Autumn and climate crisis: This one summer will never end

T he time of year when the temperatures are dropping and the days are getting shorter little by little has arrived. Behind us lies a summer with record temperatures, over 16,000 heat deaths in this country alone, forest fires on an unprecedented scale, millions of tons of crop failures, dry rivers, a lack of cooling water for nuclear power plants, then a flash flood in Nepal that killed thousands of people. It was a summer of disasters.

And it was a summer that experts say will not be remembered as an exceptional summer. Because this is what a normal summer of the future will look like. These are the summers of a warmed planet - trend: even worse.

At the beginning of September, the United Nations Environment Program reported that the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees compared to pre-industrial times could no longer be achieved. Instead, the planet will warm up by 2.6 degrees by the end of the century. The result: more frequent extreme weather, entire regions will become uninhabitable, and global warming will be irreversible.

The taz is an independent, left-wing and opinionated daily newspaper. We have been arguing in our comments, essays and debate texts since the taz was founded in 1979. We often cannot and do not want to agree on an opinion. That's why you'll find some completely opposing positions here - all part of the very broad left-wing spectrum of opinions.

Why isn't humanity tackling the problem decisively? The reason for this is not only that politics protects capital and thus the burning of fossil fuels, but also that we humans cannot deal well with future scenarios.

We are wired to deal with acute problems: these are the wars in Ukraine, Iran and the Middle East, rising costs of living, and a world of work in transition. There is also a so-called “optimistic bias”: many people believe that the problem will somehow be solved in the future.

But it won't. The lever must finally be turned. And we must continually demand this from politicians. Because even if we only have around three months of summer with heat potential in this country, this summer is here to stay.