“Cognitive dissonance” is when you hold two conflicting views. Or keep doing something even though you know it conflicts with your beliefs. It's not really a surprise to me that there's chemical pollution around me. I can smell car fumes and see plastic lying in the grass on my way to work. Local…
“Fewer planes, more life,” read one of the banners carried by protesters in Barcelona a couple of weeks ago. Together with demonstrators in the Balearic Islands, they were opposing airport expansions that would bring even more tourists to already overcrowded places. Four of the 12 airports that…
Of course not. But you might be able to get more people to care about it. Pablo Rodriguez came up with this idea while talking to a friend about how to get fellow residents involved in his local campaign: stopping the city board from turning a tree-covered square into a car park. Pablo and his team…
A trend is gripping many of Europe's democracies: young men are increasingly voting for right-wing parties, while young women are moving further left. In Sweden's September election, 22% of men aged 18 to 30 voted for the far-right Sweden Democrats, compared with half as many women. Young women…
While EU citizens can move freely and settle anywhere within the Union, they cannot vote in national elections where they live, unless they are also citizens of that country. Though mobile EU citizens can vote in municipal elections and can also run for the European Parliament in their country of…
What happened: The UK could think about getting back together with the EU after a bad decade since the break-up, British prime minister Andy Burnham told BBC radio on Wednesday. It's just one of several “options that need to be considered,” he said. Why it matters: None of the six (!) other British…
Today is International Coffee Day, so we have to ask: is there a more European drink than coffee? Europeans drink more coffee per capita than anywhere else in the world, on average. And across the continent, coffee has taken on countless forms – from the Italian cappuccino and Irish coffee, to the…
As temperatures across Europe begin to fall back into the single digits, the region is facing an unenviable challenge: how to get through the colder months with gas reserves at record lows and prices at record highs? EU-wide gas storage was about 70% full in late September – the lowest level…
If you heat your home and fill up your car with gas, oil, or coal, your bills are likely going up from 2028. The EU’s new carbon pricing system, the Emissions Trading System 2 (ETS2), will make fossil fuel suppliers pay for the emissions from the fuel they sell, and they’ll pass that cost on to…
Oktoberfest is in full swing in Munich, running until Sunday 4 October. Last year, some 6.5 million people flocked to the festival, including a large share of international visitors (21%). The festival is known around the world, and Oktoberfest-style events have popped up everywhere, arguably…