746 companies   worldwide operate coal-fired power plants, mine, trade or supply coal; Most of them are located in China, India, USA and Australia. 400 of them want to expand their activities. Coal-fired power plants are operational in 95 countries and coal-fired power plants are planned in 60 more.

Germany is one of the last EU countries to phase out coal by 2038. Almost a dozen coal-fired power plants and a lignite block in the Rhenish mining area are the beginning and will no longer be allowed to trade electricity from 2021.

The Rostock coal-fired power plant, operated by EnBW Energie Baden-Württemberg and RheinEnergie, has been in operation since 1994. In 2018, it emitted 1,830,000 tons of carbon dioxide. The coal-fired power plant was closed from February to June 2020. Because? For a good supply of electricity from renewable energies.

Do carbon removal yourself? Click here for the Rostock kohl-free initiative  .

With an annual average temperature of 10.4 degrees Celsius,   2020 is the second warmest year in Germany since national weather records began in 1881. Only 2018 was slightly warmer at 10.5 degrees Celsius.

The German Weather Service observed nine of the ten warmest years in Germany in the 21st century, with the four warmest years in the last decade 2011-2020. This decade was also the warmest on record. Another feature of the last year was that 2020 was very sunny and too dry for the third year in a row.

In Bad Lauchstädt   near Halle, scientists from the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research at the GCEF (Global Change Experimental Facility) research station are investigating how climate change is affecting ecosystem processes in four different forms of land use in what is currently the largest land use climate. Experiment in the world in terms of area. In an interview, Dr. Martin Schädler, how this experiment works and what the first findings are   .

Assuming   all glaciers and ice caps melt, sea levels would rise about 70 meters. This is based on an estimate from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center. But this is all just a thought experiment. According to realistic projections by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, sea levels could rise by 29 to 59 centimeters by the year 2100, even if we take effective measures to combat climate change. If we don’t try very hard, the increase could be up to 110 centimeters. Studies by other researchers even warn of more than two meters. Sorry Wesmar!

Bird strikes on wind turbines   are probably the most debated cause of bird loss, although other human-caused factors have more serious consequences for populations, such as: B. our intensified agriculture.
The comparison shows: wind turbines are of secondary importance. The industry is working on concrete solutions in the areas of early site selection and collision avoidance measures in order to do justice to the double protection mandate: promoting climate protection and stopping the loss of species.

Since the expansion of wind power is essential for climate protection, NABU and the Greens 2020 parliamentary group presented a   proposal  to accelerate the expansion of wind power and protect species.

What does a   bike-friendly city need? Money and space German cities have spent between 2.30 euros (Munich) and 5 euros (Stuttgart) per person and year for bicycles in recent years. With 4.70 euros and 2.90 euros respectively, Berlin and Hamburg are in the middle of the German table.

The Federal Republic invests little in cycling. From the budget of the Federal Ministry of Transport of almost 28 billion euros, 130 million euros flowed into the bicycle sector in 2018, i.e. 1.57 euros per inhabitant. In the same period, the Netherlands invested 2.6 times more in their cycling infrastructure: 345 million euros.

With the “Volksentscheid Fahrrad” project,   Berlin started a movement in 2015 that was adopted by many cities as “Radentscheid”. The aim is to make cities more bicycle-friendly, reduce individual car traffic and achieve a better quality of life for everyone. Civil society initiatives also initiated decisions on cycling in Rostock (2018) and Schwerin (2020).

How is the cycling situation in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania? Marie Heidenreich from Radentscheid Rostock reveals this in an interview.

Three people go to a restaurant. One orders a meat dish, the other a vegetarian and the other a mealworm burger. All meals have an energy content between 915 and 940 kilocalories. feed them all. The difference: Those who eat the worm burger produce the least carbon dioxide, namely only 160 grams. Vegetarians produce 470 grams, carnivores produce 2,020 grams. People eat insects in many regions of the world, especially in Asia. There are more than 2,100 edible species worldwide.

Did you know that the five largest meat and dairy companies alone emit as many harmful greenhouse gases as the world’s largest multinational oil company?

In northern and southern Europe,   the use of renewable energies is more advanced than in Germany. Some countries, such as Norway, can rely more on hydropower due to geographic conditions. In other southern countries, on the other hand, the sun shines more often. In Germany, the share of renewable energies in electricity consumption is growing: in 2000 their share was 6 percent, in 2018 it was 37.8 percent.

While the share of renewable energies in the electricity sector continued to rise to 40.02% in 2019, the share of renewable energies in the heating (14.7%) and transport (5.5%) sectors remains at a very low level . things have to move fast here in order to still achieve the 1.5°C target of the Paris climate protection agreement.

Would you like more figures on the energy transition in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania? Then take a look   at the information sheet from the State Agency for Energy and Climate Protection.

