by lisetown | Jul 5, 2020 | climate action, COVID-19
Wow, what a crazy time 2020 has been! So many layered crises, layered on smouldering climate change. The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the vulnerabilities of our society and economy, while the events following George Floyd’s murder have further ignited and...
by lisetown | Dec 31, 2019 | climate change adaptation, Featured, renewable energy, sightseeing, Social/personal
I had a desire to experience the desert of southern Morocco, in a way that’s low-impact on the environment and local communities. So, I found a locally owned horseback tour, which truly exceeded my expectations. The horses literally have a small footprint of...
by lisetown | Dec 13, 2019 | Featured, Transportation, urban design
Stepping off the train from Madrid in Vitoria-Gasteiz, a city of 252,000 in the Basque Country, northern Spain, felt like stepping into an alternate universe. The doors of the station opened to a cool December evening. I walked down a wide street lined with...
by lisetown | Dec 7, 2019 | climate action, low carbon buildings, renewable energy, Transportation
Scaling up climate solutions The urgency of acting on climate change is abundantly clear to all – all except a “handful of fanatics that deny the science”, as Spanish Prime Minister Sanchez put it at the opening of the COP 25 conference this week. The effects...
by lisetown | Nov 30, 2019 | Featured, sightseeing, Transportation, urban design
Steps toward the car-free city I haven’t posted in a while because, frankly, I’m finding it difficult to make myself sit down and write, or even just stay indoors, in a city with so much going on, especially when it’s sunny and up to 20 degrees out!...
by lisetown | Nov 25, 2019 | ecology, Featured, Transportation, urban design
Modern architecture, transportation and nature Shifting attention from the old to the new, and turning on my “Planner” antennae, Montpellier seems to have achieved a nice balance of density and livability, at least in the neighbourhoods close to the centre. The...
by lisetown | Nov 24, 2019 | climate action, renewable energy
A peek at the industry from a shipping engineer’s perspective I was hosted by friends of my family in the Amsterdam area, including Boudewijn van der Garden, who works for Jumbo Shipping, a heavy-lift shipping company, as the Regional Commercial Manager...
by lisetown | Nov 9, 2019 | climate action, Featured, renewable energy
I visited the Hellisheiði geothermal power plant, to learn more about the climate-friendly system that supplies Reykjavik and surrounding area with hot water as well as power. They are also pioneering a method for capturing CO2 and storing it permanently in the form...
by lisetown | Dec 22, 2019 | sightseeing, Social/personal, Transportation, Travel modes and (mis)adventures, urban design
Fes and Marrakech My first couple of days in Morocco, in the medina of Tangier, were a bit of a shock. Coming from a city where people hardly even make eye contact or speak to strangers, it was a very different experience being stared at, called out to, sized up, and...
by lisetown | Dec 19, 2019 | sightseeing, Travel modes and (mis)adventures
My faith in humanity (and Moroccans) was restored in a trip to the “blue city” of Chefchaouen. This was after a bit of a rough landing that turned into a couple of days in Tangier. To start with, I ended up taking a ship from Algeciras (Spain) to the “wrong” port...
