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The growing role of customer affordability in utility strategy, investment and long-term planning.

Affordability struggles are spreading. Is your utility built to catch them in time?

Headline News:

• “House Democratic Leader Jeffries Calls On Lawmakers To ‘Act Urgently’ On AI” • House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said lawmakers need to take urgent action on a growing threat of AI. Previously, former Anthropic Researcher Jacob Coxon had warned, “The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.” [ABC News]

Hakeem Jeffries (Maryland GovPics, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped)

• “Solar Power Boosts Odisha Farmers And Women’s Groups, Cutting Costs And Raising Crop Incomes” • For farmers in Odisha, irrigation has depended on monsoon rains or diesel motors. For women’s groups, unreliable electricity has delayed food processing. Now for these groups, renewable energy is helping provide power. [Asianet Newsable]
• “Hitting Climate Goals Means No Coal Power, And No New Petrol And Diesel Cars By 2035, Report Finds” • All coal-fired power stations should close and new petrol and diesel car sales end within a decade if Australia is to meet its climate goals, a Climate Analytics report found. Renewable energy investments would also need to accelerate. [Renew Economy]
• “UK Wind Power Hits Record High As Energy Security Risks Mount” • The UK has increased its wind energy capacity a lot over the last decade, producing record levels of wind power in 2025. With several more projects in the pipeline, wind power is expected to be a major share of the UK energy mix by the end of the decade, boosting energy security. [OilPrice.com]
• “Turn Off The Lights: Birds Are Migrating” • Look around your home this evening. The days are getting shorter, and our craving for light means that we are substituting artificial illumination for sunlight. It also may mean that we are unknowingly causing injury to the hundreds of species of birds that are now migrating to their southern homes. [CleanTechnica]

For more news, please visit geoharvey – Daily News about Energy and Climate Change.

Frequent exposure to roadkill prompts my wife to say that this is why we should all live in cities. Leave the hinterlands to wild creatures.

Humanity is faced with the greatest failure in its long existence. What can we do about it?

Eight years ago, the Ecosystem Restoration Communities movement began with a simple but powerful belief: that everyday people everywhere could restore the land and, in doing so, restore hope for our shared future.

The LVC Arab regional meeting in Tunisia places ecological agriculture at the heart of a political struggle over who decides the future of food.

The post LVC Arab Regional Meeting: Sovereignty Over Land, Water, and Seeds Before Increasing Production appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

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All the ambulance services in England experienced some of their busiest-ever days during this summer’s record-breaking June heatwave, according to data obtained by Carbon Brief.

In June, temperatures climbed past 37C in parts of the country as authorities declared only the second ever “red” extreme heat warning.

Four out of 10 NHS ambulance services, including London’s, responded to unprecedented numbers of life-threatening emergencies on at least one day from 23-27 June.

Another two services – in the south-west and east of the country – received their highest volume of 999 calls on record.

Ambulance services provided data on their busiest days since records began, in response to freedom-of-information (FOI) requests from Carbon Brief.

The results show how demand during the June heatwave exceeded levels seen during the traditionally busy winter season in other years – and even the height of the Covid-19 pandemic – for many services.

Heat demand

Extreme heat ramps up the risk of numerous life-threatening conditions, including heart disease and respiratory problems. 

England experienced record-breaking temperatures at the end of June, with the whole country covered by amber or red “heat health alerts” from the government.

A red alert, which was issued for the entire Midlands and south of England, indicates “significant risk to life for even the healthy population”. This was only the second time such an alert has been triggered.

Researchers calculated that there were nearly 3,000 heat-related deaths in the UK this summer. There has also been unprecedented demand for A&E departments and some ambulance services.

To investigate the strain facing ambulances, Carbon Brief sent FOI requests to the 10 NHS ambulance trusts in England, asking for lists of their busiest days. 

This covered both the total volume of 999 calls and “category 1” responses – referring to incidents involving “life-threatening injuries and illnesses”, such as heart attacks.

The chart below shows the busiest days on record for England’s ambulances, including both total calls and category 1 responses. Most services were able to provide records back to the 2010s. (See: Methodology.)

