Kinder Surprise

As a Baby Boomer (1946-1964) I know well the meaning of storks.

The decline in Germany's stork population from 1970-85, the then stagnant numbers from 1985-95 and the now increasing numbers are reflected exactly in Germany's birthrate statistics. NO BS!

Germany's birthrate has for many recent years been almost the world's lowest (only just pipped to the wooden spoon by Denmark & the Channel Islands) but now they are overtaking even Italy but still a long way behind the Irish.

This week the UK Govt announced the UK birthrate was at an all-time record low having fallen 46% since the hay-days of peace in Europe in 1947 set the highest record. I blame it on Boris Johnson and his war-mongering Brexit War Cabinet.

I was out this evening to take Luna for a swim, first in quarry lakes and then a drying-off walk in Erkheim as I needed to get some bulk sugar to feed my bees who are struggling to find sufficient nectar to keep their population rising. I was horrified to find my small new hive almost completely empty and have been cooking them a litre of 1:1 sugar solution almost daily since. Have also been giving the big colony a helping hand but I did steal over 20kg of honey from them last week!

The problem is that at this time of year there is simply little in the way of nectar available. Our landscape is now dominated by golf course high grass and above all corn/maize which blights the landscape with its deadly presence and as much bio-diversity as concrete.

Even taking a dog walk only allows an upward view to see the aeroplanes. As so often now, again a near mishap at a blind corner around such a field. Luna off the lead and I saw a cat about 15m away on the track. It wasn't particularly concerned as Luna didn't (doesn't) chase cats having enough experience of how dangerous they are from our tribe at home. The cat though did shoot off around the corner just at that second an elderly woman on a bike zoomed by behind the maize and I heard her calling "pussy". As we got to the corner, she had the cat in her arms and asking if the dog was on the lead. I calmed her that she need not be concerned and she did relax a bit, explaining she rode out every evening to bring the cat home.

I had spotted the storks (10 of them) right alongside the road close to the motorway at Erkheim (See Geotag). Just meters from them is a Biogas unit producing electricity and as far as I know all from waste which was the original idea of them. Bavaria is the leading Biogas area of Germany with some 4,000 units. There are two maize guzzling biogas units within a kilometre of this point. In the extras, the biogas units in our southern part of Bavaria, the light green being those using mainly things like maize, the darker green using rape oil or wood waste. I have shown the Blips location with a red arrow on the very left of the photo.

I was a keen supporter of them in 2000 when they started as a great idea to produce energy from waste. However the boom which resulted because the Govt (rightly) gave the operators superb 20-year guaranteed electricity generation prices, meant instead of using waste, the operators started looking for more efficient (more methane/ton) material and maize was the answer. These producers became absolutely reliant on it, land rental prices shot through the roof putting "ordinary" food growing farmers out of business - many finding it more profitable to rent their fields than do any farming themselves.

More maize, more Monsanto, more RoundUp, more monoculture, more beehive deaths, less bio-diversity ......... 25% of Bavarian biogas units have suffered a technical accident with the worst leading to massive deaths of fish in streams where the toxic brew has leaked out. It is not until 2022 that Bavarian law requires these units to have concrete dams to prevent the worst of such leakages.

Thankfully the initial Govt 20-year price guarantee runs out for those first 2000 built units and the lowering of the subsidy over the years means there have been few units built in the last 5 or so years.

I like to think of myself as a "Realo-Green". The biogas idea is principally good - the use of waste. I cannot for the life of me understand why governments are pushing electric cars run on environmentally-questionable current battery technology when biogas from waste (straw/rubbish) can and indeed is in use for cars & buses using only minor-changed current motor technology. Biogas can also be produced from the excess regenerative sun (PV) and wind electricity which we have in abundance and thus can be easily stored in tanks solving the problem of excess electricity currently being wasted.

If cars can run on gas, can planes? Even the extreme polluting cruise ship companies have even built the first gas-powered liners albeit the re-fuelling infrastructure is not yet developed. I do not support total bans 6 severe restrictions on diesel, cars, planes, ships. The often-used argument used against climate protestors, in particular the Kids for Future movement, that they give up holidays by plane, I find to be totally unacceptable, in fact abhorrent and pathetic coming mainly from the generation like mine that has profited the most from all the environmental problems that have been caused in the past.

We need to act & act fast but the very extreme views, however noble & indeed principally correct, will cause a backlash that will do more harm than good. Incentivise rather than ban/tax the everyday things in life. Some things eg brown surface coal mining needs to be banned & straight away.

And now while I question Meghan & Harry's statement that they will only have two children so as to save the planet, I don't think the Brits need to follow the advice given out back in 1971. That was pre-EU when the Brits hadn't yet been corrupted into sex-mad slaves of the unelected few.

The Bavarians are ready for a No-Deal Baby Boom.