Pape’ete
Topics of the day: reading, Transition Towns again, Peak Oil, writing, Johann, Gross National Happiness
Today we went to the market – I love the market on Sundays – it’s so full of life (and local goodness) and you always meet someone you know (we met Rudolph who seemed a lot more optimistic today and told us what the local green vegetable I had convinced Raphael of buying (which looked a bit like Swiss chard) was – I instantly forgot the name)…
We stayed at “home” for the rest of the day, read and wrote (I don’t even know what the beach looks like anymore – I feel like a slave of modern technology – my laptop is doing overtime (sometimes the evil thing gets so hot that I think it has a fever…or maybe a direct connection to hell) – I am obviously quite tired at the moment forgetting about my (good) manners – I am damn lucky to be so privileged and get the opportunity to learn so much here). I put some background information about peak oil (le pic pétrolier) and climate change into “The Toa Times – Journal pour un futur serain” (as we renamed it). No one can really say when peak oil (the point at which the global oil production will have/has reached its maximum – amazing how quickly we can burn resources that (possibly) took millions (or at least hundreds of thousands – former just sounds more impressive) of years to form). Bye bye fossil fuels… What will the future look like without the black gold?
Johann came back from Hawaii and sort of moved in today (he brought his 7 boxes – he had announced he’d be coming with 7 containers (we immediately thought of the ones for freight on ships) and we already wondered how their contents were going to fit into the apartment).
He’s a really open-minded and I’m glad to have someone with whom I can have a conversation in English (I sometimes still get frustrated when I fail to find the right words in French). We talked about the Tahitians favourite 4-wheeled toys and he stated “We’re more American than the Americans”… then he told us about the poverty in Samoa but how its people are one of the happiest in the world – that reminded me of a study which showed that “gross national happiness” is most definitely not proportional to the gross national product!
As much as I dream of a hero like Maeva, capable of revolutionizing world politics and the principles of Equilibrism spreading over the planet from above I’m considering, I’m considering the possibility that the grassroots (for example Transition Towns) approach might be the more realistic (and admittedly also quite tempting) one (I wouldn’t have to go into politics and could just do little down to earth type things that don’t involve so much computer crap)…
Final thoughts of the day: I wonder if some Total lobbyists spend all their time trying to erase all texts (on the net) indicating that peak oil may well have already past - it's good to look at different sources (the English and german version of the wikipedia entries do state more "pessimistic" (I'd say the sooner the better) predictions for the date of peak oil to have happened (2006 according to the Energy Watch Group).
In 2008 the IEA (International Energy Agency) who surprisingly admit that the world’s oil supplies are finite said peak oil wouldn’t occur before 2030 and now (April 2009) they’re claiming it might already happen "possibly in 2020" - How accurate is that?!
Thank you for the positive feedback Reiner – I’m glad I motivated at least someone – let us know how your Transition Town Munich initiative is coming along!
Topics of the day: reading, Transition Towns again, Peak Oil, writing, Johann, Gross National Happiness
Today we went to the market – I love the market on Sundays – it’s so full of life (and local goodness) and you always meet someone you know (we met Rudolph who seemed a lot more optimistic today and told us what the local green vegetable I had convinced Raphael of buying (which looked a bit like Swiss chard) was – I instantly forgot the name)…
We stayed at “home” for the rest of the day, read and wrote (I don’t even know what the beach looks like anymore – I feel like a slave of modern technology – my laptop is doing overtime (sometimes the evil thing gets so hot that I think it has a fever…or maybe a direct connection to hell) – I am obviously quite tired at the moment forgetting about my (good) manners – I am damn lucky to be so privileged and get the opportunity to learn so much here). I put some background information about peak oil (le pic pétrolier) and climate change into “The Toa Times – Journal pour un futur serain” (as we renamed it). No one can really say when peak oil (the point at which the global oil production will have/has reached its maximum – amazing how quickly we can burn resources that (possibly) took millions (or at least hundreds of thousands – former just sounds more impressive) of years to form). Bye bye fossil fuels… What will the future look like without the black gold?
Johann came back from Hawaii and sort of moved in today (he brought his 7 boxes – he had announced he’d be coming with 7 containers (we immediately thought of the ones for freight on ships) and we already wondered how their contents were going to fit into the apartment).
He’s a really open-minded and I’m glad to have someone with whom I can have a conversation in English (I sometimes still get frustrated when I fail to find the right words in French). We talked about the Tahitians favourite 4-wheeled toys and he stated “We’re more American than the Americans”… then he told us about the poverty in Samoa but how its people are one of the happiest in the world – that reminded me of a study which showed that “gross national happiness” is most definitely not proportional to the gross national product!
As much as I dream of a hero like Maeva, capable of revolutionizing world politics and the principles of Equilibrism spreading over the planet from above I’m considering, I’m considering the possibility that the grassroots (for example Transition Towns) approach might be the more realistic (and admittedly also quite tempting) one (I wouldn’t have to go into politics and could just do little down to earth type things that don’t involve so much computer crap)…
Final thoughts of the day: I wonder if some Total lobbyists spend all their time trying to erase all texts (on the net) indicating that peak oil may well have already past - it's good to look at different sources (the English and german version of the wikipedia entries do state more "pessimistic" (I'd say the sooner the better) predictions for the date of peak oil to have happened (2006 according to the Energy Watch Group).
In 2008 the IEA (International Energy Agency) who surprisingly admit that the world’s oil supplies are finite said peak oil wouldn’t occur before 2030 and now (April 2009) they’re claiming it might already happen "possibly in 2020" - How accurate is that?!
Thank you for the positive feedback Reiner – I’m glad I motivated at least someone – let us know how your Transition Town Munich initiative is coming along!
1 Kommentar:
Hey, I am motivated, too - thanks to you, Kimberley! And it looks like others are motivated as well, because otherwise there wouldn't be so many comments coming in... :-) Greets to Tahiti!
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