The five-day period from 23-27 June is overrepresented in these results, with at least two heatwave days ranking in the top 20 for every service in the country.

The top 20 rankings for services across England cover different periods of time. See Methodology for more details.

This trend is especially pronounced in the south and east of England, where June temperatures exceeded 36C and even approached 38C in some regions.

London, South East Coast, South Central and North East ambulance services all reported daily records for responding to life-threatening emergencies during the heatwave.

For the South East Coast and South Central services – which cover a region stretching from Oxfordshire to Kent – 25, 26 and 27 June all saw unprecedented numbers of category 1 callouts. 

South Western and East of England services both saw record numbers of 999 calls on 26 June, the same day the highest-ever June UK temperature was reported in Norfolk.

It is worth noting that demand for ambulance services – including category 1 calls – has been growing for many years, driven by factors such as an ageing population, more complex health conditions and growing mental-health pressures.

This helps to explain why dates from before the 2020s are rare in the top rankings provided to Carbon Brief.

Beyond the heatwave, 2026 as a whole is on track to be a record year for ambulance demand.

‘Stifling heat’

On 26 June, the busiest day of the heatwave, ambulances across England responded to 4,084 life-threatening emergencies.

The average daily volume of such incidents is normally around 2,500 during the summer months.

Stu Holliday, head of emergency preparedness, resilience and response at North East Ambulance Service, tells Carbon Brief: 

“During periods of hot weather, we typically see an increase in calls from people affected by dehydration, heat exhaustion and heatstroke, as well as those whose existing health conditions, particularly heart and respiratory illnesses, can be made worse by prolonged high temperatures.

“Older people, young children and pregnant people can be especially vulnerable.”

Ambulance teams are generally busier in the winter because cold weather and seasonal illnesses drive up the number of severe medical emergencies.

However, the data from June shows that extremely hot days are starting to match or even edge out cold ones as the busiest days. This is a trend seen across the healthcare system.

While not every service provided records back to 2019, the data broadly shows that ambulances were busier during the heatwave than at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

As well as patients, heatwaves put pressure on ambulance workers. The UNISON union has warned of crews facing “stifling heat with faulty or no air conditioning” and “back-to-back callouts” due to increased demand.

Methodology

Carbon Brief requested data on the top 50 busiest days for England’s 10 main ambulance services.

These are: London; South East Coast; South Central; South Western; West Midlands; East Midlands; East of England; North East; Yorkshire; and North West.

Data was requested for as far back as service records go. Most were able to provide records going back to some point in the 2010s, with the exception of North East and South Central, which only had records from 2021 and 2022 onwards, respectively. 

Rising annual demand for ambulance services means that most of the busiest days for ambulances have been in the 2020s. For example, all but four of the busiest days for category 1 emergencies reported to Carbon Brief were in the 2020s. 

Carbon Brief requested data on ambulance demand for all the UK nations. In Scotland and Northern Ireland – where temperatures are cooler – services did not see call volumes reach the top 50 rankings during the June heatwave. The Welsh Ambulance Service did not respond to Carbon Brief’s request.

related Revealed: More than 1,000 NHS operations cancelled due to record UK heatwaves 11.09.2026 Health and society Climate change is driving a ‘shift’ in childhood malaria risk across Africa 29.07.2026 Health and society Q&A: How heat-related deaths are counted by scientists and public health authorities 17.07.2026 Extreme weather Guest post: France’s June heatwave caused more than 2,700 heat-related deaths 07.07.2026 Health and society

The post Revealed: England’s June 2026 heatwave sparked record demand for ambulances appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Give trees a chance Channel News brendan 14th September 2026 Teaser Media

