General rule of thumb: Low gross emissions are better than net zero or net negative emissions.

Especially when those low gross emissions are across scope one (on premises), two (off-site energy), and three (supply chain).

Doubly so if those net zero/negative emissions are due to carbon offsets.

#ClimateChange #Climate #Environment @green #GlobalWarming #CarbonEsmissions #NetZero

The saga of Waverley Park — Melbourne's car-dependent suburban AFL stadium with a planned seated capacity of over 150,000 (not a typo!)

A really good run down by @philip on the plans by the AFL (and its predecessor, the VFL) to build the world's largest stadium in outer-suburban Melbourne.

Unfortunately, a planned railway line past the stadium to Rowville was never built. That meant a massive 25,000-spot car park as the only real means to get there.

While most of it has been demolished and redeveloped for housing, the oval itself still used by Hawthorn Football Club as a training and administration centre.

https://youtu.be/LvvLwiRCx4s?si=x2QvxepgPtBtJZfx

@fuck_cars #AFL #Urbanism #UrbanPlanning #cars #stadium #stadia #Melbourne #sport #footy #football #stadiums #history #Victoria #VicPol #Australia #planning #Hawthorn #AusPol #CarBrain

So WestConnex was totally going to solve traffic in Sydney by adding more lanes for cars. Just a few teething problems on the Rozelle Interchange and it'll all clear up, they said.

I wonder how it's going?

"Gladesville and Drummoyne locals say gridlock is worsening in their suburbs following changes to improve traffic flow through the notorious Rozelle Interchange, with drivers using local streets as “rat runs” to dodge congestion."

Oh dear...

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/rozelle-interchange-fix-has-created-rat-runs-in-the-suburbs-20240319-p5fdim.html

#roads #cars #fuckcars #urbanism #UrbanPlanning #traffic #cities #congestion #car @fuck_cars

Sydney has opened up consultation on a strategy to reduce car traffic and make the city more walkable

"Driving in central Sydney will become harder under a plan to make the city more comfortable for pedestrians.

"The City of Sydney wants to narrow roads for wider footpaths and push for lower speed limits to discourage drivers from the CBD and transform Sydney into a walkable city.

"The council will also install more pedestrian crossings and prioritise people over cars... five times more pedestrians than motorists on the average street, yet just 40 per cent of road space is allocated to footpaths."

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/greener-safer-calmer-the-plan-to-discourage-drivers-from-central-sydney-20240312-p5fbr7.html

Some key points of the strategy are:

We will ensure that there is sufficient space for people to walk.

We will improve connectivity for people walking by ensuring there are frequent street crossings that give people priority and that align with people’s walking routes.

We will ensure that footpaths and crossings are accessible so that everyone can use them.

We will plan our city based on 10-minute neighbourhoods so that people are able to meet their daily needs easily by walking.

We will make it safer for people to walk by reducing vehicle speeds.

We will reduce traffic volumes on surface streets and manage through-traffic in residential neighbourhood streets to improve both safety and experience for people walking.

We will work to make all people feel safer while walking around our city.

We will work to improve compliance with road rules, especially the lesser-known rules that benefit people walking.

We will make our streets and public spaces comfortable and inviting by ensuring that they
are green and cool.

We will make sure that there are frequent opportunities for people to stop and rest, use the toilet or have a drink of water.

We will make our city more pleasant to walk in by reducing noise and air pollution from
traffic.

We will make all streets interesting to walk along by ensuring that built form has active, permeable frontages that invite engagement and curiosity.

We will use design, activations and installations to create neighbourhood-based community and encourage people to interact with their streets.

Full details here: https://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/policy-planning-changes/your-feedback-walking-strategy-action-plan#strategy

Unfortunately, the car-brained leader of the local business lobby isn't on board:

"Business Sydney executive director Paul Nicolaou welcomed efforts to make the city pedestrian-friendly... But Nicolaou said it was difficult to see how making Sydney a predominantly walking city would benefit businesses such as retailers."

