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Of course, Greta will get the Nobel Peace Prize, and then her hater will freak out completely. The late publicist Robin Meyer-Lucht found a perfectly fitting term for such very male, very manly hordes, who plunge into the net on a young activist with disabilities: Antifans.
They are people who, with a similar dedication, celebrate rejection or misogynous hatred as children cheer their favorite music groups, and the will to differentiate is similarly low. And at some point, they even define themselves through the object of their overflowing emotionality. Greta-Haters are the bitter window-breakers of the Internet. Discussions with them are futile, because their hatred is a valve without a goal. That makes the discussion with them instantaneously uninteresting.
Very interesting is the discussion with Greta skeptics, of which there are many different types. Some argue with barely concealed ownership. Others with understandable arguments. Greta is not only an angry, young woman, who refuses the patriarchal prescribed smileiness in a grandiose way. But also the figurehead of a movement that considers its relentlessness to be without alternative. This does not necessarily draw sympathy on the net, completely independent of the topic.
Fundamental problem with the attitude of Merkel
One of the most common forms of Greta skepticism, however, is found in the currently most powerful woman in the world, Angela Merkel. She gave a slightly poisoned praise at the UN Climate Change Conference in New York, because in Greta's speech, "in my view, it was not sufficiently clear how technology, innovation, especially in the energy field, but also in energy saving, opens up opportunities for us (... ...) I attach great importance to innovation and technology. "
One could of course argue that innovative solutions are not a single damn bit of Greta's tasks, but rather tend to fall within the scope of a, well, Chancellor-like person. But there is a very fundamental problem with this attitude of Merkel, because it is found across the German party positions on climate change.
It is the hope that a technology of the future will solve today's problems in an almost magical-mystical way. It borders on the "dark technical hearing of the unsuspecting", only that here the actors even have idea. Merkel is a physicist and, as a former Minister of the Environment, knows better than most other political figures. But that does not help her get to grips with her disturbing far-reaching hopes for the big breakthrough in technology. It stands for a whole school of thought.
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And it's a powerful school of thought that has prevailed more often. For example, in the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015. It's not said very often - but Paris's already ambitious goals can only be achieved if someone invents a technology that was not previously available.
Yes, really, deep in the Paris agreements, there is the speculative hope that humanity may discover a magic machine. Although there are already effective technologies that could bring about the halting of man-made climate change. But their use would be sufficient only if at the same time massive cuts would take place in today's normal, Western-industrial way of life.
Evasion technology for the Titanic
The Greta skeptics Merkel, Brinkhaus, Lindner but persistently carry their beliefs in front of him that someone on the Titanic quickly invents a evasion technology and therefore you do not have to divert the ship from the collision course with the iceberg. This is not completely ruled out, but the possibility of the fall of a medium-sized asteroid on the planet, which would make the greenhouse gas problems of the present pleasant to us, is also completely excluded. That such technologies can not only be invented, but also implemented quickly enough, however, becomes less likely with each new day.
This can be scientifically substantiated, precisely in the areas that Merkel addressed in her Greta criticism, the "energy sector" and "energy saving area". Just as the devil wants it to happen, just a year ago, a team of scientists at Imperial College London investigated exactly this: how long has it taken to find new, authoritative forms of energy production and new energy-using products (which could save energy)? have established themselves.
Her answer may even sober Merkel as queen of sobriety once again. Because on average, it takes from the invention 43 years until a new generation of energy has arrived in the market. And 27 years, until new (possibly more economical) product categories can prevail. Ups.
Waiting for a miracle
There are a number of laws governing the invention and diffusion of new technologies. Not only that, the duration is regularly underestimated - such introductions are almost never as smooth as you imagine. For a contemporary example, look at the debate over the new 5G wireless data transmission.
Recently, I was furiously abused in a discussion about technology in Darmstadt, because I had dared to explain that the standing waves of the Schumann resonance frequency may not be as lethal as claimed by Erdresonanz-Esoterikern. I wish Angela Merkel good luck with such people in introducing, say, a new refrigerator-size cold fusion reactor that works with heavy water, to be installed in every cellar and solve the energy problem for 30,000 years without emissions.
The belief in technology of Greta skeptics is of course no euphoric-positive belief in technology, as it was around the beginning of the millennium in Internet Optimists (including me). It is more of a defense reaction that operates with the Joker technology. In a twisted way, this belief in climate technology has nothing to do with technology, which is just a cipher, which could also be: We are waiting for a miracle of God, the arrival of Godot, or the discovery of CO2-eating unicorns.
Because behind this is the simple and technology-distant desire to delay the exhausting change a little. It is nothing more than the essence of the conservative character, to take even the smallest chance to give as little room for change as possible. Until it can not be otherwise. That's how you have to admit, as a progressively oriented person, in the story has been annoyingly often right. But not always.
Podcast question:
And why do you worship Greta?
