Our stranded-in-Berlin correspondent is Charles Redell, who writes on sustainability, hangs out at Office Nomads (oh, the irony!), and was in Berlin for a international green conference. He’s still very much there, thanks to Iceland’s ash-spewing Eyjafjallajokull volcano, which has disrupted flights worldwide. Here is his first dispatch. This one includes a photo gallery after the letter portion:

I’ve been trying to sort out how to explain what’s been happening while stuck here in Germany for an indeterminate amount of time because of a volcano (a volcano!) and finding it terribly difficult. One thing about this experience is that things have been happening very fast, and very slowly at the same time.

Last night as I sat down to write about my day of bureaucracy, I realized that events I thought took place Friday actually happened earlier that same morning. But by the time I was writing, I’d been through two re-bookings, bought and returned a train ticket to Frankfurt, and done some touristy stuff.

Keeping up with things in anything like real time is impractical, if not impossible, since my smart phone is not compatible with European cell networks (I am forced to find a hotspot to use it or my laptop), and compiling all my thoughts at the end of the day just turns into a long ramble of events, experiences and thoughts, none of which can be sorted until this is all over.

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So in the place of dispatches from an isolated Europe, I offer you images of the effects as I see them. In only some will the direct relationship to this unprecedented event be obvious, but over the coming days, the shots I send back will be things I’ve experienced only because of the Icelandic volcanic eruption and images of Berlin and Europeans dealing with it.

In the meantime, wish me luck as I look to rent a bike and ride it first to the airport, and then wherever the wonderful bike infrastructure takes me. Oh, and if you can work on helping me manifest clear skies and a seat on an airplane before next Sunday, that’d be great too. [Photos after the jump.]

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On our return to town, it was time to stop thinking and start playing. Lunch on a boat on the river was our first stop. This beer saved my life.

One last piece of business was to get a refund for the train ticket to Berlin I bought online Friday night thinking I’d be able to get out of Frankfurt on Sunday morning. We decided to try the train station later on Saturday night in hopes of shorter lines. Your guess is as good as mine if this line is from the afternoon or 10 p.m. (As a side note, the office closed at 10 PM sharp. After waiting in line for 30 minutes, police sent away everyone in line, starting three people behind me.)

German television for me means the Euronews channel and BBC news (both in English).

A glimpse of “Alf,” in German. What is it with Germans and ’80s U.S. pop culture? (Yes, the Hoff really is big here.)

At the parking lot that was Hitler’s bunker.

The Holocaust memorial, a perfect place to visit during this adventure because the effect of walking through it is a feeling of loneliness, isolation, and confusion. It also offers sharp perspective. In other words, no matter what’s happening right now, I’ve got it pretty damn good.

The Toronto Star is doing it, so we will too. Our stranded-in-Berlin correspondent is Charles Redell, who writes on sustainability, hangs out at Office Nomads (oh, the irony!), and was in Berlin for a international green conference. He’s still very much there, thanks to Iceland’s ash-spewing  Eyjafjallajokull volcano, which has disrupted flights worldwide. Here is his “letter home” about how he learned of his extended stay, and spent his Saturday.

Word of the Icelandic volcano eruption first came as some kind of odd rumor. It was one of those stories that just don’t make any sense on a morning when your brain is foggy from four days of travel, non-stop events, and Berlin beer halls.

As the day progressed though, the details became clear and all of us started realizing that with the press tour ending last Friday and flights home starting on Saturday, things were about to get interesting.

By Friday night’s closing dinner, we all knew that this was not, actually, a closing dinner. All of our flights were canceled by then. A group gathered in my very small hotel room with our laptops and began Skyping all our airlines.

By 3 a.m. some ridiculous trips had been planned (a 5:30 a.m. train on Sunday from Berlin to Frankfurt to catch a 2 p.m. flight to Houston, with a connection to Seattle, for example), and we stumbled to bed.

When we woke up on Saturday though, things looked sour–and the hotel was telling us all that we couldn’t stay. One of the airlines had booked all the rooms. We panicked. After a quick cup or seven of coffee, my brain slipped into planning mode.

We decided all to go to the travel agent who booked us to try and get alternatives, since the airports were now looking as if they were going to open by Sunday. Before we started off, we heard from the organizer of our trip, calling to tell us he had found the entire group rooms at a new hotel.

