NGO does not want a higher standard of livingIf I understand it correctly, people are to be kept there as in a large open-air zoo. Example of "saving, restricting, doing without".
The brochures for the Augsburg Off-Grid Fair are in print, so I started making calls to NGOs in the development sector. Naturally, I expected a storm of enthusiasm about the new possibilities to promote development and standard of living in areas without an electricity grid. So I'm excited about the new possibilities. NGO: No we only make solar lamps and solar cookers . RM: But that's got to be more, as far as solar fast charging stations! NGO: Why fast charging stations, there are no electric cars there. RM: There should be not only electric cars, but also electric tractors for agriculture. NGO: We reject electric cars RM: Why is that? NGO: Lithium mining is bad, we decided together at a lecture series. RM: Heard anything about sodium batteries, sodium is there like salt in the sea. NGO: They don't exist yet, people should rather ride their bikes . RM: If I understand it correctly, people are to be kept there as in a large open-air zoo as an example worthy of imitation for successful "saving, limiting, renouncing", it would be tragic for you if it comes to a further development.
I'm not naming names now, what's the point, it's to be feared that these are generally held views. Why is China the only country where a mass movement to electric scooters started 20 years ago? Perhaps Western NGOs contributed to this because they preached the bicycle and then people bought mopeds and later used cars from rich countries. Could the Sri Lanka disaster have been avoided by systematically preaching "photovoltaic and electric scooter is cheaper than gasoline and gasoline scooter"? 
The GDR motorcycle manufacturer Simson developed an electric scooter after unification: The Simson SR 50 Gamma E. This was so perfectly hushed up that I only learned about it in 2009. This electric scooter was at the technical level of China 2004 in 1994. Also, it wasn't until 2008 that I learned that lithium batteries were being developed in Germany specifically for electric cars in the early 1990s. What a great combination that would have made. In China, there are probably more than 300 million electric scooters on the road, and perhaps there could already be a billion worldwide if the fundamentalists of "saving restricting renouncing" were not of the opinion that MIV is evil. Here to a video, which shows the road traffic with very much electric scooters in China. A real climate protector will find this stunningly great, "Save Restrict Renounce" fundamentalists on the other hand horrified.
On August 3, 2009, I got the message about an impending oil crisis via Google Alerts. At that time, the federal election campaign for the September 2009 election was just beginning. Why the oil crisis didn't come? At that time, U.S. fracking was still in its infancy and there was no way to estimate how much it would yield. U.S. fracking saved the world from that severe announced oil crisis, but it ruined a tremendous amount of investors. Why wasn't this a big issue in the election campaign? If the Greens were really green, this should have been the big campaign issue: a rapid switch to renewable energy and electric mobility. They didn't, because in reality they want a different society, where people are forced to cycle and use public transport by making it scarcer and more expensive. Even then, people dreamed of a society like the one that is gradually becoming reality in Germany today: Deindustrialized and impoverished. |
