News from overseas

Ok, so i did it - got onto those planes and thus blew all possible attemps to reduce my carbon footprint for years to come. I have no excuse...

But now I am here, spending some nice late summer days with my friends and family and intensely hoping that whole aviation thing is going to hold up until I safely made it back home. How terrible.

However, I am getting the chance to make some observations as to the state of the rest of the world... and I thought I might as well share some of them.

Firstly, the oil age can't possibly be nearing it's end - not while entire year 10 schoolclasses are on the plane, travelling back to Germany after a 3 week SCHOOLTRIP to New Zealand... They and the english school rugby team that were with us on the plane to me were quite a drastic display of the fact that kerosene obviously is not nearly expensive enough yet. But what can I say - I'm no better.

Now, since my arrival in Hamburg, Germany I am just amazed by the amounts of stuff you can buy everywhere... I am already thinking there's too much stuff in NZ, but here... no comparison. At least the "Made in China" label I see a lot less frequently - the Germans still value quality and "Made in Germany", and they price things accordingly. Some beautiful stuff, no doubt, all very stylish... had no idea anyone could need something like this. But it's quality. Most of the products seem to be made to last forever - unfortunately they will be discarded in the short term regardless - you wouldn't want to be seen sitting on last years lounge suite, after all. (OK, maybe not quite as bad, but you get the jist)

Having said that, everyone is still great on recycling (everything) and the recycling systems as well as the public transport systems are reliable, easy to use and omnipresent. Plus, they are frequent and on time (the transport, that is). A joy.

Heaps of small cars, hardly any old cars (see above) - LOTS of bikes... and YAAAYYYY!! -- REAL bikes!!! Not those terrible sporting mountainbike machines that NZers love so much and that break your back and your family planning. No, lovely, comfortable "city bikes" with low frames, comfortable seats, carriers, lights, bells, enough gears to get around (but then, it's flat around here..:)... and people use them and carry on them whatever they need to carry... and noone considers it necessary to change into their sweat-breaking sporting outfit... because they travel on their bikes. No racing, no challenges - just get from A to B and carry your groceries, your kids, the dog and the neighbours pot plant on top of it all. So you see workers in their suits, mums in their skirts - and grandma and grandad cruising along in their cordoise pants on their tandem. No helmets, of course. Talk about easy to use. (some beautiful electric bikes, too, by the way - see here and here - Real nice to see.

Anyhow - as for peak oil awareness - generally non-existent, I would say so far. Not because people don't realise it's a finite resource - but everybody is sure there'll be a techno-fix... you can hear young people talk about how to make biodiesel from algae on the bus. Noone seems to think there's much of a problem. At least that's my feeling for now, without raising the issue too much myself at this stage.

So much for now, will try and post some more observations as I go along (and maybe a foto of the "eco-taxi" or modern riksha I saw today... pretty flash!)

bye for now.