Series of attacks on the power grid: an incorrigible ideologue

Admittedly, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) is not the brightest candle in the cake when it comes to political farsightedness. But he may have thrown out the term “climate terrorism” on purpose when it became clear that a climate activist was probably at work in the attacks on the power grids in Brandenburg, North Rhine-Westphalia and Saxony. The main thing is that you can benefit from it for party politics: Look, anyone who supports the climate activists, like the Greens do, is joining forces with terrorists!

Dobrindt must be given credit for the fact that this is actually about criminal activity with potentially serious consequences. And not about non-violent resistance, like those who stick to roadways and who have also been accused of climate terrorism by CSU politicians in the past.

But from a socio-political point of view, Dobrindt's terminology is fatal, dangerous and even immoral. The results of this hot summer in Germany alone speak volumes: 16,300 heat deaths, forest fires, crop failures, billions in damage to the economy. Anyone who still believes that the issue of climate and climate protection is a left-green culture war must be an incorrigible ideologue.

There is nothing wrong with calling bomb attacks on the power grids terrorism. But the combination with “climate” poisons and polarizes a debate about more heat and climate protection that urgently needs to be led by everyone.

Because climate and climate protection must be de-ideologized and understood as a task for society as a whole - this applies to the political right as well as to the left spectrum. Climate protection can and should also be a conservative topic; after all, it is about preserving what exists and preserving creation.

Dobrindt's neologism “climate terrorism” shows that politicians like him no longer fit our times. One can only hope that smarter minds will grow up in the Union than the simplifiers who set the tone in it today. Otherwise it could soon actually be about the last generation.