science

I knew it, the burial site for my dog was an ancient camp for Neanderthal hunters. Archaeologists found a large amount of flint tools used with the hunt. Those Neanderthalers lived there between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago. 30,000 years ago they were followed by the modern human being.
The Neanderthalers weren´t the best adapted species.

I must smile when I think about the relatively short time period we are on earth in comparison with other animals and living creatures.
It makes me sad if I think with what ease we destroy our habitat. If animals would do this with their habitat it will end in a fight. The outcome has been described as the survival of the fittest.

Energy

When I look out of my kitchen window I can ships sail by with containers as a cargo. Often I see LNG-ships or ships with scrap-metal sailing by.
When I see the bulk ships with coals I must think of the coal driven energy plants and the pollution, the climate change goals, the disastrous Copenhagen 2009 Climate conference, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and so on.

Countries can't reach agreements on climate change for various reasons but people can. A little less meat, air miles, less energy by using saving lights or Led lights, lower temperature in house, not spilling food and so on.
It saves not only money but also the environment for you and your children.

For example, when I was a kid in 1978 I always played in the field and on the canal.
We made a raft of wood and cans for herbicides farmers left behind. There was a lot of negligence in society, even 32 years ago. In the eighties of last century the awareness grew that the environment could be polluted.

But still if companies can do something in favour of the environment it still isn't done automatically.
What about energy used by ordinary people like you and me? Companies deliver the energy no matter where it comes from (coal or nuclear plants, wind or water energy, it's all the same power) This energy is grey.

But if you really want you can make your part green.
So I changed my contract with my energy supplier. The energy I use from now on is guaranteed green. So I'm a little bit greener from this day.

An awful lot of wheelchairs

and this was half of it... All these wheelchairs are shipped to countries where the care for disabled people is poor. Turkey, Morocco, Sri Lanka and Hungary will benefit from this gift.

My criticism is that there is no plan what to do with the wheelchairs when they're out of work. In the Netherlands each part will be recycled so there will be no environmental pollution.
The gift can be criticised because we save the recycle cost. When the wheelchair reached the end of it's life cycle the different countries have those recycle costs.

Congrats Ocean

The sun is shining for over a month now. We didn't have any rain for over 1.5 months and temperature is far above long year average this year. It's like Holland moved to the Mediterranean. But after this weekend temperature will drop significantly and it will rain in the homeland of Hans Brinker.



But Bangkok (scientist conference about climate) or not climate change will urge us for some action. To keep the world temperature rise limited to 2 degrees it will cost each person in the world 300 Euro a year. Make that 10 times more for people in Europe, America and Australia. Brazilia, India and China should start with environment "friendly" production of the same responsible product.

Better it is to stop consuming goods endangering the environment; I mean consuming, such as using old Philips-lights instead of energy-saving lights, eating meat from the other side of the world instead of meat of cattle from regional farmers (no meat is even better), driving a car or taking a plane instead of using other much more environment-friendly means of transport.

I know hypocracy rules the world (Bob Dylan). I haven't driven a car for 12 years now and it's comfortable to have the opportunity to drive a car when you need one. That's why I had a medical test last month to exclude the risk of epilepsy while driving a car. I have a driving permission of 5 years now and it feels good.
But mainly I still use my bicycles for everything. 3 Weeks ago my cycle-club an I went to the coast and back: 200 kilometers, 2 weeks ago I went to my mother and cycled back home: 200 kilometers and this week for training 280 kilometers (including riding with the club on Sunday, May 6).

Today, May 5, is the day of celebrating our liberty. It started in 1945 and now this day is really changing to a day of looking to the future. In Utrecht at noon the national liberty day began with a liberty-concert. A well known, everybody-likes- them, middle of the road band had a short concert close to my home.

At 11.30 am I heard and saw an Apache coming from the northwest with bands to act and at 1 pm I saw the same helicopter flying to Amsterdam. It was like Apocalypse now. Flying low I saw the guns pointing at the ground. Men with drums and guitars were shooting music to the ground. I heard a rising sound of the motors which overwhelmed the music and then they disappeared as quickly as they came.
In the local paper I read that the heli pilots served in Afghanistan. Those pilots might have fired some Hellfire missiles to a Taliban depot. It´s just that this contrasts with our liberty day.

I took some freedom not to write for a while. Or may be this isn´t freedom at all. In fact the virusprotection licence has ended and I bought an update which could be installed from CD-ROM. When I tried to install the update it seemed that my CD-ROM and DVD didn´t work.

At work everything is fine. Yesterday a girl who worked temporarily at our office resigned. She and her friend will go to Asia for 5 months for a kind of development-aidproject.
She will visit at the end of May first Iran and will go to Isfahan as a stopover for a week. Thanks to readers of Ocean I know it must be a beautiful place to be....


On a training session after work I had my camera with me. I decided to film this ship on the Lek.