Migrating to Pasture
Germany has reached a bifurcation point. Required is a visionary decision about our future path. Do we Germans wish to migrate to pasture, or do we wish to remain an industrial nation? Regrettably, we are collectively lacking the necessary understanding, wisdom and determination to beneficially meet the challenge of this decision. Our thinking and doing are drowned out by the noise of endless, urgent everyday problems, and it’s so much more convenient to scream out our indignity about these problems – particularly vocally – in the (a)social media.
However, the development of energy costs for industry compared to partner countries sends a clear message – just, apparently, not to some politicians.
Here is a picture of Germany’s gas prices…:
… and here, of the electricity prices:
A long-term trend to raise our energy prices for industry to a level that is significantly higher than that of partner countries can be clearly seen. One could hold German economic policy responsible for this, but that’s not all. The primary responsibility lies with the voters, not the politicians. We, guilty, why?
Learning, from the daily news in Germany, how many people feel slapped in the face over and over again, and how they in turn are thunderously boxing others’ ears, one can certainly conclude that Germany sports an exemplary democracy. By comparison, consider ancient German custom: „… und willst du nicht mein Bruder sein, dann schlag ich dir den Schädel ein!“ (translated with poetic liberty as: „You’d better wish my brother be, or I shall bash your brains for thee!”) Democracy means that political responsibility vests in voters.
With their votes leading to excessive energy costs, German voters have made it clear that they reject industry and would rather migrate to pasture.
It is has also become obvious that we no longer believe in the myth of happy cows, and are unhappy about their harm to our (not the cows‘) climate anyway. The Cranky Philosopher borrowed a great idea from Ireland. It had become a hot topic for them having to slaughter so many cows in Ireland, just to help save the climate. No worries – German industry, and stables husbandry based on the German model, could come to the rescue. Basically it would work like this:
- Keep the cows in stables instead of out on pasture;
- Fit the stables with extractors for methane gas;
- Pump the methane gas into storage, and sell it to the industry.
So, it would be best if we shipped our industry and cows from Germany to Ireland, switched to vegetarian (naturally vegetarian, and not vegan pork schnitzel produced by environmentally harmful chemical industry), and finally moved on to the tempting green pasture ourselves. The modest power that we would still need without industry, could also be obtained from our own farmhouse roof. After all, who would want a wind turbine in their backyard, or towering above their eagle’s nest?
For doubters, the Cranky Philosopher has found a picture that speaks more than a thousand words about what the German people are really yearning for.
The Cranky Philosopher fully understands this. Although not quite vegetarian yet, he lives mainly on salads, vegetables, water and wasa. However, this also has a disadvantage. Whenever the lawns get mowed at the housing estate where he lives, he experiences symptoms similar to those for which Pavlov and his dogs became famous.
It is overdue for our politicians to understand the people and respect their wishes. The lack of such understanding leads to serious conflict. Their policy still requires us to recruit skilled workers abroad. However, out on pasture, and without industry, we no longer need these. On the contrary, they could lead to further pressure on the already scarce and expensive pasture land, even if we regreen former industrial sites.
Here’s just one example of how we could do without industry. By the way…, this also addresses the public outrage about the transport sector not meeting its climate targets, and that the “yellow light” of the “Ampel” (“Traffic Light Government”) even stands accused of having “softened” these targets. Admittedly, The Cranky Philosopher had to gather the data for this example from fragmentary publicly available statistics from several years back, as he unfortunately does not have the necessary deep pockets to be able to buy the latest data from commercial providers.
Almost 25 billion litres of non-alcoholic beverages were produced in Germany in 2020 (Destatis -Industry, Manufacturing, n.d.) – populist label: soft drinks; in plain language: sugar water and carbonated water bombs. Of course, we all have to drink water, especially so with climate change already causing cuddly warmth here in Germany. The problem, however, is that ready-made sugar water:
- firstly, must be produced by industry, by energy-intensive processes – hello, climate change; and
- secondly, it has to be transported to consumers at the full water weight, by CO2-puffing trucks – hello, climate change.
The weight of this water is not insignificant: 25 billion litres of (sugar) water correspond to 25 million tonnes of load, annually. We’re not even reckoning in the weight of the plastic bottles in which the water is transported. The environment has to reckon with this in a different way, depending on where the plastic ends up. Let’s just assume that the average route length for a trip is 138 km (Destatis – traffic volume, n.d.) – forward trip, without any assumption about the return trip, as trucks do not only drive in one direction, and empty runs cannot always be avoided. That makes a “cool” 3,450 million tonne-kilometres of freight. Let’s also assume that the average CO2 emissions are 118 tonnes (Federal Environment Agency, 2012) per million tonne-km. Makes “uncool” 407 thousand tons of CO2, annually. So, what does this number mean? That’s the annual CO2 emissions of about a hundred thousand fossil cars compared to electric cars, assuming we could charge the latter with 100% climate-friendly electricity.
