Today I met my (scientific) idol! Pachauri. "Pachauri, who?" I have already had to explain step by step who he is several times today. I will do so again. "Do you know the UN?", "Do you know Al Gore?"... Well, in 1988 the UN established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to research global warming. This IPCC, as the panel is called, has already issued a number of reports, the most recent was published in 2007. For this work the IPCC received the Nobel Peace Price, together with Al Gore. And... Pachauri is the chairman of the IPCC.
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Birthday Present for Kai-Mook |
Kai-Mook will soon be celebrating her first birthday. You can't really miss it! I think it will be one of the biggest birthday parties ever for a one-year old in this country. At any rate, the Antwerp Zoo has been planning the event for months and has succeeded in getting the support of no less than 30 Flemish celebrities. In March a little elephant was delivered to my house, requesting me “to decorate it with paint”. You can watch a clip of this here.
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In early April I visited Iceland. You can watch a brief report on the trip here. You can also watch a clip on nieuws, and I was interviewed in the studio of the Flemish evening news when the recent eruptions occurred.
I had planned this trip for various reasons: I wanted to see for myself how the glaciers are shrinking and learn about the way they use the natural, geothermal energy in Iceland to fill their energy needs.
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Everything has already been said and written about it, and everyone has an opinion on it. And the conference hasn't even started yet! Every day I receive dozens of e-mails from people, citing all kinds of cons; that ‘climate change’ is an illusion, imposed by a few scientists engaged in deceiving mankind. Nonsense! And all the negotiators going to Copenhagen know this as well.
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21 November sees the start of the “Reading Aloud Week”, and I will be one of the readers at a fun reading aloud breakfast. I have chosen to go and read from “Oei” by Leo Timmers and “Kleertjes uit, pyjamaatjes aan” by various authors to the children in a crèche in Diest. These are books full of joy, rhymes and short, funny stories. Famous people will be reading stories in all Flemish provinces, as well as in Brussels: HRH Princess Mathilde, Patrick Janssens & Leen Verbist, Joke Schauvliege, Jan Verheyen, and Stijn Meuris. We are doing this because we like reading books together, it is really fun, but also because it benefits children's development and concentration. And to be perfectly honest: I really enjoy using different voices and building up tension to engage the children's imagination.
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