Infrastructure here and there

CH ≠ US

The other day I tried out a car from Mobility, our local car-share, for the first time. I was a nervous wreck, sure I would not be able to figure out the on-board computer or would mess up in some way. My fears were not eased by the fact that the car was nearly new, bright and shiny and perfectly clean. The on-board computer turned out to be simplicity itself, the car behaved much like the one I just sold, and soon I was bumping along a country road on the way to my favorite walking area. I pulled up to the parking lot that is my preferred starting point and…..it was being paved over! In the woods, big enough for perhaps 8 cars, and formerly covered with fully-effective gravel, it was roped off and being subjected to road-working machines.

This was only the latest in a series of summertime construction aggravations. The bus to the next town is often late because it has to wait for access to the one-way half of the street that is not being repaved, and we all miss our train. A street with a few patches that anywhere else would be considered perfectly serviceable, but here must be made pristine. Pulling up to a large grocery store parking garage to stock up just before selling my car, I found the entire garage closed completely for renovation, and there is no parking on the street nearby. Part of the train line to the pilgrimage town of Einsiedeln was closed for a week, with buses filling in. This would have been fine had the buses not taken far longer to make the journey, so one arrived late for Vespers. There are plans afoot to renovate, at a cost of thousands of francs, the parking lot in my town that serves the high school and one of the churches. It is also covered with gravel at the moment – just what is wrong with a gravel surface?

There is a difference between grousing because one is inconvenienced, on the one hand, and complaining about the necessity or not of such infrastructure projects, on the other. I’m afraid I fall into both categories, as it seems to me that much construction in the Zurich area is more cosmetic than anything else. I am not the only resident here who feels this way, to be sure. There are periodic demonstrations against sizeable spending for construction in lieu of expanded social programs, for instance. To be inconvenienced by necessary repairs is unavoidable, but it seems to me that too much money is being spent on unnecessary projects, with the construction industry benefitting hugely and the results neat and new but often not offering substantial added value.

Now let’s jump across the pond and consider the situation in the States – and this is a shocker.

The American Society of Civil Engineers has created a report card for showing the condition and performance of various aspects of US infrastructure. The country is near flunking. Consider:  
- 42% percent of major urban highways are congested, while 45% of American households lack any access to public transit. Roads are given a grade of D. 
- State and local school construction funding is in decline. Experts estimate that $270 billion or more will be needed to bring school facilities up to snuff. Schools are given a grade of D.
- One in nine of the nation's bridges is rated as structurally deficient. Grade for bridges = C+

The list goes on, with overall GPA for all aspects of national infrastructure = D+. In another ranking, that of the World Economic Forum, the United States fell from 6th place in 2007-2008 to 16th place in 2011-2012.

I have a personal story to illustrate the US situation too. Taking a bus from Boston to northern Vermont a few years ago, I wandered into the bus station at the end of the first leg of the journey to wait for my connection, and just stopped and gaped. The station looked exactly as it had when we left the States 40 years earlier, and it was certainly not newly renovated then. Same cracked linoleum on the floor, same battered orange chairs: I felt as if I were on a movie set for a period film. This is a station at a major junction for the only long-distance transit in the area – there are no trains.

One asks why the enormous difference in the two countries, both among the world’s wealthiest. Expensive cosmetic cleanup in Switzerland, too little drastically-essential renewal in the States, never mind cosmetics. Difference in mentality, certainly. What else? Worth thinking about, as this is a question of much more than infrastructure.

True Cost II

The real price tag on that cheeseburger meal 

 Last week I talked about the hidden costs of burning fossil fuels; this week I want to take up another glaring example - the hidden costs of the typical Western diet and “big aggie” – largescale agriculture.


Our eating habits

Overweight and its attending illnesses have become a major health problem, particularly in children, in the past few years. The United States has the second highest rate of obesity for large countries, exceeded only by Mexico. More than 1/3 of US adults are obese, and 17% of children and adolescents. In addition, another 1/3 of the adult population is overweight.

Strongly correlated with overweight is the prevalence of what used to be called adult onset diabetes, which has risen so alarmingly among children that it is now referred to as type II diabetes. The total costs of diagnosed diabetes in the United States in 2012 was estimated at $245 billion. Diabetes care consumes around 10% of European healthcare budgets. Add to these costs those of the cardiac problems aggravated by overweight and the figures climb even higher.

