A Dutch naturalist reads about refinery strikes, the Amazon on the ballot and AI data centres on indigenous land while her own diesel engine coughs
Thursday, 22 October 2026. Narrowboat, River Lea, moving north towards Enfield Lock at three miles an hour. Diesel engine coughing like a smoker on a stairwell, 11.00am.
I Must Confess My Boat Drinks Diesel
I need to be honest with this diary before anyone else is. My narrowboat runs on diesel. I hate it. I talk to the engine every morning the way you would talk to a large, loyal, slightly smelly dog who does not understand climate change. I tell it that one day it will be replaced by an electric motor and a small solar array. It coughs. I take that as a no.
So when I read that Trump tried to stop Ukraine bombing Russian oil refineries by restricting its drones, I felt the uncomfortable wobble of being implicated. The report is sharp about it. Ukraine has its power stations struck and loses electricity across whole cities, while the diplomatic energy goes into worrying about the price of diesel. A refinery offline makes markets nervous. An apartment block without heating in October makes diplomats express concern.
The Diesel Ceasefire Explained To A Swan
I explained this to a swan who was waiting at the lock gate with me, because swans at locks have a lot of time and very little else to do. I said, imagine your nest is attacked every night, and when you peck back at the thing attacking you, someone very powerful asks you to stop pecking because it is affecting the price of bread for the ducks in the next county. The swan hissed. I think the swan understood perfectly.
The joke in the piece that cut deepest was that a cheaper tank of diesel is not a peace treaty. I would like that line painted on every petrol station in Europe. I would like it on the side of my own engine. It would not stop the coughing, but it would make the coughing feel more honest.
The Amazon Is On The Ballot
Further up the river, past the Lee Valley White Water Centre where people in helmets pay to be tipped over, I read Grist’s piece saying Brazil’s election could determine the fate of the Amazon. I find it astonishing, and also completely normal, that the largest rainforest on Earth has to wait for a vote count like a nervous candidate for a parish council.
In the Netherlands, our elections are decided by forty parties, each representing roughly nine people and a specific opinion about cheese. Nobody imagines a single vote could decide whether a forest the size of Western Europe keeps breathing. And yet. I hope the people of Brazil vote however they believe is right, and I hope the trees, which cannot vote, get a decent representative anyway.
Trees Do Not Have A Lobbyist
This is the problem with nature in politics. The coal industry has lobbyists. The oil industry has lobbyists. The flying car has a press event at a rocket site. The Amazon has some very hardworking scientists, a great many indigenous communities who know it better than anyone, and a jaguar who would be a superb lobbyist if he could be persuaded to wear a tie.
The Cloud Is Not Made Of Clouds
The other story that stopped my lunch halfway to my mouth was Grist again, reporting that America’s AI ambitions threaten indigenous lands in the Philippines. I have read enough about artificial intelligence this week, including the report on the chatbot who was politer than Piers Morgan, to know that everyone is very excited about thinking machines. I had not thought hard enough about where the thinking happens.
The cloud, it turns out, is not made of cloud. It is made of land, metal, water and power, and somebody always lives where those things come from. When I was a child in Friesland, we were told the electricity came from the wall. When I was a student in Wageningen, I learned it came from gas fields under Groningen, where the earth started shaking under people’s houses. Every invisible thing has an address.
Enfield Lock At Dusk
I tied up at Enfield Lock around four. A family of Egyptian geese walked along the towpath like a small delegation on its way to file a complaint. A grebe surfaced, looked at my engine and dived again, which is a fair review. The diesel ticked as it cooled. I sat on the roof with tea and thought about oil, forests and data, and about how the easiest thing in the world is to read all of this on a phone powered by all of it.
Before supper I walked to the little lock cottage, where a volunteer from the canal trust was scraping weed off the paddle gear. I told him about refineries, forests and data centres. He listened politely, wiped his hands on his trousers and said the only energy policy he trusts is a good flask of tea and a strong pair of arms. Then he showed me a family of moorhen chicks hiding in the reeds behind the lock, small black puffs with enormous feet, and for ten minutes neither of us thought about oil at all. That, I think, is what nature is for. Not an escape from the news, but a reminder of what the news is supposed to be protecting.
So here is my small, Dutch, completely inadequate plan. Use the engine less and drift more. Charge the phone from the little solar panel on the roof, which provides enough power on a sunny day for roughly one phone, one lamp and one argument with my sister in Utrecht. Count birds. Write it down. Tell the swans. They at least listen.