Change through enthusiasm

Even the end of the Middle Ages was no time for the faint of heart. Preachers like the influential Italian Girolamo Savonarola therefore already predicted the end of the old world, conveniently for the year 1500, which was probably easy to remember at the time. During this time, fellow preachers from Savonarola, such as the Leipzig Dominican monk Johann Tetzel, sold indulgences, a kind of moral debt waiver on paper, for money. Those who bought it could shorten their time in purgatory.

The fact that there was something at all times and in every culture that people were particularly afraid of has also led to the Green Party ‘Die Grünen’, which was founded in 1980 as an anti-nuclear and environmental party, being very popular for more than 4 decades and has brought a number of votes, including bourgeois votes make them a political power in Germany.

But it is also the case that almost everything in life always has a downside, and without the fear of purgatory we would not have St. Peter’s Basilica today and without the Greens, nature and the environment would not have the outstanding importance in our consciousness that they deserve.
In the meantime, however, it is beginning to dawn on more and more people, who often showed a certain sympathy for the Greens or their front organizations, that one or the other catastrophe scenario is either not imminent or the means to avoid it with the principles of free democracy and a social market economy are only few do have.

This does not only mean the blackmailing actions of the so-called climate activists and their slogans aimed at an eco-socialist social order. The building energy law, which has not been thought through to the end, also appears to be the peak of a development that leaves many people feeling uneasy – to put it mildly.

“Anyone who makes such a law obviously has no idea what they are doing,” I hear from the industry, and “who is supposed to install all these new heaters from January 1, 2024?” At the moment, tens of thousands are still missing installers in our beautiful country. Even the promised high subsidy will not heal this deficiency, and we already suspect that the opening of the state money locks via the construction, energy and heating industry will result in the next billions in subsidy fraud after Corona.

In case of doubt, however, it seems, political power is used, which means: one wants to force people to be happy. It is not only the ‘Amigo affair’ about the State Secretary in the Ministry of Economics and his witnesses that makes the promised rescue of the climate appear more and more as a means to an end when it comes to posts, power and whopping state salaries and pensions.

And our “climate”, perhaps it cannot be protected at all. “It has been changing constantly and for millions of years without our influence,” says mountaineering legend Reinhold Messner, who spent most of his life exposed to wild nature and probably understands it even more than many a city dweller who is committed to nature and environmental protection. But this nature and the diversity of species on our planet must be protected.

This is exactly why we should activate our forces, develop the necessary technologies and constantly advance them, but without doing away with ourselves. The associated change in our consciousness will not succeed through orders from above and not through state paternalism or bans, but through people’s enthusiasm for achieving common goals.

Politicians should finally understand that they can trust their citizens here too.

In this sense

Ernst-M. Ehrenkönig

CEO & Managing Partner