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Environmental activists in the Old Masters Picture Gallery in Dresden on August 23
Photo: Sebastian Kahnert / dpa
First of all: I am not making fun of the climate crisis or global warming, not in summer and not in winter.
I'm not doing that, capisce?
But I do sometimes make fun of the mostly young climate fighters from »Last Generation«, and above all I think the penal orders of the Berlin-Tiergarten District Court against them are appropriate.
There is a line between legal and not legal.
It is also to be drawn before everyone's eyes in the event of drought or flooding.
Where would we be if everyone with something important on their hearts got stuck somewhere?
The judiciary in the capital had recently come under some pressure because there were continued road and highway blockades up until the beginning of the activists' vacation, but there was hardly any visible prosecution.
As a rule, the perpetrators do not flee because they are glued to the street, which also opens up good access conditions for obese Berlin police officers.
The Governing Mayor from the SPD said that there is no doubt that "crimes are involved." The "taz" paraphrased this as follows: "In the social democratic to right-wing populist spectrum of Berlin's law-and-order policy, it almost sounded as if there were road blockades are worse than the climate crisis itself.«
That's the crux of the matter: Of course, a road blockade is less bad than a climate crisis and forty minutes in a traffic jam is less stupid than the end of the world.
But even at the risk of making it look old-fashioned to many moving people: that's not the point.
If the court decides so, the protests are a violation of the law.
The manifest climate crisis does not justify a right of resistance or self-defence, because the climate policy of the federal government is not a deliberately targeted attack on democracy, the rule of law or the life of an individual.
When the earth gets warmer and hearts get hotter, I think the judges should keep their cool.
A number of young people now do not want to pay the fines, although some of the daily rates charged are pocket money.
»Last Generation« looks for the courtrooms as a stage, which is the right of an audience-conscious activist.
The first trials are due to take place in Berlin this week, but once again: the climate crisis is not being negotiated, nor is any culpable delay in combating it.
A road blockade is being negotiated, an alleged coercion that temporarily took hundreds of people hostage, who cannot help it that they have to drive to work by car.
Incidentally, ambulances with blue lights running were also spotted in the traffic jams, I wouldn't have wanted to be in them.
Activists and media front groups, meanwhile, argue that the climate crisis is looming and pervasive and that nothing in the world can be thought or done without putting it in the perspective of global warming.
But does that mean that the boundaries of law and order are shifting?
Will the rule of law distributing penal orders become an unlawful state as soon as the Rhine is a trickle?
To be honest, this thought worries me: So far, the parliaments or supreme courts in this country have been pushing the boundaries of the law, and that has also served the climate protectors well: Recently, a successful attempt was made before the Constitutional Court to make measures to save the climate halfway enforceable such as the right to be transported if you have a valid ticket.
Go then.
But no, the young people are looking for the next kick, the next bigger audience.
They walk onto a Bundesliga pitch or glue their limbs to valuable paintings.
Am I the only one who finds this ridiculous?
Last week it was Raphael's Sistine Madonna in Dresden, then suddenly two people in Frankfurt am Main were pasting the picture »Thunderstorm landscape with Pyramus and Thisbe«, which I admittedly had to google: It's the sad end of a Romeo and -Juliet story where Pyramus kills himself because, seeing her bloodstained veil, he mistakenly thinks his beloved Thisbe is dead. All around, a lion is eating a herd of cattle and the weather is also very bad.
So far the picture.
And what does "Last Generation" write about it on Twitter?
'Pyramus committed suicide because of wrong assumptions.
Our government also makes false assumptions that endanger our society: LNG terminals and coal-fired power plants instead of speed limits or free public transport will lead us further into deadly suffering.«
Oh wow, that hurts.
Then maybe the thing with the self-adhesive children on the autobahn feeder road would be better.