Can anybody tell me the background to this?

No, I am the guy that just a few weeks ago got told that he can’t open the window of the joint staircases anymore to let out the stale summer heat, because then the pigeons would fly in.
I am the guy that can’t use the easternmost quarter of his balcony any more because it is constantly covered under shit from the pigeon-meeting-place above.
I am the guy whose car is covered in off-colour smudges because the pidgeon-piss from the tree above has corroded the paint.

I am pretty sure that most of the people here that like pidgeons would think completely different when they had to live with them in close quarters and have their quality of live noticeably reduced.

Other birds are great, though! We have sparrows, tits, blackbirds, dozens of other types. All great!
Occasionally a pair of crows is visiting. Those are impressive birds! Intelligent as fuck, don’t give a shit but stay out of your way if you don’t want to interact. And, double Bingo: the pigeons don’t like them!

Only problem is, we are by now in a technological position that the next collapse has a decent chance of being our last collapse.

So the more a shame that most times we leave them to their grim fate in the urban hell we brought them to with us!

Given the fact that they mainly were a food source instead of noble mail carriers, perhaps having been abandoned in reality has not been that bad a fate…

🤪

Well, more metaphorically and limited to densely populated areas. I mean, rural pigeons are great!
But their city dwelling cousins are mostly poor beasts, malnutritioned, disease plaqued, often invalid: half blind, missing leg, barely enough feathers to fly even short distances.
On top of that a public health issue. So the rat comparison mostly holds, I am afraid…

And if we are talking about other birds than pigeons - totally different topic!

Happy about airborne rats?
Seriously?

I have seen that before, better than any action flick!

Are this miles per hour?
The thought would be scary as hell.

Yes, water combined with earth is scary stuff. The ground not being as solid as one expects is a stuff of nightmares… And growing population numbers let people build houses in areas they shouldn’t.
Be it flood zones, mudflood-prone mountain valleys or areas with unsuitable underground for settlement.
Combine this with this happening predominantly in poorer regions that don’t have the financial and technological means to omit the causes or at least handle the effects and you get the shockingly high number of effected people mentioned in the report.
And this will only get worse as extreme weather conditions increase in the coming decades…

Euler-approved!

They are not that common here in Germany in general, but my city has in the past years put up a dozen or so, mainly in public parks.
They are maintained by our municipal utility service and are basically always in perfect condition.
At least during summer. Being outdoor installations they are shut down (actually completely removed) during the winter months.

Other than that I only had one in elementary school 30 years ago, which also worked and a lot of actual natural springs with drinking outlets that are often maintained by rural communities.

Our city also has one of those natural water drinking fountains, but as it is the (still maintained and monitored) remains of a thermal baths project from a hundred years ago, it is not so suitable for actually quenching your thirst. Full of crazy salts and minerals with a faintly sulfuric aroma on top - but supposed to be healthy :-)

So, in general: no complaints where I live.

You are right. Just remembering e.g. the recent farce with the voting for Bundesverfassungsgericht…

That is different to Germany. Here they are basically exclusively mounted facing the crosswalks in some way. I think I have never seen them mounted in parallel…
This might explain why we don’t have similar arrows, as in this configuration they might be less helpful…

History of early natural sciences is crazy.
Leibniz, the guy who drew this reconstruction of a unicorn, was the same Leibniz that lay groundbreaking work in many scientific fields, including computer science and much of modern calculus, in parallel with his rival Issac Newton.
Speaking of Newton, besides single-handedly inventing a major part of modern physics, he was also a huge fan of alchemy, trying to create the Philosopher’s Stone…

Well, Bundestag is dominated by the CDU and she is a CDU member. So… 🤷‍♂️

And yes, the article is written more like a casual political comment and the German original also is a bit awkward, so your impression is right.

Well, as almost all our industrial scale electrical energy sources boil down (this pun definitely intended) to rapidly heating up huge amounts of water, the pun seems to be obvious for a nuclear fusion power plant. But maybe it isn’t and it is just a coincidence. Who knows…

I had to check and it seems you are right. Next vote of EU Commission president would normally be in 2029, so she would have to go two years early.