benjhm

In our family we have two e-bikes - one smaller one larger, also many normal bikes, no more car. They are especially useful to get up the steep hills to the side of our valley, and also to pull shopping or dog in a trailer - up to 50kilos ok. Both e-bikes fold so they can easily go on the train. Both e-bikes were bought directly from china online, as we are not rich.
The smaller one is slower but manageable by low-teen-kids too. The larger one will go about 80km, pedalling, with small hills.
We find e-bikes don't make us lazy, rather they encourage us to make more trips, and pedal faster - still get fit.
So the european law that enforces pedalling rather than cruising is good, however the low european limit on e-bike power is unfortunate, maybe designed by people in flat countries, you need more power for hills or heavy loads.
We'd like two more to enable family trips, but those are too rare to justify the cost, and also no e-bike can last a whole day - for that we'd need solar panels on a trailer - project for later ...
[p.s. note - overlap with !solarpunktravel@slrpnk.net ]

It's crashed and revived before, selling a feel-good drug that satisfies addictions to high-energy lifestyles, real-world impact was never the point.

Funding effective forest projects in developing countries is an obvious challenge, but offsets are not any solution. I remember way back (COP2?), Brazil proposed the 'Clean Development Fund', in which southern governments would get some money from northern governments, based on historical responsibility for emissions. Most of the Envi-NGOs protested strongly against equity-based "tropical hot air" transfers to governments, reckoning there were too many bad governments, preferring a project-based system which they could influence better. So this morphed into the CDM, but the value of such credits was dependent on the Kyoto market. The back deal in Kyoto (I remember, was there) had been that US (watched by many NGOs and journalists) agrees a toughish target while Russia (watched by almost nobody) got a very weak one - the original "hot air", then one would buy credits from the other. After Bush pulled US out, the Russian (and other E.Europe) credits remained, which collapsed the market including CDM. But as the story posted here tells, the phoenix was reborn once, and probably will be again. The people who decide these things fly around on a cushion of "hot air" all the time - it's how they feel comfortable. In the final plenary of COPs (have sat through enough) they always clap a lot, because whatever the numbers (or lack of them) this flying circus show must go on. And those are UN diplomats, now imagine the "voluntary" business version in private.

What does high frequency really mean in this context - in europe that might be every 15 minutes or so, but here I see only numbers about speed ?

Are they planning bridges and high-speed ferries too, to connect the islands ?

Well, air-con cooling and heat pump are basically the same, the plan (not yet reality) is that we'll all transition to renewable-powered heat pumps. In either case, insulation matters - I was surprised when staying in Brazil (decade ago), how rare was double glazing (despite noisy streets). Anyway I still think ski-slopes in the hot desert, around mega-cities grown on oil and aviation-hubs, is crazy.

Interesting review, many references. Well-targeted protests can help to keep policymakers motivated, especially prior to critical moments like decisions before COPs (during the last days, it's too late). But what about the effectiveness for the protestors themselves? - directing a lot of energy to such actions might distract youth from focus on developing an 'expert' career to help climate more substantially (am thinking from own past experience...).

Old divisions maybe relevant, but it's not so simple. For example, greatest PiS % in SE corner is on the Austrian side of that division. Also, [grand]parents of many people in western poland moved there from the easternmost areas which became Ukraine and Belarus after the war. I'm told catholicism is relevant, and Austrian empire was catholic, but that included Czechia which became the least religious country. I think a plot of PiS vote vs altitude would show a good correlation...

• It's not all the earth, nor all the time, even in future projections. The jet-set, who also control news media, fly for holidays and live in air-con, both of which make the problem worse. Dubai even has ski-slopes.
• 'News' over-emphasises 'breaking' surprise events, drowns gradually evolving statistics - boiling frogs. Maybe learn to comment on 'news' events with equivalent numbers due to climate change impacts?
• Exaggeration and blaming other groups just lead to fatalistic doom. Although temperatures rose in the last decade, the projections for end of century fell due to policies, although not enough it's important to emphasise that we still have choices.

oops - thanks, fixed

Here's a map of votes for PiS from poles abroad - low in most of europe and especially in far-east, but what happened across the atlantic ?

The site wybory.gov.pl shows maps, if you click on a party name, which illustrate a clear NW / SE divide, as well as the urban / rural divide that's common everywhere. Any explanations, why NW is so different from SE, and how to reduce such polarisation?