With 29% of all trips made by bike and 64% of bike trips made by women, Osaka is a cycling city beyond compare. What makes it even more remarkable is these gains were made in spite of very little dedicated infrastructure. So what can we learn from a place that didn't build it, and they came anyway?🧵

“The appetite for a less car-dominated community is here in the States.”

Had a fun time with neighbors #worldplaystreet #internationalcarfreeday

Oxford #kidicalmass - world car free day edition. Over 200 adults and children took to the city streets in a joyous celebration of safe and inclusive cycling.

Another airport expansion planned, another occasion to repeat: As long as there are no credible plans for climate neutrality of aviation, investing in airport expansion is betting on us all giving up on the Paris agreement.

“The only drawback is how you guarantee parking outside your house”. Have ministers an answer to this entirely predictable - and predicted - problem as they “power up an EV revolution and supercharge our infrastructure “ to quote from the PN? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

More than 20 play streets in Dublin today! Any other big play street action for #worldcarfreeday? @playingout.bsky.social

Bravo Cardiff. Adverts for junk food, petrol and diesel vehicles, pay-day loans, tobacco and vapes will be banned on council property. “This is about putting the health and wellbeing of Cardiff's people first.”

“It’s time for our town and city centres to be rediscovered as places where people get together, socialise and feel part of something. This is about more than just Oxford Street and London. It’s about people saying they want more from their streets than them just being corridors for traffic.”

#DailyPuffin #birds #ukbirding #ukwildlife #birdphotography #naturephotography

Whooper swans, this morning @teesbirds.bsky.social #birds

What counts as essential travel? How does this differ across people? What level of mobility can be sustained within planetary boundaries? These researchers get closer to answering those questions than most. Wish this kind of thinking was more central to climate & transport policy making in the UK.

This feels like very useful information atm

“Prompting people to actively notice birdsong, plant textures and smells can significantly improve wellbeing…” Interesting study that suggests simple and small interventions, eg signage, that encourage people to notice nature can boost people’s wellbeing. Open access article below.

Have you heard the whalely good news? The High Seas Treaty, a legally binding global agreement to protect marine life in the high seas, is officially entering into force! Is it perfect? No-but it’s an incredible milestone for the ocean I’ll dive deeper into this in my next Ocean Brief newsletter

Seeds that have been buried in mud for a thousand years can still grow?!

This is so cool, an amazing research subject and magical experience in one.

This is such a brilliant and uplifting piece.

'“It looks awful now....says Carl Sayer, a professor of geography at UCL, who is dancing with glee around the bleak-looking, freshly dug hole. “The colonisation is so quick. Within a year, it is full of water plants. Within two years, it looks like it’s been there forever".'

Wow, this is amazing.

rare good news

Well this broke up the doom scroll

Some hopeful weekend reading. “This is nature’s emergency recovery mechanism. We’ve buggered almost everything up but this will still bring them back.”

Are you an economist looking for ways to contribute to the green transition? Look no further. Look here*: concito.dk/nyheder/conc... Bonus: Great colleagues 😀 *: Yes the posting is in Danish, but we also work towards EU and international climate policy, so we are more and more non-Danish staff

According to Defra, you're more likely to be exposed to nitrogen oxides if you live near a busy road, even if you live in a rural area. Here, our Watershed Pollution Map is filtered to show nitrogen oxides. You can pick out the UK highway network + towns in pollution. share.google/tqPAHRk4D3Af...

Agree. An SUV that accelerates like a sports car is pointless -- and also dangerous.

Achieving World Health Organisation guidelines for air quality could help many get a better night’s sleep. “Across dozens of studies, long-term exposure to outdoor pollutants such as particle pollution, nitrogen dioxide and even carbon dioxide was linked to shorter or lower-quality sleep.”

More words on that, here substack.com/home/post/p-...

I did my first episode on the NEF podcast 🫣

New Bevan Foundation report on making transport work for those in poverty whilst reducing emissions. “The investment needed to cut emissions provides an opportunity to redesign the system. With the right choices, Wales can build a transport network that connects people — not just cuts emissions”

“These numbers represent real people who have lost their lives,” said Friederike Otto, a co-author of the study. “If we continue on the path that we are now — continue burning fossil fuels — these deaths will only increase.” www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

“It’s time to stop the anxiety, the physical strain, and the dangerous detours that pavement parking creates. The Government should amend the English Devolution Bill and give councils in England the same enforcement powers that London and Scotland already have” Spot on @walkwheelcyclet.bsky.social

Not surprising, but excellent all the same!

“Ten years after Dieselgate, carmakers are again trying to pass off their vehicles as cleaner than they actually are — but this time they want lawmakers to make the practice legal" cleantechnica.com/2025/09/16/o...

Almost 900 fewer people have been injured on Welsh roads since the default speed limit was lowered from 30 to 20mph two years ago Casualties on 20 to 30mph roads between July and September 2024 were the lowest for the three month-period since records began in 1979 👏 Evidence-led policy

Love a converted bus. This sounds like a great food project from the Pony in Chew Magna. “Our globalised food system is disconnecting people from the land, this brings a sense of local food into areas that have lost that.” More here: theponyfarmbus.co.uk

Interesting-looking new study finding that "the global aviation sector’s impact on global warming continues to increase even under the most ambitious mitigation scenarios" cell.com/one-earth/fu...

Interesting-looking new article mapping the different strands of transport policy research doi.org/10.1016/j.tr...

Bus service cuts on this scale are devastating to communities and leave many cut off from friends, family & opportunities. “… [Shropshire] has suffered one of the biggest reductions in bus routes in the UK over the past six years, with a 60% reduction in kilometres travelled by bus.”

The biggest, most-polluting models should be hit with an extra levy in the budget, bringing us into line with other European countries, campaigners say www.thetimes.com/uk/environme...

Revealed: Sewage overflows twice as bad inside national parks Exclusive: @campaign4parks.bsky.social attack ‘outrageous’ situation, saying waters in protected areas should be cleanest Story by me www.theguardian.com/environment/...

One for Rachel Reeves’ budget. @transportenvironment.org www.theguardian.com/money/2025/s...

There are hundreds of reasons to decry the impact of social media on journalism, but something that's really been irking me lately is what I call (in my head) influencer solutionism -- the idea that there is no benefit to documenting or revealing a problem unless you also have the solution ready...🧵

Interesting study of young autistic adults’ walking behaviour. “Incorporating sensory-friendly urban features, such as clear wayfinding, quiet zones, consistent lighting, may enhance both essential and leisure walking among autistic populations, promoting inclusive active travel and public health.”

Victoria Park’s skate park doing a great job as a toddler splash & slide park this morning. He’s just about staying upright in the wind

"We’ve got to the point where the burden of ill health caused by #AirPollution is so huge, I’m asking myself: ‘What will it take to make the public demand more action?’." Well said @ellarobertafdn.bsky.social. Such a powerful read about the rise of #LungCancer in non-smoking, healthy young women.

ICYMI. Good news from Ireland. “More than a quarter of a million children will become eligible for free public transport…”

Labour MPs today call for new legislation to extend a right of responsible access to more English landscapes, and for the right to swim and wild camp to be enshrined in law @righttoroam.bsky.social inputted to this new report from the APPG for access to nature: www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Landing puffin on Staple Island, Farne Islands, Northumberland #birds #puffin #puffins #farneislands #seabirds #nationaltrust #bbcearth #bbcwildlife #rspb #coastalbirds #auks

Kingfisher on the river Ure, North Yorkshire.