Good day my good friend.
No time for the usual quips or reference to today’s news. Let’s get straight to it.
If you have any suggestions for interesting news items or bits of research to include in this newsletter, you can email me.
James
No more smoke when it comes to aviation emissions
It’s fair to say that the aviation industry is getting a hard time when it comes to carbon emissions. Rightly so in some respects, as its pollution record is far from a perfect one. And its getting worse. The industry has been accused of a lot of greenwashing, again with some justification. But enough of that: what is the sector actually doing about it?
This research article reviews the current state of the art. It concludes that there has been a lot of focus as part of Life Cycle Assessment on decarbonising operations. This is through lower carbon fuel and lighter aircraft. For everything else there is little data, and progress has been somewhat patchy. This reads like a sector being dragged into reducing emissions kicking and screaming. Maybe it is time we dragged it more quickly.
The ultimate carbon sink
I like trees. I think most of us like trees. Unless you are a highways network manager, then they are the spawn of Satan and every single of them must be cleared at the earliest possible opportunity. Regardless of whether it gets your authority into trouble. But aside from being pretty, the reason I like them is because they are part of a solution we need to tackle the climate crisis: nature-based solutions.
We have taken the early steps using the likes of SUDS. But we need to go further with restoring nature as part of our street environment. Reforestation has a number of benefits to the climate. They can help manage extreme weather from flooding to heatwaves. They can help endangered species. But as importantly, they can drag carbon from the air and store it. More trees and nature-based solutions is such a no-brainer in my mind, I’m amazed we aren’t doing this en mass already. Let’s get to it.
Random things
These links are meant to make you think about the things that affect our world in transport, and not just think about transport itself. I hope that you enjoy them. Thank you to Naked Capitalism for providing these in a time of very urgent need!
April’s cold weather shows it’s time to fill our gardens with hardier plants, say experts (The Guardian)
Crooks don’t need ChatGPT to social-engineer victims, as they’re more than happy to demonstrate (The Register)
Flood Challenges on Mississippi River (Progressive Farmer)
Social Media Scatters Your Brain, and Then You Buy Stuff You Don’t Need (Gizmodo)
Something interesting
These urban explorers find the final resting place of hundreds of buses. Its quite eery.
If you do nothing else today, then do this
Read this paper by IBM on generative AI. Its clearly a sales pitch, but its actually somewhat informative as well.
Mobility Matters 