Let’s dampen the energy peak together

I read in this newspaper that the biggest peak in energy consumption in Europe is between 5 pm and 8 pm, when people come home from work, turn on the heating, cook and watch television. Therefore a tip for a win-win campaign to Minister for Climate and Energy Rob Jetten.

Start a government campaign to bring people together once or twice (or more) a week at least this winter. Picking up children from work and off to grandpa/sister/friend/neighbors/acquaintance in the area, to eat together and go through the day. And other weeks you will of course be the host yourself.

If we do that en masse, it should dampen that peak. And from a social point of view, I think it’s a good thing.
Bart SchilderEnkhuizen

Care agreement

Dear Minister Kuipers, I – the elderly, retired, woman – and many other elderly people have taken care of our children, parents and grandchildren. Getting fired if you got pregnant. Taking care of your parents as a kind of home care, even when it started to take too much time. Watch out for our grandchildren: childcare became more and more expensive.

Now we need elderly people with wear and tear of mind and body. Can we finally appeal to care and a little attention. We have always made our contribution to society. With the cordial greetings of an elderly person, who immediately needs care that can no longer be provided. Or should we just stop living?
Magda Savelsbergh-CrutzenHeerlen

Monument Day

Owners of monumental buildings are not allowed to install double glazing. This is no longer of this time. For example, our natural gas flies out of the chimneys with cubic meters at the same time. The irony is that the national theme of last weekend’s open monument days was sustainability.
Bernard Weerdmeester, Zeist

The Queen

Stefan Wirken writes about the death of the British Queen that he is already aware of her passing and that further reporting is not necessary as far as he is concerned. The deceased is referred to with little reverence as just ‘a 96-year-old woman’.

Queen Elizabeth is an extremely important person worldwide who has left an important mark on the world for almost a lifetime. Then it won’t suffice with just a bare-bones announcement that she’s dead. If you consider that the young racing driver Max Verstappen alone often gets four full pages of attention in many media, or even more, when he has to drive a race, then the reporting about and around Queen Elizabeth is certainly not exaggerated. And Max is still alive.
Johan van KnegselEindhoven

Survey gas extraction

I am waiting with interest for the first civil servant/administrator/politician with a normal memory who says: ‘In retrospect and with the knowledge of today, we already knew then that we were cheating and that money was all that mattered.’
Henk Bos, Nieuwegein

The King

Everyone is practicing on the ‘th’ again. Also at the NPO. King Charles really doesn’t deserve to be called ‘Charles the Turd’.
A. RolingWormerveer

disasters

Kustaw Bessems wonders why the Dutch government does not prepare better for possible disasters. The reason can be found on the sites of the central government under the heading ‘risk-regulation reflex’. The government believes that preparing for disasters is too expensive.

It is much cheaper to let a disaster happen, based on the principle that the citizen bears his own damage. That is also the reason why the possibility of a disaster in which several deaths occur, the so-called societal risk, no longer occurs in the decision-making process regarding the earthquakes in Groningen.
Ben Ale, Delft

growing pains

What a clear message from Sander Heijne. Our economy should not grow but get better! A message that can connect all parties.
Jeroen de BreeUden