🇪🇺 Europa

I was born there in the early 1980's (at 336 CO₂ ppm if you must know), in what is in some ways 🇧🇪 its heart even. Might've been 🇲🇲 Burma or 🇨🇱 Chile, or 🇸🇸 South Sudan, say. 🫤 Or 🇦🇫 Afghanistan — and such a different life it would have been. I had no say in it! and it took me far too long to start checking my privilege.

Quite a believer in the idea of Europe, I recently was at Europe Day with two friends. Learned and saw some cool and interesting things (like interpreters' booths and jobs), took some pictures too – like the one below. A brazen flaunting of the silly 2050 long-term strategy towards, yes, 🙌 climate neutrality, clumsily GIMP'd for clarity:

Was this written in genuine ignorance? Willingly tone-deaf? Cynically deceptive? Depressing in any case, but in any case ait, it's a binding obligation! 🥳 so yeah, we're really gonna make this work this time 'round. Yes we can! and oh how obligatedly bound we will. ❲The dull sound of dozens upon dozens of pats on backs drowned out by that of all the clinking glasses. 🥂 Because really, only rarely are we blessed with such a beautiful obligation. And so binding, too.❳

If you couldn't tell, I was somewhat rather stumped to read those words — what even does “climate neutrality” mean 🤔 — but words work, I suppose. “Wir schaffen das” worked for Angela after all. But this pathetic flurry frenzy of words words words, all the words all over the place? I suppose Greta would say “bla bla bla”, or something to that effect, and oh so rightly so.

Tom, 31/8/23

16/6/25 PS: According to a June 9th article on NewScientist.com, “extreme weather, pest outbreaks and overharvesting are turning forest carbon sinks into carbon sources across Europe, undermining a crucial part of countries' net-zero plans”. 🤔 Not one to go look for bad news, I'm not sure about the (state of) other "crucial parts" of those net-zero plans. Not an optimist either, but a casual observer, so when “Europe's forest carbon sink is expected to fall short of the 2030 goal by about 29 per cent”, I'm pretty sure it will indeed, probably sooner and probably by significantly more than about 29 per cent.

So what was it with that deal reached for 2050, and all.. No jest left in me to :wq:x with a smirk. Whom will the obligated bind?

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