OffSetLab

Ingredients:

• 400 g tomatoes
• 1 red chili
• 3 cloves garlic
• 2 medium eggplants
• 2 leeks
• 500 g button mushrooms
• olive oil
• basil, oregano, white pepper, salt, sugar
• medium hard to hard cheeses
• lasagna leaves

Preparation:

Blend the tomatoes, chili and garlic. You'll need them later. Peel and cut the eggplants into 1 cm slices and rub some salt into them. Let them rest for half an hour or so, so they lose the bitterness, and then drain them. You can rinse them with boiling water if you're afraid they might still be bitter. Cut them additionally into 1 cm cubes. Prepare the mushrooms by cutting them into 1 cm pieces and prepare the leeks by cutting them into small rings.

First heat some olive oil and put the leeks in. Sauté them until soggy and then add mushrooms and eggplants. Sprinkle some salt to speed up frying. After it's nicely fried, add the blended tomatoes with garlic and chili and mix everything well. Keep it on medium heat. It will eventually shrink in volume a bit. You can add more salt (but keep in mind that the cheeses could be salty as well), and add sugar to counter the sourness of the tomatoes. When it's to your liking, add other spices (basil, oregano, white pepper). Mix well and remove from heat.

In a deep pan prepare the lasagna by oiling the pan and adding the first layer of lasagna leaves. Add the mixture, cover with grated cheese and repeat the steps until you fill the container or run out of ingredients. I leave the last layer uncovered and I don't use béchamel in this recipe. After it is layered, put it in the oven for 20 minutes on 200 degrees. Serve warm with some rocket salad if you want.

Notes:

You can probably use tomato sauce here and chili garlic sauce if you don't have a blender. It would also be OK to add béchamel if you want, but we didn't want to overload the meal with extra calories or blanket the other tastes. Basil and oregano are here to enhance the tomato. Otherwise, the idea is to have a good filler for lasagna.

The year 2015 has so far been the warmest year since we started measuring the temperatures. The rising average of temperatures due to the climate change is coupled with the El Niño dry period so the droughts we experience in this period are even further exacerbated.

What's El Niño exactly? It's a dry and warm period of the temperature cycle in the Pacific Ocean that mostly affects the coastal countries in the tropical area.

The influence of El Niño, and the corresponding wet period coming after it, La Niña, is not geographically localized because the winds and the changes in the ocean affect global weather patterns.

As the temperatures rise due to the climate change, the land is dried up of any moisture. Over time this even leads to extreme alterations in the planet's geographical features.

Remember the disappearance of the Aral Sea? The same thing is happening again now with the Lake Poopó drying up.

Because of the cycle of water, the evaporated water comes down in form of rain in other locations, sometimes causing massive floods. This flooding happened in 2014 in Southeast Europe, and this winter in the Great Britain and Ireland. In many instances the aged infrastructure is not prepared for this influx of water and the soil itself is hydrologically unable to absorb the excess in a short amount of time. People lose their homes and lives.

Aside from the Great Britain and Ireland, people were affected by flooding in 2015 in South America and North America in the eastern Missouri area as well. China got hit a couple of months ago, too.

We're already witnessing again the death, homelessness, hunger and poverty due to this, and the sustained damage across the globe will affect the structure of financial aid (as financial resources are spread thin) and the global resource distribution (destruction of agricultural areas, for example).

These catastrophes unmistakably bring to light the inefficiencies and fundamental flaws of the mitigation measures already in place, as well as the state systems' negligence and inertia when it comes to preparing for the inevitable next round.

However, no amount of shouting into the void (or the favorite comment section) how the system is broken can help, but rolling up our sleeves and working on our own habits is something we can do - reducing our carbon footprint and doing our part to lessen the effect the humanity has on the environment.

The summit on climate changes came and went. The adopted agreement is that the temperatures are not supposed to rise above 2 °C with the 1.5 °C as the best effort in the second half of the century. A victory against the growing trends of biodiversity loss and destroying the ecosystem. The nation leaders hold hands and smile for the cameras. Considering the trends today, the goal is impossible to achieve yet we must try. Of course, the agreement is not legally binding if the countries choose not to ratify it or not act upon that ratification. But let's eliminate the noise here.

Is the text truly good? Sadly, no. We're left with the pretense of victory and hope for the future where there is none. The text everyone agrees on left no roadmap, concrete goals and date to which it must be implemented. To make matters worse, the island nations like the Seychelles claim that their economy will be destroyed regardless. Nobody talks about repairing the damage that has already been done. In fact, the liabilities were not a part of the text. “The idea of even discussing loss and damage now or in the future was off limits. The Americans told us it would kill the COP,” said Leisha Beardmore, the chief negotiator for the Seychelles. “They have always been telling us: ‘Don’t even say that’.”