The hidden costs of cheap calories

It would be easy to assume that overweight and its associated problems are the end result of a wealthier society, but statistics prove this assumption wrong.  It is the poor who are more apt to be overweight. How can this be? We have only to look at food costs to find the answer: high caloric food is the cheapest, at least in the US. Leaving aside fast food takeout, which has been documented extensively in the book and film “Fast Food Nation” and the film “Super Size Me”, among others, such supermarket buys as sweet biscuits, potato crisps and soft drinks offer up to 4 times the calories contained in the number of  carrots that one can buy for the same price. When available, healthy food is often more expensive, whereas refined grains, added sugars, and fats are generally inexpensive and readily available in low-income communities. 
Again one asks how this can be, as carrots are raw materials while the others have to be produced and should, one would think, cost more. There are a number of answers, among them the fact that carrots are perishable while the shelf life of biscuits is far longer. But one answer stands out as a hidden cost: the surprising and upsetting fact that nearly all processed food in the States contains products made from corn, and corn is subsidized by the US government, while carrots are not. Only a tiny fraction of the corn grown is eaten in recognizable form, on the cob, in tortillas etc. The rest goes to feed beef cattle and to make more than 600 corn-based products, most of which end up in processed food.

Suffice it to say that the craziness inherent in a situation in which a government in effect subsidizes the production of cheap, unhealthy food, while at the same time issuing dire warnings about the meteoric rise of diabetes and heart disease, makes one wonder about the basic values of our society. Even more troubling is the fact that, in an age of economic globalization, the rest of the world can be expected to follow the US lead.

The farm as big business

And now let’s get back to corn. The way that the enormous quantities of this grain are grown is a prime example of the process of industrialized farming, or agribusiness. Natural produce grown on industrial farms is often low quality, while meat from animals raised on such farms often contains antibiotics given to ward off disease in animals fed an unnatural diet and kept too close together and in unsanitary conditions. In addition, this system has brought us impoverished soil, water pollution from nitrates, pesticides and pathogens, a decrease in biodiversity and wildlife habitats as well as an increase in air pollution and greenhouse emissions. The dollars or euros or francs we spend on such food are only a fraction of the total health costs, taxes for environmental cleanup and, increasingly, global warming that are the hidden costs of agribusiness.

In discussions about the whole huge subject of agribusiness, it is easy to forget that growing, purchasing, cooking and eating food should be a satisfying and healthy physical, social and cultural experience. There is something wrong with a society in which food grown organically and locally and sold unprocessed is largely a niche market for the well-off members of that society. Perhaps this is the deepest hidden cost of all.

True Cost I

The hidden costs of burning fossil fuels

Every time I read that solar power is not yet on a financial par with fossil fuels, my blood temperature begins to rise. If ever there were a skewed statement this is it. To simply equate cost with the price paid by the consumer for a kilowatt hour is to be wearing enormous blinders that prevent one from seeing anything to the left or right or very far ahead. It is an irresponsible statement; one which we might expect from a representative of the coal industry, for example, but which should not pass a journalist’s lips.

Let’s remove the blinder on the left. This enables us to see the outrageous fact that the fossil fuel industry is heavily subsidized. A recent report from the International Monetary Fund says global subsidies to fossil fuels amount to $1.9 trillion a year. At the same time, ExxonMobil and Shell earned profits in 2012 of $35 billion (Exxon) and $18.9 billion (Shell). As President Obama said in his recent Georgetown speech on the climate action plan, “…tax dollars continue to still subsidize some of the most profitable corporations in the history of the world”.

Now for the blinder on the right – here we see the hidden health costs of burning fossil fuels. Consider statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO), which say that more than 800,000 people die prematurely in the US each year from urban air pollution, most of which comes from burning fossil fuels. Furthermore, transportation “powered by internal combustion engines”, particularly automobiles, reduces the amount of exercise Americans get, so that the WHO estimates that almost 2 million people die prematurely each year because of reduced physical fitness. It is obvious that these hidden health costs are measured not only in dollars, but in human anguish as well.

And now let’s look ahead, at the environmental costs of burning fossil fuels. We hear a lot about these nowadays, all the way from oil spills to severe storms to global warming and its gigantic effects. The cost in dollars is so overwhelming that it stuns us; the cost in disrupted lives, future mass migration away from coastal communities, drastic changes in farming patterns, yet more health problems etc. etc. is incalculable.

