Home alone

Returning home after eight hours in the classroom, I crash over the latest Condé Nast Traveller and a post-ironic avocado sandwich with pomegranate.

This week, the kids are down in Gothenburg and I have to admit that it feels strange to suddenly have a whole house for myself. Over the weekend, the abstract that I submitted to the ISA conference in Accra got accepted and I was able to secure some very affordable tickets with Turkish Airlines, meaning that Rawls & Me will be able to add another great adventure to its tales before the summer is over.

Otherwise, I am reading the new report by Bonn-based “Germanwatch” which shows Germany failing further behind on its climate goals. The report reminds me of my class on the philosophy of science when I talk about Thomas Kuhn and how paradigm shifts happen, how anomalies or discrepancies begin to accumulate and how it becomes harder and harder to explain reality within the old paradigm. Even the main headlines of the report, such as “mixed signals on the decarbonisation of the global energy system: again rising emissions despite decreasing costs of renewable energy”, speak of how close the cognitive bubble is from bursting but also what profound paradigm shift that will be needed for people to realize that renewable energy in fact locks in fossil fuels and, as such, makes a deep decarbonization of society impossible. Despite a decade of multi-billion euro annual investments, wind only made up 3.2% of Germany’s final energy mix in 2018 and solar even less at 1.5% with the tiny remaining fleet of nuclear reactors providing 6.4% (a fleet that now will be closed down in the coming two, three years)…