The snow and ice created a lot of new potholes this winter. We could fill them in, or we could do what Brighton-based artist Pete Dungey did, and turn them into miniature guerilla gardens. They’re pretty, and they slow the traffic down too.
Archive | March, 2010
Man-made climate change: what we know and what we don’t know
Almost every scientist going agrees that the earth is warming. The only serious disagreements over climate change are around the causes, whether or not the destabilisation is due to human activities or natural ones. We know that the climate is changing in all sorts of ways, but it is difficult to sort out which changes [...]
Measuring the impact of our appliances
Have you ever wondered how much electricity your appliances and gadgets actually use? You may not have had reason to, but if you’ve ever seriously tried to reduce your energy usage, it can become something of an obsession – especially if you have a real-time energy monitor. You can find yourself hunting around the house, [...]
Skate Uganda
I had a skateboard in Kenya when I was little. There was no concrete flat enough to actually skate. We just sat on it and took off down the steepest hills we could find. The Uganda Skateboard Union make us look very lazy. The teenagers of Kitintale got together and built East Africa’s only skate [...]
The price of China’s economic growth
Last week a Chinese agricultural adviser issued a warning about the state of China’s soil. “The deterioration in soil quality is now a very important problem,” he told journalists, and could soon become a threat to China’s food security. China feeds over a fifth of the world’s population on 10% of the world’s arable land, [...]
Join the world’s longest toilet queue
A fun bit of campaigning you might want to get involved in this month – Tearfund, WaterAid and others have been calling for a focus on water and sanitation in aid. To raise awareness of these problems, they are organising the world’s longest toilet queue on Monday 22nd of March. Queues will be held in [...]
What we learned this week
Cell-phone technology “could lead to a health crisis similar to those caused by asbestos, smoking, and lead in petrol.” Ian McEwan’s new novel, Solar, is about climate change and looks like it might be a good read. New York City has turned 225 parking meters into cycle racks to encourage more cycling. Apparently there is [...]
Why it pays to be male and white
More on these rather stunning figures from Mint. HT Phil.
Putting our car addiction into reverse
I’ve been browsing a government report on social trends in transport this week, and I thought it was interesting that there are now more households with two cars than there are with no car. Reading the Department for Transport’s reports, there appears to be a certain sense of satisfaction about the growth in car ownership [...]
Warmer homes, greener homes
Note: This is not the site giving away free books. The site you want is greenmillionaire. —————– Lou and I are embarking on the next stage of renovating and greening our 1920s terrace house this week. Today the windows people are in, replacing the upstairs windows. I popped down to the town hall this morning [...]
Books
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