My beloved brother was diagnosed with ALS 2 years ago. He seems to have a more quickly progressing variant. In recent weeks I’m giving him more informal care (because his formal care is troubled by numerous care givers dropping out from corona or influenza infections).
He is not completely paralyzed yet, but now he cannot move much more than his torso, his head and his eyes. His speech also gets progressively more impaired, so it takes some practice to understand it. But he can still communicate with an eye tracking device.
He still enjoys life and his family though. He was in a great mood today, cracking jokes, teasing his partner, looking forward to his best friend coming over this weekend (who he knows from high school, they’re both middle aged now).
I’m sorry, this is completely insignificant compared to world events in 2022, but it is related to that particular post and it is something that I needed to get off my chest.
The weight of world events comes from holding a thousand personal stories.
A personal story has its own weight, a world event without a story is nothing.
I’m the one who should be apologising. This story was really my way of challenging a little the discussion of world events in this thread. I thought it was an amazing reminder of the advances in technology that each year brings. But also with a human element that made me think about the assumptions often built in to stories of people in such situations.
I’m sorry for causing unnecessary pain.
You and your brother have my unbounded sympathies. I know that caregiving can be extremely stressful, physically and emotionally, but it sounds like your brother’s great attitude can be a consoling inspiration.
I guess next winter will be something, in every country in Europe. Heating plants and power plants may break any time. In some countries there will be not enough import of foreign details(parts of bigger tools) to fix it. In other countries there will be not enough gas to fuel it. So there inevitably will be a lot of houses without heat, while its cold at winter.
We have had random shortages since the pandemic started. I’m not sure that I’ve noticed anything war related in shops, except general price rises.
Diesel cost is amazing now +50% in a couple of months and about 30% up over the course of a week last week. I’ve not checked recently but am certainly trying to drive less.
And my domestic utility costs are set to almost double next month but I’m hoping the weather will warm up so I can avoid needing so much heating at least until the autumn.
There is a large increase in demand for solar panels and heat pumps here.
Also it looks like phasing out the expoitation of our Groningen gas field will be delayed.
And the development of North Sea wind farms will be sped up.
Probably more measures are needed for next winter, such as LNG supply from the US.
I asked my wife and she says sunflower oil is harder to find now.
Edit:
Today I heard on the radio that the global effects of the war will be felt most by poor people.
Parts of Africa depend heavily on wheat from Russia and Ukraine. The war could end up causing famines in Africa.
I tried buying flour last week, and it was sold out. I’m not sure if it was coincidence, because I went shopping on Saturday evening (and Sundays the shop is closed, so they don’t restock on Saturday usually).
Also, the current empty shelves are like the ones about toilet paper at the start of the coronacrisis: people are panic buying stuff that’s in the news. There’s no shortage of grain at this moment yet.
Crossing the ocean for that commodity is going to be very costly for the average consumer, though.
Incidentally I heard that the Greek ship owners are very happy with the situation.
According to this article (the site seems valid) they own 15,58% of the world’s fleet in LNG/LPG ships.
Greek shipping accounts for more than 50% of EU shipping power and considering that this is a highly specialised kind of ship/trade, that might mean that the percentage is much higher than the average shipping percentage.
Grand profits ahead for them.
Unfortunately this is what usually happens
Lots of famines due to wars in the developing countries, in the past decades.
This time the difference is that our countries might be included into the famine zones.
Ukraine and Russia combined “supply more than a quarter of the world’s wheat”.
It is hard to see how a disruption in that supply chain will not end up affecting us eventually.
No, but according to the local baker it went +7 euros per sack and he announced that can no longer buy the flour for “white bread” and he will stick to hard grains (we produce more of that locally and export it to Italy for pasta, but it is not very good for bread, but it is what it is).
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