rupert's travel blog

Tag: environmental policy

  • My Pulitzer Prize

    I published an article on Huffington Post on January 1st 2014 called Thank You Romania and it went viral. Over 11,000 people liked it on Facebook and everyone I met in Romania seemed to have seen it. Apparently it was just what was needed in Romania – a positive article to balance all the scaremongering by the British tabloids about the „Romanian immigrant invasion’. By now, almost two months later, everyone knows that story is a joke but for Romanians a bitter taste remains; it’s hard for them to accept that they’re disliked – even hated – in the UK.

    When Formula AS, a leading Romanian weekly newspaper, asked me to do an interview based on my brief analysis of the British tabloids in my Thank You Romania, I jumped at the chance. (more…)

  • SE Europe gas crisis is a timely warning: move to renewables or freeze

    moscow-2007-8We should be grateful to the Russians and Ukranians for the warning that central Asian gas supplies are insecure.  We must heed the warning and start moving more urgently to renewable sources of energy, as this is the only way for the EU to have energy independence.  The Kiev – Moscow row about gas bills has been going on for years and is unlikely to be resolved anytime soon.

    As passive consumers of Central Asian gas all we can do is understand the situation, learn from this crisis and start investing in alternative sources of energy.  We must not take for granted a regular supply of gas.  Interruptions will become increasingly common, if only because the investments are not being made in new production and transport infrastructure.  The recent (more…)

  • If I was the mayor

    If I had stood for the local elections I would have come with an ecological strategy that would have provided everything required for a campaigning politician; connection to a hot global issue, a ready made framework that would create jobs, cut pollution, solve transport problems, attract tourists and bring discipline to construction. And I would have a framework to slam other candidates for using eco labels in their campaigns but failing to address the threats of global warming and the upcoming energy crisis (this is known as “greenwash” in the UK). (more…)

  • A green proposal for Romania

    Adevarul made a sensational discovery last week – it found a copy of Romania’s post accession strategy. It made for depressing reading. By 2025, the strategy stated, Romania’s population would be decimated, the economy would be on its knees and the level of poverty would be sky high.

    But this is not a strategy, at best it could be called an “analysis”. What the authors did was simply take current social and economic trends and project them into the future, coming up with their gloomy prognosis. It lacks the essentials of a strategy: a goal, a target, something to which the country (or at least the politicians) can strive towards; not to mention the public consultation and publicity that accompany similar strategies in normal countries. (more…)

  • How I became green

    Ever since my history teacher explained about global warming I knew we were in trouble. But it was too depressing to worry about. What could I do about global warming, pollution and the preservation of the countryside? Like most people, I assumed there was nothing I could do; I put the issue to the back of my mind, went traveling and got on with my life. (more…)

  • Romania becoming a desert

    The climate is changing in Romania. The land is being dried up by increasingly hot summers, torrential downpours are becoming the norm and the side-effects of rapid economic growth are damaging the environment.

    Parts of eastern Romania have become so arid that farming is impossible and in other areas, over-grazing threatens to destroy all plant life and usher in an era of desertification. (more…)