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On 6 June, the Ukrainian Kakhovka Hydropower Plant was destroyed ― according to several reports, by Russian occupying forces. This caused the largest ecological disaster in Europe in decades, which will result in many long-term effects. Engineer and ecologist Serhiy Porovsky details the impact.

What is the situation in south Ukraine now, a month after the Kakhovka HPP was destroyed?

There are problems with water supply in several settlements around the Kakhovka Reservoir. Groundwater level has lowered significantly, agricultural produce suffers. The prospects of using the Dnipro river for shipping are ruined. Vast territories are contaminated, as the flood water reached industrial facilities, fields and cemeteries ― where there are many toxic substances. There is a high chance of outbreaks of gastrointestinal diseases and cholera because of dead fish, animals and people in the affected area.

Romania and Bulgaria will also be impacted. I think that in the next weeks they will start registering increased pollution in the seawater. There are already reports about dead dolphins found on their seashores.

How will the situation change in the mid-term?

This will only be revealed after the water fully recedes and the work on other dams on the Dnipro river stabilises. Also, it depends on whether the Ukrainian state will have access to the remains of the Kakhovka HPP. If yes, it will be possible to build the bulkhead and partially restore the groundwater level. If this won’t be done until next summer, it will be a completely different story.

Is there anything that can be done to mitigate these effects?

Now it’s important to record all damage caused by the dam destruction. Preliminary data, gathered by Ukraine’s Ministry of Ecology, estimates losses at $6 billion. Other countries also need to record the losses they may now be suffering. If Russia is recognised as the guilty party for this catastrophe, it should pay reparations according to the findings. This money should be spent on restoring the dam to its former status.

People from abroad keep telling me that Germany is exemplary in coming to terms with its fascist past — including at the editorial meeting for this newsletter. Every time, this makes me freeze, and I cannot find the words to express my unease. Here’s an attempt to overcome this speechlessness.

Have “we Germans” learned the lessons of our history? Have we faced up to our responsibility for the murder of millions of people and the suffering as a result of war and persecution? Is our democracy immune to nationalist and totalitarian ideologies? With the current rise of the right-wing Alternative for Germany party, and racist murders and attacks on minorities in Germany, this is hard to believe.

We must not forget that it took decades — in West Germany — for the Nazi crimes and German responsibility to be discussed among the general population. And this was mainly due to pressure from civil society. Until then, high-ranking positions in the judiciary, administration and politics had been occupied by perpetrators and accomplices of the Nazi regime. Crimes were played down and criminals rehabilitated.

Countries such as Poland and Greece have still not received reparations. And there is no sign that the German government is even considering whether such claims are justified.

From the outside, it may seem that Germany is a model in coming to terms with its own history. Every child learns about the crimes of National Socialism in school. Public remembrance is firmly anchored by memorials in central locations and commemorative events attract the most senior representatives.

But there is a great danger that this commemoration will become a cliché, a shallow routine. Too many people claim that “enough is enough” when it comes to remembrance. This will never be the case as long as the suffering caused by persecution and war continues and the trauma is passed on to future generations. It takes a lot to heal the scars.

“This country is a great tomb. When you hear political leaders saying that our great national poet was Federico García Lorca, they forget to say that he is a forced disappeared. This is significant. If the wounds are not cauterised, it is impossible to heal them. Generating truth, justice and reparation are basic elements for the country to move forward.

One of the great causes of the extreme polarisation we are experiencing in Spain is that these wounds have never been closed. And the problem is not only silence, but the lack of memory, or the false memory of what happened. Because to generate transparency is not to generate revenge.”

Miguel Martínez del Arco is the son of the woman who spent the longest time in jail during Franco’s dictatorship, a sentence of almost two decades. Against the voices that say the war is a ‘closed chapter’ of Spanish history and the country should ‘move on’, the victims claim that this is not possible without memory.

Three decades after the Bosnian war in the 1990s, Bosnia and Herzegovina remains sharply divided along ethnic lines, with much of its population still suffering from war trauma.

Before ending in December 1995 with the Dayton Peace Accord, the war between Bosnia’s Serbs, Bosniaks and Croats claimed over 101,000 lives.

Some scars are obvious, such as the dilapidated, bullet hole-ridden buildings, while others, like the trauma suffered by the people, are hard to spot at first sight.

Bosnia has yet to make a centralised database of all the victims of war or those suffering from PTSD. According to a 2020 study by the country’s Health Ministry, more than 60 percent of the population in the capital of Sarajevo alone ― a city that spent much of the war under siege, grenades and sniper fire ― suffer from symptoms of PTSD.

According to the authorities, the country still has about 8,000 people living in collective houses as well.

The Peace Accord ended the war, but society remains sharply divided along ethnic lines.

The country is organised into a multiethnic national government, with many powers devolved to a majority Bosniak and Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina that’s further divided into ten cantons, a Serb-dominated entity of Republika Srpska, and a tiny self-governed district called Brcko.

Efforts to introduce alternatives to the Dayton Agreement have never taken hold. Thus, Bosnia’s government on all levels has been rendered largely ineffective, as each of the three ethnicities have resumed their gripes and blocked each other from realising their aims to help the country progress.

Meanwhile, Bosnian Serbs have pressed on with their secessionist efforts for Republika Srpska.

The frustration has fueled an exodus of youth and estimates are that tens of thousands leave the country each year. And for the young people who remain, the OSCE reported that segregated schools, where pupils learn to vilify those of another ethnicity, is still a pressing issue.

Alison Anderson is a professor at the University of Plymouth with expertise in climate change communication. She’s also a founding member of the International Environmental Communication Association.

What’s missing from the conversation on climate change?

