26.9.2025

This week, we joined the German Environmental Aid Association German Environmental Aid (Deutsche Umwelthilfe e.V.) as a supporting member. Last year, we already supported the organization with a donation to the "Against the Plastic Flood" initiative. However, the association's activities are much broader.

The German Environmental Aid Association (Deutsche Umwelthilfe e.V.) was founded by seven environmentally conscious members on Lake Constance fifty years ago. At that time, broader awareness of climate change was only slowly beginning to emerge. In the 1980s, the association took up the fight against forest dieback. In 1991, it achieved legal codification of reusable packaging, and in 2003, the introduction of a deposit on cans. Since 2005, it has fought for environmental zones in over 70 cities. It was one of the first to contribute to uncovering the VW diesel emissions scandal. In 2021, it won legal recognition of climate protection by the Federal Constitutional Court. In this context, the opinion of the International Court of Justice of 23 July 2025, which gives climate protection the status of a human right, should be mentioned.

The organization's slogan on its website is "We enforce environmental protection." Given accelerating global warming, floods of plastic in gigantic garbage dumps, on the seabed, and increasingly in the human body, ailing and dying forests, and resource consumption roughly twice as much as the earth can sustainably produce, environmental protection is actually extremely topical and urgent. At the same time, it is neglected in large parts of the world, repeatedly falling victim to budget constraints, and, in the face of current, virulent crises, repeatedly taking a back seat in media coverage. This builds up frustration among many people, which ultimately erupts in often ineffective demonstrations or counterproductive activities such as climate stickers on streets and at airports.

The German Environmental Aid, on the other hand, relies on lobbying and legal means to constructively push through environmental protection issues. This often doesn't win you any friends. But two weeks ago, we published an article about resistance. The work of the German Environmental Aid is also a form of resistance – in favor of issues such as clean air, tolerable temperatures, and natural oceans, which should actually be in the highest self-interest of humanity and every individual. Resistance to short-term thinking, resistance to phlegm, resistance to generational egoism.

Even when there is a lot of criticism, some of it justified, it is impressive when resistance is relevant, justified, targeted, consistent and successful all at once.