Tornados in Germany are increasing sharply

Is wood really more climate-friendly? It usually doesn’t come from the forest around the corner

Even if it comes from the forest around the corner... a larger part of the log is burned. The rest of the log is waste wood and is burned. The branches either remain lying in the forest and rot or are also burned as wood chips. So quite a lot of CO2 is released directly again, and it takes decades until the replacement tree has absorbed it. In addition, there are the problems you mentioned with transport, inadequate reforestation, and soil damage.

I don’t know a single outpatient nursing service here that is affiliated with a hospital. The ones I see driving around are independent private companies, where I know the caregivers earn €16-17 gross per hour. And where did I say that the hospital would make up a small part? Please read more carefully.

To finally close the topic of low-earning caregivers. Today a new collective agreement was created for us, based on the TVöD and retroactive from 01.01.2022. A trained nurse receives an entry salary of about €2,900 (without allowances). One with 10 years of professional experience receives about €3,500. A nurse with advanced training and 10 years of professional experience earns about €3,850. Additionally, a ticket card worth €45 net per month is added. And of course, all the night shift, weekend shift, etc. allowances as well.

I don't want to condemn anyone who wants to build a single-family house new. But that is certainly no longer a future-oriented concept. One should be honest about that.

In my assessment, the best, future-oriented concepts are attractive alternatives, regardless of whether they concern housing, mobility, nutrition, or other topics. Specifically regarding the construction of single-family houses, I think if there were attractive alternatives, far fewer people would build; perhaps only those for whom owning a house is a status symbol. My husband and I only built because of the lack of an acceptable alternative.

Right above that you write that your husband didn’t want wooden ceilings. Presumably, he could have done it. It also became a new building. Not that I’m any better. In the end, everyone only does what is within their own comfort zone. True renunciation? I don’t really believe in that. If you don’t fly, you probably just don’t have a need for long-distance travel, right? And you like your garden just the way it is :)

Who among us has actually ever given something up for the sake of the environment that they would have liked to have?

We don’t have the wooden ceiling because he doesn’t like it when it “swings.” I experienced that with my in-laws in their new building, either it was poor construction there or I don’t know - concrete is definitely different. We have a new building for that reason, because we wanted a ventilation system - and we looked at several existing buildings, but including all renovations they would have become at least as expensive as a new building, plus we still wouldn’t have gotten what we wanted. For those sums, it was out of the question.

Everything else is just assumptions from you :) But I have many places I would like to see, for example Canada. You could also sail there - if you then have enough consecutive vacation days... We have the nature-close garden because I like nature, yes. But I also like English lawns between flowerbeds. Still, I don’t have it because I saw how much more life there is in a meadow.

Renouncing for the environment? I do it almost every time I get on the bike instead of the car, especially in winter. I’m terribly lazy, and it almost always takes effort for me to take the bike. But I do it anyway. Just like I’m quite a meat eater, I like the taste, it fills me up, and I find vegetables terribly boring except for very few kinds. Nevertheless, I eat much less meat than before, sometimes none at all, and yes, there too I give up my personal preferences. Even more so every vegetarian/vegan does who completely abstains from meat. I, for example, no longer buy Nestlé products because they destroy nature and exploit people. Unfortunately, I really like a large part of their convenience junk food. Well, too bad for me.

So yes, there are many people who give things up for the sake of animal welfare or the environment.

if there were attractive alternatives

We recently already had the topic of a multi-family house with a large garden and an extremely good community, but just where... ;-)

Everything else are just assumptions from you :)

Of course :) in my defense, I can only say that I couldn't gather from your garden posts that you had given up something important to you. The flight was thin ice, I was aware of that already. :) To maybe express it differently: My point was the following: Everyone does what they can, that would be reasonable. I think that is not the case, but rather everyone only gives up what they also want to give up. And in my opinion, these are rather the things that one personally considers bearable. I was not talking about you specifically and I hope you read it that way too. For example, I can very well do without constantly having the newest smartphone. However, I would rather not do without a smartphone itself. To stay with the house construction example: I don’t know anyone who would give up a detached newly built house for environmental reasons if such a house had always been their wish and they also had the opportunity and the means. Now one could say my circle of acquaintances is limited, and that is certainly true. Nevertheless, I simply claim that the circle of people who would do that is very, very small. Can one do without it? Certainly. Would one want to? Probably not. That was my point. Giving up something that is really important to you. Which is why I also believe that bans will be unavoidable if we want to limit the number of future tornados or other extreme natural events.