Tag: rant

Climate crisis at home (update)

Five and a half weeks after me writing about the dry weather in the UK we finally got some substantial rain (about 25 mm over 8 hours). After the rain I took another picture of the same hole as before:

Deep cracks in the soil in the garden on 25 August 2022. The remaining green grass is less green, trees are getting rid of their leaves due to drought. The hole has slightly filled up with soil falling of the cliffs.
Deep cracks in the soil in the garden on 25 August 2022. The remaining green grass is less green, trees are getting rid of their leaves due to drought. The hole has slightly filled up with soil falling of the cliffs.

The old picture:

Deep cracks in the soil in the garden, less than 10 cm of the 30 cm ruler stick out. At least some grass is still green, and we hope for rain before all died back.
Deep cracks in the soil in the garden on 17 July 2022. Less than 10 cm of the 30 cm ruler stick out of the crack. At least some grass is still green, and we hope for rain before all dies back.

I thought that the cracks got bigger, however, the pictures don’t show a clear widening of the crack. It’s not completely clear due to the different angles of the pictures. But still a good example why we shouldn’t rely on feelings or opinions when making decisions, but on measurable facts.

After the rain I also wanted to see how deep the moisture penetrated the soil, 6 hours after the end of the rain I dug a tiny hole. I was surprised how quickly the spade stopped, due to hitting dry soil:

The 25 mm of rain penetrated about 50 mm of soil, below the soil is still bone dry.
The 25 mm of rain penetrated about 50 mm of soil, below the soil is still bone dry.

It will take a lot more rainy days before the moisture will reach depths of over a meter and even longer to fill up the aquifers. With the measurement from our garden today, I think we would need this amount of rain every day for at least a month to counteract the drought. Forecast predicts no rain for the next 7 days, so I guess the top layer of the soil will be again completely dry by the time the next rain will be here.

Below I copied the text from my original article. And I actually feel I was quite good with my actions. I kept cycling most local journeys and reduced my meat and milk consumption and just bought the train tickets to go to Germany in a month (which is not the easiest travel, but luckily there is help: https://www.seat61.com/Germany.htm#london-to-leipzig-and-dresden-by-train)

In future these droughts are likely to occur more often, the last IPCC report is very clear about this. And there are things we can do. Like planting some trees in the garden (and maybe on fields?). From my experience in Germany and the UK, people don’t like trees in the garden (all this work with the leaves, …) but in our garden there is a clear difference in the number and size of the cracks in the shade of the tree and in the grass area. And huge difference in grass colour. I hope we can convince our landlord, to get the approval for a few more trees.

The reason for the climate crisis now, is however the behaviour of the generations from the 1960 up to mine. An economy was build on cheap oil and gas, without paying the true costs (and now people complain, when they have to pay prices closer to the real costs). All the work that needs to go in moving cities away from the coast, to repair infrastructure after it was hit by a heat wave (or much heavier/frequent storms/floods), all the lives lost in heat waves and other severe weather. We are paying now for the living standard of our grandparents (And poor countries for the wealth of rich countries, the colonialism still continues). And a further problem is the inflexibility for change in these generations (don’t take away my petrol car or the 200 km/h on a German motorway, I want to drive everywhere, why do I need to see wind farms or solar parks in my neighbourhood, one day a week without meat? – How dare you!). Unfortunately, these are the people that make politics and decisions. And they (and me) will be dead when we reach the 4°C average warming by the end of the century (that is the scenario our current goals announced by the politics head to), and future generations will have to deal with that. Parents usually say they love their children, but somehow their actions feel different.

So what can I do:

  • do I need to use a car, or can I spent a few minutes longer on the public transport (less stress) or use an (electric) bicycle (saves the gym visit)?
  • can I eat more plant based products? (lentil burger/bolognese, oat milk, bean based spread instead of salami)
  • do I need to take the plane, or can I spent a bit longer, but use the train? (challenging)

Climate crisis at home

Before I moved to the UK, I heard of the rainy, foggy weather here. Typical English weather. But I have to say, that is not at all my experience. During the cycle commutes to and from work I got wet rarely and only at the a similar rate as in Germany. Although, these cycles are slightly biased, as I check the rain radar and have stayed half an hour longer to let rain pass, or left work a bit earlier to get home before the rain clouds arrived.

Deep cracks in the soil in the garden, less than 10 cm of the 30 cm ruler stick out. At least some grass is still green, and we hope for rain before all died back.
Deep cracks in the soil in the garden on 17 July 2022. Less than 10 cm of the 30 cm ruler stick out of the crack. At least some grass is still green, and we hope for rain before all dies back.

