The IPCC AR5 Report (2014) was the basis for the Paris Climate Agreement (2015), where it was agreed that the global temperature increase should be limited to 2 degrees - and as far as possible to 1.5 degrees.

Just as East Frisia is considered a remote corner of Germany, Groningen is also far away from our Randstad and its Standard Dutch.

Leipzig exceeded all expectations on my first visit shortly after the New Year. In my memory, it was a grey industrial city during the GDR, where brown coal created an oppressive atmosphere.

Groningen is seen internationally as an example of a bicycle-friendly city, where a film is always shown of an intersection, where cyclists get the green light at the same time: You drive out of the city to Garnwerd through a ancient mound landscape, which was created by man.

In 2020, the importance of the bicycle as a means of transport has increased significantly: it is safe for corona contamination - unlike aeroplane, car (bus) and train. It makes sense to promote the use of bicycles for a sustainable future. Besides: every hour on a bicycle extends your life by an hour!

I'm learning data science techniques, refreshing my knowledge of statistics and restarting with python code.

Open source software is widely used. Drupal is a good example.

I'm born in Groningen and I grew up in Winsum, where we lived in the rectory on the wierde of Obergum. At the age of 13 I moved to Emmen in Drenthe. Then I lived in Wachtum, a small village north of Dalen. I always cycled to school and was interested in the history of my surroundings. Although we don't speak Groningen at home, I like to hear music in my dialect, for example:

The city of Dresden used to be one of the most splendid and baroque cities in Germany. How different it was the first time I visited the city shortly after the Berlin Wall came down. I met a man there and together we travelled through the recently liberated Eastern European countries and Turkey, which had a profound impact on me. In 1991 Dresden was a grey and desolate place full of abandoned houses, derelict Trabant cars and streets full of potholes.