Who pays for these hidden costs? Certainly not the subsidized fossil fuel companies. They claim no one would buy their products if the monetary costs were greater…well, yes, isn’t that the idea? Basically we consumers “vote with our wallets”, and more costly gasoline, for instance, might force us to move ahead into the future – on public transport, electric automobiles and bikes – and into demanding greater subsidies for alternative energy sources. The market makes the decisions in our society; responsibility falls into the laps of those who make the purchases. In the words of the comic strip character Pogo, “We have met the enemy, and he is us”.

Energy sources make up one major environmental field with hidden costs, food and agriculture make up another. That’s the subject for next week.

The Joys of the Summer Palate

When the eating is easy 

Are you a foodie? Or do you just want to keep it simple? Love to cook? Hate to cook? Have no time to cook? Suffering from the heat? Whatever describes your predilection, summer eating is made for you. As is eating locally and of course seasonally.
 

The summertime choice of super local food is staggering. How to choose among the various berries, peaches, nectarines, cherries, apricots and melons? Will it be a salad of mixed greens or the Italian national salad of tomato, mozzarella and basil? A main-dish salad with fish, cheese, meat or egg added?

There are many reasons in addition to freshness for choosing local. Little transport = little C02. You are supporting local farmers, not big aggie. Big aggie cares not about your health or your palate; it is a business and just wants to make money. There is very little money indeed in fresh fruits and veggies; but much more in processed food. It also does not care about your local economy, a meaningful aspect of which is local farming.

For the ultimate local farming, grow your own! I can assure you that a balcony is a fine place for even very tall tomato plants, pots of basil and cress and of course herbs. Leaf lettuce is another possibility, as are beet greens with baby beets attached. I found that the latter need a rather deep pot and should not be planted too close together. Basil does well in the sun or in a spot without much sun but plenty of light. Get out your blender for pesto, gazpacho, and cucumber-buttermilk soup with your own dill or mint. Pesto freezes well and is ready for a quick hot meal. Pine nuts are traditional, along with basil, garlic, olive oil and parmesan, but in parts of Italy hazelnuts are used instead. If you are feeling lazy these meals are for you, for you don’t really need to measure the ingredients and the blender does all the work.

While we are on the subject of the work – and time – necessary for meal preparation, let’s compare the homemade variety with the processed food toted home all ready to heat. There are a lot of ingredients in the latter, even when the additives and preservatives are subtracted from the list. Of course you can cook dishes with as many ingredients yourself, but summertime makes it possible to prepare delicious quick, simple meals. This is mostly because local fresh food just tastes better; it doesn’t need tarting up. Sliced tomatoes with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, corn on the cob with butter and salt, raspberries with a little cream and sugar, the list goes on.

If you like to cook you get the chance to make something a little different in the summer – jams and chutneys, for example. For those of us in Switzerland, the Coop is offering their new Unique line of slightly imperfect produce, starting with hail-damaged apricots from the Valais, perfect for making jam. Try something new, like the fig and ginger jam I made last year, fabulous! A friend had a glut of figs, and even fig-loving I couldn’t keep up with them. Green tomato chutney is a must when the days get shorter and the last of the tomato crop has no chance to ripen. But before that you may well have so many tomatoes that your friends and neighbors run away when they see you coming with yet one more offering, so make some red tomato chutney from Jamie Oliver’s recipe: www.jamieoliver.com/magazine/recipes-view.php?title=easy-tomato-chutney. Or preserve some of them by drying. A world away from the leathery commercial items, these are simple to prepare: slice the tomatoes or cut cherry tomatoes in half, arrange on baking trays, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle on a bit of salt and some basil leaves and garlic, place in very low oven for 4-6 hours. You can choose the degree of dryness. I like them half dry, and put them in jars in the freezer for making the very best pasta sauce imaginable.

Accompany your meals of fresh ingredients with a pitcher of ice tea with your mint added or sangria, red wine with fruit and club soda or lemonade – pretty and refreshing.

Time to get into the kitchen to make supper – fake red pesto. I toast pine nuts in olive oil, add chopped up tomatoes, garlic and basil leaves, and serve on pasta. I prefer real honest-to-goodness pesto, but with an injured finger that really shouldn’t get wet, I don’t want the fiddle of washing out the blender. You see – no matter what your situation, you can just enjoy summer’s bounty!

