The Last Fire – Book Review

I have known Zoeb Karampurwala for more than two decades. There are a lot of parallels in our careers – though admittedly, compared to me, Zoeb has been many notches higher in the career trajectory. One thing that I have always wanted to do – but never managed to do so far – is to … Read more

Parks, not Parking

253 words Then there are the colossal tracts of sheer space, the oceans of real estate —a precious commodity in cities especially—that cars have taken from us. Most automobiles are parked 95 percent of the time, just sitting, immobile and unused, doing nothing except hogging up space. From an economic perspective, this is absurd. The … Read more

Embodied Energy

591 words Humanity’s insatiable appetite for energy created the climate-change crisis. The same appetite is now impelling us into an energy transition which carries its own tremendous costs. Switching from fossil fuels to renewables is an improvement, but it’s not nearly enough. It’s necessary, but not sufficient as a solution. To create a truly sustainable … Read more

How Amsterdam got its cycle tracks

426 words One morning in October of 1971, a six-year-old girl named Simone Langenhoff was riding her bike down a road in the southern Netherlands. Suddenly, a careless driver whipped around a blind corner and crashed into her. In an instant, Simone became one of some 450 children killed by automobiles in the Netherlands that … Read more

Right to Repair – Part 2

676 words Manufacturers argued that their restrictions were necessary to safeguard trade secrets and to protect people from hurting themselves by messing with their machines. “Apple told Nebraska lawmakers that the bill would turn the state into a ‘Mecca for bad actors,’ predicting that hackers and other nefarious figures would flock to the state to … Read more

Battery Recycling

554 words Li-Cycle’s original Kingston operation is relatively small, but it encompasses much of the battery recycling process. On the day of my visit, a truckload of consumer batteries from laptops, cell phones, and power tools has come in, delivered by a “recycling” company that picked them up from a big hardware store. It all … Read more