Read aloud
Current time:0:00Total duration:0:00
1x
New in t-online:
Adjust the font size!
Good morning dear reader,
first 41.3 degrees in Saarbrücken-Burbach, then 41.5 degrees in Meckern-Drewitz and finally 41.7 degrees in Neissemünde-Coschen. Germany has never been this hot since weather records began. Until Friday, Saturday and Sunday came. One record followed another, so far according to preliminary data, but nevertheless: This is monstrous.
I’m amazed at how much energy a few loud people are wasting arguing that this has nothing to do with the climate crisis. It’s summer now, it used to be hot, what are you doing, everything is so bad. In this heat, such repression would be too tiring for me. Perhaps someone will soon invent a device that converts this energy into electricity. Then we could run our air conditioning systems using energy that displaces the climate crisis. That would be exactly my sense of humor.
I don’t want to bore you or myself with confessional prose about the climate crisis. But if three heat records are set in three days…
… If Forests are burning, places are being evacuated must be…
… If Close natural outdoor poolsbecause the water got too hot…
… If Firefighters aerate the lakespump it out and spray again, otherwise the fish will die…
… If Refrigerated shelves in supermarkets are breaking down…
Daybreak – Newsletter for the Knowledge Advantage
… If Power suddenly disappeared completely because heat causes short circuits in transformer houses…
… If Emergency services and hospitals reach their limits and further…
Trams in Leipzig will be stopped until Monday due to heat damage. (Source: Heiko Rebsch/dpa/dpa-bilder)
… If Cities warn water is getting scarceat the same time there are warnings everywhere to just drink as much as possible…
… If Trams don’t go anywhere anymorebecause the sealant rests on the rails…
… If The highways exploded and are only passable to a limited extent or not at all, as reported by ADAC for A1, A2, A3, A7, A9, A10, A13, A14, A48 and A93, …
… If Deutsche Bahn advises against traveling with Deutsche Bahnthat is, where she still travels…
…if nationwide Civil Protection Day 2026 will be postponed to autumn in order to protect the population…
…if we all read and understand these reports over the last few days and think for a moment, Then we should at least be able to agree that we have a problem.
We haven’t even talked about the many people who are dying these days. Their relatives won’t care if someone on some corner of the Internet doubts that they actually died because of the heat, and not just during the heat.
Damage to the road on A2. (Source: Michael Bahlo/dpa)
And yes, there should be so much confessional prose: If the Chancellor’s CDU holds a seminar-discussion on climate and the economic crisis these days, the sweaty public can expect that, despite all the necessary searching for the right path, they will not seriously consider abandoning or even delaying the goal of climate neutrality, since it is too difficult to achieve without harming the economy. And the sweating man can also expect that his path to climate neutrality is a path, and not just a statement, as it is now.
In times of multiple crises, we have had to learn that two issues can be important at the same time, even if that doesn’t make things easier. Where, I ask myself, is the drive for innovative solutions when it comes to climate? In terms of performance?
There’s a video snippet that’s been living on my Instagram feed for weeks now that goes perfectly with this. Although many actually make fun of Friedrich Merz for how he encourages Germans to work harder. “Good morning, sports fans!” it says there“Get out of bed and move, progress doesn’t happen on its own.”
The balance of wood and concrete in Berlin is not yet entirely optimal. (Source: Florian Gärtner/imago)
Our world is not made for hot weather; too often it stops functioning well enough or does not function at all. The bad news is that the current extremes will continue and are likely to get worse because the climate crisis won’t be stopped anytime soon, even if everyone gets everything right.
The good news is that we don’t have to bow to the inevitable. We can adapt, redesign our countries, coastlines, cities, homes and apartments to function better in extreme weather conditions.
How this works has been well studied for a long time. Climate change adaptation is a somewhat anemic technical term. However, rebuilding our world against extremes costs money, and households are running short of it. Anyone who has to walk on sidewalks or parking lots these days quickly notices that in many places even the simplest rule is ignored: trees are better than concrete deserts. However, there are still too many concrete deserts and too few trees.
Changing this and many other things is worth all the effort. When it gets a little cooler again.
Decisive week
Friedrich Merz (CDU): Last week was good. Will this happen too? (Source: IMAGO/Stefan Zeitz Photography/imago)
This week is significant as many of you see this for yourself. This Sunday, Friedrich Merz again invited the leaders of the “blacks” and “reds” to the office. He also wanted to prepare at the highest level for what they thought would happen now: a big package of reforms.
The decisive coalition committee will begin work on Wednesday, July 1. It is not yet clear when it will be completed and the parcel will be packed. This may also take several days, of course with longer intervals. Hydration breakBreak at the Reform World Cup.