Hi friends! I’m really glad you’re here. Recent news has me thinking how much I appreciate this We Can Fix It community. Among many other reasons, I’m glad it’s not dependent on a specific platform. If Substack evaporates, I have your emails and my writing, and can recreate it somewhere else. So thanks for being here, and please keep an eye out for a survey coming soon so I can get to know you and how I can serve you better. <3

And if you’re new, join the squad here:

Subscribe now

On to the facts, feels and action!

Facts: 12 ways to free cities from cars

As a We Can Fix It reader, you know that, for the average household in North America or Europe, cars are the biggest climate polluter.

But good news! Dozens of cities have already put in place measures that worked to demonstrably reduce cars and support sustainable mobility, creating more space and cleaner air for people.

In a study led by the wonderful Paula Kuss (developed out of her masters’ thesis!), from screening nearly 800 cases, we identified 12 ways that have *already worked* to reduce cars in cities.

Here are the 12 measures, ranked by effectiveness, in artistic format! (It would make a great coffee mug, don’t you think??)

A dozen effective measures to reduce car use in cities. Thanks to Emma Li Johansson for the illustration! Featured in The Conversation.

And here are the 12 measures in wonk-friendly table format!

A dozen effective measures to reduce car use in cities. Table from my article in The Conversation.

Key takeaway 1: Effective measures combine sticks and carrots.

You already know that getting people to drive less is what’s needed to reduce emissions, and carrots alone don’t work to get people out of cars.

Our analysis shows that effective measures need to address driving and parking reduction and restriction as an explicit goal (the red “sticks” column above)— and then use the space freed and the money generated to expand and improve walking, biking, and public transport (the green “carrot” column above).

Many people on Twitter said, “You forgot bike lanes!”

No, I didn’t. They’re part of #2, 6, and 7, for example. It’s just that bike lanes ALONE weren’t found effective to reduce cars. Carrots AND sticks.

Key takeaway 2: Local city government must lead.

We found 75% of the effective measures were led by local government, often in collaboration with employers, universities, or transport providers.

But! We know politicians don’t hear enough from their constituents supporting bold climate policies.

So: please go right ahead and forward this email to your local city leaders, and ask them to implement evidence-based car reduction policies.

Don’t forget your favourite:

mayor
city council members
city and transportation planners
cycling, walking, and sustainable mobility groups
disability rights groups (see this excellent report from Possible on how reducing unnecessary cars benefits those who truly need them).

You can also tag your leaders in my posts about this research on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram. Or share our piece in The Guardian on the measures and the cities that have put them into practice. :)

And if you’re hungry for even MORE, read what my editor called “an evidence-based rant against cars” for The Conversation, where I explain why:

electric cars don’t solve the problems of cars
cars today exacerbate social inequalities
focusing explicitly on reducing cars, not only increasing sustainable mobility, is necessary
governments should stop subsidising cars and driving
policies have to change to overcome the playing field now tilted towards cars

Excited to hear how you use these measures to make your city better!

Feelings: Squirming Over Infighting

Here’s a feeling Climate People don’t talk about much: discomfort, distress, or worse over internal group dynamics where people who share a goal of a fast and fair transition to a fossil-free world fight with each other. Eeeeek.

Of course, we need to get the facts straight, and robust discussion about strategies are welcome. Of course, it’s important to listen with humility to people operating from good faith.

But I’ve been noticing a big uptick in infighting, blame, and defensiveness on Climate Twitter, and it really bums me out. A circular firing squad doesn’t seem like the way to build the world I want to live in. It also takes time and energy away from the actual work we need: dismantling the systems of power that lock in exploitation, and rebuilding them towards regeneration.

My armchair analysis is that everyone is overstretched personally, and climate scientists are exhausted from screaming into the void for decades, and things in the world are not going well, and people are lashing out at each other. Which is understandable, but not great.

It makes me wonder: What would lead to more generative and fruitful conversations? How can Climate People express concerns, doubts, worries, or observations in a way that leads to support, reflection, and mutual learning, rather than personal judgment, defensiveness, or criticism? Is the nature of social media exacerbating this problem? What kind of forum or platform would let people exchange ideas more constructively?