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When he heard our plan to attack the travel agent, he told us not to bother: the office “is not what you think it is.” With no cell phones with international plans, we couldn’t call anyone, so we struck out for the downtown Berlin Lufthansa office. Which is closed on weekends (really).

We dug up a travel agent who said all we could do was call the airline or go to the airport. The news kept saying not to go to the airport, but calling meant being on hold for hours and they generally won’t do anything when you do get through. We decided to go out there as it is just a 30-minute U-bahn (subway) ride.

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When we got to Berlin Tegel, it was quiet. No people on cots, no fights. Just people on lines at ticket desks. We waited maybe 30 minutes and three of us got re-booked. Two are booked for Wednesday; I got booked from Berlin to Newark to Seattle for Sunday. Of course, since then, they canceled all the flights out Sunday.

[As of Saturday night] there’s still no word on when airports will open (though estimates about the smoke clearing have dropped from four to five days to two to three days in the past twelve hours). I’ve been told by someone at the American Lufthansa number that I can’t get a flight till next Sunday, though the German customer service might be able to do better for me. I hope they speak English.

In the meantime, Berlin is an amazing city, full of life and energy. It’s as  bike-friendly a city as I’ve ever been in, and apparently I have more days to explore it. There is a big park nearby, an easy-ish walk to a department store with a gourmet potato bar and it’s supposed to be between 60 to 70 degrees and sunny through the weekend. 

I know I have it easy, all things considered. People are stranded on cots in airports around Europe, Poland is holding a state funeral no world leaders can attend, and earthquake survivors are battling frigid temperatures in Tibet. Comparatively, I’m doing pretty well.

The Kingdome looms over the guided missile cruiser USS LEAHY (CG-16), arriving in port during the Seattle Sea Fair 1982. (Photo by PH1 HAROLD J. GERWIEN)

I wrote the following article on the Kingdome’s death just under 10 years ago. Since this is the anniversary of the building’s implosion, I thought this was a good time to re-present it and remember the Dome in the days after its extinction but before it became a very dim memory:

I didn’t see the Kingdome’s end. I didn’t see the Kingdome’s beginning. I did, though, grow more and more familiar with it throughout the ’90s, first as an occasional visitor, then as a Seattle resident.

It always seemed out of place in Seattle’s skyline: the lean skyscrapers glistening off the water and dockside piers and shipping facilities giving way to a plump, squat mushroom bulging above rows of SoDo warehouses. What was that concrete behemoth doing adjacent to the brick and stone of Pioneer Square?

But watching Mariner games (I never saw anything else in the Dome, save one high school basketball title game) was pretty enjoyable. The controlled climate assured you that the weather wouldn’t intrude on the game, while the dome and carpeted field gave the event a sort of domestic, suburban feeling—like nothing too dramatic or traumatizing would happen.

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Usually that was the case: There’s only one game I remember at all vividly. (I missed the big comeback run in 1995, only to later start up a website chronicling those games.) The last time I was in the Kingdome, in the summer of 1998, the Mariners played a 15 or 16-inning game, filled with extra-inning near-defeats for both sides, until the Mariners lost it.

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“Kingdome? Where?” courtesy of SunBreak Flickr pool member slightlynorth.

All throughout early 2000, as the paneling came off and the cement ribbing of the structure came to light, the Kingdome seemed to completely change. As the seal of the Dome was removed, you could glimpse inside and get some sense of what it really was. It seemed to expand in its openness, growing lighter and more flexible.

 

The mausoleum had turned into an exoskeletal shell which, like the carapace of a dead beetle, has an essential sparseness and structural clarity as it turns from a living shield into a dead container.

I remember one photo in the Seattle Times, which must have come from early March, showing a purplish dawn that flooded the Kingdome with its pale, diffused light. Shafts of light flashed through the open air between the concrete ribs and disappeared somewhere inside the stadium. That was the only time I ever thought of the Dome as something beautiful.

In its dying weeks, the city’s monolith was becoming something different from the building I had known. With the now complete Safeco Field standing as a symbol of a more stylish downtown, with its exposed-steel design and upscale atmosphere, the Kingdome had itself come to look more and more like Safeco.

I found myself wondering why the Dome hadn’t looked like this before, why the internal shape of it had been so grossly obscured by various superfluous and ugly coverings.

