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Throughout the history of our planet Earth, there have always been peoples and tribes prepared to wage war. And if we consider just the last few centuries, we can see that the countries of Europe have somehow come to play a major part in this process. However, this way of looking at things limits our view of the world and makes it difficult to adopt a genuinely holistic perspective. There are few countries that have mastered the art of peace, which is a real art and much more lucrative, because mastering peace naturally makes a country richer: earthly goods are …

Saturday 3rd June 2023. Rural Exodus and Water Shortages. And so it came about that on the third day Lenz walked around Monchique and back to Caldas. Like every morning, Lenz started with an intense contemplation of nature, something that formed an integral part of his study of philosophy, asking himself the question what kind of creatures trees might be? They were pumping water and nutrients across large distances up to the crowns of their branches and leaves. And not only that. They were transforming CO2 into oxygen. Why did humans disparage them the way they did? Trees were social …

Saturday May 27th, 2023. Part 2: Two days later Lenz carried on his hike, taking the scheduled bus to Monchique, in order to climb up to the convent from the village. Half way along he met a guitar player busking by the wayside who stopped him, asking for money. Walking with a slow pace, secure and strong, he placed one foot in front of the other and entered the sparse forest, leaving the musician behind, all of a sudden feeling a little safer again. A few huge trees, smelling of humidity and moss, a view towards the southwest and the …

Saturday the 20th may of 2023. Part One. On 5 November Lenz was walking through the hills, all by himself. The summits and high mountain flanks were gleaming in the sun, and the valleys below were covered in green after the rain. Brooks were rushing across the rocks, and the eucalyptus trees were swaying in the wind. Temperatures had gone up a bit again. The clouds in the sky were scurrying from north to south, as if in a hurry. The umbrella pines above him were absorbing the strong winds. The air was humid and the long valleys stretching from …

Planting trees is the most effective measure against the overheating of the Earth. Maybe in a few years‘ time humanity will come to the realisation that part of our salvation lies in rebelling, i.e planting trees as if our lives depended on it and reanimating landscapes wherever possible… This is the way 48-year old Jochen Schilk puts it in his book Re-Greening the World “50 infectious stories about planting trees”. Rarely have I been sent a book in such an unconventional way. One Friday morning as I opened my letterbox down by the road there it was, wrapped in brown …

From time immemorial, Nature has been providing us with our essentials, including fruit, cereals, fish, meat and wood. Clean air and clean water are other free gifts of Nature. Economists group all these aspects together under the concept of natural capital. Put simply, natural capital is defined as the stock of natural goods and services, such as soil, forest or the sea, which provide fresh air, for example, or drinking water. Yet it is, in fact, problematical to attempt to place a value on the services of nature. If humans want to use the natural resources in a gentle and …

“This is a book about our future.” These are the first words of “Earth4All”, published by the Club of Rome. Its subheading declares it to be a Survival Guide for our planet. Here are some quotes: “We all know that we have to put a stop to the extreme poverty affecting billions of people. We know that we have to resolve the galloping inequality. We know that we need an energy revolution. We know that our industrial diet is damaging our health and that the way we produce our food is destroying nature, triggering a sixth mass extinction of animal …