Hambacher Forst

This is part of the German coal story. It's a story of surface #greenwash in which many words of hope and ambition are expressed at the political level. Only when the layers are peeled back, much like the open cast mining for brown lignite coal, does the truth start to be revealed.

The story of the protest can be found here:

https://hambachforest.org/


This story is what got us thinking about how we perceive messages and pass them on, because news also emerged about the last deep coal mine in Germany being closed down. We have had a deep reluctance to pass on messages of good news because we don't want to make people think it's all going well and they can relax.

Here's a perfect example. It's probably economics being played out, rather than the efforts to save the planet from an existential crisis. Politicians are very adept at bending their words to meet the needs of audiences with multiple, different expectations, and in this case there are great opportunities to spin so that everybody gets a buzz.

But the real story is that with giant machines tearing open the earth to get at the brown lignite coal and burn it to make electricity with the price being paid in CO2 emissions with huge loss of irreplaceable ancient forest and biodiversity we are just seeing the existing system at work.

The system is in need of substantial change. It is broken. The rules are broken.



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