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Public statement of support for Annalena Baerbock and Die Grünen for #BTW21

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By Thomas Steiner. Written on . Political

It's not often that I post something with the Political tag on my blog. In the recent months and probably years, I've in the majority sticked to Technical posts, but this one is different. For folks like me in tech, it's way too easy to limit oneself to just the mostly uncontroversial (as in: it truly matters) technical stuff and stay silent about other aspects of life. Yesterday, I watched the Triell (the TV debate between the three candidates for the German chancellor, Armin Laschet, Olaf Scholz, and Annalena Baerbock) and I took this as an excuse to make my political standpoint public. It's uncomfortable and I hesitated a lot, but I think it's the right thing™ to do now.

As Annalena Baerbock from the Grünen party says: "The next government is the last one that can still actively influence the climate crisis." You may have heard of the 2021 floodings in Germany. Our response can't be to rebuild and move on. If we continue the laissez faire of the German car industry that Mr. Laschet, the candidate of the Christian Democratic Party CDU, demands, we mainly get electric (or worse, hybrid) SUVs for 50K€+, but not affordable small cars for regular incomes. We don't need a Merkel 2.0 that Mr. Scholz risks to become with a little bit of CO₂ pricing here and a little bit of exit from coal energy there.

We need a politics where "[o]ur children, our grandchildren shouldn't have to ask us: Why didn't you do anything? But: How did you do it?"—Annalena Baerbock.

If you're not super familiar with the current German political pre-election situation, here's some recommended background reading:

If you want to join me in going public with your political views, here's how I did it. It may feel uncomfortable, "cost" you followers or subscribers to your blog, or maybe even stop people from talking to you (I hope we keep talking, even if we don't agree with each other), but I think it's worth it.