Satu koin jatuh, kotak menyala, lalu progres di sisi layar mulai terisi. Bolts of Zeus Coin Grid tidak membutuhkan waktu lama untuk memperlihatkan identitas utamanya. Alih-alih menjadikan Zeus sebagai pusat seluruh pertunjukan, game ini memberi porsi besar pada papan koin persisten. Mekanisme tersebut membuat Bolts of Zeus Royalgacor terasa berbeda dari permainan mitologi dengan formula petir, dewa, serta gulungan konvensional. Bagi Pemain Situs Royalgacor, daya tarik awal justru datang dari progres visual. Koin tidak sekadar muncul sebagai ornamen. Setiap posisi pada Coin Grid memberikan gambaran mengenai perkembangan sesi sehingga perhatian pemain terbagi antara gulungan utama dan papan koleksi. Kesan “Langsung Jackpot” akhirnya mudah muncul saat beberapa elemen bertemu dalam satu momentum. Meski demikian, jackpot tetap bergantung pada mekanisme dan hasil permainan, bukan urutan tertentu atau pola pasti.

Bolts of Zeus Coin Grid Royalgacor Membawa Dua Fokus dalam Satu Layar

Konsep Bolts of Zeus Coin Grid Royalgacor terasa menarik karena layar memiliki dua pusat perhatian. Gulungan tetap menjalankan fungsi utama, sementara papan koin mencatat perkembangan secara visual. Struktur semacam ini mengubah cara mata membaca permainan. Pemain Situs Royalgacor tidak hanya menunggu simbol serupa bertemu. Perhatian ikut berpindah menuju posisi koin, kotak kosong, serta kemungkinan terbentuknya garis pada grid. Inilah pembeda penting dibanding game Zeus konvensional. Petir, karakter mitologi, serta efek cahaya masih memberikan atmosfer Olympus, tetapi Coin Grid menjadi elemen dengan fungsi lebih dominan.

Coin Grid Membuat Setiap Koin Terasa Punya Tujuan

Kekuatan konsep grid berada pada rasa progres. Koin baru dapat menempati ruang tertentu lalu bertahan sebagai bagian dari papan. Kondisi tersebut menciptakan informasi visual sederhana: bagian mana sudah terisi dan bagian mana masih kosong. Bolts of Zeus Royalgacor kemudian terasa seperti permainan dengan dua lapisan. Lapisan pertama berisi putaran reguler, sedangkan lapisan berikutnya berasal dari perkembangan Coin Grid. Bagi Fokus Pemain, model semacam ini efektif karena layar terus memberikan sesuatu untuk dipantau. Bahkan saat perhatian tidak tertuju pada kombinasi reguler, papan koin tetap menjadi titik visual kuat.

Efek Zeus Tidak Lagi Menjadi Satu-Satunya Pusat Perhatian

Game bertema Zeus biasanya identik dengan sambaran petir, langit gelap, kuil, serta karakter dewa berukuran besar. Bolts of Zeus Coin Grid mengambil identitas tersebut, tetapi mekanisme koin membuat atmosfer mitologi tidak berdiri sendirian. Petir berfungsi sebagai aksen dramatis. Koin memberi informasi progres. Grid membangun rasa antisipasi. Pembagian fungsi tersebut membuat desain terasa lebih terarah. Pemain Situs Royalgacor bisa mengenali elemen penting tanpa harus memahami seluruh detail sejak putaran pertama.

Jackpot Menjadi Bagian dari Antisipasi Visual

Istilah Langsung Jackpot memang memiliki daya tarik kuat, tetapi mekanisme sebenarnya lebih kompleks daripada sekadar menunggu satu simbol khusus muncul. Bolts of Zeus Coin Grid menggunakan beberapa tingkatan jackpot di dalam sistem permainannya. Kehadiran level hadiah tersebut membuat papan terasa memiliki target visual lebih jelas. Namun hasil setiap sesi tetap tidak dapat dipastikan hanya melalui posisi koin sebelumnya. Karena itu, pembacaan paling masuk akal bukan “grid penuh berarti jackpot pasti keluar”, melainkan grid memberi pemain indikator progres dan membangun antisipasi. Dua hal ini berbeda, meski sering tercampur dalam percakapan komunitas.

