Transport

Government gives you the power to banish cars from your street, plus £50 to fix your bike!

What’s Going On Here? Downing Street has unlocked a full rack of measures that are promising to make cycling safer, more affordable, and more accessible to everyone (in England)! From a free £50 ‘fix your bike’ voucher to giving residents the power to banish through-traffic from the streets. This week the government has gone cycling bonkers! What Does This Mean? Monday 27th July saw Boris…

E-scooters – A wheely good idea?

What’s Going On Here? It wasn’t just the reopening of bars, restaurants and hairdressers that happened on Saturday. Yes, that’s right….last week the government also announced the legalisation of rental e-scooters on UK roads! What Does This Mean? Last Tuesday (30th June), the government published guidance for e-scooter firms, enabling the form of transport to be legal from the 4th July. Rental e-scooters are now…

Governments face big decisions over airline bailouts with opposition from activists

What’s Going On Here? The Covid-19 crisis has cost the aviation industry $880 billion worldwide. But as governments scramble to bailout airlines, environmental campaigners are asking for strict conditions on the industry’s future climate impact before taxpayer’s money is handed out. What Does This Mean? Aviation has all but ceased in many countries (follow this dramatic decline in air traffic is being…

Electric vehicles are now up to 70% less polluting than petrol cars

What’s Going On Here? A new study published in Nature: Sustainability shows that electric vehicles (EVs) produce up to 70% less CO2 than their petrol counterparts, across their entire life-cycle. What Does This Mean? Whilst this may seem obvious to us curious.readers, in recent years there have been many detractors claiming that ‘the production of electricity and their manufacture outweighs the environmental benefits.’ Scientists from…

Study confirms the richest are responsible for the majority of emissions

What’s Going On Here? A new study published by Nature Energy has confirmed the significant disparity of energy usage between the rich and the poor. What Does This Mean? A study by the University of Leeds combined data from the European Union and World Bank to calculate the difference in energy footprints between 86 countries. It identified that the wealthiest tenth of people globally consume approximately…

The STAGgering truth about Stag and Hen Dos

What’s Going On Here? New research has found that stag and hen dos account for a huge proportion of flights for young people in the UK! What Does This Mean? Research carried out by the environmental charity Hubbub that surveyed of 2,000 people found that half of all flights taken by men aged 20-45 were for stag-dos, and a third for women of the…