Climate adhesives break new ground: "Last generation" saws off the Christmas tree - the police apparently watched
Created: 12/22/2022, 4:58 am
"It's just the top of the Christmas tree" reads the banner of the "Last Generation" activists.
They are standing on a pallet truck in front of the Christmas tree on Pariser Platz at the Brandenburg Gate on Wednesday.
© picture alliance/dpa |
Paul Zinken
The climate activists of the Last Generation group made headlines again with a peaceful protest: They sawed off the top of the Christmas tree in front of the Brandenburg Gate.
Update from December 21, 2022, 2:39 p.m .:
There is confusion in the case of the sawed-off Christmas tree in Berlin, since the police apparently did not stop the action directly.
According to the
picture
, the law enforcement officers were actually on site anyway.
The action of the climate activists was apparently only stopped after the tree was cut down.
Only then did officials intervene and took the activists off the lifting platform, which had previously been driven up to the Christmas tree.
The Berlin police explained to the newspaper that the action ended within a few minutes and the activists were then arrested.
In addition, a spokeswoman said that during the Christmas season, "everyone with a lifting platform on a Christmas tree is not put under general suspicion." The activists only put on their orange vests and unveiled the banner after they had reached the top.
Klima-Kleber break new ground: “Last generation” cuts down the Christmas tree
First report from December 21, 2022:
Berlin – climate activists from the Last Generation group sawed off the top of the Christmas tree in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.
On a lifting platform, two people rolled out a banner on Pariser Platz in Berlin-Mitte that said "This is just the tip of the Christmas tree," a police spokeswoman said.
Then they drove to the top of the 15 meter high Nordmann fir tree with the lifting platform during the protest action on Wednesday morning.
They cut off the tip with a hand saw, as the climate activists from the Last Generation group themselves announced.
"So far in Germany we have only seen the tip of the underlying catastrophe," said an activist about the protest.
According to the police, they were on site.
Measures are now being taken, said the police spokeswoman, without giving any further details.
Last generation: This is what the protest group wants to achieve
According to the protest group Last Generation, it sees itself as “the first generation to feel the onset of climate collapse and the last generation that can still do something about it”.
She therefore draws attention to the need for political action with partly controversial protest actions.
The activists gained notoriety in particular through blockades in various cities, where they stuck their palms or feet to the streets and thus blocked traffic.
In one case, this obstructed an ambulance.
The group's demands include a speed limit of 100 kilometers per hour on German autobahns, a permanent nine-euro ticket and debt relief for the Global South.
In Bavaria, numerous activists are in preventive detention, which provides for detention for 30 days without a crime having been committed - suspicion is enough.
Criticism of this approach came from the Greens and the SPD, among others.
There are also other legal interpretations of the protest actions.
Michael Hassemer, constitutional judge at the constitutional court in Koblenz, considers the protests to be justified because climate change can be seen as an "emergency".
Science has been warning of climate change for decades, but political action is not enough
“We must act quickly.
I believe what we do in the next three to four years will decide the future of humanity," the activists quoted the British government's former chief scientific adviser on climate, Sir David King, on their website.
The causes and dangers of climate change have been known for over 40 years.
But the measures to stop the progression of global warming are still not sufficient, as the 27th COP27 climate conference in November 2022 made clear.
also read
Snowstorm and minus 20 degrees in December - now the big turning point is coming
READ
After a long period of snowfall and permafrost: a major change in the weather before Christmas is approaching
READ
Deadliest Cancers: These symptoms are warning signs
READ
Recognizing early cancer symptoms: which warning signs you should react to
READ
After deadly shots in Albstadt: woman's body discovered – is it a missing 20-year-old?
READ
Fancy a voyage of discovery?
My space
After the results of the conference became known, scientists and experts were disillusioned.
"We will definitely break the 1.5 degree mark," was the summary of the scientist Mojib Latif, as reported by the
Süddeutsche Zeitung
.
The earth is currently heading for a warming of 2.5 degrees or even three degrees compared to the pre-industrial age, the researcher continues.
The consequences: climate extremes such as droughts, forest fires or floods, migration flows and famine.
Letter from the last generation to the federal government: "Then it will be too late"
It was already known in the 19th century that a higher CO₂ concentration in the earth's atmosphere causes the temperature to rise.
Measurements by chemist Charles David Keeling in 1960 showed that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was steadily increasing.
At the first world climate conference in 1979, experts called on governments around the world to prevent man-made climate change.
But the demands still sound similar today:
“We are aware that you are currently dealing with one crisis after another.
We have great respect for your efforts," wrote the Last Generation group in a letter to the federal government in autumn and warned: "However, if you put decisive measures against climate collapse in everyday business for just two to three more years, then it will happen be late."
(bme/dpa)
