Prof. Peter Droege, president of EUROSOLAR:
They were the soft and late effects of the oil crises of the 1970s, the finally successful efforts of Europe to introduce summer time and the time shift, based on a century of various attempts in both war and peace years. On 6 April 1980, most European countries, Germany ahead, adjusted their clocks to make working hours more synchronous with summer daylight. The first common summer time lasted from 6 April 1980, 1400 (CET) to 28 September 1980, 15:00 (CEST).
Today there are new discussions and efforts to reverse or change this, although certainly at least the PV-owners benefit a little from it. German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently tended to give priority to summer time all year round, an idea which is shared by some representatives of the renewable energy industry.
Actually, this is worth a position of EUROSOLAR - a message or position to celebrate the sun, by a collective bow over the European wrist twice a year, adjusting the clocks. However, we would like to leave it at that, and point to a problem that illustrates this idea of cooperative solar synchronisation: such importantly tiny and slow gestures of joint action have long since ceased to be enough.
The speed of the new Corona virus, 2019 model, surprised many. Suddenly, all public, cultural, social life enjoying conviviality dissolved: zombie-like seemingly extinct or virtualized mutated. Yet it should not have surprised anyone. Because pandemics and virus plagues have been our companions for hundreds of years, millennia even. Even the conspiracy theorists among us have been aware of the more frequent and frequent warnings of precisely such a pandemic outbreak for at least ten years, for example from the philanthropist couple Rockefeller and Bill & Melanie Gates Foundation.
Collective inability to get rid of fossil fuels
What was more surprising was how quickly our society adapted, accepted the state of emergency as everyday life and snuggled up in the chamber. Our systems literally clicked together as if they were just waiting for it: We discovered ourselves as an instinctive swarm intelligence that reacted almost naturally and with fear. All over the world, humanity flinched and moved apart, reaching for mask, toilet paper and soap - some better and more routine like Taiwan and South Korea, some decentralized-federal-efficient and effective like Germany, and some surprised, stumbling and belligerent like the United States - or Kenya, or the Philippines.
The collective inability to get rid of fossil fuels is therefore all the more astonishing, since they are just as viral but chronic in our collective fur. Now the UN Secretary-General is calling for a universal ceasefire against Covid-19. That is good - but not so good is that this comes so late and is limited to the virus attack. A ceasefire and a focus on the common enemy: the fossil climate threat is an incomparably greater, just as immediate, even long overdue threat. Callers in the desert are some, e.g. www.climateforpeace.org
To live and work in a renewable way, to distribute resources in a fair way, to use solar, wind and water power: this is our only chance and a big challenge. Even the virus, like fossil fuels, shuns the sun. And here it is more a chance than a chance that the UN World Climate Conference planned for 2020 has been postponed to 2021 - that is the great opportunity to free ourselves from the straitjacket of this ritual format in which the deniers and saboteurs have as many voices as the ever more desperate victims of the fossil regime - at least this year in 2020, and to focus on the fact that the great capacity for action, the transfer stop now and here, in 2020, has arrived.
The upcoming holidays give cause for even more reflection and hope for a collective rebirth as a nation and as humanity, as the current viral crisis is already demanding so much. What is essential? What is ordinary, tormented, stupid, quarrelsome and hateful in our present existence has the opportunity to dissolve into regeneration, peaceful cooperation, light and fulfilment?
Energy transition now!
Just as the coming days of the Pesach, Pasha, Pasqua, Easter remind us of the possibility of a new beginning, so our present infestation offers the great chance of getting rid of the fossil chains, the nuclear rod and the oligarchic-ideological crown of thorns of forced fossil consumerism. The energy turnaround knows no quarantine - and EUROSOLAR is starting the campaign for a complete changeover, here and now, to renewables - as a basic prerequisite and central element in a broad movement towards climate stability - if still possible - and the rescue of all other species that have completely innocently come into the crosshairs of our nature-killing, fossil-fuelled economic ideology.
The fact that a major social turnaround is possible is demonstrated by the sudden redirection from the great enemy, the small new virus that has scurried around the globe in no time at all. The regenerative energy decade of change has begun. The viral mobilisation represents a final signal for humanity.
Help us to help you: As members, you make a vital contribution to the success of our work and the preservation of our independence. In this way, we can work in a non-profit and non-partisan manner for a decentralized and socially just energy supply based on 100% renewable energies - and thus for the basis of a future worth living! We would be particularly pleased if you would like to join EUROSOLAR as a European Member.
But even with a one-time donation you will also strengthen our back and help us in our fight for an energy transition that is worthy of its name!