As it was undergoing final preparations for dissolution, I was out of the country. I was on the return flight, I suppose somewhere in southern Quebec, as the Kingdome was destroyed. Coming back from the airport, I saw the pile of dust, girders and structural remains left over, and was struck by its brevity: The Kingdome had lived for not even a full generation.

I find myself generally fascinated by the question of what happens to things after they’re officially dead, whether it’s a satellite, a car, a television, or a person, and the Kingdome was not an exception.

Although nothing spectacular happened to the rubble of the Dome, I returned to the site several times to look at the piles of undifferentiated rubble and support columns writhing in the dust, and, of course, the beginnings of the new football stadium replacing the Kingdome.

The explosion had drawn huge crowds, both in Seattle and around the world, but then, as the actual material of the Kingdome was being removed, no one was watching.

I guess that rubble was later used to construct highways or office complexes, but meanwhile, the memories created by and within the Dome remain, and that’s what’s fascinating: how our memories retain and elaborate upon people, events, and experiences that are long since dead.

Wallyhood’s Jordan Schwartz has a King Day post up that is worth your time.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

My full, legal name is Jordan Luther King Schwartz. Kind of an unusual name for a white guy (and a Jew, no less).

How did I end up with a name usually reserved for civil rights memorials and streets running through the hood?

Back in early 1960’s, Jim Crow laws, mandating separate facilities for blacks and whites throughout the South, were still very much on the books and enforced. When Dallas County, Alabama blacks showed up on one of the two days per month they were allowed to apply to vote, for example, they were arrested and beaten. Of those few that managed to fill out an application, most were denied. Of 57,000 black citizens, only 130 were allowed to vote. [read the rest at Wallyhood]

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Special to The SunBreak by Matt Mason.

MTM Photography: Jensen, 2, does her part at the Wallingford Senior Center Fundraiser on November 19.

Thursday night at the Wallingford Senior Center was of special importance to the community life of the Wallingford neighborhood. The “Brother Can you Spare a Dime” a soup line fundraiser for the Wallingford Senior Center was a great success. But it was only the beginning.

The Senior Center has already cut back to one daily staff member, who happens to also be the executive director of the Center, Kathleen Cromp. Faced with the big picture and the daily details she describes the last few months as a roller-coaster. This event is a hopeful step in developing the grass roots support that the center needs to recover from this closure and restart full programming in the new year. Faced with old debts and a lack of operating funds the Center’s Board of Directors is developing a sustainable model it hopes to implement if the community and financial support can be secured.

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The fundraiser was sponsored by the Wallingford Community Council and the Chamber of Commerce, along with over a dozen local businesses. Selena’s Guadalajara donated tortilla soup, Chutney’s Bistro provided the mango lassi, and Trophy Cupcakes satisfied the sweet tooth with a tower of mini-cupcakes. Local bluegrass band Lost in the Fog also donated their time to perform.

All of the businesses involved and the dozens of volunteers at the event believe in this cause and based on the turnout, the people of the community are beginning to see the value as well. Part of the evenings program allowed a few minutes for people to share with the gathered audience.

Wallingford resident and ex-mayoral candidate Joe Mallahan came out in support along with City Council Member Tom Rasmussen.

Rasmussen spoke for a few minutes to the packed hall calling this a “wake-up call to our community” he noted that what makes the difference in the success or failure of a center is the community spirit behind it. He emphasized the need for the Senior Center as a way to “help older people stay independent and in their homes,” saying it provides a framework of support and a second family to help fulfill the needs of community members. Rasmussen concluded by adding this is “insurance for our future.”

Ralph Moser stood and shared his experiences at the Center. He and his wife, Nancy, felt instantly at home four years ago when they received their personal tour of the facility. This introductory tour is something provided for all new members. He and his wife have a short five-minute drive to the Center, which has lots of easy parking. They take part in yoga, general exercise, and current events. They also are sure to attend the lunches, spaghetti dinners and monthly Sunday pancake breakfast. He commented on the programs saying, “It’s no big deal but it means a lot [to us].” He has developed many very dear friends and feels a stronger tie to the community through the Center.

