The necessary radical changes must be negotiated within the framework of an expanded democracy. There is no shortage of ideas as to the direction these could take.
Debt brake, black zero: these issues caused a government coalition in Germany to collapse, and politicians in Switzerland and other countries are also arguing fiercely about them. ‘We must not leave a mountain of debt to future generations,’ is often the argument.
The caring thought for future generations is good. But the subject on which it is being discussed is wrong: money is a flexible resource because it is created by banks through lending. The planet's resources, on the other hand, are limited. Inflexible and unique. If we in the rich countries continue to live as wastefully as if we had three Earths, we will not be leaving future generations with financial debts, but with a plundered planet that is largely uninhabitable.
From an ecological point of view, there are therefore frequent calls to spend more money on measures to combat global warming. This is not wrong, but it is not enough. Rather, far beyond the technical measures for decarbonisation, a profound transformation of the economy, culture and society is necessary.
With regard to the oceans, this means that it is the task of the shipping industry to reduce emissions from ships through new, carbon-free fuels and the direct use of wind power. The essential part of the solution, namely deciding how much and what is transported – and which transports we do without – requires an economic, social and political process as well as a large number of individual consumer decisions.
This is inconvenient and difficult, but necessary. This is shown in the text on the tipping points that we must absolutely prevent from being exceeded – not least for the sake of our descendants.
We cannot provide definitive information here on what a socially just and planet-friendly system should look like. Instead, we offer a selection of texts in outline form.
The text on tipping points by physicist and philosopher Annette Schlemm (in German only) highlights the dangers of continuing with business as usual. The Ecoclipper cargo sailing project has listed how transport by sail supports the UN's sustainability goals. The image of the doughnut economy is used to outline an economy for the 21st century. The Club of Rome makes proposals with Earth for All. And growth critic Niko Paech shows in interviews conducted by the Brigantes cargo sailing project what he thinks of transport by sail.
Despite all the different perspectives, the authors come to the same conclusion on some points: the climate crisis is essentially also a social crisis. Poverty must be overcome and inequality reduced.
It is not a matter of adopting proposals one-to-one: transformation also requires contradiction and independent thinking. And a good, fact-based culture of discussion.
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