Everyone is campaigning for climate spring

Created: 05/06/2022, 16:00

By: Bernhard Jepsen

The three-week climate spring started with a big kick-off event on Wednesday evening in the town hall of Penzberg.

© Gronau

"Set the stage for climate protection!" was the motto on Wednesday evening at the kick-off event for "Climate Spring Oberland 2022".

Representatives of the 185 organizing groups and institutions, politicians and the musician Hans Well, known from the "Biermösl-Blasn", presented themselves in the Penzberg town hall.

Penzberg

- The climate spring is heralded - in the truest sense of the word: At the beginning of the kick-off event in the well-filled Penzberg town hall, moderator Stefan Drexlmeier from the leading Energiewende Oberland (EWO) called the political representatives of the participating districts and municipalities to the stage.

Each of them had to bring a bell from home.

While Penzberg's town hall chief Stefan Korpan held a large cowbell in his hands, Klaus Koch climbed onto the stage with a small bicycle bell - "because cycling is also part of climate change," as Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen's deputy district administrator explained.

Weilheim-Schongau Deputy District Administrator Wolfgang Taffertshofer was also allowed to ring the bell – although the district is not an official participant in climate spring, despite several inquiries.

"The next three weeks are full of climate protection and full of signals"

Penzberg, Weilheim and Peißenberg are holding the flags high during climate spring in the "Weilheim-Schongau" region.

A total of 80 events will take place in the three municipalities.

For comparison: In the entire district of Miesbach there are “only” 34 and in the districts of Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen and Garmisch-Partenkirchen there are 39 each. The EWO was “overwhelmed” by the response, stated Drexlmeier.

There have been many late registrations against.

The variety of the program, including the topics of "energy", "mobility", "nutrition", "agriculture" and "green finance" is "incredible": "The next three weeks are full of climate protection and full of signals", so Drexlmeier.

"The cow is not a climate killer!"

Then the organizers, dubbed “stars” by the moderator, were called onto the stage one after the other.

Each of them was allowed to advertise their event - in a short, symbolic "elevator talk" in a freely chosen building.

While some organizers would like to use the lift in the Federal Chancellery, for example, Saro Ratter from Weilheim (Initiative "Humusaufbau-Oberland" & bioSim eK) chose the publishing house of the Munich Merkur to point out his event "The cow is not a climate killer!".

The reason for Ratter's need to speak in the press house: "Cows are always portrayed in the media as farting climate monsters.

Every cowpat on the meadow is an organic hotspot.”

The final panel discussion was entertaining and interesting.

Karin Majewski (Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband Bezirk Oberbayern), Sarina Haushofer (Fridays for Future Bad Tölz) and Hans Well addressed the social issue of climate protection in view of rising energy and food prices.

It was also about how to overcome hurdles in efforts to achieve the energy transition.

High praise from Hans Well

In the opinion of Wells, who saved a historic building from demolition in Polling and has now initiated the structural and energy-related refurbishment, “real change will only come about through systemic change”.

Energy self-sufficiency was simply "botched up" in the 16 years of Merkel's government.

The population was much further along: "But then politics put the lid on it," says Well.

Often only satire can help: "Every tragedy also has its comedy." According to Well, there would be "concrete heads" in politics, for example, who would wave through every commercial area.

"But when it comes to installing wind turbines, they suddenly know every species of bird."

Kudos to the actors

Sarina Haushofer, on the other hand, emphasized that the social issue is inseparable from climate protection, "because climate change hits those hardest who are already having a hard time".

For climate protection, it is necessary for politics to be based on the findings of physics.

"And I would like us as individuals to stop seeing ourselves as just consumers.

There is so much more going on there.”

At the end of the discussion, von Well, who lives in the district of Fürstenfeldbruck, gave the actors of the climate spring a big compliment: "What you are doing there, we don't even come close to having it."