[Skybird]

FOCUS writes:

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All over Europe, they are thinking about how to save their economy. Only in Germany is the main thing: climate-neutral! If we're going to go down, we're going to go down clean.

On March 14, 2020, the German Federal Ministry of Health published a warning. "Attention Fake News!" it said. "It is claimed and quickly spread that the federal government will soon announce further massive restrictions on public life. It's not true! Please help stop its spread."

As a well-intentioned citizen, one wondered how to respond to the appeal. How does one stop the spread of Fake News? By circulating the opposite? Unfortunately, that doesn't help against fake news either, because you first have to say what you're against in order to put it right.

Fortunately, the problem was solved just two days later. The federal and state governments decided on the very restrictions that the Ministry of Health had just ruled out.

I remember the first lockdown well. When I wanted to sit down on a park bench in the English Garden to read a book, two policemen approached me because sitting down on a bench for reading purposes was now considered a misdemeanor. Presumably, the Federal Ministry of Health considers spending time outdoors to be overrated anyway.

I couldn't help but think of the warning from the first Corona year when I saw the following anti-fake news tweet from the Federal Ministry of Economics last week:

"We have one of the most reliable power grids in the world and high security of supply. Despite this, claims are circulating on the net under #blackout, #powerfailure or #load shedding, spreading unfounded panic." This was followed by a detailed explanation of why power outages in Germany were as good as impossible.

We'll see how long this reassuring message lasts. In any case, I would advise coordinating with other departments after all to avoid unnecessary irritation. The Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Alert, for example, called just two weeks ago for people to build up a ten-day stockpile in case of power outages ("When putting together your emergency stockpile, it's also a matter of thoughtful planning").

It certainly couldn't hurt either if Economics Minister Robert Habeck would take his Green Party chairwoman aside for once, so that she doesn't continue to recommend load shedding in ARD interviews and thus "spread unfounded panic," as the memo from his office puts it.

We live in a strange in-between realm. On the one hand, we are just losing the foundation of our national economy with the collapse of the energy supply. On the other hand, the government is acting as if everything can continue as agreed and laid down in the coalition agreement.

Of course, the end of coal continues to apply. A few days ago, Robert Habeck concluded an agreement with RWE according to which the coal phase-out will not be postponed, but on the contrary brought forward by eight years - from 2038 to 2030. Of course, the nuclear phase-out will also be maintained. And I'm sure that if you were to ask those responsible how the plan to build two dozen new gas-fired power plants as a bridging technology on the way to a renewable future is going, the answer would be: everything according to plan.

What should we call that? German Sonderweg? Cosmic trust in God? Everywhere in Europe, they are thinking about how they can ensure that their economy doesn't go koppheister - only in Berlin they are happily continuing to build their cloud cuckoo land. It's fascinating, but also a little scary.

The German government's answer to the energy crisis is, in short: now more than ever. So now more than ever to push ahead with the expansion of renewable energies and the departure from the fossil fuel era. You know this from management seminars, where the motivational trainer advises people who have had the rug pulled out from under them to see the crisis as an opportunity. As a spectator, you say to yourself: Poor devils, you wouldn't want to be in their shoes either. Unfortunately, in this case we are all participants in the great management experiment.

Even the current plans are completely unrealistic. The "FAZ" editor Morten Freidel recently took the trouble to do the math. To achieve its goals, the government would have to build four large or eight small wind turbines every day for the next ten years. Even if all the approval procedures were to be dispensed with overnight: There's neither the material nor the assemblers to do it - not to mention the costs.

And in 2045, when everything is over because Germany will finally be climate-neutral, as the proponents hope, it would start all over again. Even a wind turbine doesn't last forever. After 20 years, it has to be replaced. Which means that a significant portion of the national economy would be constantly busy providing the wind to keep the country going.

Without a certain degree of energy independence, it won't work, at least if we want to remain an industrial nation. And that shouldn't be too long in coming. The 200 billion for the gas price cap will last until the end of next year. But then another winter is just around the corner. And then another. And then another.

We're a rich country, that's the good news. We're even an energy-rich country. We have gas reserves that could make us independent of the vagaries of the energy market for 20 years. Stupidly, we prefer not to even talk about this wealth. Most of the gas is in Lower Saxony. As you could read, none of the parties in the election campaign even mentioned gas reserves in a single word. That, too, is a strategy: evading reality through collective silence. We have some practice in this in Germany.

If you believe the Green strategists, it is clear who is to blame for the AfD's electoral success: the CDU, because its party leader warned against immigration into our social system. That's what makes life in cloud cuckoo land so pleasant: you can always pick the explanation that suits you best. Immigration, on the other hand, hardly plays a role at the demonstrations, where the main issues are inflation and energy prices.

The AfD's solution is to open Nord Stream 2. I am absolutely against that. I think it would be a huge mistake to signal to the terrorist in the Kremlin that he can do whatever he wants, as long as he just supplies us with gas again. But if you are against gas from Russia, you should be able to name an alternative. The alternative can't be to hope that the miraculous conversion of electricity into hydrogen will save us from all our troubles.

60 percent of Germans say they currently do not trust any party to get to grips with the problems facing the country. A record figure. I know in government they think people are too stupid to see the wisdom of the energy transition. But people aren't all stupid. They have an inkling: Shutting everything down isn't a solution in the long run, either.

In the middle of the week, the International Monetary Fund published its forecast for the coming year. For no country does the forecast look as bleak as for Germany. But for one country, Russia, it's even worse. But that is the only consolation.

If I were a cynic, I would say: The main thing is that we keep to our climate targets. If we're going to go down, at least do it cleanly.
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