(Worth repeating that 80% of people on an average city street are pedestrians, so it already is a predominantly walking city.)

Anyway, if you think the plan's a good idea, make sure you let the Sydney City Council know by emailing sydneyyoursay@cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au

#urbanism #UrbanPlanning #Sydney @fuck_cars #walking #walk #walkability #nswpol #auspol #nsw #planning #cities #UrbanGreening #city #cities #australia

Are microplastics from car tyres contributing to heart disease?

"Add one more likely culprit to the long list of known cardiovascular risk factors including red meat, butter, smoking and stress: microplastics.

"In a study released Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, an international team of physicians and researchers showed that surgical patients who had a build-up of micro and nanoplastics in their arterial plaque had a 2.1 times greater risk of nonfatal heart attack, nonfatal stroke or death from any cause in the three years post surgery than those who did not."

https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-03-07/microplastics-may-be-risk-factor-for-cardiovascular-disease

The research is particularly noteworthy, given that one of the biggest sources of microplastic pollution is the synthetic rubber in car tyres: https://aus.social/@ajsadauskas/112015017609398126

So it's not just the sedentary lifestyles that car-dependent planning encourages that's causing health issues.

And it's not just exhaust fumes either.

There's also the health impacts of microplastics, including from car tyres.

Worth noting as well that internal documents from the big oil companies show that they knew since the 1970s that recycling wasn't going to solve the problem of plastic pollution. They promoted it anyway: https://aus.social/@ajsadauskas/112064312364853769

#tyres #tyre #car #microplastic #microplastics #pollution #environment @fuck_cars #fuckcars

What should I add to my '90s website?

So I'm currently toying around with NeoCities, and decided to trial it by building your classic mid '90s Geocities/Tripod/Angelfire pastiche website.

Some of the most important elements are already in place.

Tile background? Large font? Heading in bright pink with a shadow? Unusual colour choices? Random cat gifs? Under construction gif? Check! Check! Check!

In the true spirit of the '90s DIY web, some more pages (including the links page) are coming soon.

(I'm thinking of adding a page dedicated to either Britney or a nu-metal band.)

You can see the page so far here: https://that90ssite.neocities.org/

There are a few things that I want to add to make it complete, and I'm looking for suggestions.

The first, is to embed a midi file that plays automatically. Any suggestions on the best way of doing this?

Second, it's just not going to be complete without a guestbook.

Third, any webring suggestions?

Fourth, what's the best way of adding a java chat room in 2024?

Finally, anything else that really needs to be a part of a great '90s website?

UPDATE: Thanks for all the feedback! I've added more annoying GIFs, a guestbook, a links page, and a cyber cat hangout.

UPDATE 2: And added even more gifs, an amazing Amiga demo, and a ton of links.

@asklemmy #tech #webdev #neocities #technology

When urban renewal goes wrong: Inside a dead mall frozen in 1990.

Very interesting short film by Bright Sun Films. Along with the usual urban exploration bits, he gives a good history of how and why it failed.

The shopping centre was supposed to revitalise downtown Hamilton, Ontario.

But within six years, it had just a 40% occupancy rate.

A decade after opening, it sold for only CAN$3.6 million — just 5% of what it originally cost to build.

https://youtu.be/NV_c_c_RZdE?si=4fNO5BJAoWzcx_bw

#urbanism #UrbanPlanning #Canada #Ontario @urbanism #UrbanRenewal #malls #DeadMalls #UrbEx #UrbanExplaration

Really important article here about how big oil companies, including ExxonMobil, knew plastic recycling was BS since the'70s, but kept pushing the lie anyway.