Fokus Pemain Bergeser dari Putaran Menuju Perkembangan Grid

Salah satu perubahan menarik muncul pada cara pemain memperhatikan layar. Game tradisional membuat mata menunggu hasil setiap spin secara terpisah. Sistem persisten memberi alasan untuk mengingat kondisi sebelumnya. Bolts of Zeus Royalgacor membawa pendekatan tersebut melalui koin tersimpan pada papan. Setiap perkembangan memiliki hubungan visual dengan putaran berikutnya. Akibatnya, Fokus Pemain tidak sepenuhnya kembali ke nol setelah satu hasil selesai. Pendekatan ini juga menjelaskan mengapa Coin Grid mudah menjadi elemen paling diingat. Otak lebih mudah membaca progres ketika informasi divisualisasikan lewat kotak, posisi, serta perubahan sederhana daripada angka panjang atau penjelasan fitur.

Situs Royalgacor Mendapat Warna Berbeda dari Tema Zeus

Bagi Situs Royalgacor, Bolts of Zeus Coin Grid dapat memperluas kategori mitologi tanpa mengulang formula serupa. Zeus memang bukan karakter baru dalam dunia game digital. Pembeda justru muncul melalui cara mekanisme dikemas. Bolts of Zeus Coin Grid Royalgacor menggabungkan atmosfer Olympus dengan sistem koleksi koin, papan persisten, efek petir, serta target jackpot dalam satu tampilan. Kombinasi tersebut membuat permainan lebih mudah dikenali ketika ditempatkan di antara banyak judul bertema dewa. Pada akhirnya, daya tarik “Langsung Jackpot” sebaiknya dibaca sebagai bagian dari sensasi dan antisipasi, bukan kepastian kemenangan. Coin Grid menjadi komponen paling kuat karena mampu mengubah Fokus Pemain dari sekadar menunggu putaran menjadi membaca perkembangan papan. Di titik tersebut Bolts of Zeus Royalgacor mempunyai identitasnya sendiri. Zeus membawa dramanya, petir memberi efek, tetapi susunan koinlah yang membuat mata sulit mengabaikan layar.

The NSW Department of Planning and Environment has approved a two-year extension to the Ulan coal mine near Mudgee, despite the project being previously invalidated in the NSW Land and Environment Court after the local climate change impacts were found to not be properly assessed. 

Administrators of Whyalla Steelworks abandon efforts to reboot the plant's coal-fired blast furnace, wiping out more than 500 jobs and adding fresh difficulty to the planned sale of the industrial giant.

The post Administrators call time on Whyalla Steelworks’ coal furnace “delusion,” hundreds of jobs to go appeared first on Renew Economy.

UK-based asset management group buys prominent Melbourne consultancy specialising in wind and solar developments as part of Australian buying spree.

The post UK group snaps up leading wind, solar and battery consultancy as part of Australian buying spree appeared first on Renew Economy.

Another wind and battery project proposed for south-east Queensland, despite pushback by state government and federal MPs.

The post New wind and battery energy park, backed by super funds, proposed for south-east Queensland appeared first on Renew Economy.

Former Liberal leader and ex AEMO system design boss appointed to Snowy Hydro board as market continues its 11-month wait for a budget reset of Snowy 2.0.

The post Former Liberal leader appointed to Snowy Hydro board as market awaits another Snowy 2.0 reset appeared first on Renew Economy.

Smart Energy Council CEO David McElrea on LNP ideology, how to close coal fired generators, and the next policy goals for solar, batteries and EVs. Plus: CEC gives voice to mayors on community benefits.

The post Should ageing coal generators be fed carrots or sticks? | Energy Insiders appeared first on Renew Economy.

If you’ve been a longtime Streetsblog reader, you may or may not have noticed that I’ve been logging about 5-7 bylines every week for this site since I first started in January of 2020. And you also may or may not have noticed that in June, my name pretty abruptly stopped showing up here. That’s because I took a leave of absence following the death of my father.  

My dad was on a very short list of my favorite humans in the world and the most important people in my life, so I won’t attempt to eulogize him here; what he meant to me goes far beyond what could fit within the mission frame of this website.

But because I count many people who read my work as friends who care about me, I want to share a little bit about where I’ve been, and how the experience of becoming his caregiver has impacted my work. 

