Germany’s Minister of Finance, Olaf Scholz, signals the days of life’s amenities for the masses are coming to an end. All necessary to avert dangerous climate change. Flying will be a thing of the rich.
On April 29th, Germany’s Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe ruled that the country’s 2019 Climate Protection Act did not go far enough to limit dangerous climate change, and thus violated the fundamental rights of younger generations to a humane future.
Lawmakers moving to end comfy lifestyles
The court has ordered the German legislature to draw up clearer reduction targets for greenhouse gas emissions. And now that the Federal Constitutional Court has ruled, regulation-zealous lawmakers are moving with renewed vigor to wean the masses off their comfy lifestyles of air travel, own homes, large cars and meat.
The good times are all about to come to an end for the German masses, who the government seems to believe have become too spoiled.
The most recent comes from German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz who announced he wants to impose a price floor on low-cost flights in Europe, he said in a TV program “ProSieben Spezial Live.”
No flight should be lower than 50 or 60 euros (USD 60 to 70).
Back to the trains
German online national daily Welt here reports that as part of its election platform, the country’s SPD socialist party “promises that rail travel within Europe will become cheaper and more attractive than flying” and that “a lot of money would have to be invested in the expansion of local transportation.”
Wind and solar energy growing too slowly
In the television interview, Scholz called on states to take concrete steps for more climate protection. Scholz is dissatisfied with the now very slow pace seen in wind and solar energy investments. Currently many of Germany’s win turbines are reaching their 20-year lifetime, and continued operation of these older turbines is not longer profitable due subsidies running out and high maintenance and repair costs.
Replacing older smaller turbines with new, larger ones faces major hurdles such as setback distances and fierce opposition from citizens groups and nature preservation activists.
In response to the Federal Constructional Court’s ruling, the German cabinet has launched a new climate protection law, which will require Germany to become “climate-neutral” by 2045 instead of 2050.
Elitism
Already some are warning that limiting energy intensive activities, such as flying, risk dividing society into the “haves” and “have nots”. Welt science journalist Axel Bojanowski, for example tweeted.
Auch arme Leute können sich mittlerweile Flugreisen leisten, da sollen die Preise erhöht werden. Elitismus ist ein Faktor in der #Klimadebatte, ohne den sie sich nicht verstehen lässt, glaube ich. https://t.co/oHJqOw6Zbc
— Axel Bojanowski axelbojanowski.substack.com (@Axel_Bojanowski) May 13, 2021
In English: “Even poor people can now afford air travel, so prices are to be increased. Elitism is a factor without which the #Klimadebatte [climate debate] cannot be understood, I believe.”
What’s next? Heat? Meat?
Bojanowski later comments on how far should it all the regulation ought to go:
Ob das “dann halt so ist”, wird ja noch demokratisch entschieden. Ich zweifle, ob die Leute all ihre Bedürfnisse daraufhin abklopfen wollen, ob sie ein Menschenrecht sind. Was ist mit dem klimaschädlichen Konsum von Fleisch, Gemüse, Benzin, Heizöl, 3-Zimmer-Wohnungen usw?
— Axel Bojanowski (@Axel_Bojanowski) May 13, 2021
“I doubt people want to have all their needs checked to see if they are a human right. What about the climate-damaging consumption of meat, vegetables, gasoline, heating oil, 3-room apartments, etc.?”
Thanks to Covid lockdowns, we can’t fly anywhere anyway.
Olaf shames the poor for being poor. Olaf has a problem, he has no brain, no brains inside a super-thick skull.
All bone, no brains whatsoever, a bonehead.
People need to eat, survive, thrive. To live is not just some stupid idea some nitwit came up with one night. Man cannot live by bread alone.
Herr Scholz can eat a heaping dollop of crow and then a whole humble pie.
The world is better off without some idiot claiming people have too much of anything. The yacht and private jet owners aren’t going to sacrifice one thing, that is for sure.
Makes you severely bent, stop being a brainwashed state propagandist Stasi fool and get a life, you numbskull.
Go find a job that will satisfy your daily needs, stop pretending and banking on the rest of humanity to supply you with what you need.
You’re on your own, it’ll be good for ya, you need a wake up call.
You’ll be eating gruel in a bare bones apartment with the heat set at 10 degrees C. You don’t really need any meats of any kind nor any fresh vegetables or canned goods, some broth and stale bread will do, don’t complain, it’ll be what you get.
In other words, get lost. Take a hike.
The Great Unwashed can’t wait for you to be gone and gone for good, good riddance too.
It’ll be a sea change for Olaf, too bad, so sad. Might finally learn a thing or two about a thing or two, you can go without, it’ll be more for everyone else.
Olaf can writhe in agony in the bed he has made for himself. Give old Olaf the bum’s rush and he can ride the rails on some freight train. Yet to finally learn the didactic, it shows.
It is no shame to be poor, to be ashamed of it is – Benjamin Franklin
Then flights will cost 50€ and 1 cent. So I do not see the problem.
Have there been flights cheaper than that? I’ve never seen one.
In fact I must add: Germans are “bekloppt”, they’ve always been it. They love mad ideologies bringing them to fight with the windmills
Greens, who are leading in the polls in Germany, want to ban short-haul flights altogether. https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article231164177/Klimaschutz-Baerbock-will-Abschaffung-von-Kurzstreckenfluegen.html?wtrid=socialmedia.socialflow….socialflow_twitter
“No flight should be lower than 50 or 60 euros”
And, all those expensive first class and business class seats should be removed.
EVERYONE flies the same, most economical budget rate… especially politicians.
I’d like to hear Ryanair’s O’Leary responding to this!
I’m sure the EU will take this up. And even the UK, greener than thou, Brexit notwithstanding.
Under Scholz’s Finance Ministry with the ‘black zero’ total ban on infrastructure spending, bridges were not repaired for decades. And now to push trains to use that is heading for disaster.
Hmph. I will no longer be making Germany a tourist destination. I had some ideas but obviously they aren’t wanted.
Sad, but sayonara.