2023-12-05 04:42:36
There were two moments when the show could have taken itself to another level, given a glimpse of the narratives that societies that have so much to take on might need; who have to give up a source of prosperity and progress because it has proven fatal to the planet – but the moments fizzled out.
One was when meteorologist Sven Plöger expressed his impression that humanity was obviously not ready to consistently tackle the problem of global warming if, despite the facts, too little was still happening. A completely new attitude towards the planet is needed. The other, when Carla Hinrichs from “Last Generation” asked us to question what prosperity actually is and what other meaning could be given to the word.
A pretty diffuse round-robin
But Louis Klamroth did not pick up these threads. The question of what a new, perhaps even visionary way of talking about the challenges could achieve was not part of the concept of this “Hard but Fair” issue on the topic of climate protection. It was obvious to take stock at the end of a miserable year for the fight against global warming, during which people who were moderately interested in the topic could get the impression that climate protection would only make you poorer anyway and that the reason was that you would be stuck in traffic jams again because activists were stuck and the government is now also in a budget crisis.
But it didn’t have to be the very vague generalization that moderator Klamroth announced the show: a year of record heat, a climate conference in the oil state of all places, billions missing for the climate-friendly restructuring of the economy. And anyway: How important is the topic to people and the government?
A bit of a basic course on global warming
It was then a bit of a basic course on global warming (Sven Plöger had to explain what the 1.5 degree target is), a bit of a look behind the scenes (Werner Eckert, climate conference veteran and ARD editorial director “Climate and Nutrition”, provided an illuminating analysis from Dubai, why it would be a success if the contracting states agreed in the final paper of COP 28 to want to reduce the use of fossil fuels), explain a bit why it is so difficult to fight climate change (a global problem that must be addressed nationally, multiple crises and the resulting shifting priorities, a time horizon for which human action is not designed).
Nevertheless, it wasn’t an annoying show, but rather an illustration on a small scale of the great paradox: the vast majority of people want more to be done and yet not nearly enough is happening. An unpleasant tweet from the CDU politician and chairman of the Economic Committee in the Bundestag, Michael Grosse-Brömer, who was prompted by the snowfall to ask why three days of sun was always considered “climate”, initiated the first of several surprisingly amicable rounds of answers.
#Hard #fair #climate #protection