The Horse 2019/20

Source: Zeit online (in German)

Hello everybody

First of all we want to introduce our project to you: We asked ourselves the question „What does the world look like in 100 years? “ We have focused on the 3 important areas: Climate in 100 years, plants in 100 years and food in 100 years. Now we want to tell you our reflection and how we felt about our project work. From the beginning we had our goals in front of our eyes and we now how we want to do it: Interview with a climate scientist, with a biologist, with a food scientist and with the different age groups of our society. So we were able to get enough information for our project. Because this topic was so fascinating or us, it wasn’t difficult to work on it. We would a lot together but we also split up the tasks to get ahead faster. We could work very well together in a team.

We are satisfied with our project work and look forward to the publication of our results.

You can be excited.

Best regards

Team the world in 100 years

Vanessa and Emanuela

Hello together

Our project is now ready to publish. When we receive the text from Elizabeth we can publish it on dontwastemy.energy.

Here you can find our part.

Best regards,

Shana & Rahel

More...

Food waste

In recent years there has been a lot of discussion in politic and media about food waste. Some countries have made laws to reduce food-waste. In France supermarkets aren’t allowed to waste food. They have to give it for free to homeless people before they waste the food. Germany has similar laws for food waste like France. Here in Switzerland we don’t have any laws for food waste in supermarkets. They are allowed to throw away what they want.

In Switzerland supermarkets are responsible for only 5 % of the all the food that gets wasted. Around 50 % of the food gets wasted at home. But the food that is wasted from supermarkets is most of the times good food, while private households waste the food when it’s not eatable anymore. So the food that is wasted in supermarkets gets wasted for no reason in most cases.

Interviews

We have made interviews with a owner of a little farmshop:

How much food do you waste?

Nearly nothing. Only products like eggs or milk are very tricky to store.

Which food get wasted the most by you?

Eggs, because they are the trickiest products and get bad very fast.

Why do you throw away the food?

Because otherwise you can get a food poisoning. This would be bad for our reputation and we can get sued.

Have you done arrangements against the food waste?

No, we dont do anything, because the demand is not planable. We look that we waste as less food as possible.

Would you eat food which is older then the “best before date”?

Yes, nearly in every case. In milk and meatproducts we look very carefully. Naturally we cant sell food which is over the best-before date, because it is not alloud.

Have you a bad conscience when you throw away good food?

No, because we only waste food which you cant consume anymore.

Do you attach importance to the spotlessness of an apple for example?

No, I dont tend to, because external flaw does not mean that the food is not good anymore.

If you have the choose between an older product and a fresh one which would you take? Both are eatable?

I would tend to fresh food, but I would never waste food, which is over the best-before date but edible. 

Do you have a solution against the food waste in supermarkets here in Switzerland and as well in other countries?

You can give the food for example to poor people.

Solutions for the food waste in supermarkets

There are many solutions for the problem. Supermarkets can give away the food which is over the best before date for free. This is also a possibility for poor citizens to spend less money. In this less food gets wasted and you help poor people. But there is also a downside with this method. If the supermarkets are forced to give the bad food away for free, nobody would buy any food, but wait until the food is over the best-before date and would get it for free then. We think this cant be the solution.

Another solution would be, that they have to give the bad food to welfare recipients for free. We think this would be a great idea, because the supermarkets can sell their food for the normal price in most of the times, but less food gets wasted. Also only poor people get the food for free.

Added comment from the writers:

Food waste has a huge effect on climate change. Food waste is responsible for 8 % of the Co2 balance sheet. In Switzerland supermarkets are responsible for 5 % of the food waste. So supermarkets are responsible for 0.4 % of the balance sheet. So the food waste in supermarkets is only a small problem in terms of climate change. The most food gets wasted at home. So we are responsible to reduce our food waste and make a little step into a sustainable world.

Our experience about this project:

We are concerned with the question "What does the world look like in 100 years?"

We wanted to do an interview with a climate scientist, a food scientist and a biologist. This   turned out to be more difficult than planned. Some didn't have time for the interview and the others didn't respond to our emails. Fortunately, we finally found three scientist. At the end of December we received all answers to the interview. 

During a lesson we asked the class to write or draw down on a sheet how they imagine food, climate and plants in 100 years. 

When we evaluated (ausgewertet) the results from the students and scientist we found out that the answers were very similar. 

What surprised us most was that everyone imagines that the world will develop negatively!

We look forward to publish our results.