This does not even include the amount of CO2 that the industry produces, or pumps to the surface from “naturally sparkling mineral water sources” instead of leaving the CO2 where it – thank God – already was and should have stayed. All this, just so that we can pump our bellies full of CO2 and then return it to the environment with more or less noisy compliments – hello, climate change. But if we have already produced the CO2 as a by-product, as the industry could easily claim, it would definitely be wiser to pump it underground instead of into our bellies. Not to mention the amount of sugar that is completely superfluous for nutrition, which also has to be produced by highly energy intensive industry. Let’s just reckon that of all soft drinks about half each consists of sugar water and carbonated water bombs, and that each litre of sugar water contains about 100g of sugar (by the way…, which is already twice the recommended daily maximum). With even just 10 billion litres of sugar water, that’s 1 million tonnes of sugar – hello, climate change.
By comparison:
The Cranky Philosopher prepares his beverages from tap water, using a simple, cheap and highly effective water filter from China. A great drink, prepared from four parts of water, transported by water pipe instead of by road, and diluted with one part of natural juice, without added sugar, transported by road. A cool 80% in transport savings, potentially almost 100% in sugar savings, and no CO2 pumped first into the belly and then back into the environment! Other advantages: a large part of German industry would become redundant, fewer “sugar bombs” who only still manage to move by car, fewer cars on the road, more healthy people on bicycles, and corresponding progress in achieving the transport sector climate goals. Would our populist-oriented politicians be able to achieve this, in the face of undoubtedly indignant reluctance of voters? Unfortunately, we no longer have Mrs. Merkel as our Chancellor, with her firm belief “wir schaffens” (“we can do it”).
Is traffic really “the guilty dog “, or is it just “the dog”, which to beat is the most populist? At least if you look at Germany’s “Letzte Generation” (“Last Generation”), you could get the latter impression. If we seriously wanted to stop climate change, we would first and foremost have to drastically change our individual and thus collective consumer behaviour. Blaming traffic for climate change is about as intelligent as blaming our blood for our atherosclerosis. The latter is primarily a consumption problem. It is surely noble that some people are already experimenting diligently on how to in future feed at least us “rich” here in Europe on healthy, climate-friendly algae, but for the world’s population this will not offer a solution in the foreseeable future. Most of them can’t even afford meat, not to mention vegan pork cutlets industrially manufactured from algae. The global consumption problem is far more complex than we “rich” here in Europe imagine. Elsewhere, there are many people who, for completely different reasons, fear that they might be “the last” generation. Inexpediently, however, it is precisely the overproduction and overconsumption of the “rich” that provides many “poor” with not only their daily bread, but also the hope of a better future for their children. (Hot tip: formerly developing country China.) By the way…, this requires trade, which requires transport, and thus helps those who are less well-off than the “Letzte Generation”, to not themselves becoming “the last” generation.
But, what’s the point. We Germans are migrating to pasture, each within its own snail shell. Yes – snail shell – because if we want to have enough pasture, we won’t be able to afford more than a snail shell dwelling. In any case, we’ll easily meet our climate targets if we buy everything from others. No problem – everything we need, we can buy from China; so, we don’t need industry, we just need enough money. If The Cranky Philosopher listens to the Greens and the Leftists, we could solve all our problems swiftly and easily by simply drowning them in money. In addition, we could elect the AfD (“Alternative für Deutschland” party) into a coalition government. They are also in favour of us retreating into our snail shells, and – even better – promise to replace the euro in Germany with the new Deutschmark. So, we could at last print enough money to satisfy both our needs and solve all our problems. Enough…, that’s another topic.
But since we have already digressed from migrating to pasture to complaining about climate change, what would the Cranky Philosopher suggest instead of, like the “Letzte Generation”, just looking for a “dog to beat” populistically?
Perhaps our government should expect our people to assume greater personal responsibility in order to achieve climate goals in an economically balanced way. Instead of the government issuing grandiose dictates, how about letting our fellow citizens vote with their wallets?
Echo
Stefanie sent the Cranky Philosopher some photos from Ireland, which persuasively convince him of his wisdom in suggesting that Germany should ship its cows and industry to Ireland.
At this sight, the Cranky Philosopher deeply sympathises with the Irish feeling chilly towards the idea of slaughtering their cows just so that others don’t become overheated.
Also, German industry could be helpful in cases such as these.