What the hell is going on here?
Putin has brought war back to Europe – after seven decades of peace! All of a sudden, nothing is like it was before. Women and children from Ukraine are fleeing westwards leaving behind their brave husbands and fathers who fight for our western world values. They don’t know when or if they will see them again. Almost all economical systems reacted immediately, some of them in disruption.
This is a hard crash onto the very ground of reality! And it hits us totally unprepared. It seems like the good old world which we have so pleasantly learned to take for granted, is now falling apart. We have to make decisions and take action so quickly – and we are feeling so insecure with all these decisions. We have to wake up from a long dreamt cozy dream …
And now for something completely different … Really?
The IPCC has published its 6th, assessment report and states that 20 million people are annually displaced due to weather-related extreme events – increasingly more of them will be migrating in northern countries. Over 9 million climate-change related deaths per year will have to be expected by the end of the century. Climate change increases risks for a larger number of growing cities and settlements in coastal and mountain regions, affecting an additional 2.5 billion people by 2050.
This meanwhile undisputed threat to human life on earth did not come over night, which differentiates it from the Putin aggression. But we need to act fast as well in order to get things back in order. Spending so many years now on this issue, it is my firm belief that the most important thing to start with, is to accept the magnitude of the challenge and be aware that this is big and real, bigger and more real than we have ever thought something could be. Just like we have never thought that Putin would shamelessly invade the Ukraine.
Let’s face it – it’s real and its big! But even the German Government has now understood the importance of renewable energies and the PCA has cleared Portland-Limestone Cement standards – there is light at the end of the tunnel!
Yours truly
Matthias Mersmann
