We watched the film „Beyond the Red Lines“ relatively early on and then had a discussion about it. The film follows three protest initiatives before and during the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris. „Beyond the Red Lines“ tells the story of a growing movement that says „Enough is enough! Ende Gelände!“ (No more compromises) and engages in civil disobedience, taking the transformation towards a climate-just society into their own hands (https://www.ende-gelaende.org/en/). Some participants were already familiar with such actions, while for others, it was their first time seeing such images. It quickly became evident that different forms of environmental activism are prevalent in different countries, and in Germany, a special tradition of protest has emerged through the anti-nuclear movement. In other countries, there were much more pronounced protests for social or political reasons.
After the film, we gathered in small groups and discussed the questions raised by the film. It was alarming to see that since the film was made in 2015, essentially nothing has changed. The socio-ecological movements still exist and have achieved little, leading to the radicalization of individual protest movements (e.g., „Last Generation,“ „Extinction Rebellion“). Yet, humanity continues to march steadily towards its own demise, ignoring the obvious consequences of its destructive actions and caring more about today’s exploitative luxuries than the consequences of its behavior.
The alarming aspect is that we all know it theoretically, but we don’t truly care about it in practice. We are shaped by growing up in societies that are skeptical of changes, especially if they involve limiting consumption. Progress is often associated with growth, and prosperity with consumption.
We discussed our personal responsibility in this whole situation extensively. Suddenly, it was no longer just about whether we can behave more sustainably through our personal consumption. Keywords: vegan, eco, greenwashing. We won’t be able to turn the tide through „more sustainable consumption.“ For our generation, it’s more about what levers we can set in motion to bring about bigger changes. For us, the future is genuinely at stake.
Later in the youth encounter, we had another input on this topic. The author of the book “Kleine Geschichte der Umweltbewegung” („Little story about the ecological movement“) was a guest one evening and gave a lecture followed by discussions in small groups. We learned a lot about existing networks of global environmental activists and subsequently developed initial ideas for our own engagement.