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The case seems clear. If today's climate threatens to topple, it's mostly because those who are already a bit older now are living quite irresponsibly, making too much CO2. And they leave the poor children a world in which one catastrophe after the other threatens in the future.
The parent bashing may just fit in the time. And in fact it could not have been anyone who was not yet born. To blame each and every one of us for the societal disasters has a bit of a crossover - and reminds us a bit of the time of the good Gerhard Agenda Schröder, when it was common practice to blame every German for his individual misconduct on the troubled economy.
Because the German was considered too lazy at that time, put too many demands on the state and was apparently not ready to take responsibility for his own fate. Terrible. Because they were so many lazy individuals, they brought in the sum of economy and location in the crisis. At least according to then common reading.
This led to the demand that for the solution of the national crisis everyone would have to assume more responsibility; culminating in the culmination of the market-liberal agenda dogma in Hartz IV - the kind of thing that thought-provoking people have to do to put more pressure on people to work and unemployment go away in the country. Hartz shame instead of flight shame.
That this was a rather funky task was felt by people a few years later when suddenly the international trillion-dollar financial world collapsed - and those people lost their jobs as a result of the ensuing recession, who were glad when the money was enough at the end of the month ; and the global bank disaster and economic downturn, even with the best of intentions could not resolve individually on their own responsibility.
Which also revealed the once-current economic theory that it always has something to do with personal misconduct, if one is personally hit by the consequences of such crises. There is a lot of evidence that this is a major part of the crisis of confidence in politics today.
Similarly, it could end in the climate - if now all would somehow dispense with meat and cars and flies - and the climate crisis still comes. Because that can not be solved by micro-individual precaution, but only politically and systemically.
more on the subject
There is something foolish to blame for the impending climate crisis on Granny Trudi and Grandpa Herbert, because they have thoughtlessly gone wrong - and now want to solve the crisis logically with a new form of market-liberal personal responsibility; except that this time - unlike the agenda - it does not mean that people are too little willing to work for less money, but to change their lifestyle and give up whatever, so that the climate will soon stop kriselt. Incidentally, the old droning about happiness through individual renunciation, which, by the way, curiously complains particularly loudly of those who, in the course of their agendas, turned to individual abstention.
Climate and financial crisis - and what unites them
What unifies the financial and climate crisis is that they both have their origins in the long-standing policy of salvation for politics - that deep belief that all the problems of the world basically resolve themselves if only the free market forces in sum of all individuals theirs Allowed to run. And the state does not even interfere.
That's exactly what contributed to the big crash on the financial markets. In Germany, the dogma once led to the said agenda and several privatizations and deregulation, which often had to be corrected again. As far as the fight against climate change is concerned, the economic pacts have long derived from the mission statement that basically only one thing can help: Trade emission allowances on the open market, so that CO2 gets a price and becomes more expensive and in the end no longer produces any CO2. Climate nice. Finished. What else should the state regulate and intervene?
Meanwhile, there are enough studies showing that:
- First, traders in the market are overwhelmed to act so far-fetched things - which over years in Europe helped keep the carbon price low for a long time - a disaster for the climate;
- Secondly, even with rising prices, it's not clear if that will help so fast - because those who emit a lot of CO2 often have a lot of money and can not be so easily prevented from flying or eating meat by higher prices;
- Third, the recipe for rising fuel or meat prices quickly comes up against resistance when it hits the much-quoted low-income commuter in the countryside - see Yellowjackets.
This helps only if a good government ensures that there is more incentive for all to switch to alternatives such as the train. Either by the fact that the prices for tickets are taxed; or a lot of money is invested in new rail networks, better trains and revitalized stations.
Or finally nationwide public money is invested in filling stations for alternative car drives. Which in turn does not arise when Aunt Trudi and Grandpa Herbert no longer fly to Malle. It's because elected politicians and governments set smart social programs, adopt better rules, loosen up money, give strong financial incentives, and enact laws. And think about how much money and borrowing is worth investing in the future. And how it fits in with other political goals, such as social cohesion in the country. For the welfare of the children.
If too little has been done against global warming to reduce the greatest risks, it has a lot to do with the fact that all this was politically taboo over years of market hurra.
More about the climate crisis
Breaking the dogma and letting economists think much more about what a big political program could do to tackle the climate crisis - that would help far more than any appeals to personal contribution and individual reason for saving the climate. Especially since such a big hit with investments in new infrastructure and better energies would make it possible and much easier to switch to alternatives that are far too expensive today.
The market girl Margaret Thatcher once said that there is no society anyway, but only the sum of many individuals who think best of themselves. That was forty years ago - and can explain some of the disasters that are bothering us today. Also, as far as the climate is concerned. High time to stop the nonsense.
