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Letter: To tame urban heat, cut vehicle numbers

Published 8 January 2025

From Peter Jacobsen, Port Townsend, Washington, US

The first step in reducing urban heat should be to reduce the burning of fuels. All of the energy used in vehicles eventually ends up as heat. Some of the fuel’s energy is used for propulsion, which becomes heat through mechanical, air and tyre friction. Most is wasted directly as heat. A study of Beijing determined that vehicles raised the city’s temperature by over 1°C (23 November 2024, p 36).

Issue no. 3525 published 11 January 2025

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