Recommended Why the New Mobility Revolution Leaves Seniors Behind Kea Wilson March 1, 2021

Over the course of my career, I’ve written countless articles about disability and mobility, as well as the “silver tsunami” of Baby Boomers who are poised to lose their ability to drive in communities where driving is not optional. I have memorized statistics about the third of U.S. households who can’t or don’t use cars, and the rising share of older Americans with mobility challenges who rank among their number. 

None of that prepared me for what happened to my dad. 

In September of last year my father went, in a matter of days, from being a seemingly healthy, active 73-year-old who had recently driven himself more than 500 miles for a multi-day canoe trip, to a stage IV cancer patient with metastases in his bones. Suddenly, dad was relying on a steady diet of sedating painkillers just to make it through the day; chemo soon stole what was left of his energy, and left him falling asleep mid-sentence at the kitchen table.

Needless to say, getting behind the wheel was suddenly and totally out of the question, and the SUV in his garage became an expensive stone around his neck. 

None of my carefully researched articles about increased road testing for seniors or the need for more walkable multi-generational neighborhoods had equipped me with the tools I needed to navigate this. It completely upended my dad’s life, my life, and the lives of my entire family.

It also taught me that it is not enough for transportation reformers to focus solely on projects like bus lanes and infill development. That might help car-dependent families like mine have more mobility options in a few years, or even decades; it would do nothing to help them tomorrow.

Recommended Report: A Third of Americans Can’t Rely On Cars — And 16 Million Have No Access At All Kea Wilson October 2, 2025

That’s doubly true of seniors in ultra-car dependent areas, which unfortunately included my father. 

Recently widowed following the death of my stepmother just a year before, cancer had left my dad functionally unable to leave the condominium in a planned community in rural Ohio that had been his home for 25 years, at least without someone to drive him. That’s because that “planned community” had been deliberately built without sidewalks, any form of fixed-route transit or even basic streetlights on most roads. There was a grocery store next door; you still had to drive to reach it, or walk on a 45 mile per hour arterial. 

The condo complex also backed up to an interstate, which you could hear roaring every time you cracked the windows. Despite the many articles I sent him about PM 2.5 exposure and its links to adverse health conditions — including the type of cancer he eventually developed — Dad still considered that highway an amenity. It allowed him and my stepmother to live deep in the horse country they both loved, where she worked, and he volunteered, at an equestrian therapy center for people with disabilities nearby. 

I think for many transportation reform advocates, it’s easy to write off people who choose car-dependent neighborhoods as uninformed, in dire need of deprogramming from the cult of “car-brain”, or even as victims of the dwindling supply and surging demand for houses along transit corridors. My father’s experience with cancer reminded me that while that can be true, it is also not that simple. 

My dad knew the many ways that his car dependent neighborhood did not serve him, because he read everything I wrote. He was not stubborn or stupid; he was thinking of downsizing before he got his diagnosis. But he loved his home despite all the driving it forced him to do; he was not quite ready to leave the place he’d shared with a wife he was still grieving. By the time he thought he might be ready, he found out he was dying.

As advocates, we can talk all we want about how “housing policy” is intertwined with transportation policy, and why it would be better if more people had the option of living in places without cars. But that is something very different than talking about our attachment to home, which can be among the powerful, emotional and irrational bonds in our lives.

We cannot argue away that love with statistics and policy briefs, even when the person in the car-dependent rural house knows full well that their home does not meet their needs.  

Recommended Car Dependency Helped Build the Modern Nursing Home Landscape. During COVID-19, It’s Killing our Seniors. Kea Wilson April 30, 2020

So yes: we tried to keep my dad in his home, despite the fact that he could not safely leave it without someone to drive him.

My sister and I lived multiple states away, but for months, we traded off flying hundreds of miles to stay with him, tag-teaming in and out of our new role as volunteer chauffeurs. Needless to say, we also served as volunteer nurses, and housekeepers and cooks, and about a million other roles; if this were a different type of website, I could write a whole other essay about how the medical system over-relies on the unpaid labor of families, and particularly daughters. 

