9 people who can't tell CDU politician Paul Ziemiak and his spade apart
Created: 05/12/2022 13:34
By: Jana Stäbener
Paul Ziemiak poses with a spade in the forest and wants to plant 1000 new trees in winter.
"Two spades" in one photo, find Twitter users.
Member of the Bundestag Paul Ziemiak (CDU) posted a picture on Twitter on Saturday, December 3, 2022 of how he was planting a tree in a forest.
He grins at the camera with a spade in his hand.
Ziemiak, who represents the Märkischer Kreis in Sauerland as a member of parliament, writes about this picture: "We are not the last generation!
That's why we as CDU Iserlohn are planting 1000 new trees in the city forest."
With this tweet, he hits exactly the notch that other CDU politicians such as North Rhine-Westphalia's Interior Minister Herbert Reul or Baden-Württemberg's Interior Minister Thomas Strobl have been hitting for weeks.
The latter even described climate activists of the “last generation” as “criminals” in mid-November 2022.
The trigger for the debate was the death of a cyclist in Berlin, which according to the paramedic had nothing to do with the activists.
Paul Ziemiak (CDU) and his spade get a lot of criticism on Twitter
However, Ziemiak does not get the reactions to his picture that he might have hoped for.
Many people accuse him of "greenwashing" and indirectly call him a "spade" - also because they suspect nothing more than a pure PR campaign behind the picture.
Ziemiak doesn't even hold his spade properly, some claim.
Others refute this, but criticize that planting trees does just as little to combat the climate crisis as the COP27 climate conference.
All of this, although Ziemiak wanted to use this photo to position himself as the epitome of climate protection, as a savior in the climate crisis.
He feels similar to Markus Söder, who posted a picture on Twitter of how he "worked" for the board and got a shit storm for it.
"Few things make me more angry than members of the government who celebrate for alms," wrote one person about Söder's hymn of praise to the German table.
"Take people's (already too low) citizen's income away and then proudly hand them a paprika, bah".
We collect nine tweets from people who maliciously criticize the CDU politician Paul Ziemiak for his groundbreaking in the frozen ground and who can hardly tell the two "spades" from each other.
1. "Two spades."
2. Difficult quiz question...
3. "Isn't this the wrong time of year?"
4. Some even suspect that Ziemiak is foolishly holding the spade the wrong way round.
[However, this is not proven.]
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5. A picture for eternity...
6. "It's like having your picture taken with a watering can in front of a burning house." So this person thinks there's no effect on the climate crisis.
7. "I like making fun of Union politicians, but the spade is actually used properly," clarifies this person.
8. Nevertheless: The whole action screams greenwashing.
But why?
Because trees do not store enough CO₂ at all to be a significant solution to the climate crisis.
Many companies advertise that they will plant trees, and many politicians (like Ziemiak) posed with spades, but as the
NDR
reports, these are often just advertising promises.
A 23 meter high beech tree with a diameter of 30 centimeters stores about one ton of CO₂ in its lifetime.
However, one person causes around nine tons of CO₂ in one year.
Nine books would therefore be needed per person to compensate for just one year.
"Even if they planted trees on every open space on our planet today, that would solve maybe 20 percent of the climate problem.
But for that, the trees would have to stand until the end of the century.
And this is the problem.
Planting trees is good, but not for CO₂ offsetting.
To do this, they would have to be sure that the forest would remain standing for at least fifty years,” criticizes Dietrich Brockhagen, Managing Director of the non-governmental organization (NGO) “Atmosfair”, whose aim is to compensate for greenhouse gases that are harmful to the climate.
9. "It doesn't matter which way he holds the spade and whether you're planting trees: Ziemiak hereby suggests that planting trees has a significant effect on climate protection."
No wonder activist groups like the "Last Generation" are calling for different climate measures. To get attention, they even stuck themselves to a pole in the Elbphilharmonie – but unfortunately it wasn't firmly anchored. Here are 11 sayings that capture the pain on the climate activist: inside picture better than superglue.
