Self-thinking

Berlin has voted and now the poker for power in the capital begins.
Who will shape the future of the people in Berlin?
An exciting question in itself, but one that was not of interest to more than a third of those entitled to vote. The cross on 3 ballot papers, this absolute minimum of personal commitment every few years, is still too much for some or is not worth it. One would almost think that freedom, justice, security and prosperity will continue to fall from the sky.

Disturbing images, on the other hand, reach us from Turkey and Syria, where earthquakes have turned entire districts into mountains of rubble. The people were helpless at the mercy of this force of nature. And as if that weren’t enough, at the same time and just a two-hour flight north, man is deliberately spreading destruction and terror with his own hands, turning Ukrainian cities and towns into landscapes of ruins.

In view of the tragedies described, many problems in your own country could be put into perspective. It does, but often only for a moment. Because if you hear or read the news, you usually get the same picture. The German soul seems permanently driven by fear, fear of Corona, of the danger of world war and of course climate change.

In the fight against the latter, the chancellor resolutely reaffirms the shutdown of all nuclear power plants in the spring and announces the construction of up to five wind turbines a day. 15.000 more systems are to be built by 2030. They will certainly not make our country more beautiful and we have known for a long time that until suitable energy storage systems are invented, even a hundred thousand more wind turbines will not be able to supply the urgently needed base load.
That our neighboring countries are already building new nuclear power plants and we have to continue buying nuclear power there to cover our energy needs.
That the fight against climate change will not be decided in Germany or Europe, but in Asia and South America.

Economists call it the “sunk cost fallacy” when, after investing an estimated half a trillion euros in the construction of wind turbines and solar parks, no significant reduction in CO2 emissions has been achieved and yet the project is relentlessly stuck with. Apparently it is difficult for people to admit that they were wrong. And in psychology we know that “sunk cost fallacy” also works when there is a risk of image loss (of politicians).

What can we do? Maybe we in Germany will start to stop bemoaning the fate of humanity and the planet. Constantly distancing ourselves from our industrial society and from our “Western” values, while at the same time feeling important and morally superior.

Instead, let us rejoice every day in the advantages and benefits of our society, let us be thankful for it. Let us end the German self-abandonment and advance research and development of new technologies including nuclear fusion, let us be pioneers and role models at the same time in order to protect our unique planet and all its inhabitants.

Doomsday scenarios and all belief systems operate on the guilt of each and every one of us and the abandonment of doubt. But we are allowed to have doubts and still simply throw them overboard, our “German Angst”, which is often criticized and ridiculed abroad. And the “German assertiveness”, the so-called “German arrogance” right after.

Let’s start thinking for ourselves, otherwise others will keep doing it for us.

In this sense
Sincerely yours

Ernst-M. Ehrenkönig/ CEO & Managing Partner