[A piece I wrote is running in the most recent edition of UN-Habitat’s Urban World magazine. The article covers a gutsy and successful residential solar project in Portland (OR), and a similar project that I gave a hand with in Durban (South Africa). OK, I admit I’m a bit late
Continue readingAuthor: Alex Aylett
openalex: Quebec’s New Electric Car Network: Therapy for Range Anxiety
Electric cars have always seemed like a natural for Quebec. Nearly all of the province’s electricity comes from hydro, and 40% of its GHG emissions come from transportation. In a jurisdiction where electricity is coal-fired things are less straight forward and you end up debating the merits of running cars
Continue readingopenalex: Republicans and Democrats Together on Climate Change…in Florida
It’s easy to forget that climate change hasn’t always been such a partisan issue. This is Mitt Romney, current Republican front-runner, in 2003: “I think the global warming debate is now pretty much over and people recognize the need associated with providing sources [of energy] which do not generate the
Continue readingopenalex: New Sustainable Cities Research Program – New Job, Exciting Prospects
Vancouver-based NGO Sustainable Cities International is an excellent outfit that runs a network of cities focused on green urbanism that spans the globe. The research that I’ve been able to do in South Africa, Canada, the States, Senegal (and other spots in between) has been in part thanks to their help.
Continue readingopenalex: Montreal’s Collective Push for Urban Agriculture
We are all still trying to figure out what a sustainable city is. Yes, we’ve got some good ideas. But to go beyond marginal changes and begin retrofitting, or building, cities in a way that truly responds to the challenges ahead requires ambitious changes. What type of neighbourhoods do we
Continue readingopenalex: Is Toronto Lost?
Has Toronto lost its way? That’s been the word on the street, and pretty much everywhere else, since Mayor Ford took office a little less than a year ago.But as colourful as his first 11 months have been, it’s a bit disingenuous to lay all the ci…
Continue readingopenalex: Open Access Research: Cities and Climate Change
It may be an urban legend, by they say that the average academic article is read by a grand total of 6 people. That’s not an inspiring thought, especially for those of us who spend our time writing those articles!You can pin low readership on all kinds…
Continue readingopenalex: Climate Reality
I should confess that when it first came out, I dozed off during the Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. That’s not the kind of admission you’d expect from someone who spends their days (and many nights) working on urban climate policies. But, influ…
Continue readingopenalex: EcoCity 2011 – Networked Urban Sustainability: Breaking the Integration Barrier
September hit with the usually flurry of activity, which means that I’m only now putting up this version of one of the two talks that I gave at the 2011 EcoCity World Summit. The Summit was hosted in Montreal this year, and was a huge success all a…
Continue readingopenalex: Pop-Up Planning: Toronto, New York, & Vancouver
“Pop-Up Planning”, temporary experimental transformations of urban space, gets a good profile in today’s Globe and Mail.”Pop-up” projects let cities try out new ideas without the expense – or the risk – of making permanent changes to infrastructure.&nb…
Continue readingopenalex: Montreal discovers it’s not easy going green: New Economist Green Cities Index
An article that I wrote on the new Green Cities Index (.pdf) released last week by yhe Economist Intelligence Unit is out in today’s Montreal Gazette. It was an interesting one to write. The focus of the piece was Montreal’s poor performance, and…
Continue readingopenalex: Kunstler on The City of the Future and "Yesterday’s Tomorrows"
I’m no apocalypse junkie; visions of the end of days don’t do much for me. But I am going to recommend James Kunstler’s most recent article anyway. Kunstler is a major figure in discussions of both Peak Oil and New Urbanism. In the July/August edi…
Continue readingopenalex: Solar Map of New York City
New York City’s new Solar Map has gone live, and it’s a beauty. With a googlemap style interface, you can zoom into any building in the greater NYC area. Click on the building and up pops an estimate of the solar power you could generate on its r…
Continue readingopenalex: Montreal Guerrilla Gardening: "Tour de Guerrilla" Silent Film
OuVert is an open urban sustainability lab that I’m helping to start here in Montreal. Below is an occasionally Chaplin-esque video of our first event – a seedbomb workshop and guerrilla gardening ride – that we ran a few weeks ago.
Before the rid…
Continue readingopenalex: Post C40 Summit Cities Need to "Go Big or Go Home" on Climate Policy
[I’ve got a new piece running over at The Mark News. The latest Clinton C40 urban climate summit just wrapped up in Brazil, and as always there’s been a flood of optimistic news coverage. I’m all for optimism. But I wanted to provide some perspective…
Continue readingopenalex: 48Hour Green Film Contest @ Cannes
Cannes wrapped up last weekend with the Palme d’Or going to Terrence Malick’s apparently slightly sprawling epic The Tree of Life. From what I’ve read, the movie looks to be a mix of personal drama and a lush celebration of the Earth’s beauty (trailer)…
Continue readingopenalex: Bixi Responds to Flurry of Financial Coverage
Montreal news has been awash with coverage of BIXI’s financial situation. After some delay, the city has approved $108million in loans and loan guarantees for the non-profit that operates BIXI.
Those numbers, as well as BIXI management’s confrontation…
Continue readingopenalex: The Urban Diabetes Epidemic: Green Cities & Health
I’ve written before about the fact that overall New Yorkers have the highest life expectancy in the United States. Sounds odd, but research has traced those added months to the walking New Yorkers do while they navigate a city where pedestrians and t…
Continue readingopenalex: Climate Change Slams Food Production: Agricultural Investors To Rake It In
Sometimes you’ve just got to laugh. Tuesday’s Globe and Mail led it’s investment section with an article titled “Warming Trend May be Boon to Canada.” The piece focused on a new study, published in Science, which shows that since 1980 rising temper…
Continue readingopenalex: Jane’s Walk 2011: This Weekend Biggest Ever now in 15 Countries
This weekend is the fifth year of Jane’s Walk, and it is the biggest ever. Volunteers will lead 491 walks spread across 72 cities and 15 countries. What I love about the Walks, and what’s at the core of their success, is their simple open-source approa…
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