February 21, 2007--Green With Envy
For me, one of the attractions of plopping down on this small island literally in the middle of the Mediterranean is the fact that it is six time zones away from New York. Which means that certain kinds of aggravation and anxiety are that far away, and the news of the world also lags behind the 24-7 curve.
But we do get the International Herald Tribune most days, a mini- English-language version of the excellent El Pais, and the ever-gossipy Majorca Daily Bulletin (the spelling of “Majorca” with a J indicates it’s pitched to the large expat British community here who steadfastly refuse to spell “Mallorca” the way Mallorquins spell it or, for that matter, even deign to learn a few words of restaurant Spanish).
So from the IHT, El Pais, and the Bulletin the news does manage to leak through to us even though we try to hide from it. And at times the version of the news we get from these three papers provides a fresh perspective on happenings, or lack thereof, in America. Today is a case in point.
The lead story in the Tribune (linked below) is about how the EU countries yesterday voted to cut their greenhouse gases by 30 percent by 2020, if, as a challenge to the U.S. and other heavy polluters, we and they do the same. Dream on.
The IHT’s lead story in the business section is about how Australia just decided to move entirely away from incandescent light bulbs to fluorescent bulbs by 2010 and thereby reduce energy use significantly.
Then the tabloid Majorca Daily Bulletin, which devotes almost all of its 32 pages to local gossip (what the Brits here are up to—most of it excruciatingly boring) and sports, today carried fully five stories about projects on Mallorca designed to reduce pollution and global warming. The first is about a water conference underway in the island’s capital, Palma that will focus on ways to treat sewage and desalinate seawater. The second reports about progress in the construction of a new light-rail Metro system for Palma. Next is a story about the proud announcement that all new Palma street cleaning vehicles will run on biofuel. Then, the small city of Manacor, tennis superstar Raffa Nadal’s hometown, is implementing a new wood products recycling program. And Inca, the leather-manufacturing city in the center of the island, is doubling the amount of the subsidies it will pay those who install of solar panels.
Meanwhile, back in the U. S. of A., what are we hearing? Mainly about what we’re not doing and how maybe Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth might win an Academy Award for best documentary.
I can just see him, can we talk, being interviewed on the red carpet by Joan Rivers. In her usually probing way, she’ll ask, “And who dressed you tonight, Mr. Former-Vice-President? Armani?”
But we do get the International Herald Tribune most days, a mini- English-language version of the excellent El Pais, and the ever-gossipy Majorca Daily Bulletin (the spelling of “Majorca” with a J indicates it’s pitched to the large expat British community here who steadfastly refuse to spell “Mallorca” the way Mallorquins spell it or, for that matter, even deign to learn a few words of restaurant Spanish).
So from the IHT, El Pais, and the Bulletin the news does manage to leak through to us even though we try to hide from it. And at times the version of the news we get from these three papers provides a fresh perspective on happenings, or lack thereof, in America. Today is a case in point.
The lead story in the Tribune (linked below) is about how the EU countries yesterday voted to cut their greenhouse gases by 30 percent by 2020, if, as a challenge to the U.S. and other heavy polluters, we and they do the same. Dream on.
The IHT’s lead story in the business section is about how Australia just decided to move entirely away from incandescent light bulbs to fluorescent bulbs by 2010 and thereby reduce energy use significantly.
Then the tabloid Majorca Daily Bulletin, which devotes almost all of its 32 pages to local gossip (what the Brits here are up to—most of it excruciatingly boring) and sports, today carried fully five stories about projects on Mallorca designed to reduce pollution and global warming. The first is about a water conference underway in the island’s capital, Palma that will focus on ways to treat sewage and desalinate seawater. The second reports about progress in the construction of a new light-rail Metro system for Palma. Next is a story about the proud announcement that all new Palma street cleaning vehicles will run on biofuel. Then, the small city of Manacor, tennis superstar Raffa Nadal’s hometown, is implementing a new wood products recycling program. And Inca, the leather-manufacturing city in the center of the island, is doubling the amount of the subsidies it will pay those who install of solar panels.
Meanwhile, back in the U. S. of A., what are we hearing? Mainly about what we’re not doing and how maybe Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth might win an Academy Award for best documentary.
I can just see him, can we talk, being interviewed on the red carpet by Joan Rivers. In her usually probing way, she’ll ask, “And who dressed you tonight, Mr. Former-Vice-President? Armani?”
posted by Steven Zwerling at
9:21 AM
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