I don’t have the answers to these questions, but I would love to hear what you think in the comments below!

Action: Team Climate gets GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums)!

You know who is fired up about climate action? Museums!!

I heard a lot of great ideas at the Spring Meeting of Swedish Museums this week. The whole meeting was themed around the role museums can play in the climate crisis. (Can you get your next professional conference to adopt a climate theme??)

If you work in the arts, culture, with museums, or visit museums, take some inspiration from the points below!

And if not— how can you adapt these ideas to your sector??

Museums for Future

Matilda Eriksson of Museums for Future gave a fabulous talk where she invited museums to ask themselves how they can serve society in the climate crisis. (A good question for all of us!!)

She shared four points from the Declaration of Museums for Future:

1. Support climate strikes

Matilda offered reassurance of nonviolence and solidarity, and suggested museums start by asking youth climate activists “How can we support each other with our unique talents and resources?” (Again, great climate convo starter generally.)

2. Communicate to the public

Museums can use their collections to draw attention to the climate crisis, including by putting #ObjectsOnStrike or pointing out problematic ties with fossil fuels.

Culture Unstained @Cult_Unstained

You know a win is BiG when @PrivateEyeNews covers it! 👇 @NPGLondon #fossilfreeculture

3. Transform our institutions to be part of the solution

Museums can focus on their own operations, both practically in terms of eliminating emissions, and how they work to support a fast and fair transition.

4. Raise awareness in our networks

Our relationships are powerful. Museums for Future urged museums to “use our voices to spread awareness about the necessity of immediate climate actions” among museums, employees, management, and decision-makers.

How can you adapt these four points for your sector??

Making Culture Regenerative— Bridget McKenzie

Bridget McKenzie of Climate Museums UK gave an inspiring talk. She suggests:

Be “Possitopian”- while “A techno-utopian future view is creating a dystopian reality”, Climate Museums UK aims to be neither utopian nor dystopian, but rather to “approach future thinking by expanding the cone of the possible future”. A critical 21st century skill!!
Bridget argued the cultural sector should reimagine its role, to help people cope with the traumas of the Anthropocene (Earth, biosphere, climate, human, and intersectional), feel possibilities, enable them emotionally to take effective action, and develop eco-capacities.
Bridget offered a vision for museums to contribute to regenerative culture and embed themselves in Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics framework, by for example decolonising culture, decarbonising cultural practices, and using arts for truth-telling and cultural therapy and care. This framework has been taken up by Culture Declares emergency.

Culture Takes Action: Pathways by Bridget McKenzie.

From the United Nations to Your Museum

Henry McGhie of Curating Tomorrow has an excellent series of free guides, like Action for Climate Empowerment, that translate the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals into suggestions for what galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAM!) can do:

as a sector,
at particular institutions,
and as individual workers,
with suggested metrics.

It’s super practical and clear. I would love to see more guides like this for every sector!

Awareness through Art

Matilda Eriksson shared a powerful collaboration between WWF and Museo del Prado, to digitally alter paintings from the collection to draw attention to climate impacts in billboards across Madrid.

El paso de la laguna Estigia (Landscape with Charon Crossing the Styx), Museo Del Prado. Image: BBC

Painting modified by Museo Del Prado/WWF. Image: BBC

Gut punch, right?

What examples of climate art have you seen? Please share in the comments below!

Parting Tidbits

Listen: I spoke to Carlton Reid on The Spokesmen podcast on why climate scientists are getting desperate (5:00), why building great bike lanes isn't the solution to reducing cars (13:50), how to make car reduction politically palatable (29:45, 38:20), & why all cars need to be fossil-free but the best car is... a bicycle (51:20, 46:00). Enjoy!

Read: A book I got to read last year and blurb is finally out, and it’s so good! Return to Nature, by Emma Loewe, is an antidote to burnout and a gentle invitation to expansive possibilities for awe, restoration, and gratitude right outside your front door, through accessible rituals, simple mindset shifts, and solid practical advice on how we can better care for nature in our everyday lives as consumers and citizens.

Take care friends! Get outside and enjoy April. Tulips are blooming here in Lund!

xo,

Kim

We Can Fix It

Move Over, Cars! 12 Ways to Prioritize People…