Fair roses

More and more so called Fair Trade products have appeared on the market here in Finland with the latest being roses from South America.

In case you don’t know, “Fair trade” is mark you get when the cultivators are paid well, instead of been exploited by the middle men and the distributors making the profit.

As the Finnish rose farmers are concerned about these Fair trade roses, I can only assume that the South American roses are much more affordable than the Finnish ones grown in green houses.

Here we now come to my question, is it better to grow roses in greenhouses here in Finland, or having the flown in from abroad?

I can still get the idea of wanting to eat oranges, bananas and pineapple, or to drink coffee, but roses, that, that goes way over my comprehension. Don’t get me wrong, I like roses, very much as a matter of fact, but I like to enjoy them I season, preferably outdoors growing in the garden.

Refunded in full

Only a year ago many Icelandic companies were flying high buying property abroad and investing in many businesses.

I always wondered where the money came from, as Iceland to my knowledge has not many natural sources except their inexpensive way making electricity and heating up houses due to the heat produced by the seismic activity beneath the island. Everything else has to be imported from abroad.

Today the picture is completely the opposite. Iceland is in big trouble with their national finances, and they are now trying to borrow money in order to save their economy from total collapse amidst the global economical decline.

Also here in Finland the aftermaths of the touch and go collapse of the Icelandic economy can be seen, and one financial bank owned by Icelanders was taken over by their Finnish employees and sought for financial subsidies from the Finnish government in order to be able to refund all the money deposited by their clients.

Currently only up to 50.000 Euros of deposited money in bank accounts are guaranteed to be paid back to the customers in case of the bank is not able to do.

Fortunately for the 10.000 clients of the bank in question now three Finnish banks in are now lending the money needed to refund their clients in full.

Stop eating and breathing?

The Government ensured that there would be no rising prices at the time when Finland changed its’ old customary Marks into the European monetary systems Euros but despite this everything seems to be much more expensive now than it used to be. Then came the global warming and saving the planet earth from heating up and so began the campaigning for more environmentally friendly energy solutions with energy costs still soaring.

The EU in its’ great wisdom shared the pollution rates equally, that is in this case is not in equally big parts, instead it means each member countries ability, with its’ technology and economical resources taken into consideration counting the country’s ability to adjust into the required decreases of polluting carbon oxides and cuts backs are to be made in the emission. The poorer and the less developed the country, the less to take into concern about these matters it seems.

The more farmland that now has been converted into growing renewable energy sources across the world, the less area has been left to grow food for people. And now the "silent tsunami" as it's being called, with ever increasing food prices is beginning to have an impact on the poor, even here in this welfare state called Finland. With the rising prices of food the remaining farmlands have to be turned into corps as cost efficiently and time consuming as can, and this might result in even more pollution than earlier. Smaller farm area needs to produce more, it resulting in suddenly rising levels of fertilizers leaking into rivers and lakes, finally ending up into the Baltic Sea, at least according to some recently published speculations. So the poor Baltic Sea that has been suffering of pollution for so long and was in hope to be restored into a sea instead of the sewage pool it more or less has become. This seems to be a yo-yo bouncing up and down, with no real outcome.

So; avoiding pollution of the air decreases food availability and raises the pollution in the water.

Is there really anything more we can do except stop eating and breathing?

Maybe the EU could in their great wisdom decide who should stop eating and breathing, at least to equally measured parts like with the emissions? Maybe eat 20% less food and breathe 15% less air?

And as always this still is a win-win situation for the businesses concerned no matter they are selling their newest technology to cleanse the air or the sewage water, or develop new more efficient artificial fertilizers and pesticides.

The weather has also here has been extremely warm for this time of the year with several days’ summer heat of well above 20 degrees Celsius now, in beginning of the month of May and no rain to talk about for a long time.

The winter was unusually warm with hardly no big temperature drops to -20 degrees here in the south. As well as less snow than usual with the more rain but with the annual flooding this spring have gone missing to a minimum raise in water levels in the lakes and rivers. Mind, I am now talking about southern Finland where there already is a prevailing summery weather, the north still has to get out of the winter’s grip and there might be some flooding there as usual.

Anyway, finally the lot is out of my hair and the house is left silent and I enjoy the first serene silence and absolute tranquility from any reminiscence of soup cooking for the ill. A good shower of rain would do good right now decreasing the pollen levels in the air, as well as soaking up the ground for the growing plants. It might do well for the crops to grow this summer. If no rain comes there still is no use of the fertilizers they spread. And besides, a record crop would still not have any real outcome on the food prices in this age of globalization.

Artemisine

A brand new head office for the chemical department of the EU has been founded and opened for business June 1^st in Helsinki. For the time being there is only a handful of officials but in the coming year more people will be employed to be up and running by full in June next year.

Wonder if they will have any opinions on artemisine, a chemical substance found naturally in Dogwood if I remember it correctly. Artemisine has scientifically been proven effective in the cure of certain forms of cancer as well as highly effective against malaria. As the medical companies want to make a fortune on the exclusivity of new drugs, getting funding for further research might be difficult to raise for a chemical substance originating form a plant and with the plant in question growing freely in the nature for anyone to collect.

Anyway, I have discovered that it is nor “chic” to be concerned about what miseries there are in the country that you live in, people in general are positive to raising money to famine, war or nature catastrophes in far away countries all over the world. People do not want, and they pretend hard not to show they did see, the poor chap who has no where to live sleeping in your doorway. I can not see the idea in not doing something about the every day lives of the citizens of your own country first, then see what else there might be left to do after that.

So I am not sure what I think of these rallies against globalization, the fightning with the police seems stupid enough, but what else is there to do? Nobody listens to your opinions anyway, at least not politicians or senior management in any big company. Just money talks, the more they have the better.