Unscene Berlin

Breaking up with the EasyJet set can be hard, but it's worth it. Do you live in Berlin?   If the answer's yes then you're probably an underemployed, liberal artist of some kind.  You probably eat local, organically-grown, fair trade products.  You almost definitely always return your bottles for the pfand (deposit).  Your flat's energy probably comes from a renewable source.  You presumably cycle from A to B, using public transport whenever you can.  Let's face it, it's probably all that you can afford.   In other words, you don't use up that much carbon every year. So surely, you can afford to take a flight some place warm every now and then.  Right? Wrong. The assumption that flying a few times a year isn't such a bad carbon 'expense' is one that many people - myself included - are guilty of having. Until recently, I used to fly about once or twice a year from one European city to another for the same reasons everyone d...

'Racism over all: open your eyes'.  Chalk graffiti on the sidewalk outside Guertelstrasse Last weekend, I   found myself having to take a cab to Schoenfeld because the S-Bahn wasn’t running on that track, due to a burned-out cable.   According to Local.de, a group of activists claimed responsibility for this sabotage.  They claimed that they did it because they wanted draw attention to the unfair treatment of a group of refugees who are facing deportation from Berlin. When I was in Guertelstrasse park last night, where those same refugees are currently living, an activist who I spoke to brushed off that suggestion. “I had trouble to get to this park   to help the refugees because of this train problem,” says Anya, who is also a university student.   “Why would we sabotage the train when it makes us harder for us to help them?” It does seem likely that this story of pro-refugees activist sabotaging train lines is just another es...