It's been quite the start to the year. Most of February was spent in North America, with a mix of site visits for a project at work, a company on-site (we're remote) and family/friend visits in between.

The site visits were for a project about coral reef restoration in the Florida Keys and the Dominican Republic. In addition to figuratively deep diving into a conservation-focused project, we also got to literally dive into the ocean and see coral reefs. It was an incredible, moving experience, both professionally and personally.

Coral reefs support such a beautiful, rich, diverse ecosystem, yet are so fragile. Coral reef restoration is much more about adaptation — helping reefs survive as long as possible — versus "mitigation" (reducing our CO₂ emissions). In summary, scientists take a bit of coral from the wild, cut it up into small pieces, and help it grow in a controlled environment (usually a series of indoor or outdoor tanks). Once the coral fragments are healthy and large enough, they're re-planted out on coral reefs. The process is both incredibly heartwarming (we can save the reefs and their vast diversity!) and depressing (one longer heat spell can kill a whole reef, and we can't stop burning fossil fuels).

On the topic of burning fossil fuels, I then continued to visit some friends and family in the western part of the continent, and then a company on-site at our office in Washington, D.C. I've been thinking quite a bit about flight shaming and personal responsibility when it comes to CO₂ emissions, and the dichotomy of personal action not meaning anything in the times of drill baby drill, while also meaning everything for collective action, morality and having a sense of control over our impact on the planet. I'd like to write a post about it sometime.

It was also strange visiting the US, and especially D.C. during the start of the Doge era. Maybe it was only strange because I've been living away from my homeland for so long now (almost 10 years now). During a time of so much change and uncertainty, it was nice to see that some things in my friend's and family's lives were still recognizable, or even the same as they were before.

March was relatively quiet, with a few trips and an conference within Switzerland. April started off well with a holiday to Italy. We took the night train to Calabria and spent a few days there, then had a few days in Rome. It's so nice to eat gelato whenever you want.

I took a break from reading, but just started Recoding America by Jennifer Pahlka. With all the talk of government inefficiency and the left's (sometimes perceived) inability to turn policy accomplishments into impact, the idea of government's service offering seems important and timely. As the book came out in 2023, I'm looking forward to reading this without the author's written context of what's currently happening.

We watched recent Netflix series Avatar: The Last Airbender, which was fun. I've also started watching a few documentaries / shows in German. If they speak slowly, simply and clearly, I'm able to somewhat follow along, which is nice.