In urban logistics, the ‘last mile’ refers to the final stretch of the transport of goods – for example, the distance a truck or a van completes carrying your last online find from a warehouse, a dock, or another trade logistics infrastructure in or near your city, until your door.
Worldwide rising prices of essential commodities – plainly put, food and energy- have made more evident the disproportionate vulnerability of poorer households in face of the socioecological crisis. An example: the extreme heat waves illustrate clearly the social inequalities derived from the -very unfortunate – combination of climate change and increasing electricity prices.
Recently, we were talking about the depave movement that had started in Portland almost two decades ago. Well, once you have taken out the asphalt of a piece of urban ground, you could plant a tiny forest in it. Other than really really small woods, a tiny forest refers to a dense fast-growing native woodland, based on an established forest management method developed in the 1970s by Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki to help restore ecosystems.
In the last 20 years, bees and other insects have become more popularly accepted in cities. With a growing awareness of the global socioecological crisis has also come a recognition of pollinator’s essential ecosystem services, i.e., their tasks for the balance of ecosystems and our food production.
It is no secret that fossil fuels based energy should be that: a fossil from the past. Without entering here into the many economic, social, or technological obstacles for this to happen (ideally very very soon), we do say however that renewable energy cooperatives (REcoops) can be a key solution for the energy transition.
