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Green Europe on the Ground
Paris: the green at the end of the tunnel
Paris is like a tunnel which threatens to devour everything, a pressure cooker ready to explode. The city has the densest population in Europe: 21,000 people per square kilometre. Worn out by an insatiable demand for accommodation, a jam-packed metro and trees wilting due to pollution, the Parisians are eager for change. Citizens have already rolled up their sleeves (literally!) and are creating new green spaces. With shared gardens, honey, biodiversity and public politics transforming the city, Paris aspires to transform velibs into autolibs, to develop new trains and to listen again and again to the lectures of the ecolo-geeks. Cafebabel.com shows you the green leaves peeking through the paving stones
Athens: Got 99 problems and environment is one...
The Greek capital has other problems to deal with than the environment. While the main Kifissos river has dried up due to poorly planned construction works, the Aegean sea is being swamped with illegally dumped waste. The battle of Keratea, a small village outside the capital, against an immense landfill site which has been in the pipelines for the last fifteen years, is just one more worry for the government. Athens’ expanding cycle lanes are to die for, especially on a Friday night – but otherwise the town is breathless because of pollution and the oppressive heat. Will the anger of citizens be enough to protect the marvels of Attica? (Image: © Benedicte Salzes/ benedictesalzes.com)
- Read the special edition Athens: Got 99 problems and environment is one...
- Forget environment! Cars rule the road in Athens
- Sex, Sartre & rock n’roll in Paris theatre
- The attican landfill war: a load of trash?
- Environmental art in Athens: art project for Kifissos river
- Freeday: beer vs bikes through Athens on Fridays
Vienna’s green wavelengths
The Prater park, the Vienna woods and the Lobau: Vienna is green no matter which way you look. Fifty percent of the Austrian capital is made up of green spaces and in 2010 the city received the accolade of having the best quality of living worldwide from the international Mercer study. It isn’t just in internationally orientated events in the city centre like Danube Day that we see Vienna riding a green wave. Instead it is also clear in the town’s most hidden corners: some city-dwellers grow cannabis quite legally, others opt for a car-free life, and others still go back to nature and live in caravan communities. Five European reporters got to the bottom of Vienna’s green lifestyle as part of cafebabel.com’s monthly editorial project Green Europe on the Ground (Image: (cc) M'sieur Rico/ Flickr)
Summer's here, so travel green for Green Europe on the ground
Going on holiday in this economic climate is impossible for many. But as good old Bertie Einstein said, ‘In a crisis, imagination is more important than knowledge’. cafebabel.com wraps up its second citizen media project of the year, ‘Green Europe on the ground’. The pick of articles from the year encourage you to get on your imaginary bikes through an Italian capital during the day. For the night, you’ll don your telescopes to contemplate the real deal beyond the lights of a Slovenian capital before dancing it all off in a ‘green disco’ in a German capital. We’ll take a serious stop in a Hungarian country to see how the effects of a natural disaster can mobilise people, before taking an organic break in a southern Spanish regional capital. We’ll also have that chat with young Parisians on how they feel about the new political green climate, because environment is essentially inseparable from European politics. Read the ‘best of’ our journalists’ ‘alternative energy’ in a collection of green articles this summer (Image: (cc) annais/ Flickr)
- Read the special edition Summer's here, so travel green for Green Europe on the ground
- Europe's unique light pollution law: dark skies over Slovenia
- Sludge-hit Hungary: Europe’s biggest ecological catastrophe since Chernobyl
- Green dancefloors Berlin: spread the eco-dance germ to Europe
- Organic Seville: too many exports, not enough young workers or local mouths
- Parisian 'eco-geeks': the youngest players in the French presidential elections
- Rome was not built in a day...nor for bikes
Marrying 'eco' with 'logical' in Strasbourg
300 hectares of green spaces, more than 500 kilometres of bike route and the nature park of Vosges just nearby. The Alsatian capital definitely classes as one of Europe's ecological paradises, and we even find citizens who plan their weddings with a green visor. We sent a budding Sherlock Holmes through the city to crack its eco-crimes, because after all, Strasbourg is most famous in the European eco-crime scene for the second seat of the European parliament which it hosts, compromising the city's eco-balance. Read the following edition in a ten-month 2011 monthly series, ‘Green Europe on the ground’ (Image: (cc) njaminjami/ Flickr)
Ljubljana gets the luscious green light
