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On the one hand, there is constant low-stakes disruptive protest or mini-terrorism, depending on what side you're on. Someone possibly died due to it, sad, but numerically insignificant. Yesterday Der Spiegel ran an article (https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/berliner-radfahrerin-nach-unfall-hirntot-druck-auf-klima-aktivisten-steigt-a-1e33ffee-ecd4-47f0-8683-e5c8c696ff79) in which they reported on the event as is, quoting politicians who decry the protest as excessive but also emphasizing that it was the truck that killed the cyclist and that it was unseemly or politically motivated for anyone to jump to conclusions about any causal link between the protests and the cyclist's death.
On the other hand, saving the climate seems to be synonymous with destroying our economy. I don't have the hard numbers here, but banning all energy sources other than renewables and banning combustion engines while promoting electric cars seems like a recipe for disaster in general, and honestly the best recipe I can imagine for accelerated and total disaster in a country the economy of which depends in large parts on exporting cars that foreigners actually want to drive.
This event gives me a glimmer of hope that the public discourse becomes more likely to identify the destructive effects of environmentalism. But by tomorrow it may just as well be gone in a puff of forgettable outrage. Ultimately only two people were hurt here, and most of the country is still comfortable, and our wealth will sustain our comforts for a while yet before things become undone that cannot be ignored.
Or maybe I'm a doomer and the ecos are right; they sure have lots of people agreeing with them. It used to be crackpots and students, then it was housewives and teachers, now it's just about anyone who's not inordinately attached to economic security, and now you even get gems like the FDP (supposedly classical liberal party, often maligned as neoliberal lobbyists) arguing that we need fracking and nuclear power - but not for economic reasons, but to save the climate! Climate ideology has permeated public discourse, and as far as I can see it's impossible to tell fact from fancy in an environment where everyone chants a litany against climate change every time they consider economic questions.
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