Sunday 31 August 2008

Sunday in the city

I was in the centre of Warsaw today to address a climate-change awareness picnic held on Nowy Swiat, along with a number of diplomats, government officials and representatives of business. Climate change is an issue where Polish awareness lags (literally years) behind western Europe. Poland is to host the international climate change conference in Poznań in December, putting the host city on the world stage. Lots to do beforehand in terms of changing attitudes in a country where if your flat's too hot in mid-winter, open the windows.

En route, I passed through Plac Trzech Krzyzy which was being readied for the ten-kilometer fun run that would take place this afternoon. Above: St Alexander's Church looks particularly splendid in the strong August sunlight.

Warsaw's famous palm tree, in the centre of Rondo de Gaulle'a, on the crossroads of Al. Jerozolimskie and Nowy Swiat. Standing there since 2002, it's become a symbol of the new, open, youthful, creative capital city. Click here for its history.

Arriving on Nowy Swiat early (the giełda fotograficzna being so disappointing - see post below), I sat down at a cafe and watched the morning strollers along Warsaw's most prestigious street. I observed the following. Warsaw's getting cosmopolitan. People who visually I'd took for tourists from Scandinavia, America, France or Italy passed me by speaking perfect Polish. Once you could spot a Polish man a mile off due to his clumsy dress sense - today, in Warsaw at least - this is not the case. Indigenous young couples, old couples, families were walking in the city centre, like they do in Spain (el paseo). Walking, not shopping. This is so un-English! Who'd take their family into central London on a sunny Sunday morning?

Above: the stretch of Nowy Swiat between ul. Smolna and Foksal has been paved with grass for the day, for the Piknik z Klimatem event at which I was speaking. Giant blocks of ice were melting in the summer sun, symbolic of what's happening in the Arctic (the ice cap will have mostly gone by the summer of 2013). I was particularly impressed by the speeches from the Danish ambassador and the Swedish commercial counsellor - those countries are so far ahead of Poland in terms of energy use best practice. Sweden, for instance, gets 48% of its energy from renewable sources. Poland - a mere 5%. Climate change is something we must all address ourselves to. No more ifs or buts.

4 comments:

Pit said...

Good light on those pics - 1st and last one - looong shades, very plastic. Doesn't look like Poland, does it? Portugal, Greece...

Anonymous said...

You pictures are really amazing. Wow.

As for climate change, some scientists don't agree there's going to be a global warming

I know you speak Polish so here's a link in Polish http://www.polityka.pl/polityka/index.jsp?place=Lead33&news_cat_id=936&news_id=251186&layout=18&forum_id=14624&fpage=Threads&page=text

Michael Dembinski said...

There will always be scientists willing to take a different view to the consensus. I trust not in scientists but in commonsense. Where was the snow last winter? Why are Britain's summers getting wetter and wetter? The weather's getting stranger. But must worrying of all, the melting polar icecaps, disappearing faster than the most pessimistic predictions.

My commonsense notion on this issue is - I don't like waste. Not wasting water, electricity, gas, petrol, packaging, etc. 15 years ago I swapped a sporty two-litre car for a small one-litre hatchback which I drive to this day. Cars are the ultimate form of waste. Not changing my car "for a better one" every three years has saved me an absolute fortune over the past 15 years - never mind the environment!

Poland is overdependent on fossil fuels coming from an unfriendly power, so from a political point of view we should save energy too.

M.

Paddy said...

As I've only been in Warsaw during Winter months, I can hardly recognise these pictures. They seem as if from a different city entirely!