economicaly because a neighbor lets us park on some of their land for free. Otherwise we'd need to add ¥400 - ¥600 for temporary car storage. There is no view, just narrow roads. Depending on traffic, it takes about 20 - 30 minutes and I arrive feeling stressed.
Going by the subway costs ¥252 one way and there's a 10 minute walk on either side. This is more efficient than the car because a) there's many more people riding the same vehicle, b) it's electric (though that power may be coming from coal). The view is nothing, because it's mostly underground. Total trip time is about 30 - 35 minutes.
Lastly, I can go by bicycle. It costs me nothing. It's powered by peanut butter and bananas. The view is rice fields and a river. I arrive feeling happy and calm, because I was looking at nice scenery and getting some exercise.
While the concept of a personal carbon footprint was invented by big oil, each trip we can take that doesn't emit carbon emissions does make difference. Each trip is an opportunity. An opportunity to pick the means of less impact. Less noise. Less pollution. Less traffic. Less carbon.
But it's also an opportunity to inspire your community. It's an opportunity to be the change you want to see. At first it might just be you. But someone might see you and think "I can do that." and take their bike next time. And someone seems them riding their bike and has the same thought. It an opportunity to normalize riding a bike as transport in your community.
More people ride bikes when they see people riding bikes. More people riding bikes means more demand for proper infrastructure. More people riding bikes means less local air pollution and a happy, healthier, calmer community.
When you have the choice, take your bike. -
Response to
by JamesSushil Reddy, founder of the SunPedal project, is using his legs and the sun to prove that solar power and electric bikes are viable solutions for reducing fossil fuel use and helping to solve the climate crisis.
What a cool bike and a cool project. Hopefully they finish it safely. 🙏🏻Wonder what it’s like with a powered front wheel too. -
🔗 Biking Boom - Cycling as Lifestyle
by JamesDiscover contemporary cycling culture in three European cities: Berlin, the unofficial capital of vintage racing bikes. London, where cycle-cafés also hold speed dating evenings and Amsterdam where cyclists stand out from the crowd with style.
A great documentary series about cycling from 2018. With interviews and footage with bike couriers in Berlin, cycle fashion bloggers in Copenhagen, it inspired me to take out my cross-bike instead of the eBike mama-chari for the first time in ages. I wish I had a reason to ride it more.
I love the sub-culture around bikes. Not the lycra wearing weekend racers, but the everyday riders. Riding for transport. Or work. Or whatever. Each bike as unique as its owner. And each ride in the city, a small protest against the car dominance that is killing us all. -
Keeping Hydrated 💧
by JamesI mostly drink two things: black coffee and water. Unless I actively think about it, I usually don't drink enough water in a given day. While I enjoy the taste of water, I have a habit of just sipping my coffee and getting a refill from the maker when it runs out.
This isn't a good habit. Sometimes when I go to sleep at night, about an hour after I fall asleep, I'll wake up with my feet feeling sore. Problems if your feet at night cause me alarm. Usually as feet problems can be signs of diabetes.But it can also be cause by having tired feet because you were on them all day and they're tired. Or, as I discovered, dehydration.
Drinking nothing but black coffee, which dehydrates despite being a liquid, is a good way to end up really dehydrated. In an effort to drink more water I've been taking my old Laken water bottle with my coffee upstairs with me when I start work. Doing so has kept me drinking more water and I can't remember the last time I my feet were sore at night.
I love my little Laken. It's forest green. I've had it for probably a decade at this point. It has a dent at the top that gives it some character. The cap has a great clip that I can use to attach it to my bag so it doesn't fall out.
But it's a bit small, only about 500ml. I often find myself needing to buy a bottle of water to refill it, which defeats the purpose. And that clip I love? It's kind of a pain to unhook when I'm walking around town and want a quick drink. The mouth is also a bit small, about the size of a regular plastic bottle, so I always spill a bit when filling it up. And it's not insulated, so it sweats as much as I do during summer.
