Author Archive for Einar Du Rietz
Einar Du Rietz is a journalist and communications consultant based in Europe. He has authored several environmental reports for the Electrolux Group and loads of blogs for the Center for the New Europe at CNE Environment.
CFACT Europe President in the Media
…and friends are found all over Europe. Einar Du Rietz gives an up-date.
CFACT Europe’s President and co-founder Dr. Holger Thuss recently gave a lengthy interview in German Ökowatch; “Prosperity is the basis for higher environmental standards”. The full text will soon be available in English translation. Dr Thuss explains in particular the environmental work of CFACT [...]
BASIC Bull
by Einar Du Rietz
The preparatory climate talks of BASIC, the coalition of Brazil, South Africa, India and China, just ended in Rio. The UNFCCC has the courtesy to link to some of the reports of the apparent fiasco. Reuters here and Xinhua.
As was apparent at the latest Bonn meeting, developing countries are getting more and more [...]
Chill Out
by Einar Du Rietz
In Europe, the record breaking cold winter (irritatingly, or amusingly coinciding with the Copenhagen meeting) has now been followed by a heat wave. As the alarmists love to point out, climate is not the same thing as weather. How true. Apart from causing dizziness however, real life – away from the AC at [...]
The Hockey Season is Over
by Einar Du Rietz
…and the famous/infamous hockey stick got stowed away long before the latest world championship even started. Then occasionally picked out again.
The IPCC took out the hockey stick graph from two of their last reports. Somehow, it managed to creep back into the report submitted before Copenhagen, apparently picked up by one of the [...]
Cancel Cancun
by Einar Du Rietz
…or maybe don’t.
As fun as you can have, in the company of all sorts of people, there is something depressing over these climate conferences. Delegates looking serious while spending other people’s money on down-right dangerous schemes, young people, who ought to be either in school, or out partying, or protesting the real [...]
End Game or Mid Term – Bonn
by Einar Du Rietz, Bonn
The game is not over yet, but the climate talks in Bonn are. For the time being. Another session is already scheduled for August, and it might very well be that the free-lunchers will squeeze yet another in, during the buildup of expectations before Cancun. After the enormous debacle before, during and [...]
At Least – Leave Those Kids Alone
by Einar Du Rietz, Bonn
I feel old sometimes. I’m not, according to my doctor, but I’m at least not “Youth”, as defined by the United Nations to be between the age of 15 and 24 (for the first three years in there, you also have the privilege of being “child” at the same time).
Couldn’t care [...]
And Now For the Good News
by Einar Du Rietz
How splendid in this often pessimist debate, to get the chance to present some good news!
According to the global health statistics from WHO, things are going in the right direction, in some cases remarkably well. Since 1990, infant mortality has decreased by 30 percent. Malnutrition is going down, access to drinking water has [...]
Create Prosperity – Not Hypocrisy
by Einar Du Rietz
Investing your money and savings for your pension in funds that advertise themselves as more “ethical” than others? Maybe it’s time to think again.
Environmental watchdogs are increasingly pointing out funds as dubious, because of investments in different energy companies. In a recent – undercover – study (Swedish) non of the four checked [...]
Proper Precautions
by Einar Du Rietz
“Assumption is the mother of all fuck-ups”, my former colleague, the environmental affairs director, liked to quote his favourite actor Steven Seagal as saying. It could be read as an argument for the precautionary principle of course, but it could also be interpreted as an argument for precaution against political action. There’s an [...]
A Matter of Taste
by Einar Du Rietz
After being approved by the national governments in the EU, Thrombin has now found it’s way into the parliament, by way of the environmental committee, which – not surprisingly – found a majority for proposing a ban.
Thrombin is also, more popularly, known as “Meat Glue”, creating connotations that set off a lot of alarm [...]
Do No Harm – And No Alarm
by Einar Du Rietz
Unintended consequences are the curse and irony of politics. The recent study, ordered by the Swiss government, and published by the institute ITIS, on the possible electromagnetic radiation from low energy light bulbs, confirms this once again.
The radiation levels turned to be so high, that the Swiss government found it necessary to [...]
I Didn’t Do It I Was Not Even There
by Einar Du Rietz
On March 21, incidentally my birthday, a friend from Iceland called me and said she had organized some fireworks for me. What a pity she could not set off the second eruption one week ago. With all airline traffic closed down in most of Europe, as today, the Climate conference in Bonn would have been more [...]
An Offer You Can Not Possibly Reject
by Einar Du Rietz, Bonn
Last day of the climate conference in Bonn, a most interesting city that we unfortunately never had the time to study more closely, due to the – as usual – busy program. Bonn, the city of Beethoven and a symbol both for peaceful German recovery after WWII and the European university [...]
Nothing More than Broken Glass
by Einar Du Rietz, Bonn
It certainly is more solemn here, than in Copenhagen, as most people as this conference persist in pointing out. I’m not complaining, and neither is the local community which this time seems to be spared from closed off traffic and broken glass.
The latter is instead provided by some of the few [...]
