Photo: Île-de-France Mobilités et Aymeric Guillonneau / Région Île-de-France
Today in Squirrel News, Paris links isolated suburbs with a cable car, economies around the world are breaking the link between growth and carbon emissions, and a choir in Devon brings comforting songs to people in their time approaching death.
The French capital’s first urban cable car was inaugurated Saturday and will connect suburbs to the Paris Metro along an 18-minute route that has been taking residents 40 minutes to drive. 105 ten-seat gondolas can transport 11,000 people a day along a 4.5-kilometre route, the longest in Europe.
Emissions and GDP growth are moving to be less linked, says the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, a UK nonprofit that analysed data from 2015 to 2023. 46% of global GDP is in countries where growth is decoupled from emissions completely, and in 92% of countries decoupling is either partial or total.
Animal rights activists have long campaigned against the sale of cat and dog meat in Indonesia, one of only a few countries that still permit this. Now the capital city of Jakarta has banned the consumption and sale of meat from potentially rabid animals, including dogs, rats and bats, to go into effect in six months.
A recent study of traffic patterns in Boston with the addition of bike lanes on five downtown streets shows a successful shift towards more bikers and, to a lesser extent, fewer motorists. The city has a long-standing problem of too much car traffic and disagrees about how to fix that.
Studies have shown that brightly painted roadways actually enhance safety by drawing drivers’ eyes to the road and forcing them to slow down. Asphalt Arts has completed over 90 street transformations across 20 countries, and now they have brought colour to one of the busiest roads in downtown Athens.
Top Manta in Barcelona is an upcycled clothing brand and a cooperative of former fashion street vendors. Two street hawkers from Senegal launched a union after one of their number was killed in a police raid. The clothing brand the union started has given 200 vendors a new beginning in legal work.
A sterile environment for a surgeon to operate nearly anywhere, SurgiBox can be toted in a backpack for quick surgery under battle conditions and has been used in Ukraine and in Myanmar. BBC’s Myra Anubi also hears about 3D printing to repair medical machines and emergency response rooms that coordinate vital care in wartime.
Loon territory extends only into some of the northernmost US states. In Maine the numbers had dwindled by the time conservationists began in the 1980s to keep count and take measures. Avian Haven helps loons in trouble, they say, because every loon they can return to the wild makes a difference.
Cara Romero uses her photographic series, ‘First American Doll’, to showcase native women of different cultures and areas in the unique regalia of their tribes. As a mother, she wanted to give her daughter the chance to imagine non-stereotypical dolls and feel pride in her heritage.
The MoorHeart Threshold Singers accompany and comfort dying people on their journey in their last hours and days. Members say it also gives them a place of trust to channel their own love and grief and to be comfortable in the face of death.
