Fridays for Future feel slowed down
Hanover. Not even three years ago, the children and young people from Fridays for Future (FFF) mobilized hundreds of thousands of people, including older people, to fight the climate crisis. In September 2019, 30,000 paralyzed the city in Hanover alone during the big FFF Star March, 270,000 in Berlin and more than a million worldwide. Mostly young people who are well informed, peaceful and courageous fighting for their future. Then Corona came. And then came the war.
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A Green Federal Economics Minister has to grudgingly buy fossil fuels from autocratic rulers. In Lower Saxony, drilling for natural gas in the heavily protected Wadden Sea is being considered, and fracking is no longer a bad word here either. Coal-fired power plants like the one in Mehrum stay connected to the grid longer. The turnaround in energy policy hits the hearts of the FFF activists, the climate rescuers are now the “Crisis Generation”. How are you doing with that?
“We should have switched to renewable energies sooner”
“It’s because you know the crises don’t get any smaller as you get older,” says 15-year-old Ava Regina. “In all likelihood, they will only get worse. And when you think about your life, you know that you always have to plan for crises.” What annoys the Fridays activist from Hanover the most is “that it didn’t have to happen. Had we switched to renewable energy sooner, we wouldn’t be in the current position of having to choose between these different destructive energy sources.”
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Constructive anger: Ava Reginatto (15) continues to fight for her future.
© Source: Christian Behrens
The Bismarck School student is sometimes angry that “even now we are not being taken seriously”. But she also looks at her anger constructively. “If I’m mad at people for not doing something about climate change, I can’t do the same. I will continue to be politically active. These emotions give me the energy to do this.”
“If none of that works, you have to become more radical”
You will continue to inform yourself and others – because that will help against fainting. This shouldn’t be stuck on the freeway like the “last generation” climate activists are doing, says the 15-year-old. But she understands that “we have tried less radically for a long time. If all that doesn’t work, you have to become more radical”. Not all highways would be closed every day because of the protests, “that’s why it’s justifiable. You have to realize that we’re in a super big climate crisis”.
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Her comrade-in-arms Constanze Hüper (17) looks the same. The Sophienschule pupil experienced working with the other Fridays as a kind of antidepressant. “I watched environmental documentaries as a child and realized the world wasn’t perfect – I might be powerless.” But then the FFF movement came along. Two weeks before the 2020 lockdown, she was at the first FFF plenum. “That’s when I realized that I could overcome the bad feelings with this work. That gave me so much that I stayed there even during the Corona period, found friends, almost like a kind of family.”
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The Fridays family makes her happy: Constanze Hüper (17) doesn’t feel so powerless when she can fight for the climate.
© Source: Christian Behrens
This “family” gives her strength, she wants to continue fighting the new crises for the climate. No, they don’t want to downplay the consequences of the war and Corona. “You can see Ukraine flags on every corner of Hanover, test centers everywhere. That’s great, because it shows that crises like this occur.” But the 17-year-old wishes the climate crisis weren’t treated as a secondary concern. You would have to invest a lot more money in public transport. “I find it unbelievable that 3 billion euros are put into the tank discount.” At the same time, they criticize the cost of the 9-euro ticket. “Why don’t you invest the 3 billion in the rail network?”
“The war is here now, so immediate action must be taken”
The fact that coal-fired power plants like the one in Mehrum remain connected to the grid, that fossil fuels are in demand again, yes, that gives her sleepless nights, says Constanze. “I can follow suit, the war is here now, so immediate action must be taken. But jumping straight from one crisis to the next is not a solution.” The climate crisis is no smaller than the war. “It’s a dilemma, but I would do anything not to take this step backwards,” she emphasizes. “It’s about the world. To put it bluntly: it’s ultimately about the end of the world.”
“Social justice is also a climate issue”
It’s also about social justice at this time, says Helen Knorre (18), who has just graduated from high school. The expansion of climate-friendly energies could make a major contribution to making society more socially just, she believes. “If we pretend that we can solve the crisis resulting from the war at the expense of climate change, then we are only shifting the costs into the future. With every political action that prevents climate protection, these costs increase.” The war against Ukraine made it clear how many decisions were delayed in German politics. “We are now really realizing that it was normal to be dependent on an autocrat for our heat and energy supply,” she says of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
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Look at wrong decisions: Helen Knorre (18) wants a socially just world in which climate protection is at the top of the agenda.
© Source: Christian Behrens
That can wear you down, Helen openly admits. When asked how she feels about the crisis, she says: “Quite over, because it feels like my head can’t manage to realize everything that’s happening in the world at the same time. You feel like you are still dealing with one crisis – and the next one comes along.”
“I am an optimistic person”
Amelie Rode (15), a student at the IGS Linden, sees a way out for herself – and somehow also for society. “I’m an optimistic person, my view is also rather optimistic. We can still do it, there are good signs. A relatively large number of people have understood, there is awareness, there is dialogue – it just has to result in the right actions.”
An optimist: Amelie Rode (15) will work as a journalist against the crises of the world – informed people by her.
© Source: Christian Behrens
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The 15-year-old FFF activist already has ideas on how to convey these right actions: could she become a journalist. “Especially with a view to the war of aggression against Ukraine or with a view to Russia, where the press is not free, you can see how important journalism is.” At first it was just a wish, now it’s even a necessity, “because you don’t want it that way to be powerless in the face of the crisis”. Your help “total critical reporting, to form your own opinion”, and especially in these times it is important to inform yourself. “That’s why I would like to give other people this opportunity as a journalist later on. I think that’s really nice.”
By Petra Rückerl