Chris Taggart 🏡 ⚡️ 🔌

Looking for books to get for #climate curious friends & family this Christmas🎄?

Here are 6 of my favourites reads this year.

First up, Yale University historian Sunil Amrith's relentlessly edifying 'The Burning Earth'. A staggeringly comprehensive account of how we got to where we are! 🧵

Imagine how much continuous improvement we could do by investing in our city at appropriate levels instead of cutting services under an austerity budget.

Was still there 30 minutes ago

YouTube video by PBS Terra You’re Not Worried Enough About Sea Level Rise

Latest PBS Terra - Weathered episode is absolutely a must watch - extremely fast sea level rises are likely very soon!

Electricity Should Be Free at Noon And two other ideas for lowering electricity costs.

Here's a gift article version of my article in the Atlantic about how to lower electricity prices.
www.theatlantic.com/science/2025...

A not uncommon explanation for this situation is “the utility tagged our meters in incorrectly and I’ve been paying for my neighbours electricity usage”

Map of Ottawa city council vote on Lansdowne showing rural and suburban councillors making decisions about urban Ottawa in opposition to urban councillor voting

Bill can’t finish a segment without spouting nonsense to get his listeners riled up like “council decisions being dominated by urban councillors” 🙄

Declaring an emergency should come with binding spend commitments and defined metrics at which we’re allowed to declare the emergency over.

I still think they should be given alternatives — either you’re getting a bess storage plant (that you could reasonably paint like a field of tiny bars) or a gas plant. Right now the alternative is nothing.

YouTube video by أطر الجمعيات والمخيمات L’hiver est là ❄️ | Chanson d’hiver pour enfants 🎵 | Comptine sur la neige et le froid

I’m pretty sure our 7yo’s class is singing a song for their Christmas Concert entirely made with AI and the teacher didn’t notice. The lyrics don’t make any sense.

Comments turned off. This is bleak. It’s probably too late for them to learn a new song too.

youtu.be/8x3EqVRncLM

Tear up the roads, sewers, streetlights and power lines then as they all also affect the rural character of the community.

Rural councillors reject rezoning land for controversial battery energy storage system Proponents say the massive battery will store wind and solar-generated electricity. Opponents say the project doesn't belong on farmland.

The talking points of these battery project opponents could be plucked from any consultation.

“We are not against …renewable energy, but we are against placing this project in a location that destroys …the rural character of our community,”

ottawacitizen.com/news/battery...

I called it a week or so ago. Priority #1 is tearing down the berm right as tobogganing season kicks off in earnest.

Do you have any contacts there? I’d love to connect with them to learn more.

*peak demand

Is that something they ask in your account portal?

Vision Zero Ottawa A site for Vision Zero Ottawa, a non-profit community advocacy group committed to promoting Vision Zero principles. The site serves as a landing spot for campaigns, volunteer recruitment, and donat…

Vision Zero Ottawa has entered the chat.

Our goals: to overturn the culture of accepting tragedy as inevitable; human health over all other objectives; take a safe systems and design approach to safety; and to hold those who govern our transport systems accountable.

Join us.

visionzeroottawa.ca

Often they’re reducing peak demand in other ways either by pairing with improved airsealing and swapping a 240V dryer for a heatpump dryer.

One thing we’re looking into building out is a source of data from actual homeowners that electrified their homes to see how much of the modelled park demand growth actually came to pass. Utilities (here at least) don’t yet have a great way to identify those homeowners

I was thinking like lanark, Carleton, Carruthers etc all have lights. But yeah, most are unsignalized.

This explains something that has always mystified me about drivers who rail against bike lanes and transit. Why WOULDN'T you want people to have options not to drive? It would make your own driving better! But they don't just want good traffic, they want to reinforce the NORM of driving

Even if it was super raised I could see drivers still blocking it, trying to check for oncoming cars when making right hand turns. I’m not even sure what the solution would be. No RoR might help.

New electric buses to save an estimated $900K each in lifecycle costs: Memo - LiveWire Calgary The City of Calgary will save nearly $1 million per bus over the expected 16-year life of new electric buses over their diesel counterparts, according to a city memo. Councillors were provided the inf...

what's not to like?
Save $$ while saving the planet while decreasin air pollution
Thanks @cityofcalgary-rss.bsky.social

livewirecalgary.com/2025/11/28/n...

Road segment cleared by sidewalk plow forming a protected sidewalk space where there normally isn’t one.

Some city plows do this near us (by accident?) where you would think we have a sidewalk but don’t. It works really well and is a great way tor the community to trial the impact of a sidewalk for absolutely no cost.

Dumb integrityTO post with text “red lanes causing gridlock on dufferin” crossed out and replaced with “should have taken the bus”

Fixed it for them

Great idea. I co-founded a grassroots electrification support group in Ottawa, Canada (Electrify613) as well as a heatpump-first electrification concierge (Fern Comfort). Also like to build residential decarb software tools for fun.

Not missing out on the local Royal Ottawa Foundation Tree Fundraiser this year. We were so early this year, we got to help unload the truck. #treebybike

Rainway

Sketching something similar to the St. George rainway on Lakewood Street (next to Secord elementary) given the amount of traffic that flows through there while we’re biking to and from school… i’ve been imagining a Rainway running from the top of the hill all the way to Trout Lake.

😍