War, Corona, climate: are we overwhelmed by the sum of our problems? – Politics

Imagine a huge meteorite is about to hit – and no one cares. This is, roughly speaking, the Plot des Films „Don’t Look Up“which has been running on Netflix for a few weeks.

It’s about ignorance and repression, about humanity that doesn’t care about its own survival, about a US President who is about to be elected and doesn’t want to hear bad news, about a media industry that puts entertainment before relevance. In the end, the President’s son posts a selfie video on the Internet as the “last man”.
No wonder the film has been interpreted as an allegory on the fight against climate change, as a “climate breakdown satire” and “bitter parable about the climate crisis”. After all, it is no coincidence that today’s Autobahn blockers call themselves the “last generation”.
A few days ago, Luisa Neubauer from the “Fridays for Future” movement announced “massive resistance” to the climate policy, which she believes is completely wrong. Those responsible should continue to be put under pressure.

“After 40 years of political ignorance” there is no more time for half-hearted compromises. “It can’t go on like this,” said Neubauer.

Radicalization of part of the climate activists

There is another reading of “Don’t Look Up”: The film could show a humanity that is generally overwhelmed by the sum of its problems, which have lost the standards to set priorities. It has indeed become difficult.

Two years ago, newspaper extras and TV specials were still being produced to to illustrate the drama of climate change.

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Since then, the corona pandemic has knocked the topic out of the headlines. Current deaths, such as the deaths of elderly people in nursing homes, gripped hearts and minds more than concerns about the life and survival of future generations.

It is possible that the radicalization of some climate activists is also a reaction to the marginalization of their concerns in public.

Now the Ukraine crisis has emerged. Fear of war in Europe spreads. It’s about political and territorial sovereignty, the right to self-determination, energy supply, arms deliveries, diplomacy.

The Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, a Green, visits the war zone in eastern Ukraine wearing a helmet and protective vest. That concerns most people more than plans by the eco-party to expand wind energy.

They take the future more seriously than the present

In pinball machines, the player must prevent a metal ball rolling down a sloping surface from falling into a hole. The longer he succeeds, the more points he collects. Good players reach a multiball level, then a lot of balls roll towards them at once. Far-reaching decisions have to be made at lightning speed.

It is in this multiball stage that current politics resides. It would be negligent to focus on just one sphere, to tackle just one crisis. It would be improper to try to position one of the crises against the others.

Maybe that’s what bothers a lot of people a little bit about the Autobahn blockers – this feeling that they take the future more seriously than the present.

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