There’s a lot of emphasis on the impacts of climate change, but there’s not nearly enough emphasis on the solutions. Giving people more and more information is not the answer. Talking about climate change is obviously helpful, but getting people engaged and learning by doing seems more beneficial.

How should governments communicate about global warming and adaptation measures without alienating the population?

Trust is such a key factor, and I don’t think enough thought has been given to the question of acceptance and getting the public on board. Fairness is also a key issue because if a policy is not perceived as fair, it is unlikely to gain acceptance. We need a bottom-up approach on the local level with stakeholders that people trust. Seeing positive steps that can be taken in their local area and community is what makes people energised and enthused.

Besides, government communication on climate change is often very urban-focused, lacking consideration for people living in rural areas. But you can’t have a one-size-fits-all model. The messages need to be fine-tuned towards particular groups within society, in terms of demographics, but also in terms of where people live. 

Should we focus on adaptation or on fighting global warming?

I don’t think it’s one or the other. There’s so much more that we could be doing, but it involves a systemic change to make headway quickly enough. And that’s realistically difficult to achieve and takes a lot of time, though the pandemic has illustrated how change can occur quite fast. It’s a combination of carrots and  sticks. You need the incentives, but also you need the regulation. You cannot rely on people making the decisions themselves.

This summer will be hot and bloody for bears in Romania. The last act of the outgoing minister of the environment, Barna Tánczos, was  authorising the shooting of 426 brown bears.

Romania is home to 60 percent of Europe’s bear population (excluding Russia) with numbers of between 7,500 and 8,000. Deforestation, more agricultural areas, poor waste disposal and a changing climate contribute to the growth of the bear population.

As the number of bears increases, so does conflict between humans and bears. Rising temperatures are also disrupting their hibernation patterns. The only official response is to order a bear hunt.

Two months ago, I attended a talk by former US president Barack Obama in Berlin. One sentence, which he said in parentheses, struck me: “Don’t give up. We may not succeed in achieving the limit of 1.5 degrees of global warming. But whether it will be 2.5 or three degrees does make a difference.”

According to scientists, a rise of global temperatures of just 1.5 degrees would make vast areas of the planet uninhabitable. Obama was talking about three degrees. So are we already saying goodbye to the 1.5 target? But nobody reacted to Obama’s words, neither the audience nor the moderator. Have we become complacent about our failure to achieve this? Was I the only one worried about that?

According to the renowned climate scientist Stefan Rahmstorf, Germany might heat up by six degrees if the global average warms up by three degrees. This is a horror scenario. The Berlin air is already difficult for the lungs to digest due to the lack of rain.

But there’s hardly a debate about this in Germany. Politicians tell us: “Well, we are aiming for 1.5 degrees”, but only very few are talking about the obvious: that by continuing in this way, we will certainly not make it.

Instead, the public debate goes something like this: Isn’t it inconvenient to change our heating systems? Isn’t it annoying to be asked to drive less? Aren’t climate activists who hold up traffic counterproductive, because they stop us from talking about climate change, and change the conversation to one about blocked streets? As if more people would talk seriously about climate protection if there were no traffic jams…

I long for a debate on these questions: Do we want to stick to the 1.5 degree limit? Do we realise what is at stake if we don’t? And if we do want to stick to it: What do we need to do to win this race? Today, insisting on these questions is often seen as ideological, not practical.

Spain, face to face with the suffocating summers of the future: ‘Tourists may prefer to stay at home’ is the title of a recent article in El Periódico de España. As global warming increases, Spain will be one of the worst affected countries in Europe. The crisis will not only be ecological, but also economic, affecting the two main sources of GDP: agriculture and tourism.

That’s what Twitter user @lalalia is asking: “When will tourists stop coming to Spain because it is 397,539,548 degrees in the summer? Will there be water for everyone?”

The reservoirs in Andalusia (the south, the breadbasket of Spain and the most touristic area) are already suffering from drought. We have to decide: Do we use the water for the tourists, the agriculture or for our own Spanish citizens?

After the full-scale war in Ukraine started, six biking organisations in Ukraine launched an international campaign #BikesForUkraine. Now they collect foreign donations to help deliver bicycles to war-torn communities. Initiative participant Maryna Bludsha tells more.

Why does Ukraine need more bicycles?

In times of hostilities, road networks and public transports system become ruined: some buses catch fire, or are stolen by invaders, such as in Kherson. Also, there’s often lack of fuel. Thus, a bicycle becomes the only reliable mode of transport. Right after Russia’s full-scale invasion began, we started receiving requests for bikes. People still need more than we can provide: as of June 11, we have given 1,391 bikes to local communities in Ukraine, but we have requests for 2,974.

We often give bikes to volunteers who distribute medicine, goods and food. Also, there are doctors, social workers and local authorities who need bikes. These are mostly from war-torn regions, but we also help other communities which have many internally displaced persons and need to provide more services.

Who provides the donations?

Most help comes from the EU countries, which includes 40 out of 50 of our key supporters, especially Germany, The Netherlands and Lithuania ― people or organisations help with either money, so we can to buy new bicycles in Ukraine, or they collect bikes from locals in their area. Often they also repair the bikes before sending them to Ukraine. Our Berlin partners, Changing Cities, have organised bike repair gatherings, so people could help Ukraine in this way.

In the first days of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Kyiv cyclists organised a volunteer service to deliver urgent aid. Do you know any other examples of how bicycles can be useful in war?

In Kyiv we have a bike courier company called CargoCult, which also delivers goods to people and organisations in need. Traffic in the city was jammed at checkpoints and in queues, and bikes turned out to be the fastest way to get around.