Bart Hawkins Kreps is a masters student in the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change at York University, Toronto. A long-time bicycling advocate and free-lance writer, his views have been shaped by work on highway construction and farming in the US Midwest, nine years spent in the Canadian arctic, and twenty years of involvement in the publishing industry in Ontario. He blogs most often about energy, economics and ecology, at anoutsidechance.com.
Carbon and Canada’s Cars: “Business As Usual, Electrified”
Electrification is an important and necessary step for a sustainable, healthy future, but growth-driven Business As Usual—even Electrified—is killing us.
August 29, 2025
The infinite growth of highways
Guerra has done a great job of describing the recipe for overbuilding. But the recipe for converting an overbuilt network into a safe, sustainable transportation system is still being worked out in countries and cities around the world.
August 19, 2025
The urgent necessity of asset stranding
As Malm and Carton explain, if firm policies were put in place to “leave fossil fuels in the ground”, stranding the assets of fossil fuel companies, there would be “layer upon layer” of value destruction.
January 13, 2025
Critical metals and the side effects of electrification
In Power Metal, Beiser explains why we would need drastic increases in mining of critical metals – including copper, nickel, cobalt, lithium, and the so-called “rare earths” – if we were to run anything like the current global economy solely on renewable electricity.
January 7, 2025
Facilitating a dangerous way of life – traffic engineers in a car culture
Traffic engineers will need to focus more on accessibility, and less on mobility. As Lewis Mumford wrote in 1963, in one of Marshall’s favourite quotes, “A good transportation system minimizes unnecessary transportation.”
July 26, 2024
The concentrated ills of concentrated agribusiness
In his highly readable book, Frerick describes the businesses of barons who dominate seven sectors of the US food industry. In the process he illuminates much in recent American history and goes a long way towards diagnosing environmental ills, socio-economic ills, and the ill health of so many food consumers.
May 31, 2024