The sensible way to reach the centre of Oxford if you are driving there is to park at one of the three “park-and-ride” facilities on the edge of the city and take the bus in. The city introduced this facility more than 20 years ago and, most of the time, it appears to work. But people… Continue reading
Browsing Category Environment Blog
Nissan Leaf is on a road near you – but did it sell enough?
Sales of all plug in cars almost doubled, world-wide, in 2015 to around 1 million. But they still represent a tiny proportion of the cars on the road, less that 1%. The Nissan Leaf was launched six years ago this week, going on sale in 2011. It has sold 200,000 world-wide and is an important… Continue reading →
The BTO casts light on the murky plight of the absent cuckoo
It is April 25, 2016, and I’m still listening, I fear increasingly in vain, for what we describe as “our” cuckoo. For a bird that advertises itself so clearly and unmistakably, the cuckoo and its movements are clouded in mystery. It could be that the cuckoos, and their progeny over many years, are not returning… Continue reading →
UK company’s zero-emission “clean cold” engine keep goods cool in intransit
Anyone out on the roads of the UK, or the rest of Europe or North America today, will see enormously polluting vehicles. I don’t mean the common petrol or diesel-powered car. I’m referring to those many, often anonymous looking, vans carrying perishable goods. Until I received a press release about a British company with what… Continue reading →
A night on the kinetic tiles helps power African football pitch
Tiles that generate electricity when players step on them are providing some of the energy to floodlight a football pitch in Nigeria. The rest of the power comes from solar panels. The facility, at the Federal College of Education in Lagos, is described as Africa’s first human and solar powered football pitch. Around 90 under-pitch… Continue reading →
Attenborough promotes Global Apollo Programme to halt climate change
In a flurry of interviews on the opening day of COP21, the UN climate talks in Paris, Sir David Attenborough, speaking with the authority few interviewers dare to counter, outlined the simple premise of the Global Apollo Project. Media coverage of the climate crisis has been lamentably low (with the honourable exception of The Guardian… Continue reading →