I am afraid that we will just see more greenwashing and little to no results. The adoption doesn't ask for any responsibility to be acknowledged for the future failures at all. It was just a great pat on the back between nation leaders. After the circle jerk they had on the summit, we're supposed to believe that this time will be different. Just remember that the Kyoto ultimately failed because the emissions of the greenhouse gases were not lowered in the world. They were increased. We are hitting the 1 °C average temperature increase since the pre-industrial age right about now. The deal is setting itself up for a failure and a pledge is just a pledge, a fool's comfort.

James Hansen says that as long as we burn fossil fuels because they are a cheap commodity, this situation is not going anywhere. To reinforce this, the price of a barrel of oil has hit the lowest in seven years and is about 36$ per barrel. It hasn't been long since the end of the summit that India said that the adoption doesn't change the fact that they will double their coal usage till 2020. The summit was a big vacation for the politicians and nothing has been reached so don't fool yourselves. The change should still come from within ourselves first because no dice if we as people don't act on it.

Seems like I've been starting drafts of new articles, but nothing either sticks or is polished enough for publishing. I guess it's not an uncommon occurrence when writing a blog and happens to the best of us.

To fight this slump, I have decided to just go on and publish something and so, instead of a concrete topic, here is a breakdown of some of the things we've been doing for some time now and other stuff that happened.

Programming: Mostly poking around. Vesna is still learning the React framework so we hope to publish some new things as well as revisit some old ones. To say that we should push hard as the end of the year approaches is an understatement.

Art: I'm sketching every day. I'm even thinking about turning it into a 365 challenge since I've been sketching for nearly a hundred days now. As usual, you can check the progress in my DeviantArt scrapbook. Inktober also came and went, but I didn't feel confident to try it. The painting part is clumsy and it seems like I need more time for it, but time is difficult to find. I bought Corel Painter 2016 just recently to put a bit more pressure on myself, that's always a good idea. I've watched all the videos on the CtrlPaint, but I still need to read up on some art theory.

Social concern: The summit on the climate change is happening in Paris these days. There was a worldwide protest that we attended here in Dublin. Unfortunately, in Croatia there's little to no press coverage on this important topic. It is vital to show the people in power that we need the change, but (for good or bad) I still can't fight the jaded feeling that the march was used as a platform for scoring political points under the guise of environmental concern.

There is so much going wrong in the world at any point in time. China is under-reporting its coal usage and I doubt that the rest of the countries are being completely upfront with the real numbers.

In other news, we are overusing antibiotics and the bacteria's resistance is going rampant. We might see the future where we are unable to fight simple bacteria if we don't the use of antibiotic with more responsibility. Their use in mass farming contributes to the resistance.

On the upside, the ban on cosmetics that are tested on animals is in place in the EU since 2013. I still get to learn something new every day.

I've had this lying in drafts for a long time. I never seem to have the time to put it somewhere so here it is. The meal serves three to four, depending on what you put together with it.

Ingredients:

• 500 g fresh tofu
• 3 tbs cornstarch
• 3 tbs soy sauce (low sodium)
• 3 tbs sriracha sauce (chilli, garlic)
• 3 tbs maple syrup (agava can fit in)
• 2 tbs oil (coconut is nice)
• 1 tbs balsamic vinegar
• 3 pressed cloves of garlic
• pinch of salt
• 2 tbs sesame seeds
• 50 g roasted peanuts
• 50 g roasted cashews

Preparation:

Cut tofu to 1.5 - 2.0 cm cubes and coat them in cornstarch. Put them on a baking paper and in the oven on 200 °C for 20 minutes or until they get crunchy and become golden on the edges. While the tofu is baking, prepare the sauce. In a cup, put soy sauce, sriracha, maple syrup, oil, vinegar, garlic and salt. If your soy sauce is very salty, avoid adding salt. Mix well and put aside. In a frying pan, put sesame seeds and toast them lightly. Before the sesame browns, add peanuts and cashews and toast them a bit as well. When the sesame is toasted and has released its aroma and oil, pour in the sauce and mix everything. The temperature at this point is likely to be very high so the sauce might sizzle violently. Turn off the heat or remove the pan from the stove altogether to counter the reaction a bit. When all is well mixed, put in the crunchy tofu and mix again until everything is well coated. Serve while it's hot with boiled vegetables like cauliflower, broccoli, carrot or similar, or even a bowl of rice with curry.

Notes:

Don't be afraid to experiment. Of course you can substitute things. I'm sure it will be OK. Preparation time is fairly short and all can be done in half an hour, even if you decide to boil vegetables on the side. Remember to eat everything, otherwise you're contributing to waste.