Alarm is growing among German shipping and industry about low rainfall sapping major waterways, with one stretch of the Rhine briefly dipping to its previous record low on Friday.
The low level of the Rhine could have economic consequences for several of Germany’s industries, such as the chemicals and steel, which depend on the river to transport large quantities of goods.
Cynicism aside, in the last few years, when there was another new record low, some “Hungersteine (hunger stones)” showed up in the rivers. The future’s looking bright.
It was nowhere in the article, just something that comes to my mind when new record lows are being reported. It was a bigger thing in the german news in 2022, I think.
Maybe it’s just not novel enough any more to make waves (ha) in the news, but since the rivers levels are lower than ever before, they definitely are visible.
My point (if there is one) is that people cry about economic problems, when we see markings explicitly left by people hundreds of years ago warning about famines. Sure, we have better ways of working around bad harvests, but once the problem becomes big enough even globalisation and our modern technology won’t help.
I found two (german) articles that mention Hungersteine/Hungerfelsen. In the wdr-video the Hungerstein they show is completely on dry land 💀
Cynicism aside, in the last few years, when there was another new record low, some “Hungersteine (hunger stones)” showed up in the rivers. The future’s looking bright.
TIL Hungersteine Emergence is the most Metal album name possible
That’s got to be doom metal 🤘🔥🤘
UNSWAMP METAL
I was looking for this in the article, but it didn’t mention that they’re showing now.
Are they showing now?
It was nowhere in the article, just something that comes to my mind when new record lows are being reported. It was a bigger thing in the german news in 2022, I think.
Maybe it’s just not novel enough any more to make waves (ha) in the news, but since the rivers levels are lower than ever before, they definitely are visible.
My point (if there is one) is that people cry about economic problems, when we see markings explicitly left by people hundreds of years ago warning about famines. Sure, we have better ways of working around bad harvests, but once the problem becomes big enough even globalisation and our modern technology won’t help.
I found two (german) articles that mention Hungersteine/Hungerfelsen. In the wdr-video the Hungerstein they show is completely on dry land 💀
https://www1.wdr.de/nrw/duesseldorf/funde-rhein-niedrigwasser-100.html
https://ga.de/bonn/stadt-bonn/rhein-niedrigwasser-roemerhafen-hungersteine-bahntrasse_aid-93793303