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12
Sustainability

Environmentalism

By Khaled Abou Alfa • 15 September 2019

Commentary

Environmentalism

The Global Climate Strike is an international movement, being held from the 20-27th of September. There are plenty of ways to contribute to the effort. While I’m much too jaded to expect a global change in our treatment of our environment, my hopes are twofold.

First, that this event becomes a regular occurrence. Establishing it as a movement that reminds everyone to take our current situation seriously. Second, that this event will help generate ideas that can be used by everyone to get others onboard. Side related, I love this photo of Obama with Greta.

Micromobility

iROAD Vehicle

One of the exciting developments changing our relationship to our cities is the introduction of micro individual mobility methods. While the Segway did promise individual mobility, it ended up arriving, except in a different looking package - to be fair to Segway they have embraced and continue to look at different mobility methods. With the exception of their Kickscooter, the same dorky DNA runs through those products. Cities are having to consider how they integrate electric scooters into their fabric, while bicycles with e-drive motors are becoming commonplace, even in places like California. Finally, while not completely micro, Toyota have started trials of their i-ROAD electric vehicle. A 3-wheeled vehicle that offers a considerably smaller footprint to a traditional car but provides a complete enclosure. This disruption is on the rise. If you’re looking for a deeper dive into the subject, Horace Dediu recently Kickstarted and published a book about Micromobility which is available for download here.

Tools of the Trade

GoodNotes

GoodNotes Search

Several years ago, a backlash from the volume of screens in our lives, the stationary world had something of a resurgence. The digital tools did not offer the same experience as the tools they were meant to replace. Fountain pens, paper notebooks and artisanal pencils were all the rage.

Slowly, these digital tools are combining what is best from the real world and using the advantages of the digital. My new notebook of choice is the recently released GoodNotes 5. The killer feature being the excellent OCR, which like magic searches all your written notes. A feature that cannot be replicated in a paper setup.


The rest of this chapter can be found in the Built Environment Compendium Vol.01.
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