Now it has been a very long time since I last was out in the rain. And that’s not because I haven’t been out. While most of June was relatively cool with many days below 20°C, it didn’t rain much. So far July was very dry as well, at higher temperatures. The really hot days, however, are still ahead.

The dry weather is definitely visible now. On my recent cycles I saw so many brown meadows or village greens. And the cracks in the soil in our garden get bigger and bigger. I never have seen such deep cracks in soil with vegetation on it.

In future these droughts are likely to occur more often, the last IPCC report is very clear about this. And there are things we can do. Like planting some trees in the garden (and maybe on fields?). From my experience in Germany and the UK, people don’t like trees in the garden (all this work with the leaves, …) but in our garden there is a clear difference in the number and size of the cracks in the shade of the tree and in the grass area. And huge difference in grass colour. I hope we can convince our landlord, to get the approval for a few more trees.

The reason for the climate crisis now, is however the behaviour of the generations from the 1960 up to mine. An economy was build on cheap oil and gas, without paying the true costs (and now people complain, when they have to pay prices closer to the real costs). All the work that needs to go in moving cities away from the coast, to repair infrastructure after it was hit by a heat wave (or much heavier/frequent storms/floods), all the lives lost in heat waves and other severe weather. We are paying now for the living standard of our grandparents (And poor countries for the wealth of rich countries, the colonialism still continues). And a further problem is the inflexibility for change in these generations (don’t take away my petrol car or the 200 km/h on a German motorway, I want to drive everywhere, why do I need to see wind farms or solar parks in my neighbourhood, one day a week without meat? – How dare you!). Unfortunately, these are the people that make politics and decisions. And they (and me) will be dead when we reach the 4°C average warming by the end of the century (that is the scenario our current goals announced by the politics head to), and future generations will have to deal with that. Parents usually say they love their children, but somehow their actions feel different.

So what can I do:

  • do I need to use a car, or can I spent a few minutes longer on the public transport (less stress) or use an (electric) bicycle (saves the gym visit)?
  • can I eat more plant based products? (lentil burger/bolognese, oat milk, bean based spread instead of salami)
  • do I need to take the plane, or can I spent a bit longer, but use the train? (challenging)

Racism in the middle of society

Actually I wanted to meet a friend tonight who has his job at the university in Central Europe and wanted to go to a friends wedding at the weekend and wanted to see some other friends before then. But as the meetup didn’t work, I can write a little bit about racism. Racism is the reason why he cannot enter the UK. He has the wrong passport and therefore does not have the privileges that one has with a Western European, North American, and probably also Australian, New Zealand, or Japanese passport: You can get into almost any other country without a visa. He only got as far as the check-in counter at the airport, where he was told that he was not allowed to go to England and would need a visa to enter the country. It’s just not on the British Border Control website, so he didn’t apply for one. And for many years he could easily travel without a visa.

At least the airline was kind enough to put him on a later flight so that he could make a few phone calls to the British Embassy and his nationality’s embassies in the capital and in London, as well as British border control. And there seems to be this rule with the visas, but not officially, because the British are too cowardly to cancel the mutual agreement on visa free entry, and instead have only an internal rule for their own border protection. After seven hours of phone calls, it was clear that the trip would not work out.

And of course nobody is responsible either, there is nothing official, so that he will still have to pay his own expenses.

And all because he was born in a country on the African continent. And that’s the racism of the white western world. This is not only a British problem, also in France, Denmark, Germany, Spain, Austria, Sweden, other European countries we treat certain groups of people as second class citizens. Every day.

Carbon responsible travel

After the pandemic situation became better again, I started looking into travelling from the UK to Germany. Preferably by train, as flying is just not good in a climate crisis. And I travelled by train before several times a year. With the German DB “Super Sparpreis EU” one could book a ticket from London St Pancras to, lets say Dresden or return. Depending on how busy the trains were, I spent something between 70€ and 120€ per direction, maybe a bit more during Christmas. That was 2018.

When I checked this year to travel a month in advance, no public holidays, Prices ware around £75 for the leg London to Brussels and then another £60 to £80 from Brussels to Dresden. I don’t know if that is expensive, it’s definitely over 50% more expensive than 4 years ago.

And then I made the mistake and checked flights. It was shocking to see that they started at £7 for each way. And that was only 2.5 weeks in advance. Luggage adds another £21, and I would need another 17€ for the local train to my final destination. But that is still cheaper than any of the two parts of the train trip for the whole distance.

I understand that these plane ticket prices are not the real costs, the airline will make the money with the people who by tickets at a later stage (although, even for the flight tomorrow the price is still only £18, so probably they need to subsidise from other flights). And yet, I find it astonishing that the climate damaging travel is still cheaper than the more responsible travel.