Environmental Activist Urges Truth and Action on Climate Change
In the face of accusations of anti-business bias against climate protection, activist Luisa Neubauer has called on politics and the media to protect the truth. “Some people have successfully propagated propaganda and spread fake news, which have even been taken over by serious media and programs” she told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung.
Neubauer criticized the tendency to focus on individual actions, saying, “Should we now spend four years talking about how devastating the heating law was? Or must we talk about how to protect the truth in public discourse and how we can defend ourselves against disinformation from the fossil lobby and science hostility? So that my opinion is no longer worth as much as a fact? I am for the second way.”
The activist also warned against the notion that the government should abandon climate protection out of fear of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. “Not electric cars and heat pumps produce AfD voters, but a fair and sustainable policy would be a massive chance to win people back” she said. “One must improve the energy transition, but one cannot roll it back without causing the heaviest damage to the economy, the whole country and its inhabitants.”
Neubauer analyzed that Chancellor Friedrich Merz, of the Christian Democratic Union, had “unfortunately become a victim of his own rhetoric.” “Falling over the SPD to distance oneself from it and now standing there with no own or better answers, is not good” she said.
The environmental activist also took a stand against the idea of targeting individual carbon footprints, saying, “At me, it’s not about hacking at people who jet to the Berghain. The idea of holding the individual’s CO2 footprint under their nose was a perfidious one by the oil companies to divert attention from their own responsibility. That’s why it’s out of fashion.”
Moreover, Neubauer emphasized the importance of the government taking responsibility for the environmental impact of air travel, stating, “More important than the question of individual decisions is the question of why the government has not yet ensured that the contribution of air travel to global warming is visible in the ticket price.” Instead, the government is still advocating for cheaper and more convenient fossil fuel-based transportation methods, she said.
Regarding the weekend getaway trend among young people, Neubauer noted, “Perhaps many people are simply mentally exhausted in the face of the simultaneous crises and are not in a position to think deeply about their emissions. What’s decisive is that 89 percent of the global population, according to a recent study by the University of Bonn, want their governments to take more climate action.