The
Boomerang February 2020
Do Climate Change by Maarten Diederix
However I have also seen other ‘systems’ needing energy during my time in Africa. At the end of the sixties, myself and my three brothers needed a regular bath. This was achieved by burning wood beneath a barrel that was built in a chimney outside. The expanding hot water then reached our bathtub and two by two we achieved cleanliness. We also had two laundry sinks with scrub boards, in which the laundry of a family of six was done, and no air conditioning system in the 38 degree heat. During my military service we needed to charge the huge heavy batteries of our radios by cycling a dynamo using our feet, a long and arduous task that went on for hours. If you wanted
a little light on your bicycle you put the dynamo on the tyre and needed to cycle just a little more vigorously to achieve this. And here lies the reason for and solution to the issue: we have completely forgotten how much work making or creating energy, in whatever form, takes. Forgotten and/or ignored (even worse) what is needed to achieve a puddle of light, a cooled room or a hot shower. If we really want a change this is the way to go; remove these effortless “luxuries” and give them true value by “forcing” us all to remember the efforts needed to create energy.
Illustration © Sofie Ryan
I was asked by a much younger Boomerang writer to shed my thoughts on climate change in general. Of course I have my thoughts and mostly wrong assumptions, as it is a fluid dilemma that changes with time. But the main question is: what to do? As an almost 60 year old man I have almost, but not quite, seen the change from a pre-highway world, traveling by boat, to seeing the Concorde streaking by in Heathrow in the '70s.
So stop flying to meetings to talk about climate change and instead DO CLIMATE CHANGE. Wear that sweater and lower the heating, go for a day without electricity, stop buying products from far-far away that are completely off season: the list is endless. In short, we, the users of energy, the customers and consumers, have the solution in our hands. Becoming a member of any climate change club is unnecessary if we all just keep it simple and use energy sparingly and consciously.
Gender Balance on Campus: How Progressive is UCU?
by Reinier Derks
Two years ago, Menno Beekman, the UCSA Chair of 2017 to 2018, wrote an article investigating gender equality on campus by evaluating the gender ratio within committee boards. Back then, there were 127 female and 60* male board members across campus, which is quite balanced relative to the gender ratio of the UCU population. Of those boards, 21 of them had female chairs, while 17 of them had male chairs. While this seems to be balanced at first glance, comparing it to the general student gender ratio
suggests it is not. Of course this assumes, for the ease of comparison, that most UCU students identify as either woman or man. Let’s take a look at the gender ratio in current boards**. Regarding the chair position, there are currently 30 female and 9 male chairs. We can see that compared to two years ago, the number of male chairs has nearly halved. The ratio of chairs is currently 77% female to 23% male, which is more skewed in favour of women
compared to roughly 65% female to 35% male gender split on campus. Besides looking at committee boards, the UCSA board itself provides some interesting statistics. Since its founding, 22 years ago, there have been 65 female and 55 male board members. When looking at the chair position, the gender imbalThis article continues on page 3F
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Crisis in the Sahel
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FOAM: Adorned
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2019-nCoV
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Brexit: Eras of Faillure
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Independiente del Valle
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