Emanuela D'Andrea and Vanessa Nauer

Our Reflection

In our imagination step, we mentioned that we don‘t think very positiv about water in agriculture. Sadly we have to say that our fears have been confirmed. More...

We conducted an interview with Dr. Eva Waiblinger. She is Zoologist, science journalist, author of horror, science ficion stories and mathematics teacher at the WKVW & BMZ.

Summary of questions and answers

1. Close your eyes and describe the world in 100 years according to your personal imagination and research knowledge

The earth will get warmer, the avarage temperature will increase. There will be several weather pattern and the sea levels wil rise. Eventually humans will die out. If the insect mass continues to decline, all birds that depend on insect for brood care will become extinct. If humans survive, there will be a population collapse (food shortage, wars).

2. How will the plants change/develop?

Due to the extingtion of pollinatior insects, many flowering plant will die out. Short-lived plants will survive and long-lived plants, like trees, disappear.

3. Compared to the last years, there are more forest fieres, plants that disappear and other things?

Yes, drought and forest fire are increasing.

4.  What effects can be expected?

Crises in the supply of food. Increased risk of resource wars.

5. What are the causes and what could be done about it?

Climate warming through greenhouse gases and insects die. Plant all avaiable areas with native plant species. A mixture of incentive systems (direct payments, tax reductions) for low carbon behaviour and high taxation of CO2 emissions, in private life as well as industry and agriculture.

You can find the whole interview here

Emanuela D'Andrea and Vanessa Nauer

 We would like to share our reflection about our Project with you. More...

Hello everybody

Our project is drawing to a close. In order to that we would like to do a reflection and talk about the teamwork and how we experienced it.

We've chosen a project, which we thought would be very interesting. That's why we felt very motivated from the beginning. We researched a lot about the topic and we talked a lot with our family and friends. That's how we got all the knowledge to this project. The teamwork was great. We often split up the work and if we had any questions, we could always ask one another. In order to that, we had to trust each other, especially in relation to our english-skills. We both are at the same english level and that's why it was fun to work with each other. Occasionally we had different opinion. Maria for example wanted to live vegan for one week, while Deniz thought vegan would be enough. But in the end, we always found a solution, which made both of us happy. That's what we think is extremely important while working in a team.

Sometimes we had time issues, as we also had a lot to do with the other school subjects. As well, we had to write our graduation work, which took us a lot of time. But as well, we managed it to create a project that we're very happy with.

Best regards, Deniz and Maria

Today we put all the researches and interviews together to one text. Now we're almost ready to publish our post. But before this step, we want to shape the post by correcting some grammar mistakes and by forming the sentences correctly. To shape it, we wrote an introduction at the beginning of our post.

We're very happy to see how our post is getting created step by step and how far we are now. Now we're getting closer to the end of our project.

Best regards,

Deniz and Maria

We conducted an interview with Mrs Fabienne Michel. She studied food science at the ETH and is now doing a doctorate at the institute for environmental decisions and consumer behavior.

Summary of questions and answers

1. Close you eyes and describe the world in 100 years according to your personal imagination and research knowledge

Most buildings will be renovated to store heat in winter and keep out the heat in summer. Via sensors in the body we are informed if something is missing or unusual happens. Personalized nutritional recommendations will enable us to provide our body with exactly the substances it needs at any given time.

2. How will the food develop?

 In the future, nutrition will be more personalised than today. Everyone will know exactly how many carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins and other things their body needs. Your own needs for these substances will be covered with drinks and food specially produced for one. In order to limit climate change, to take care of the environment and out of the conviction that animals should not suffer, the majority of people will eat vegetable food.

3. Do you think the insects will play an important role in human nutrition?

The insects wil not prevail as food in our culture. But it can be for the production of dog and cat food. So that no other animals would have to be slaughtered for this feed.

4. How will artificial food develop and will people in the future eat more and more of this kind of food?

For her as a food scientist it is difficult to answer this question. Because the term "artificial food" is very difficult to grasp. For example, it will be possible to buc meat from the laboratory. Provided that the laboratory meat is cheaper, tasted at least as good  and if possible healthier than conventional meat.

5. Could you imagine it will develop in a completely different direction? If yes, which?

With the current ecological efforts, it could be that more people will grow and cook their own food again. In this way, awareness of food and its ingredients is increased and the responsible use of food is promoted.

Here you can find the whole interview.

Emanuela D'Andrea und Vanessa Nauer