Heat and flood – go to hell in the first degree

Do we dare To say that there are signs in time? Floods in western Germany – in the middle of developed Europe – required hundreds of lives. Heat waves completely out of control are sweeping the West Coast of the United States and Canada. In the town of Lytton near Vancouver, for example, 49 degrees and 6 degrees Celsius were measured. Not only in the West but also in the East, things are getting worse. That a city like Moscow experienced record heat this summer, and in Siberia the great annual fires, which burn regions as large as entire European countries every year, because temperatures in recent years have been nearly as high as in Litton. That a place like Madagascar has experienced a record drought, and thus millions are threatened with starvation.

In the east, in the west, in the north, and in the south. She’s going to hell. Both in first, second, and third grade, if we don’t do something dramatic now. Let us say again that we are in the same boat. Man-made climate change affects all of us, even though it affects the poorest of us. But “we” are not exempt from Hell either. Fires around cities like Vancouver and Seattle affect the wealthy in Canada and the United States, just as floods in western Germany, which have now also reached Austria and Belgium. Also in Finnmark and Lapland, solid temperatures were recorded this summer. Should the out-of-control fires come here too, as they did – upon closer inspection – just three seasons ago?

All signs of the era It requires work. It is therefore a timely initiative now by parliamentarians from a number of countries for a global Green New Deal. They will lobby their national councils to put together a joint plan for a new green economy ahead of the United Nations climate conference, COP26, in Glasgow in early November.

that parliamentary Communicating across national borders to establish facts and formulate a common policy is also a sign of the times. But so far, the climate crisis has not moved voters to the extent that the labor movement did 100 years ago in Europe. Instead, green politics, and little of it, was picked up by parties from left to right.

If one ignores Trumpets, then there are elements of green politics in the vast majority of parties in democracies. Germany – after the floods – in the September elections could become a country where the climate really moves voters. But there, the Greens made it so hard on themselves that chancellor candidate Annalena Barbock was caught cheating on her resume. But perhaps the flood could nonetheless move political boundaries?