Glance at a night-time satellite image of Europe, and you might notice that the entire continent is illuminated except for Slovenia, where a unique light pollution law was introduced in 2007. When it comes to green, the country outshines its EU neighbours. Slovenia's first ever green party successfully included environmental growth policies into the fabric of the new state on 25 June 1991. The good care of the country’s dense wealth of nature taken during its former Yugoslav era also meant that when Slovenia joined the EU in 2004, 35% of its territory was declared under the Natura 2000 programme, conserving its biodiversity. Take a bicycle south of the city, and in twenty minutes you’re in peaceful bear territory. Though Slovenia doesn’t have the same environmental problems as other European countries, other green problems can be overlooked; a heavily vehicled valley city, the capital suffers mainly from air, water and waste issues. Its citizens are notoriously active, hiking after work, ‘slacklining’ in parks or spending weekends in the surrounding forests or at the coast. Yet over the twenty years that the country has existed, the presence of a green party dwindled and green activism is slow-burning amongst its 2 million citizens, even about the country’s sole nuclear plant. From the streets to the hills which squeeze Ljubljana like a corset and the forests which tie it up like a ribbon, read the eighth edition in a 2011 monthly series, ‘Green Europe on the ground’ (Image: © Lucille Caballero/ lucillecaballero.com/)
World environment day: European journalists 'green up' Europe’s cities
From Copenhagen to Kyoto we are repeating the same old trite, somewhere along the lines of ‘the last climate change conference was a failure’ or ‘the disastrous results of the united nations process shows the weakness of global climate policies…’ Back on the ground and in the tiny spaces of our own individual lives, we are recognising that the environment and sustainability are increasing parts of our daily routines. June saw European mothers calling up their expat children across the continent to warn them not to eat any salads or fruits and vegetables after the e-coli outbreak in (what was first rumoured to be) Spanish cucumbers. Citizens woke up to the prospect of nuclear strategies on their own turf after the Fukushima reactor accident in Japan, and governments (notably Germany) tightened up their own nuclear laws. In the framework of the ‘Green Europe on the ground’ editorial series between November 2010 and July 2011, pan-European teams of cafebabel.com reporters have been heading out to the cities of the continents to knock out their own understandings of green topics. We’ve danced ‘green’ in Berlin, illustrated ‘green comics’ in Brussels, planted ‘green products’ in Seville and designed ‘green’ in Budapest: read a pick of the articles for world environment day on 5 June (Image: (cc) NCM3/ Flickr/)
- Read the special edition World environment day: European journalists 'green up' Europe’s cities
- Frank Pe, Luc Schuiten: eco-dreams of Brussels' comic book art architecture
- The importance of being eco-ideological in Budapest
- Green dancefloors Berlin: spread the eco-dance germ to Europe
- Organic Seville: too many exports, not enough young workers or local mouths
- Rome was not built in a day...nor for bikes
Seville gets mean on green
At a time when unemployment is enemy number one across the country, April saw the launch of a new monument to Seville which cost a grand total of 123 million euros - 70% more expensive than first chalked. Things don't look good before local elections take place in Spain on 22 May. But there is some future somewhere, and the capital of Andalusia has some green goods despite its bad municipal management. Between solar energy successes, local organic producers and the increase in bicycle lanes in the city, there is definitely a case to be made for green economy in Seville. That doesn't mean it's the place for greenwashing though. Fifth edition in a 2011 monthly series, ‘Green Europe on the ground’ (Image: (cc) Franie Frou Frou/ Flickr)
Rome: far niente ecology
All roads do not necessarily lead to Rome when it comes to talking environment. The Italian capital might be the greenest in Europe after Oslo, but it ranks after Bombay as the city with the most amount of scooters in the world, which remains one of the most popular transport methods for Romans. Taking a bicycle out on those mean streets seems to stir up a bit of a kamikaze effect. But of course, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and if you look, you will find. There is a supreme sophistication in the simplicity of organic Italian food. Theatres and design boutiques reveal an alternative green edge to Rome, whilst more evidence is found on the city’s periphery and the solar roofs of the Vatican, even if its ‘green pope’ sends out mixed WikiLeak messages. Fourth edition in a 2011 monthly series, ‘Green Europe on the ground’ (Image: (cc) Reza Vaziri/ Flickr)
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