Mobile Me

 

I did it. I sold my car, and I won’t buy another one. It was almost certainly my very last car. This is a step I’ve been planning for some time, for I used the car very little. As a great fan of public transport, I generally took advantage of Zurich’s excellent offerings in this area, or I biked. It was just getting to be too expensive to pay the fixed costs of keeping the car housed and insured, its tires changed and other garage work done. I also figured I do not need the car enough to be contributing CO2 to the environment. Of course someone else will drive it and add their share of CO2, but hopefully someone with a greater need for a car.

So over the last few months I prepared well. I cleaned out the cellar and drove large recycling and second-hand items to their respective collection points. On other occasions when I thought of using the car I found other solutions; there is always a solution. More often, there are two or three.

Nonetheless, it was a lot harder to say goodbye to Huckleberry, my dark blue Corsa, than expected. It was the end of an era. I have been driving since I was 16 and have either owned or had the use of a car nearly all the years since. It also feels like an initiation of some sort. Into what, I am not quite sure. But it was an emotional time.

Part of the prep for being carless was replacing my old bike with an electrobike. Being of a certain age, I was finding the hills in this area, many of them steep, a trial on a normal bike. Also, there is something about the whole concept of this means of transport that fascinates me. I pedal as usual … and fly up the hills! I can choose more or less support from the motor, so I still get plenty of exercise. It is a strange experience, as I zoom along so smoothly, effortlessly changing gears, and at the same time am very aware that this bike handles differently and weighs a lot more. It will take time to get used to it, a fact driven home to me when I braked too suddenly with the excellent brakes and fell off, fortunately onto grass. Once the bike starts tipping sideways, its weight carries the rider with it. I’ll have to get those brakes adjusted – one can have too much of a good thing.

I’m also in the process of joining Mobility, the local car-sharing organization. I will use a Mobility car when my grandchildren or other people come to visit. I’ll get one occasionally to visit second-hand stores, friends who live in out-of-the-way places and maybe my favorite local walking area. Or I can bike to this area, or take public transport. As I say, there is always a solution.

Manipulation, anyone?

In the case of genetically engineered food, it is not only genes that are being manipulated.

To American environmentalists, accustomed to watching Monsanto get its way time and time again with the Congress and the Supreme Court, it must have seemed awesome that the company has given up hope of selling its GM seeds in Europe. The European Union bans the growing of nearly all GM crops. The reasons are many, but fear of this new technology in a field related to people’s health and eating habits stands out in first place.

Arguments about whether or not this fear is warranted rage back and forth across the Atlantic.

On the don’t worry, be happy side is the statement from Monsanto that they test the transgenic protein that is produced in the genetically manipulated crop, so they don’t need to test the food itself in humans. The US Food and Drug Administration, responsible for the safety of food and drugs, points to the fact that virtually all the companies making GMOs do voluntary testing. There are statements by any number of individuals and organizations that GM crops have now been around for long enough so that serious problems would have shown up by now.

On the negative side, however, are a number of compelling arguments. The protein tested by Monsanto is made by a bacterium and may differ from the actual plant-produced one, which may also act differently in situ. There has been no long-term research and little research on animals, such as is required by the FDA for drugs and food additives. Well-established practices for scientific testing are not followed. These include testing by independent parties, made extremely difficult by genetic engineering companies’ refusal to sell seeds to independent laboratories, hiding behind intellectual property laws. The serious protocols established for most testing are replaced by loose guidelines.

What about the claim that no serious negative effects of eating GM food have appeared in the US population? The American Academy of Environmental Medicine has stated that the introduction of GMOs into US food has coincided with the recent rise in chronic diseases and food allergies, and sees a connection. There is, after all, the fact that during the thousands of years that agriculture has been practiced, the small amounts of toxins and mutagens present in all plants have been reduced or weeded out in the plants that make up our ordinary, non-genetically engineered food supply. Are we to repeat the process now with GM plants?

Scientific testing is complex and very expensive. There are different protocols, some more apt to give reliable results. As it is quite possible to make an experiment come out the way the experimenters want it to; it is important to know who did an experiment, just how was it done and who paid for it. Red flags go up when the testing was done by a corporation with an interest in a favorable result, when the company refuses to hand over certain information for public review or refuses to allow its products to undergo independent testing, all of which are happening in the present GM food situation.

