[Skybird]

Another perspective.


Note on the following text: "Lützerath" is a recently forcibly evicted village in Germany that falls victim to lignite mining, Luisa Neubauer is a German Greta Thunberg.
Focus writes:
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Climate rescue? All well and good, but the real agenda of the activists is different

What is the climate movement about? The climate? You would think. Until you start looking into the real goals in more detail.

Do you know what a Leopard-2 consumes in fuel? 720 liters of diesel per hundred kilometers. Tanks are not only a disaster in terms of peace ethics, they are also climate killers. Every leopard is a Lützerath on tracks. I'm surprised that the climate movement hasn't discovered this issue and is pushing for a swift end to the war.

But wait. That's exactly what it says in an essay under the heading "Climate Killer War" in the "Journal for International Politics and Society," the foreign policy magazine of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, the party foundation of the SPD.

"Bombardments on fossil infrastructure leave behind a mixture of various toxic substances that cause serious environmental damage," it says. "At the same time, raw materials and resources are being invested by all warring parties in armaments that would be needed to deal with the climate crisis." There is only one thing that can help: a ceasefire immediately! Only with a ceasefire can the 1.5-degree target still be achieved, the conclusion goes.

Sure, this is bitter news for all Ukrainians. A ceasefire means accommodating Putin. Without far-reaching concessions, he will hardly agree to recall his troops to save the 1.5-degree target. But climate change threatens not only Ukraine, but all of humanity. Forty-three million versus eight billion: That's the trade-off. Sorry, dear Ukraine.

It was only a matter of time before pacifism and the environmental movement came together. That's the great thing about climate, it fits in with everything that's politically en vogue at the moment. Anti-colonialism, anti-capitalism, anti-Semitism: if you look closely, there's no left-wing issue that can't be given a new lease of life this way.

Most people think that groups like "Fridays for Future" or "Last Generation" are about stopping climate change. That's the appeal of the movement. These desperate young people, it is said everywhere, are only fighting so that they also have a livelihood. Even the most hardened cynic gets weak in the knees when it comes to the future of the children.

But is the climate movement really about the climate? I now have my doubts. If I were a climate activist, my main concern would be how to keep our economic system running without driving the planet's temperature ever higher.

The fantastic thing is that, with nuclear power, mankind has an energy source that is reliable, sufficiently available and climate-neutral. If the activists were solely concerned with the climate, one would think they would be interested in anything that might offer a way out. But it isn't. There is not even a discussion of reassessing nuclear power. The only thing there is is a demand to shut down everything that is considered too dirty.

I came across a video clip by chance featuring entrepreneur and book author Vivek Ramaswamy. Ramaswamy made a bunch of money in medical technology before he started writing. His book, Woke, Inc. i.e., about woken capitalism, was on the New York Times bestseller list for months.

The real goal of the climate movement is to get the West to apologize for past sins in order to finally achieve global justice, Ramaswamy says in the video excerpt. Hence the reluctance to embrace nuclear power. The problem with nuclear power, he says, is not that it has disappointed the expectations placed in it. The problem is that it is too good. The moment clean energy is available in large quantities, there is no more leverage to push the anti-Western agenda.

Admittedly, that sounds a bit far-fetched. But talk to climate activists for a while and it occurs to you that maybe Ramaswamy isn't so off base after all.

Did you know that the fight for the 1.5-degree target will be decided next to Luetzerath in Ramallah? Why is that, you may now ask. Because the fight against climate change can only be won if the Palestinian flag flies everywhere where Israel is today. You still don't see what one has to do with the other? Quite simply: Israel is a colonial state, and climate justice will only exist when "white supremacy" is broken. These are not my words, these are original words of "LütziBleibt".

Anti-capitalism is not dead, it has just taken on a new manifestation. Now they are trying to unhinge the system by cutting off the power to industry. Of course, the fight is also being declared against the cop state. "In the medium term, we must abolish the police as a body that primarily supports the interests of a capitalist system," reads a statement by the anti-coal initiatives.

That the demonstrators would be the first to go under when the law of the strongest rules in the streets is one of the many consequences that don't seem to me to have been properly considered. It is one thing to dump tomato soup over paintings, and quite another to laugh in the face of a Hells Angel who no longer has to fear the police or justice.

I am always amazed at the comradely tone in which activists like Luisa Neubauer are met on "Anne Will" or "Maybrit Illner". Not a clear word, not a critical question. Since I don't assume that Anne Will also dreams of abolishing capitalism, her obligingness stems from opportunism or ignorance. My money is on both.

Of course, the model Green is also spared the question of why she is a member of a group whose umbrella organization calls for bombing terror against civilians. "Yallah Intifada" read a call from "Fridays for Future" just this week again. But hey, what can Luisa Neubauer do about the fact that "Fridays for Future" is full of Israel haters? Besides, it's about the climate!

It's not far from the leftist idea of justice to the system of coercion. The doyen of the climate protection movement, Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, has now proposed that every German be allocated a fixed CO2 budget. Each person should not be allowed to emit more than three tons of CO₂ per year, which is just about the right amount for the global climate. From 2050, emissions are then to be zero.

At the moment, a German citizen emits ten tons of CO₂ per year. So you can start thinking about how you want to get down from that. You won't be able to rely on insight alone. The details are still unclear: Will there be a CO₂ declaration in addition to the tax return? How will CO₂ offenses be monitored? How do you even measure your own emissions? But it won't work without oversight.

In a study published in the scientific journal Nature, researchers from Sweden and Great Britain have worked out how a private emissions trading system could be set up using cell phones. Of course, this would require the abolition of data protection. In the end, it could work like in China. Every movement would be recorded and rated according to its environmental impact. Instead of social points, there would be climate points.

The tragedy of the modern climate movement is that it would not get through at the ballot box with any proposal. How many would be enthusiastic about abolishing the police and capitalism in the medium term? Two percent, three percent? Other movements have already despaired of the intransigence of the masses.

I can understand the unwillingness to follow the climate activists politically. I also have limited trust in people who can't think of anything more than shutting down everything that bothers them.

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