Whilst the international community is struggling to make meaningful progress that might avert the destruction and consummation of civilisation as we know it by committing to being less garbage tenets of this planet, the United States has not just backed out of global compacts that nudge in the right direction but has now assumed the mantle of profligate troll by counter-messaging the United Nations sponsored conference in Katowice (coat of arms pictured, the region known historically for its industry and coal reserves) with a pavilion extolling fossil fuels.
The US, despite the fact that antiquated oil barons can curry favour with the Trump administration and embarrassingly promote dirty fuel as a means to curb climate change, is certainly not alone in not upholding their end of the bargain and affecting real and saving change will require dramatic transitions away from not only traditional means of powering society but the ways in which society consumes resources itself. Activists chanting “keep in the ground” disrupted the start of the event with the remaining audience looking noticeably thinner after the protest.
Tuesday 11 December 2018
cop24
catagories: ⚒, ๐ก️, ๐ฑ, environment
Wednesday 5 September 2018
kunst und kohle
A consortium of museums in Germany’s post-industrial heartland, das Ruhrgebiet (previously), is bidding a conflicted adieu to its withering coal-powered past. Still the world’s largest producer of the particularly dirty variety of lignite (a very dubious honour) and amid ongoing protests to retire extraction and burning of coal altogether, the museums curate a fascinating, nostalgic reflection on the culture informed by coal towns and mining communities through a variety of artefacts that attest to working conditions and the relationships forged by the families whose daily routines included confronting mortality—either through accident or backbreaking labour. Read more about the retrospective of exhibits at Hyperallergic at the link above.
catagories: ⚒, ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐จ, environment
Saturday 23 August 2014
dig dug
Sunday 27 May 2012
geisterstรคdte
Der Spiegel’s English-language stories section reports on an exhibition in Berlin about contemporary ghost-towns and the deliberate choices and accidents of history that are creating the phenomenon.
Tuesday 20 March 2012
lend-lease or ostalgie
Possibly in anticipation of a disgruntled electorate for regional voting in May, a very polarizing and divisive idea has been offered up for public consumption by some cash-strapped communities in North-Rhine Westphalia: civic leaders argue that the Solidarity Pact tariff (DE/EN) for helping integrate the former East Germany has become redundant and they can ill-afford to make further financial contributions.
catagories: ⚒, ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐ง , economic policy
Tuesday 24 May 2011
pumpspeicherkraftwerke and urban-cozy
Additionally there was news of plans to capture the kinetic energy of fair-weather sources, solar and wind, and store it as potential energy. This project (auch auf englisch) is being studied in the abandoned mines of the Harz region, where we recently saw some of the expansive feats of engineering designed to harness nature. This idea, which has been applied elsewhere, allows excess power generated by the sun or turbines to be stored by transferring it to a pump system that fills a reservoir at a higher elevation, then acting on the same principle as a turbine spun by the onslaught of water at a dam.
Anscheinend gibt es eine Kampagne der radikalen Strickerin-Begabung beim Ausstatten ihrer Umgebung mit dem Garn, als Spiegel Internationale Berichte (auf englisch). Jetzt ist nicht das Wetter, um eine Straรenlampe in einen Wolle-Pullover anzukleiden, aber diese Graffitikunst ist sehr bestechend.
Zusรคtzlich es gab Nachrichten รผber Plรคne, die kinetische Energie von Schรถnwetterquellen, Sonnen- und Wind zu gewinnen, und es als potenzielle Energie zu erhalten. Diese Projekt (auch berichtete auf englisch), wird in den aufgegebenen Bergwerke des Harz studiert, wo wir kรผrzlich besuchten. Die Idee, im betrieb anderweitig, erlaubt รberschussmacht erzeugt durch die Sonne oder Windturbinen, versorgt zu werden, es einem Pumpe-System รผbertragend, das ein Reservoir an einer hรถheren Erhebung fรผllt, dann demselben Grundsatz wie eine Turbine gesponnen durch den Fluss von Wasser an einem Damm oder Stausee folgend.
catagories: ⚒, ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐ก, environment