I tried to keep up with my work at Streetsblog during this period. I wrote articles in the middle of the night, or in short bursts between administering meds, checking vitals, running to the pharmacy, juggling calls to insurance and dozens of specialists, and the zillion other tiny acts of caregiving that often got me up at 4 am and often stretched my days past midnight. (If you’re a troll who harassed me on the internet during this period for being an “ableist” because I want more cities to have bike lanes: well, I hope you feel bad now!) 

Getting my dad to the doctor, though, proved to be a uniquely difficult burden — and often, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Recommended Why We Can’t Afford to Ignore the Needs of Non-Drivers With Disabilities Kea Wilson August 30, 2021

From my reporting, I knew about the challenges people with disabilities face finding a ride, at least in the abstract. I knew that home health aides and the deeply underfunded paratransit system in Dad’s neighborhood weren’t a panacea, not least because both required the kind of advance notice that mapped poorly onto the dynamic schedule of a cancer patient with constantly emerging medical needs.

I also knew that Uber and taxi drivers wouldn’t help him down the stairs from his front door — if those drivers didn’t cancel the ride once they saw how far out he lived, which many of them did. 

Later, when my dad finally decided to move into an assisted living in my city, I would learn that even paying out the nose for the “all inclusive” option wouldn’t solve our transportation puzzle, either. Retirement communities with hundreds of residents all seemed to have just a single driver on staff; outgoing rides required at least 72 hours’ notice to book, and the staff couldn’t just wait around to bring a resident home.

That might be fine for retirees with low vision who don’t mind reading in a lobby for an hour after seeing their general practitioner; it was brutal for a guy with chemo fatigue who needed hours of recovery every time he left his room. 

Recommended Interview: Tammy Duckworth Insists Every U.S. Transit Station Must Be Accessible Kea Wilson May 20, 2021

The worst part, though, was the sheer mental burden of filling the gaps in a very sick person’s transportation schedule, and how that burden compounded the challenges of caregiving.  

From his very first treatment, my dad simply did not have the energy to call a dozen friends and family to see who could take him to the doctor. Even when I made those calls for him, most people we tried couldn’t help; they were too busy with their own punishing commutes across a region that functionally required everyone to drive long distances for most trips.

When I asked the social worker about other transportation resources, they kicked me to a byzantine app-based “platform” that connected patients with volunteer drivers who often weren’t available, either. The idea of making my terminally ill, not-particularly tech-savvy, Baby Boomer father navigate that app while on opioids when his millennial daughter could barely manage it was enough to break my brain. 

So a lot of days, I cancelled all my interviews and drove Dad myself. Some days, we put nearly a hundred miles on his SUV, between multiple appointments on far-flung medical campuses, over whose scheduling and locations we were offered zero say. I learned that this is just how doctor’s appointments work when you are very sick in a car dependent place: you go where the MRI queue can fit you in tomorrow, even if it’s on the other side of town, and your family has to figure out how to get you there. 

Recommended What We Can Learn From the 30 Percent of Americans Who Can’t Drive Streetsblog May 21, 2024

Here’s the thing: I am deeply aware that a bike lane would not have made any of this better.  

My dad could barely walk in the last months of his life, never mind ride; moreover, even the best bus driver in the world wouldn’t have accompanied him to and from his stop on days when he was struggling. And before any jerks on the internet swarm my inbox to slam me for the “hypocrisy” of relying on a car to get my dying father to the oncologist: please, just stop, because I am exhausted.

Nothing about the movement to end mass, forced, car dependence in our cities has ever been incompatible with the movement to support truly car-dependent people, which many of us will become as our bodies age or become ill. There was a brief period, before his illness progressed, where my father might have been able to maintain his independence with better paratransit near his home; the fact that this period ended so quickly does not mean that he did not deserve that chance.

And I’d even argue that mass, forced car dependence did make my dad’s life worse, even though he relied heavily on cars in his last months.

I cannot tell you how many times I sat with him in gridlocked traffic on the way to urgent care, desperate to get him care for some symptom that was not quite bad enough for an ambulance, and wondering how many of the able-bodied drivers that choked the road around us could have taken the train. Every time I walked through a hospital parking garage, I wondered if getting him care would have been less of a punishing ordeal if all that space had been used to build offices for his umpteen far-flung specialists instead. 