"New research by the Center for Climate Integrity reveals that the plastics industry knew this plastic waste crisis was coming. And so petrochemical manufacturers worked hard to persuade the public that we could recycle our way out of the problem."

https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/4513908-big-oils-big-deception-that-plastics-are-recyclable/

This is in addition to them knowing about the dangers of carbon emissions since the 1970s, and deliberately delaying action: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-climate-change-almost-40-years-ago/

(Worth noting the plastic used in the synthetic rubber in tyres is a major source of plastic pollution: https://aus.social/@ajsadauskas/112009009421402914)

"Twenty petrochemical companies generate more than half of all the world’s single-use plastics. They include major oil and gas companies such as ExxonMobil, the world’s leading producer of single-use plastic waste.

...

"Behind the scenes, however, they were admitting all along that such efforts were “virtually hopeless.” For more than 40 years, they knew that plastic recycling is not technically or economically feasible at scale. More than 90 percent of all plastic has ended up in landfills, ecosystems, or incinerators.

...

"Since the 1970s, these companies, their trade associations, and their front groups promoted recycling “solutions” using misleading advertising, inaccurate educational materials, performative investments, and commitments that they knew they were unlikely to meet.

...

"Internal documents reveal that the industry knew by 1986, for example, that “recycling cannot be considered a permanent solid waste solution [to plastics], as it merely prolongs the time until an item is disposed of.” In 1994, an Exxon employee warned staffers at the American Plastics Council that they did not “want paper floating around” saying they could not meet recycling goals, since the issue was “highly sensitive politically.” These compelling admissions and many more are grounds for a thorough investigation.

...

"Plastics are a product made from fossil fuels. As the world moves away from fossil fuels in a race to avert climate catastrophe, journalists have shined a light on how oil companies promote recycling, in part because plastics are their 'Plan B.'"

https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/4513908-big-oils-big-deception-that-plastics-are-recyclable/

These days, the CEO of ExxonMobil likes to gaslight the public and blame activists:

"Frankly, society, and the activist—the dominant voice in this discussion—has tried to exclude the industry that has the most capacity and the highest potential for helping with some of the technologies."

https://aus.social/@ajsadauskas/112009009421402914

Well, these same companies knew about the problems with toxic fossil fuel pollution since the 1970s. That's both greenhouse gas and microplastic pollution.

And they deliberately and knowingly lied to delay action.

@green #environment #plastic #pollution #ClimateChange #waste #CarbonEmissions

Are there currently any Substack replacements that integrate with ActivityPub?

So I'm currently looking for a Substack substitute for taking donations.

I'd want it to feature a blog (and preferably newsletters too) that include a mix of publicly-accessible posts, as well as posts that are only visible to donors.

And ideally, I want it to also integrate with ActivityPub too.

That might mean a Fediverse post is automatically generated when a new blog post is published. Or potentially the publicly visible blog posts are published in full to the Fediverse.

Now, I know there are a few donations platforms that can handle the first part, such as Ghost and Ko-Fi.

There are also blogging platforms such as WriteFreely/Write.as and Micro.blog that integrate with the Fedi.

And in theory you could do both with a WordPress blog and number of plugins, some paid. But especially with paid plugins, that's likely to get quite expensive quickly. (Not to mention some of the questionable things that have happened at Automattic in recent weeks.)

But are there any platforms out there that support both?

Or is the best option at this stage just to get a Ko-Fi/Ghost account for the donations and donor-only posts, with a separate micro.blog or write.as account for the publicly accessible posts?

@asklemmy #fediverse #substack #blogs

In an age of LLMs, is it time to reconsider human-edited web directories?

Back in the early-to-mid '90s, one of the main ways of finding anything on the web was to browse through a web directory.

These directories generally had a list of categories on their front page. News/Sport/Entertainment/Arts/Technology/Fashion/etc.

Each of those categories had subcategories, and sub-subcategories that you clicked through until you got to a list of websites. These lists were maintained by actual humans.

Typically, these directories also had a limited web search that would crawl through the pages of websites listed in the directory.

Lycos, Excite, and of course Yahoo all offered web directories of this sort.

(EDIT: I initially also mentioned AltaVista. It did offer a web directory by the late '90s, but this was something it tacked on much later.)

By the late '90s, the standard narrative goes, the web got too big to index websites manually.