So I upgraded today to a 946ml (32oz) Hydro Flask. It's the opposite of my first bottle. It's big. It's got double-wall insulation, so it won't sweat and drinks keep cold/hot. I can put hot liquids in it. The mouth is huge. The lid doesn't have a hook, but it does have a loop that I can use to strap it to my bag. It's freakin' purple (technically "eggplant"). It's a tank.
My old water bottle lasted me a decade still has plenty of life left in it. I hope this one keeps me hydrated for many years to come. -
Response to
by JamesUrban transportation is central to the effort to slow climate change. It can’t be done by just switching to electric cars. Several cities are starting to electrify mass transit.
It's really great to see how varied the methods of transport they're installing are. The photos are also really great.
Yokohama trialed some fully electric buses recently, but they found trouble with the hills and battery life. I think it was as these were retrofitted buses using 3-old Nissan Leaf batteries. I hope they switch the fleet over to electric asap though, as the noise and fumes at the bus centers are horrible.“It has become a reasonable position to advocate for less space for cars,” said Felix Creutzig, a transportation specialist at the Mercator Research Center in Berlin. “Ten years ago, it was not even allowed to be said. But now you can say it.”
My favorite quote and I am happy this is becoming the case. Felix, welcome to The War on Cars. -
Less Meat
by JamesOne of my recent quests in life is to reduce the amount of meat that I consume. There isn't a single reason why, but rather it feels like a manifestation of slow culmination of thoughts and beliefs.
Whether it be literal less i.e. physically driving less or buying less junk or less in the sense of slow, the idea of less has always had an appeal to me. Better living with less. This thinking is counter to a lot of those I grew up around and was a constant source of conflict.
Why now? Why meat? I can't give can exact reason for why now, other than, why not now? Why meat? The answer to that is more complex.Each burger we consume comes with a at least of costs baked in: the direct cost of a life of the animal and environmental (cutting down forest to make room for cows, shipping animals across an ocean to get processed in a foreign country, just to be shipped back to their origin for sale).
The first is true no matter what. I'm mostly fine with that cost. It's the circle of life. I'm glad it's not me that has to do it. If it were, I'd probably be vegan. The second, the environmental costs, can be controlled, or at least managed by our consumption choices. Do we go for the cheap back of mince from the super center or do we go for the grass-fed at Whole Foods?
The Power of Defaults
When I was in my teens I was massively overweight. I was well over 100kg and only 172cm. While 172cm hasn't changed, but I'm currently in the low 70's (still too high, but I digress). What made this possible wasn't exercise, but learning about the power of defaults.
If you can change your default, you can make substantial changes with significantly less effort. So if your goal is to lose weight, it's less work to reduce consumption rather than burn off excess calories consumed. By changing my default from burger, fries, and a coke to burger and a diet coke or just burger or maybe the chicken sandwich could shave off 600+ calories, which is at least an hours worth of running. And since it's just a default, if I really wanted fries or a coke that day, I could, but I had to make the decision.
Likewise, I've changed my defaults for meat. As beef as it has a higher CO2 footprint per kilogram than pork or chicken, I mostly stopped buying beef and replace it with pork or chicken. Default changed to not beef. The other default I've been working on default: no meat.
Changing DefaultsMy default breakfast has changed from toast with eggs, and maybe some sausage or bacon to toast with peanut butter and a banana. I can still eat an egg if I want, but I usually don't.
Lunch is harder to default for me, but I've been defaulting to less or no meat dishes. I'll have some pasta (either a butter-soy-garlic Japanese style pasta, or a Naprotian (sans bacon as is traditional)), taco rice (with beans instead of meat or just little meat), or onigiri with a Japanese style omelette (tamago-yaki).
Dinner still typically has some kind of meat or fish component, but it's no longer the main. It's used more like a spice. To replace the gap we've been increasing the variety of vegetables that we buy and eat in it's place.
I don't have a particular goal of becoming vegetarian or vegan (though many creatives I respect are e.g. Moby, Casey Neistat etc..), but I may end up there.
For now it's just a journey of exploring life with less meat. A life with less harm. A life with more veg. A life with different defaults.
