Frustrating Futility

Living in Switzerland is at times strange. There is no palpable evidence of Global Warming here, consequently the public here has no sense or urgency.

Fair enough. I can’t fault the well-meaning people here who do work on so-called “sustainability” measures.

But while I respect the people and their goodwill, I am a non-expert in this area so I can’t help but find the word “sustainable” to be somewhat silly in view of (1) the tremendous environmental debt that must be repaid (in other words, are we not responsible for the prior damage done?), and (2) the tremendous global warming momentum (in other words, if CO2 levels were frozen now, the planet would continue to heat). Don’t get me wrong: I’m happy if we replace a plastic bag with a paper one — but that hardly makes a difference to our situation.

Here are some interesting snaps from a place where the effects of Global Warming are palpable, and where many family, friends, and colleagues have now suffered real losses due to this effect.

 

Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters | National Centers for  Environmental Information (NCEI)

2022 U.S. billion-dollar weather and climate disasters in historical  context | NOAA Climate.gov

 

2021 U.S. billion-dollar weather and climate disasters in historical  context | NOAA Climate.gov

Robostore @ ORD

I honestly don’t understand it. Here is a “robostore” in which you can select something you want and just walk out with it – apparently Amazon technology will scan it and charge you for it. But what is the advantage of this approach, if they must hire a person to guard the store?

The German heritage of Texas

Huge numbers of Germans migrated to Texas in the mid 1800s – so much so, that even today you’ll find German villages in Texas, and a number of Americans who have been born here but speak German — not English — as their first language!

You can still see this German heritage everywhere around San Antonio, such as shown in this snap here:

Parking place for police in San Antonio

As far as I can tell, countries like Switzerland treat their police just like everyone else. Not so in the US, where companies do their best to encourage police to shop at their stores and eat at their restaurants.

This snap from San Antonio, Texas, shows a parking place reserved for police officers at the local grocery store – just to make it a bit easier for them to come in and do some shopping.

Odd entrance

I spotted this entrance to an apartment building in Bern.

It really makes one stop and wonder . . . . why?  Was this part of a building under historical protection? But if you look closely you’ll see it’s actually no entrance at all. What used to be an entrance lacks any stairs or steps up to it.