 When it comes to moors,  Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania is the favourite: Almost 13 percent of the country is covered by moors. Most German raised bogs have disappeared because they were drained for agriculture and forestry. When they are dehydrated, they give off a large amount of harmful carbon dioxide. When wet, peatlands are among the most important carbon reservoirs on earth: Peat absorbs CO   ₂   from the atmosphere and binds it.

What actually is   malaria   ?

Damp raised and fens can be used for agriculture and forestry. A few examples: Cultivation of reed for thatched roofs, use of marsh plants for heat supply in the Malchin heating plant, development of new building materials with reed or peat cultivation as a peat substitute for horticulture. For example, wet management of peat soils contributes to climate protection by reducing CO2 emissions and evaporative cooling.

Become a wasteland protector? One way to protect bogs is to slow peat extraction or    use  MoorFutures carbon credits to ensure drained bogs become wet again. BUND has  published a clear buying guide for peat-free potting soil.

Three ideas for dealing with old cell phones:   1. Leave them in the drawer at home; 2. Dispose of in the recycling center, since the recyclable materials contained therein can be reused and the batteries contain toxic substances; 3. Send to NABU. Mobile phones are refurbished and sold with partner organizations. Part of the sales proceeds go to the NABU insect fund.

Here are the collection points   !

According to the Climate Protection Index (CCPI 2021), problem areas in Germany are   too weak expansion targets for renewables, too little progress in the transport sector, still high energy consumption and high climate-damaging greenhouse gas emissions per inhabitant. Therefore, the overall result is only sufficient for the   rating “mediocre”   . Germany is behind countries like India, Chile and Morocco. Sweden, Great Britain and Denmark occupy the first places.

By the way: For a climate-neutral world, each person should   only     emit one tonne of CO _{2 per year;} in Germany it is currently about 11 tons per person.

For a personal quick check, there is the CO² calculator from the Federal Environment Agency!

Since the 1980s,   humanity has been consuming more natural resources than the earth can sustain without harm. In Germany, more than a third goes into nutrition, 80 percent into food of animal origin. This is followed by housing, mobility and consumption. However, everyone has their own ecological footprint. This is the area it is converting for its lifestyle. This range is of course limited. Mathematically, each person has only 1.7 global hectares at their disposal. When countries exceed this value, their citizens consume more resources than our planet can provide. In 2019, the world population occupied almost double the global hectares.

11 of the 17 nuclear power plants   in Germany have been shut down since 2011, including in Lubmin, 25 kilometers from Greifswald. In 1990 there were four reactors in operation. After reunification, the nuclear power plant was to be shut down, the Soviet construction of the 1960s being too unsafe for Germany. The final storage of the nuclear waste in Lubmin is still unclear.

The last nuclear power plants in Germany will be shut down by the end of 2022 and 1,900 bikes full of highly radioactive waste will have to be accommodated. This is the legacy of nuclear energy and its use. According to the findings of the Federal Society for Disposal, 90 areas in Germany have favorable geological conditions. The selection process will be completed in 2031 and the German Bundestag will decide on the repository site. From 2050, containers with radioactive waste will be stored underground.

Here you will find all information about the repository search

In 1979,   Earth Overshoot Day fell on October 29th. 1989 on October 11, 1999 on September 29, 2009 on August 18 and 2019 on July 29. The day is intended to symbolically draw attention to when we are in the wrong when it comes to sustainability, for example consuming more fuel and food than can be regrown and produced worldwide.

This can also be calculated for individual countries. The poorest and weakest consumption countries such as Indonesia, Ecuador or Nicaragua live on credit only in December, in Qatar and Luxembourg it is already February. This is also because these two countries import most of the food. Causes higher CO   ₂  emissions and a bad mood.

Germany produces   more packaging waste than any other EU country. When it comes to plastic packaging waste, Germany ranks third in the EU.

Although we value the recycling of plastics, this is only possible with a fraction of plastic waste. Instead, around a million tons of plastic are exported. For years, more than half of the world’s plastic waste ended up in China. Since the People’s Republic imposed an import ban in 2018, other Asian countries have been used as waste collection points.

Since 99 percent of all plastics are made from fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal, the climate-damaging emissions throughout the entire life cycle are extremely high.

In Germany,   more than 6,500 kilometers of tracks have been shut down since 1990, i.e. a fifth of the entire rail network. The east was particularly affected: 40 percent of all closed routes are in the new federal states.

There is enormous climate protection potential in rail transport. Take freight transport as an example: greenhouse gas emissions on rail are 18 g per tonne-kilometre, while a truck emits more than six times more greenhouse gases at 112 g.

Positive news 2020: The Darßbahn is back! In Schwerin it was decided to rebuild the route from Barth via Zingst to Prerow. The 19-kilometer single-track route should enable locals and tourists to travel by train to the Fischland-Darß peninsula and from there to the mainland again after more than 75 years, thus relieving the holiday region of car traffic.