Sarah Bildstein 100 Spectres 2021 (Ausschnitt)
Sarah Bildstein, Pao Kitsch, Zhenia Jane Laptiy (UKR) – REVIVING LIFE – WIEDERBELEBUNG, Lisa Reiter and Hubert Schmalix approach the subject in different ways with their works.
Each of us has already experienced a few May months in which he or she has felt this new desire for spring and the approaching summer life.
The last few years, dominated by weather catastrophes, storms, fires, floods, diseases of pandemic proportions, war in Europe have certainly dampened this joy, but May with its splendour of blossoms has nevertheless also conveyed strength and reminded us of the value nature has for us. What this reawakening means, how dependent we are on nature and how we can never point out enough to respect it and practise humility: Put a stop to exploitation! That would already be a good approach!
In the 1970s, as a politically aware person, I became involved in the teachers’ association and drew attention to the publication The Limits to Growth. Report of the Club of Rome on the State of Humanity from 1972, I was smiled at with pity:
“If the present increase in world population, industrialisation, pollution, food production and exploitation of natural resources continues unabated, the absolute limits to growth on earth will be reached in the course of the next hundred years.”
Today, after decades of demands and a few actions, science, which cares about the well-being of the Earth and its inhabitants, confirms the actions of young activists who want to give lame and lax world politics a bit of steam to get faster to the implementation of sensible regulations, e.g. 100 km/h limit on the motorway …
But science also shows that timely intervention and action leads to success:
THE BEGINNING OF HEALING.
For example, after the phasing out of harmful chemicals 30 years ago, the ban on chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) from 1990 onwards, the hole in the ozone layer has shrunk and is expected to close everywhere by the mid-2060s. The gases have a lifespan of 50 to 100 years, so the chlorine molecules produced in the 1970s and 1980s are still in the atmosphere.
The ozone hole forms over Antarctica every year. Normally it begins in August and reaches its greatest extent in October. Researchers (Donald Blake, University of California Irvine, US and Kari Solomon, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, UK) found that the hole appears to have shrunk by more than 4 million square kilometres in recent years, forming later, during the Southern Hemisphere spring. Also, it’s not as deep as it used to be.
So let’s all be a little more courageous and looking to the future, let’s put away the stink of comfort. Let’s act!