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How Are Our German Friends?

I swear that one photo in the NYT showed a stable in Westphalia.
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I just came out to do a search on the horrible situation. Here’s the photo for everyone who hasn’t seen. The terror of water on so many people. You are in our prayers Europe.

And how many horses are in trouble? The finest horses on the planet and countries who have riding as a sport of many.

It all has me thinking that by the time everyone gets on the same page and believes we need to reduce emissions it will be too late.

Just had ANOTHER torrential downpour while out in my barn and the amount of water coming off the
building overwhelms the gutters. It’s a big building and we’re planning modifications to accommodate the new.frequent.downpours.

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Be the change you want to see.

But I agree with you. Funnily enough, I think Europe is going to “get it” before we do in the Western Hemisphere. Our futures are terrifying.

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Too bad we can’t take the flood water and send it to the western US where they really need it. The world is out of whack.

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It’s hard looking at those pictures. Those poor people!

Europe has done a lot to reduce emissions, but it’s also a bit of a cheat. See, they use wood pellets for their stoves and buy those wood pellets from the US. I guess since the emissions released when cutting down and processing all those trees, down here in the Southeast, to turn into wood pellets, doesn’t count against Europe. It just adds on our emissions. There was an article in the NYT about it. Depressing. We have to get better without just sending our pollution overseas.

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A friend of mine has set up a GoFundMe to help horse owners in the area.

He and his team rescued many, but they still lost all their hay, straw, tack, facilities, etc. For example, the horses in this video were eventually saved when people took down their stable walls with sledgehammers, but they had been swimming in their stalls all night, surrounded by garbage. The current was too strong for anyone to get the doors open.
https://www.facebook.com/thomas.walker.503/posts/10226586653431297

The death toll is absolutely horrible. Many of those towns had stood for centuries. Who would’ve thought there was any danger? Some of the towns that washed away were along rivers, but why did others wash away? Did those little valleys collect that much water? Did earthen dams fail somewhere?

Yes but those pellet heaters are definitely the minority of heating options and are becoming more and more expensive so it’s very hard to sell or rent a house that doesn’t have gas or electric heating now. Believe me, we have been looking at houses here and my sister-in-law took me down a peg when I found a charming but pellet-heated home - we didn’t even look at it due to the cost of heating which would have almost doubled the rent. Most homes with this type of heating have to be renovated to be sold or rented these days, especially with the rising price of the pellets due to Covid supply issues, as they are usually poorly insulated and older homes either way.

Europe is not irreproachable but I do agree that it is ahead of the US in keeping emissions down. It’s much easier to live without a car here (I even bike to the barn), we use much less electricity (as it’s much more expensive), A/C is rare, etc. Part of the reason is utilities and gas are much more expensive so there are more incentives to watch how much energy/gas/water we use.

However after going through Covid I am pretty pessimistic about the idea of people joining together, making sacrifices, and fighting against a common enemy. I do think the price will have to go up to the point that people must make changes or find more eco-friendly solutions instead - but we saw in France that this did not go over well at all with the “Yellow Vest” protests back in 2019 when the government tried to add a small gas tax and the people revolted. I’m reaching the “smoke 'em if you got 'em” phase but who knows, maybe a miracle will happen…or more likely a string of events so catastrophic that governments finally get their sh*t together and do something about it.

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