Eco Blog - St. George's Berlin

  The New York Times has provided statistics about global warming: „  The eight warmest years on record have now occurred since 2014, the scientists, from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, reported, and 2016 remains the hottest year ever.“ ( LINK )  This is worth remembering if we want to preserve God‘s creation. Individual actions help. Fewer cars, more gardens, and more vegetarian eating helps. The Eco-Church committee will provide more vegetarian recipes in the near future.

 The "Aufruhr-magazin.de" had an article recently about the cost of cars. ( LINK ) Note that the original article is in German. Parking places in Berlin take up 10 times as much space as playgrounds for children.  In Munich a parking permit costs 0.08€ daily, and the price has remained the same since 2004, despite inflation. In the same city a restaurant that wants to have tables outside pays 1.50€ per day, and a farmer who sets up a stand for vegetables pays 18.00€ per day.  Cars are privileged. An underground parking place for a car is typically larger than a one-person office.  About 41% of Germans drive a car or ride in one daily, while only about 10% use a bicycle, even though 48% of workplaces are less than 10 Km away.  Stefan Gössling of the "Freiburger Institut T3 Transportation Think Tank" claims that someone who drives a modest car like the Opel Corsa in fact gets an annual subvention of  4,674 €. On average a car sits unused 95% of the time, equa...

 "Reboot Food" is the name of a campaign by Guardian columnist George Monbiot to persuade people to consider "precision fermentation" as a way of using microbes to create "specific proteins and fats" to replace "meat, fish, milk, and eggs". The process needs "1700 times less land than the most efficient agricultural means of producing protein: soy grown in the US."  If used at scale this could enable the "rewilding the vast tracts occupied by livestock..." Monbiot warns about the risk the the technology could be "captured by a few corporations". The risk may be real once precision fermentation gains acceptance, but food is a cultural habit that changes only very slowly, perhaps too slowly to rescue God's creation via this method. Nonetheless it is time for people who care about the planet to consider all options. All quotes come from:  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/24/gre isen-technology-prec...

Phoebe Weston wrote in the Guardian on 24 September 2022 that Utrecht in the Netherlands is planting miniature gardens on top of bus shelters. ( LINK ) Apparently a number of British cities are planning something similar. Any flat roof should work for a flower garden, which not only helps the insect population, but contributes if only slightly to atmospheric oxygen. There is no reason only to plant roofs. Parking spaces for cars would make good gardens too, and fewer parking spaces is an effective strategy for discouraging automobile use. Unfortunately the treatment of environmental protesters in the UK is not always friendly. Terry Macalister reported on on 23 September 2022 that some climate protesters in the UK are forced to wait in prison for months before even coming to trial. ( LINK ) Apparently the problem is a massive backlog of cases, but the effect is likely to discourage more people from protesting. David Malpass of the World Bank may be forced to issue an apology for this r...

  It should surprise no one that "big oil" in the form of companies like ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and BP have found the truth about their behaviour unwelcome, and are finally being forced to admit the truth in US congressional hearings. Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, writes in the Guardian ( 17 September 2022 ): “If there is one thing consistent about the oil and gas majors’ position on climate, it’s their utter inability to tell the truth...” The co-Chair of the investigating committee is even more blunt: "The oil giants’ 'climate pledges rely on unproven technology, accounting gimmicks and misleading language to hide the reality...'” ( LINK )  The sad fact is that this lying has gone on for a long time. These companies make enormous profits and feel justified in continuing to exploit the planet because much of modern western society believes explicitly or implicitly that wealth-maximization is good and proper. In recent years a ...

It is old news that producing concrete is an environmental hazard. "Cement is a climate villain. Making it is thought to produce 5% of all global greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels and factories." ( SCIENCE , 2016) Concrete may later absorb the carbon dioxide (CO2), but that is a long term process and we do not have enough time. Substitutes for paving roads with concrete are equally environmentally damaging. Erik Stokstad wrote:  "...  it's already clear that asphalt belongs in official inventories of air pollution sources." ( SCIENCE , 2020) The problem is broader than just with the paving materials. Much of the use of asphalt and concrete covers  places for plant and trees to grow. As O. Wallace wrote : " Looking beyond the usual suspects, many people would be surprised to find out that something as mundane as a parking lot could also be bad for the environment." ( ALLTHINGSNATURE , 2022)  More parking places makes it more convenient for peop...

  From a scientific viewpoint, there is a clear cause and effect relationship between the planetary overheating due to the climate crisis and the increasing number of natural disasters.  Damian Carrington wrote in the Guardian on 4 August 2022: “ The analysis of hundreds of scientific studies – the most comprehensive compilation to date – demonstrates beyond any doubt how humanity’s vast carbon emissions are forcing the climate to disastrous new extremes. At least a dozen of the most serious events, from killer heatwaves to broiling seas, would have been all but impossible without human-caused global heating, the analysis found.” Those who want more detail can look at a website called Carbon Brief that put together a database of  “attribution studies of more than 500 events”. There is no shortage of information about the causes of the climate crisis, and no shortage of information about how dire its consequences are. The problem is to persuade people to change habits and...