Breaking down walls

Build­ing walls is some­thing that we humans do well. The Berlin Wall has since long become his­to­ry now, but else­where in the world walls are still dai­ly used to sep­a­rate peo­ple from each oth­er. The wall along the West Bank in Israel is per­haps the most famous exam­ple. This bar­ri­er is intend­ed to pro­tect Israelis …

Forest of Peace

We recent­ly watched the BBC series Plan­et Oil. An inter­est­ing sto­ry about the his­to­ry of oil, but with a depress­ing end­ing. Our addic­tion to fos­sil fuels has thor­ough­ly dis­rupt­ed the eco­log­i­cal bal­ance of the plan­et. It is frus­trat­ing to see how slow alter­na­tive ener­gy is devel­op­ing, main­ly because noth­ing hap­pens at the pol­i­cy lev­el. In …

Happy Holi!

Slow­ly but sure­ly I’m find­ing my feet in the office. This week I brought two plants and today installed them in their pots, with our new peat free com­post. Today I saw that my new name­plate adorns the door of our office. I also saw a jar with bright pink pow­der on the desk of …

Fasting for peace

The British peo­ple nev­er cease to amaze us with their crazy habits. For exam­ple, we recent­ly dis­cov­ered that the day before Ash Wednes­day is called ‘Pan­cake Day’ here. They orga­nize actu­al pan­cake races, where­by par­tic­i­pants toss a pan­cake up and down in a fry­ing pan while run­ning. We are always in for pan­cakes, so tomorrow …