“not by climate change, but
by climate protection and the things done in its name.”
It is predominantly
hydropower and bioenergy projects that threaten to destroy precious areas of
our planet’s nature.
That current climate
policies harm conservation in many ways is nothing new, even if many do not
want to admit it. However, no one so far has compiled the evidence as strongly
and on a global scale as Eichelmann. His one-hour film, which is shown in
several cinemas in Germany these days and also on Austrian television, is the
result of two years of work that led his team to Brazil, Turkey, Iraq and to
Indonesia, but also to the model country of climate protection, Germany, where
crimes against nature are especially evident.
Eichelmann feels
particularly affected by what he has found out in the course of his research;
that’s because, as he says, he has been deeply involved in the fight against
climate change – until he discovered some time ago
“that something went wrong
here “.
The individual stages of
the film:
Brazil: The huge dams of
the South American country, each of which put dozens of square miles of
rainforest under water for the generation of electricity, have always been a
problem for the Amazon basin. But now, as the momentum of climate policy is
added, all laborious progress in terms of environmental sustainability, which
has been be built up in recent decades, and even all moratoria, have gone
overnight.
60 mega dams of several kilometres in length and several hundreds of
medium size are planned in the Amazon basin in coming years. One of them alone,
the Belo Monte Dam on the Xingu River, will flood a forested area larger than
the Lake of Constance; it threatens 200 fish species and will force 20,000
people to relocate. One of the very few large nesting sites of Amazon turtles
will fall victim to the dam. The Catholic Bishop Erwin Kräutler, who works
there, calls Brazil’s current energy policies of Brazil the “death knell” for
the Amazon rainforest.
Turkey: One of the oldest
cities in Anatolia, Hasankeyf, renowned for its extensive cave dwellings and other
buildings dating from the fourth century, built on the border between the
Eastern Roman and the Sassanid Empire, will simply disappear from the map. The
reason: the Ilisu dam, which is built there to produce “clean energy”, will
ensure that the Tigris will swallow the city. With luck, the upper tips of the
ancient minarets could still poke out of the reservoir.
By the way: Do you remember
the worldwide outrage over the Taliban, when they destroyed the giant statue of
Buddha of Bamiyan? These barbarians, it was said at that time! The loss of
Hasankeyf would be vastly greater, yet outrage outside Turkey did not happen –
in the name of climate protection people keep quite.
Iraq: There was also great
indignation worldwide when the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in the mid 1990s
dried up the vast Mesopotamian marshes near Basra, out of revenge for what he
deemed as the missing fighting spirit of its inhabitants during the first Gulf
War. The wetlands, where many species live and people have their agricultural
livelihoods, have since been partially restored laboriously. Now, they will
finally disappear because dams further upstream will deny them enough water.
Germany: It is hardly
possible to describe in words the damage done to German nature, as Eichelmann
describes it in his film. The country side is made desolate by monoculture of
corn fields stretching to the horizon, and biosphere reserves are not spared.
Everything is done just to ensure enough biofuels are produced to meet
Germany’s climate targets – all in the name of a supposedly clean energy.
Many
bird species have already disappeared completely, others will follow. Hares and
other soil dwellers will not be seen again. The largest biogas plant in the
country needs 1,000 tons of corn per day. 7,000 plants have already been built,
about 1,000 on average will be added each year. Due to generous subsidies, the
corn farmers can pay any rent, so the rents have more than doubled and farms
are going bankrupt. By the way: in 2011 Germany could not cover its cereal
needs for the first time.
Indonesia: Even greater is
the sprawl of monocultures in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo, where
palm oil plantations – not least for the production of biodiesel – have
destroyed the rainforest almost completely. The last orang-utans are losing
their habitat.
Eichelmann presents
calculations in his film which show that almost every single project he
presents, e.g. each “Climate Crime”, is
responsible for emitting more carbon dioxide or methane instead of reducing
emissions. Although he has changed from being a climate change campaigner into
a fighter against this kind of climate protection, Eichelmann still assumes
that greenhouse gases pose a risk to the global climate. He thinks the only
chance to counter the risk is to question the idea of global economic growth.
Only in this way, he argues, the world could prevent the “Climate Crimes”,
which his film documents.
You do not have to share –
like this writer – the growth denial strategy to be impressed by the movie
which is extremely well and comprehensively researched. The development of the
global climate, the warming pause in the last decade and a half, and the
climate forecasts for the next few years could indicate that it might be useful
to transform our energy supply in the long run; but there is no reason today to
throw out “the baby with the bathwater”, as economist Niko Paech says in the
film – or to accept that “climate protection is used as a cover for
environmental crimes.”
My fear is, however, that a
growth denial strategy would be nothing else than throwing the baby out with
the bathwater. The fact is: only growth-oriented economies can afford to
protect the environment. To crack this historic challenge is not impossible
theoretically, but it could lead to similar questionable experiments as
documented in “Climate Crimes”.
We must take the time to
plan sensibly and not rush into “head-over-heels” measures. Let us beware of
exaggerated doomsday prophecies and instead protect nature. Either way, growth
or denial, greenhouse hysteria or cool head: “Climate Crimes” is one of the
most interesting and daring films on the subject.
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