So here we have a country with a population of 314 million taking part in a huge scientific experiment without their express consent. Because it is unlawful in nearly all states to label GMO food, they don’t know whether they are eating it or not, but the probability is extremely high, given that it is estimated that 80% of American corn is GMO corn and corn appears everywhere in American food products. There are severe doubts about the stringency of the testing for safety. The corporations making genetically engineered food have the US Congress, the Supreme Court and the FDA on their side.

Small wonder that the European Union wants its food GMO free. 

Summertime!

It’s vacation time, relaxation time, living-is-easy time, and just the

occasion for a fun eco-potpourri post. I’m writing on the balcony, surrounded by flowers, some of which you see in the picture to the right. One of the blessings of the IT age is the ability to be outside and working at the same time. Another blessing is online enjoyment when the weather turns against one and one is driven inside, so let’s take a look at a few websites for rainy day fun and/or enlightenment – the two are not mutually exclusive!

On a gloomy day with antsy kids in the house, visit the kids activities pages of the EPA website, www.epa.gov/epawaste/education/kids_activities.htm. There’s other stuff for students and other games as well.

We all know that a picture is worth a thousand words, and nowhere is this more true than on the website of artist Christ Jordan, www.chrisjordan.com/gallery/rtn2/‎, who shows us several thousand words worth of eco-truths in a creative and effective way.

Readers in Switzerland, are you looking for an unusual present? Visit a site that gives entirely new meaning to the concept of recycling, www.ryterdesign.ch/recycline, for amusing and useful items made from green PET bottles. There is a vase, a candleholder, a very clever bank etc. There are other recycled items elsewhere on the site, made, for instance, from Douglas fir left over from covering a couple of the tracks and platforms in the Zurich main station. And while we’re on the subject of recycling art, you’ll find novel, clever and useful items at www.recyclingart.ch, magnets made from computer keys, for example.

Looking for unusual hanging planters? Look no further than this idea from the Umweltarena in Spreitenbach, Switzerland. Lay a plastic bottle, small or large size, on its side and cut away most of the top half, leaving the bottom and “shoulder” area intact. Add stones for drainage, soil and hanging plants. Suspend in the same sideways position. The Umweltarena is a worthwhile attraction to visit, particularly if you are planning to do any remodeling. On weekends and some other times you can try out electro-bikes and electric cars as well.

Want to surprise a hostess with an unusually wrapped present? Check out the following website for a video on furoshiki wrapping – a Japanese gift-wrapping technique: www.care2.com/greenliving/eco-friendly-wrapping.html.

When the weather clears and you get outside, celebrate summer by opening your eyes to the fabulous abundance of nature, available for the looking, hearing, smelling and tasting! Even more appreciated after a stay-in-the-house spell.

Imagine That!

The place of imagination in the green energy revolution

The green energy revolution is beginning to pick up steam (renewables-produced, of course). Solar power technology is burgeoning in many US states, although stalled in others, Germany plans to produce 80% of its energy from renewables by 2050 and both Germany and Switzerland will abandon nuclear energy in the foreseeable future. Getting recalcitrant US states on board and enabling Germany and Switzerland to act on their future scenarieos will require fairly heroic measures. It would seem that a few effective threads running through the situations are needed. 
Enter imagination

One such is imagination, valued in science labs and a major contributor to the progress that has taken place in developing renewable energy sources. Let’s start with solar, which got its start in the brain of Einstein. He is responsible for our understanding of the photoelectric effect, which depends on the supposition that light consists of photons, discrete packets of energy. As light had been considered up till then to be waves and only waves, this example of Einsteinian imagination led to a revolution in scientific thought and…. to the production of electricity in solar panels from the light of the sun.
All of the other alternative energy sources can be traced back to ingeneous ideas in the minds of brilliant scientists. No dearth of imagination here, nor in the painstaking engineering that has gone into innovative applications of those ideas. So far so good – where does it all break down? 
Start-up vs battening down
It is at the production stage that there is wildly varying aproach to innovation. On the one hand, the oil companies frantically turn to fracking and tar sands to keep their government subsidies and the status quo of a fossil fuel-oriented society, giving new meaning to the term “fossil”. At the other end of the scale are the start-up companies producing everything from algae farms to window solar chargers for cell phones to malls with natural light.
Enlightened business leaders realize that a focus on rapid production of clean energy would provide a positive motivation for local innovation, energy security, job creation and economic competition, and this brings us to business models.  