But there’s also an uncomfortable truth that I had not considered deeply before my dad got sick: that sometimes, when we are very ill, no transportation option really serves us anymore. And that includes cars.

Sometimes, the bike ride to the corner store, the walk to the train station, or even the journey from the living room to the attached garage feels like too much. We become housebound, and then we become bed-bound; our bodies change in ways we never expected. The best we can hope for as this failure progresses is a shorter trip to the doctor, or a visit from a friend that will save us from leaving the house at all.

I wish that more transportation reformers and governments alike would incorporate policies that support people who can’t move much at all into their mobility advocacy, like better home health care access, sustainable delivery options, and massive reform to the caregiving industry, including transportation and strong wages for those desperately-needed workers. It would save so much pain if we did. 

Recommended ‘World Day of Remembrance’: Connecting Grief to Activism Dan Langenkamp November 17, 2023

In the very end, I am grateful my father was spared pain by the amazing staff of a hospice house, who took wonderful care of him in his last days. I am equally grateful that my sister and I could be by his side when he passed, and that we could push his hospital bed outdoors to spend his final moments in the garden at sunset.

As a reporter, I have heard countless stories from people who have lost their loved ones to car crashes, including extremely graphic details about what happened to their bodies in their final moments. I do not share all of those details in my writing, but they do haunt me. l do not take for granted for a moment that my father died in peace rather than agony, in my arms rather than on the side of the road. Every single person we lose to traffic violence deserved the same.

In the end, I think the greatest lesson from this time that I will carry into my work is this: there is enough pain in the world already, even before we build a transportation system that ends so many lives too early, and makes so many others harder than they need to be. I still believe that a world with less pain is possible. My dad would want me to keep working to make it real.  

• President Trump may inadvertently gotten Americans out of the cars by starting a war with Iran. Gas prices have risen by $100 billion, costing motorists an average of almost $800 each (Jalopnik).
• Meanwhile, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright admitted that the best way to drive down gas prices right now is to drive less (Business Insider). But without the transit and bike lanes the administration is defunding, how else are people supposed to get where they need to go?
• The places that will be hurt the most by the Trump administration’s transit cuts are the major cities that provide half the country’s economic output, Howard Chernick writes.
• Even a guy who doesn’t know how to ride a bike things deriding bike lanes as “DEI” is dumb. (The Guardian)
• Members have been arrested, but a Los Angeles group that paints crosswalks where the city won’t is still at it. (NBC Los Angeles)
• San Francisco residents are arguing over whether it’s OK that cyclists get stuck in streetcar tracks and run over by cars. (Standard)
• Baltimore has a plan to reconnect neighborhoods separated by a “highway to nowhere.” (WMAR)
• Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms says she’ll fund Georgia transit for the first time if elected governor. (11Alive)
• The Minnesota Star-Tribune published a guest column in favor of finding the $224 million to continue the Blue Line project.
• The City of Omaha settled with the owner of a building that partially collapsed during streetcar construction. (Nebraska Public Media)
• An SUV driver hit and killed a man in a wheelchair on a stretch of road in Fort Wayne, Indiana that has no sidewalks. (WPTA)
• Common Edge details the mistakes made during Urban Renewal in New Haven — a common tale in many American cities.
• Runners used to be able to beat Seattle’s “Late 8” bus, but not since it got its own bus lane. (The Urbanist)
• The “cab car” revolutionized rail travel by allowing trains to easily reverse directions at the end of a track. (The Autopian)

Plan by energy ministers to agree on the new design for the National Electricity Market described as "incredibly ambitious" as consultation paper released.

The post “Incredibly ambitious”: Electricity market reforms given express track by energy ministers appeared first on Renew Economy.

Bowen says there is "a lot of work to do" to legalise plug-in solar and batteries. But experts say it's not complicated, and want regulators handed a firm deadline.

The post Plug-in solar “not an overnight proposition,” says Bowen, as pressure mounts to legalise it within 10 months appeared first on Renew Economy.