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Johnathan Cohen had a multi-generational story to tell of his family’s connection to the Center. He came to the Center for the first time with his kids and their grandparents when he was in the midst of a separation. They attended a spaghetti dinner and “found great solace here.” From that day on he and his family remained regulars at the center. When his daughter, nine-year-old Vera, heard of the closing she said, “Poppy, we got to do something to save the Senior Center. Grandma and Grandpa love it so much, and so do I.”

Several members of the Board of Directors laid out what was needed in order for this neighborhood treasure to restart and sustain successfully. Although donations and support have been growing it has not been nearly enough yet. Some large donors have come forward but many of them are wanting to be assured of operational sustainability and more importantly the level of commitment the community has to the success of the Center.

The City also has assured the Center that some funds are secured for next year, also contingent on the Center being able to restart successfully. The key is community: It is neighbors standing up and saying this is important and I’m willing to support it with my time, energy and finances. Every dollar helps along with calls and letter to the City Council and Mayor’s office.

The Center has made a request for one-time lump sum funding from the city to pay off a chunk of dept and late payroll. This will help make the restart more viable and attract more large donors. In order so show your support for this funding please contact any or all of the members of the City Council.

Energy and ingenuity are the other important tools that the Center needs from you. Cromp spelled out a need for volunteers to make sure the Center has a base of manpower available for a restart. Also, she wants community ideas for new and improved programs to better serve the senior, and wider, demographic of the neighborhood.

If you have an idea for the center, she wants to hear it. So please, let’s make a difference, take a stand, and say our future and the future of all the young and old in our community is a priority. We quite literally cannot afford to lose this priceless community resource.

Our SunBreak Flickr Pool delivers perfectly, thanks to mangpages.

Mainstream news is having a hard time reporting on Robert and Brenda Vale’s study (actually a book) called Time to Eat the Dog? The Real Guide to Sustainable Living. CBS News begins its story like this: “So apparently Rover whizzing on the carpet isn’t the worst thing he does. Not by a long shot. He’s also killing the planet.” Locally, the Seattle Times is more laconic: “Thanks for killing the planet, dog owners.”

The upshot of the Vales’ figurings is that the ecological footprint of a medium-sized or large dog, based on its food intake, is greater than that of an SUV (a 4.6-litre Toyota Land Cruiser) driven 10,000 km per year. (That’s including both the SUV’s fuel and the energy used to build it.)

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While the book’s title is clearly a provocation, the message gets lost in the weeds. In both stories, there’s a lot of scoffing from the outset, even though the study’s limited parameters have been backed up by New Scientist, in their article, “How green is your pet?”

The Times pitted our local eco-wonk, Sightline’s Clark Williams-Derry, against New Scientist.

“When I saw the study I ran some quick numbers,” Williams-Derry said. “The average dog has to eat at least twice as much as the average person for this to be right. People are just heavier than dogs so, I just had to scratch my head at that.”

[UPDATE: I should have checked Sightline’s blog before I wrote this: Clark picks the study apart on a number of its assumptions–not least of which is what we’re actually feeding our dogs.]

One: Regardless of what the authors intended, the conclusion that should be drawn from the study is that eating meat, in general, is energy intensive. It doesn’t matter who is eating the meat, you or your dog; it’s costing an arm and a leg ecologically. That is not always the case, depending on who is raising the meat, but it’s fair to say that our industrial meat producers don’t tend to have sustainability top of mind.

That is why someone like Michael Pollan might suggest that “A vegan in a Hummer has a lighter carbon footprint than a beef eater in a Prius.” He’s had to retract that statement because of the “carbon” qualifier, which leads to a fairly strong criticism of the Vale’s study. Inputs are not the whole picture–there are also outputs.

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That is the larger problem with the Vales’ study: it’s placed in a single-value context. Based strictly on inputs, the title should be “Time to Eat the Neighbor?” But there is a value context. There are competing carbon outputs. There’s the enjoyment and exercise that owning a dog brings. (And don’t discount that “enjoyment” as purely personal–Americans need all the exercise we can get.) And of course there’s the choice of how big your dog is and what you feed it.

On the second page of the New Scientist article, there’s this: “If you already have a pet, then changing its diet can help. Meat is the key, since its production is so energy-intensive. You can almost halve the eco-pawprint of your dog simply by feeding it many of the same sort of savory foods that you eat, which are likely to be far less protein-rich than most dog foods.”