Business models of ingenuity 
Imaginative solutions are not limited to technology; they are also found in clean-tech business models. Investors in solar energy concerns, for example, receive dividends of as much as 10% a year on their investments, paid out of the savings on energy costs. Individual owners of solar panels and windmills are increasingly able to inject excess energy into the grid – “running the meter backwards”. There are considerable technical challenges to be met before the smart grid will be fully in operation, but the idea is so enticing, so fair, so citizen-oriented that power companies the world over are putting resources to work to make it happen.

Politics as usual
Here is the real sticky wicket. Every year there is a climate change conference and every year the results are disappointing. The United States is afraid of commitments, the developing nations feel the developed nations should pay for the pollution they have caused; more energy is spent in wrangling than in finding innovative measures.
On the country to country level, national governments are often concerned with political fallout; with the US congress at a standstill it falls to individual states and cities to come up with workable plans. To their credit, many are doing so. Meanwhile, in Europe, Denmark leads the way with livable cities, wind power and a biking culture that features imaginative cargo bikes that hold several children or lots of stuff.
The Big One
Most disconcerting, however, is the general agreement that a new, now-unkonwn energy produciton breakthrough will be needed in the long run. Alternative sources will do the job for a while, but energy needs are expanding exponentially, and present technology can’t keep up. A US Energy Department task force report released early in 2009 urged a sharper focus on basic science research in the energy production area.  Such research is grossly underfunded; in 2012 less than one percent of the federal budget, $30.2 billion, went to fund basic science research. As a comparison, Exxon-Mobil revenue in 2012 was 44.9 billion.
We need a new industrial revolution. If we look back at the original industrial revolution and the subsequent IT and electronic revolutions, what is most apparent in all of them is the application of human imagination to the problems at hand. Technology is indeed one manifestation of the marvels of human ingenuity and inventiveness. The electric motor and the transistor, for example, have revolutionized society; they were once the brainchildren of original thinkers. Oil and coal are on the way out; human imagination is as fresh as ever, with a huge new challenge to sink its teeth into: a transition from fossil fuel based energy production to one using renewable energy sources and on to one using an as yet unknown technology.
To sum up the above in one simple thought, here is the comment of Dave Chameides in his article Hope for a New Decade:
“Someday, perhaps, we’ll look back and realize all the energy we used fighting over Global Warming would have been better spent bringing a renewable energy future to fruition.”

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The EcoRefugee…

...or  is there no such person?    

They number well over a million by now, the Syrians who have fled the civil war in their country and moved into Jordan and other neighboring countries. On the other side of the world, the 100,000 people of Kiribati, Alaska, are reluctantly preparing to leave their village before the rising ocean floods their homes, which lie only 10 feet above sea level. Similar and yet entirely different, these Syrians and native Alaskans are both victims of events way beyond their control, both fitting the category of displaced – or soon to be displaced – persons. Refugees, one political, the other environmental.

But there the similarity ends. Political refugee status is well defined in the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. According to this definition, refugees have crossed political borders because of fear of persecution as members of one of five particular groups: racial, religious, national, social or political. They do not feel their home country can protect them from such persecution. The environmental refugee, on the other hand, does not fit this neat categorization, and there are other problems as well:

• Statistics of displacement vary wildly depending on who is collecting them
• Modern migrants tend to have several reasons to flee their homes
• Much environmental migration is voluntary rather than forced
• Much such migration comes about because of gradual change like desertification, not sudden events like floods  

This question is pressing and will become more so, as desertification, rising sea levels, changing agricultural patterns and severe flooding become more commonplace. Meanwhile, the international community struggles to cram the term “environmental refugee” into a neat box. One expert, for example, recommended that the term should be apply only to those fleeing rapid or drastic changes to their environment. Poor farmers in Sudan, unable to make a living in on-going drought conditions, are not going to be very impressed by this definition. Desertification is gradual. Neither are they going to be happy to be classed as that bugaboo, “economic refugees”.

It is easy to become exasperated with such niggling and to think that the energy going into defining these unfortunates could sure be put to better use. This is to simplify the very real mushiness of the term “environmental refugee”, but it does suggest an entirely different approach. If this type of refugee needs a persecutor, suppose we start with the fact that the global north has practiced destructive environmental practices for so long that they have led to the plight of such refugees the world over. Just accepting responsibility ought to create a foundation on which practical solutions can be based. Not in the sense of assigning guilt, just making use of the very wealth that often accompanied those destructive practices. Think big, in other words, both internationally and morally. Realize that the environmental refugee is an entirely different animal from his political brother.  Create different types of help for those who flee sudden disaster, on the one hand, and those who need to be resettled gradually, but do not ignore the real need of the latter “new” type of refugee.

