Czechmatediary

The Czech Republic covers luscious, fertile land which produces various types of fruit and vegetables. It may seem surprising to you (as it was  to me) that most of the produce is imported! For example, 51,000 tons of last year’s crop of domestic apples were exported, while 71, 000 tons of apples consumed by the Czechs came from abroad. This quite ineffective system weakens the local economy, increases the prices of local goods and the constant semi-truck movement across the border worsens the air pollution.

The Czech Republic is a potato nation (almost every other folk song is about potatoes) but strangely most potatoes are currently being imported from Germany and also Poland. As far a garlic grown in Czech goes, it is pretty much impossible to find it in the stores. Where does it come from? Over 80% of it comes from China (!!) which is 21,000 km away. (more…)

Prague is not a very ecology-friendly city. That is what came out of a recent British study which worked out the so-called Green City Index. Among the 30 participating metropolises Copenhagen (Denmark) came out as the most ecological city in Europe. Second place was won by Stockholm and third place belongs to Oslo. Prague, on the other hand, ‘won’ th 24th place (the whole list can be found below).

The cities were rated on 30 various indicators such as the energy consumption, CO2 emissions, trash handling, public transportation usage and the government’s attitude toward the environment. (more…)

A recent study of the Czech Hydrometerological Institute concluded that “even with the modest warming so far experienced, hop yields in the Czech Republic have stagnated and quality declined”. The increasing temperatures (although very suttle) have been taking  the toll on the ‘beer plants’ which in turn could reduce their yield  by a further 7-10%. Perhaps the most worrying is the decline in the quality of the Saaz hops, which produce our good old Czech pilsners. “The “Alpha” acid content – “a major determinant of quality”, according to the team, as it’s the compound that produces a pilsner’s defining bitter taste – is likely to fall a further 13-32% if the predicted warming occurs. The study found that the concentration of these acids has fallen by 0.06% a year since 1954.” (more…)

Have any of you -frugal people – tried to return recyclables at the recycling center? You should, it’s an experience of a lifetime! First of, it is not this orderly deal like when we used to return glass bottles during communism (to get the feel about what was it like, watch Return Bottles by Zdenek Sverak). Your mom sent you out with a bag of empty Mattonis and usually very unhappy lady in a grocery store exchanged them for couple of crowns and then you went home. Let me fill you in a bit on why did I decide to be this frugal while living in America. Our landlord (let’s call him Mike) has been digging through our trash for quite some time, claiming that one can make a ‘pretty good money’. Mike digs through our trash on a regular basis, especially after he hears us emptying our recycling containers into the main recycling bin. Mike is also not ashamed of this – he does it in the middle of the day or in the middle of the night. He also does some other strange things but that’s another story.

As I have been watching him day after day, digging through our trash, I decided I would give it a try myself. “Heck, who does not need some extra cash in these days?”, I thought to myself. (more…)

What a ‘beauty’, right? Can you guess where was this picture taken? No, it wasn’t shot in some hot desert state like Arizona or Nevada; this spider lives in the Czech Republic! Him and 3 other spider species  are not only  very rare kinds in nature but they are also THE BIGGEST SPIDERS IN CENTRAL EUROPE (!!) and – let me repeat – they all live in the Czech Republic, namely in the county of Olomouc. All of these four guys are living happily together in one particular area without having the need  to compete over each other or eat each other up as it often happens in nature.

These spiders can grow up to 4 cm in diameter and their mandibles can be up to 1 cm wide. But don’t worry they are not poisonous and don’t like to bite humans -  they would rather snack on tasty Czech beetles and other bugs. (more…)

“Plastic bags are one of the most visible symbols of the post-Communist Czech consumer society”, claims Radio Praha in one of its articles (and our friend  Jamie would agree as well ;0). These discarded, free-flying bags foul the countryside, endanger animals as well as the ecosystem around them. Supposedly about 3.0 billion bags are used in the Czech Republic annually, which makes  up to 9,000 tonnes of plastic waste. The Czech Environment Minister Martin Bursik is in the middle of his personal crusade to make people stop using these bags completely. He is in a process of creating a law where people will have to pay for them in the stores like it is done in Ireland for example. Will this decrease the overall waste in the Czech Republic? The fact is that the overall amount of plastic waste in the landfills has not gone down ever since their new ‘green’ law. (more…)

Czechs are definitely going green! You want proof? Not only is Prague going to be competing for the best “European Green city” in the near future but it has been promoting green games and competitions such as the “Best tree of the Year”. This year’s winner was a beautiful and shapely lime-tree from a little town of Rimov. It won over 34,000 votes from the total of 80,000 of them. And you know what the grand price was? Well, it wasn’t going to be any traditional beauty gift such as a new car, a diamond necklace or a full day in the spa, but something quite different. (more…)

Czech Republic is going green. Or least it is trying to. Is wind power one of those green choices? Find out here.

Ceska republika se stale vice snazi konzervovat energii, coz je vyborne. Budou vetrne mlyny jednim z techto ekologickych zdroju? Vice se dovite zde.

The re-elected president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus, was interviewed in March by the famous television host Glenn Beck on the issue of Global warming (see the YouTube video bellow). Whatever your conviction about this topic is, you have to admit that Klaus is pretty brave to be one of the “black sheep” and stand out against the mainstream opinion. Believe me, I do want to save the planet, but I agree with him on couple of things:

1/ there are not enough data to conclude that Global warming is caused by human activities (it may be a factor but not the main one) (more…)

The Czechs start to fancy the organic foods and I am not just talking about the basic stuff such as meat, eggs or the vegetables but also the so-called bio-wine, bio-beer and bio-bread! They have spent this year 49% of their grocery money on organic food which equals to 760 million Czech crowns. This amount should increase to 3.2 milliard Czech crowns by the year 2011. The Czech Republic is therefore becoming the “star child” when it comes to ecology. Compared to other EU countries, the amount of its organically-worked land is far above the EU average, equaling about 7.2% of the total amount of the agricultural land. And that’s not all! (more…)