Google promised the world its algorithms would weed out the spam automatically.

And for a time, it worked.

But then SEO and SEM became a multi-billion-dollar industry. The spambots proliferated. Google itself began promoting its own content and advertisers above search results.

And now with LLMs, the industrial-scale spamming of the web is likely to grow exponentially.

My question is, if a lot of the web is turning to crap, do we even want to search the entire web anymore?

Do we really want to search every single website on the web?

Or just those that aren't filled with LLM-generated SEO spam?

Or just those that don't feature 200 tracking scripts, and passive-aggressive privacy warnings, and paywalls, and popovers, and newsletters, and increasingly obnoxious banner ads, and dark patterns to prevent you cancelling your "free trial" subscription?

At some point, does it become more desirable to go back to search engines that only crawl pages on human-curated lists of trustworthy, quality websites?

And is it time to begin considering what a modern version of those early web directories might look like?

@degoogle #tech #google #web #internet #LLM #LLMs #enshittification #technology #search #SearchEngines #SEO #SEM

Some good news for anyone who loves RMTransit's public transport explainer videos, but doesn't like Google and YouTube.

Looks like @RM_Transit now has an account on PeerTube here, which you can follow from Mastodon: @reece

(If you're the first to follow the account from your instance it will initially appear empty. Videos will start appearing in your feed after you follow.)

#RMTransit #Urbanism @fuck_cars #UrbanPlanning #PublicTransport #MassTransit #Train #Trains #Tram #Trams

Concerned about microplastics? Research shows one of the biggest sources is car tyres

A lot of the emphasis on reducing microplastics has focussed on things like plastic bags, clothing, and food packaging.

But there's a growing body of research that shows one of the biggest culprits by far is car tyres.

It's increasingly clear that we simply cannot solve the issue of microplastics in the environment while still using tyres — even with electric-powered cars.

"Tyre wear stands out as a major source of microplastic pollution. Globally, each person is responsible for around 1kg of microplastic pollution from tyre wear released into the environment on average each year – with even higher rates observed in developed nations.

"It is estimated that between 8% and 40% of these particles find their way into surface waters such as the sea, rivers and lakes through runoff from road surfaces, wastewater discharge or even through airborne transport.

"However, tyre wear microplastics have been largely overlooked as a microplastic pollutant. Their dark colour makes them difficult to detect, so these particles can’t be identified using the traditional spectroscopy methods used to identify other more colourful plastic polymers."

https://theconversation.com/check-your-tyres-you-might-be-adding-unnecessary-microplastics-to-the-environment-205612#:~:text=Tyre%20wear%20stands%20out%20as,rates%20observed%20in%20developed%20nations.

"Microplastic pollution has polluted the entire planet, from Arctic snow and Alpine soils to the deepest oceans. The particles can harbour toxic chemicals and harmful microbes and are known to harm some marine creatures. People are also known to consume them via food and water, and to breathe them, But the impact on human health is not yet known.

"“Roads are a very significant source of microplastics to remote areas, including the oceans,” said Andreas Stohl, from the Norwegian Institute for Air Research, who led the research. He said an average tyre loses 4kg during its lifetime. “It’s such a huge amount of plastic compared to, say, clothes,” whose fibres are commonly found in rivers, Stohl said. “You will not lose kilograms of plastic from your clothing.”"

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/14/car-tyres-are-major-source-of-ocean-microplastics-study

"Microplastics are of increasing concern in the environment [1, 2]. Tire wear is estimated to be one of the largest sources of microplastics entering the aquatic environment [3,4,5,6,7]. The mechanical abrasion of car tires by the road surface forms tire wear particles (TWP) [8] and/or tire and road wear particles (TRWP), consisting of a complex mixture of rubber, with both embedded asphalt and minerals from the pavement [9]."

https://microplastics.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s43591-021-00008-w

#car #cars #urbanism #UrbanPlanning #FuckCars @fuck_cars #environment #microplastics #pollution #plastics