Confessions of a Bibliophile

In my youth I bought books, borrowed books, checked books out of the library and haunted bookstores, list in hand. Mostly I bought books, and today those eagerly-made purchases still stand in rigid formation on the crowded shelves, thick and thin, tattered and almost pristine, in colors garish and subdued. I have sticky fingers where books are concerned; best not to loan me a book, it will creep in among the others on the shelves to hide anonymously. On occasion, possessed of a cleaning-out zeal, I trawl the shelves, thinking guiltily that someone else would surely enjoy having some of these nearly forgotten titles. I find the purchases from university bookshops, the volumes that covered the backseat of the car after a stop in Cambridge - back when books were cheap in England - the booty from second-hand sales, birthday presents, paperbacks left by decamping guests. I can't part with any of these volumes. The cleanup zeal passes the bookshelves by.

At some point it became clear that this purchasing mania was going to have to stop. Continuing to bring home all those lovely treasures would soon drive me out of the apartment - there'd be no room for me. Not that that would be a problem actually, for I would be residing in the poorhouse anyway, having spent all my cash on printed matter.

Not buying hasn't mean less reading; joining three libraries has seen to that. There is the friendly, homey library in the next town, which must have a sizable English language readership, for there are continually renewed shelves of the latest paperbacks, convenient for popping into my backpack and transporting on the train. The library of the American Women’s Club of Zurich yields a larger selection and audio books, but it is the Zentralbibliothek, the library of the city of Zurich and its university, that yields up most of my present printed treasure.

The general reading stacks in this library take some getting used to. They are located in the catacombs in the cellar. These underground warrens have no windows. The stacks slide on rollers, the mechanical equivalent of little cat feet, so that many of them can be jammed together, separable by means of hand-turned wheels at the end that set them gliding. One is cautioned to check that no one is searching in one of the open gaps between shelves before moving them to create one's own gap. A friend who hated the whole dungeon-like setup once got caught by someone who didn't "mind the gap". I experienced this once also and was more dizzy than frightened. I felt that I, not the shelf, was moving, a very eerie experience indeed.

That's the hardware of the stacks - now we come to the software, the identifying numbers on the books themselves. Whereas the Dewey decimal system and the alphabet have always been good enough for me, this library does things its own way. The North American Library part of the Zentralbibliothek, housing books by American, Canadian and Mexican authors, simply marks each incoming book by the year and a number corresponding to its arrival from the library's own bindery, which re-covers each book in what amounts to armor plate. One feels that this is a too zealous manifestation of Swiss quality. Browsing is also impossible; one has to look up the identifying number on the computer beforehand.

Wanting to check out several books but not enjoying schlepping home a lot of armor plate, I pull my little 2-wheeled shopping cart behind me, rather like a dog on a leash, up the library steps past the gawking students. I assume they finally realize that I am decades older than they, and they probably feel proudly Herculean toting their weighty tomes home to their desks. I am grateful that my books get to ride and can be rolled onto one of the new railway coaches with floors level with the platform. At home they are stacked in the hall bookcase, and then begins the unequaled pleasure of stretching out on the couch with one of them.

Old fashioned am I, you say, to be so enamored -still- of the printed word in this electronic era? No e-books, no Kindle? Think how much easier, I can hear you say, it would be to stretch out on the couch with the laptop and just download the weightless electronic equivalents of my armor-plated volumes.

Yes, but it is I who am old-fashioned, not only my library-visiting habit. I would miss the search in the stacks and the feeling of being among students once again - I feel I am one of them for a few moments. I would feel bereft to hold a tablet in hand, rather than the weightier, thicker item with pages I can turn. My shopping cart is going to continue to bring home as many books as potatoes.

At some point decrepitude will force the electronic reading world upon me. What is most important will stay the same of course - the reading experience; the soaking in of the mystery, the love story, the fascinating facts. What will be lost is the physical, the tangible, the atmosphere given off by ranks of still-unknown books in quantity, the chunky feeling of the story in my hand. Amusing and ironic is the fact that I will then be back to buying books again - e-books this time.