Interview with climate activist Luisa Neubauer

"I had never planned to become a full-time climate activist. I had also never intended to demand political action through school and university strikes."

Luisa Neubauer, 23 years old, is one of the organisers of Fridays for Future and studies Geography in Göttingen. She has been concerned with women's rights, intergenerational justice, climate protection and questions about the future of humanity for many years. In 2017, a year and a half before the Fridays for Future movement emerged, she researched with Alexander Repenning, also a climate activist and engaged in the areas of political participation, global learning and climate policy, for the foundation of the Alternative Nobel Prize. Together they decided to write a book about the climate crisis. In October 2019, "From the End of the Climate Crisis – A Story of Our Future" was published, her very personal story about the greatest crisis of humanity. She is a book author, columnist at Stern, mostly on the move, but also: a student. 

Full-time climate activism, studies as a side matter? In an interview, Luisa spoke with Sprachrohr about reconciling engagement and studies.

Sprachrohr: In "From the End of the Climate Crisis" you write that you became a full-time climate activist last year. After your Bachelor's, you have been enrolled in the Master's programme in Geography in Göttingen since this winter semester. How much time is left for university? 

Luisa Neubauer: I'm still trying to figure that out. Probably not enough, but work in progress! 

Sprachrohr: Would you describe your studies as a side matter right now?

Luisa Neubauer: Probably yes, in terms of how I allocate my time, but for me, studying is also always the way I look at the world, so how it accompanies me intellectually, cognitively. Therefore it is not a side matter, but a very present discipline and I also notice that in the other contexts in which I am involved, I look at the world with a geographical perspective. 

Sprachrohr: Which topic will you choose for your still outstanding Bachelor's thesis? 

Luisa Neubauer: I decided to orient myself towards what is already on Wikipedia, however it got there. It says there that I would write about money, so I thought, I'll just do that and ultimately write about the financing of the climate crisis. 

Sprachrohr: Will you specialise in your Master's? 

Luisa Neubauer: My Master's has only started a couple of weeks ago, I wouldn't count my chickens before they hatch. But in my Master's I will delve deeper into Geography and engage more intensively with resource cycles and natural foundations of life and their use or exploitation, as well as with cultural, social and economic change and their implications for society. But as I said, a couple of weeks into starting my Master's, I'm still very open about where the journey will lead. I think I'm not alone in that. 

Sprachrohr: You couldn't attend your first seminar this semester because you were invited as a guest on Markus Lanz. How accommodating are lecturers regarding your extracurricular engagement and your role as a student? 

Luisa Neubauer: Oh, interesting! A couple of weeks into the semester they are still remarkably accommodating, but I'm curious whether that will change. And I have the expectation of myself to implement this degree as seriously and ambitiously as possible, as reliably as possible, to give it priority. Precisely because I find it so important to engage with these big questions in an academic context and to question myself and my motivations again and again and to ask myself questions that I wouldn't otherwise ask myself.

Sprachrohr: How does it feel, after long train journeys, demonstrations and television appearances, to sit with fellow students in the seminar room?

Luisa Neubauer: Surreal, because I also remember times when I stumbled into such seminars half-asleep, hungover, tired or bored and sat next to my fellow students and we all knew how we were feeling. Now I know that I can sit there because I've felt like I've rescheduled appointments for a week and so many people were involved that this appointment could happen for me, and there are moments when I cancel podiums, when I cancel events, when I don't attend conferences, in order to sit in my Master's seminar. That's quite strange. At the same time, I think I chose the Master's and it's also nice to know that I'm still a bit of a student, even if it's not always easy. In a quite absurd way, it feels quite differently privileged, because I know it's not a given for me that I can sit there, because I also have other responsibilities and I want to and must do justice to them. 

Sprachrohr: On social media, you now fight against hate comments as a public figure. What kind of reactions do you encounter from other students on campus? 

Luisa Neubauer: Most are really cool. It's surprisingly uncomplicated and not much of an issue, and I'm incredibly grateful for that. There are moments where it's strange, of course. That people know me and I don't know them, but there are also lots of moments where we're all just Master's students right now and stressed about submissions, annoyed or happy about the lecturer, and we're all somehow equal and okay with that. That's really nice.

Sprachrohr: When you were a guest on 3nach9 in August, you regretted on Instagram having left behind an almost full litre of beer. Do you still find time in Göttingen to go out for a beer with friends?

Luisa Neubauer: (laughs) Yes, that's right, that was tragic. Yes! Yes, absolutely. It's not like it used to be, it's all a bit less carefree. There were times when I could – as it is as a student – you can have a beer at any time of day or night and you always find a reason and you always find friends who'll join in and in the end everything's okay. Now I have to put it in my calendar if I want to do that. People then know where I am and I have to cancel other things for it. It's a much more conscious decision and that makes it a bit lame sometimes. 

Sprachrohr: In your book you describe a scene where you sit at your desk at night, in front of you a stack of books by clever people. You read how scientists over the last 30 years presented numbers, data and facts about human-made, anthropogenic climate change at conferences and yet nothing changed radically. What responsibility do you see in research and teaching at universities? 

Luisa Neubauer: I see a multidimensional responsibility there. It starts with who researches what. It's never coincidental. And always also a strategic question. A question of responsibility. Which content is given which capacities and who can have a say in it, participate in it. And then it continues with how research is communicated, how knowledge dissemination happens. How much can this knowledge actually leave the university, how much are people included. In my view, science, the creation of knowledge, is not an end in itself. But my impression is also that it is forgotten that it is not an end in itself, but serves a greater enlightenment. That also means that science always has a public task and always also a sociopolitical one. In my eyes, classical scientific institutions don't really live up to that. Especially at the present time, when it has never been more important to communicate clearly what is happening, for example in the context of the climate crisis, I ask myself, where are the scientists who are called upon. We say unite behind the science, where is the science behind which one could unite?

Sprachrohr: Why did scientists, for example Scientists for Future but also everyone else who had the knowledge, at best become allies of FFF, but not long before you become initiators of demonstrations on your scale? 

Luisa Neubauer: It's easy to generalise, but if we talk about "science" now, I think it was very uncertain for a long time about what it actually wanted to be. What it wanted to stand up for and commit to. It was a great process of discovery, which also moved a bit into the void. With an implicit urge to know that something more should actually happen, but without an explicit call. And that only came with the impulses that were given. 

Sprachrohr: In the book you mention that in German and global public discourse, people present geophysical facts as a matter of opinion. What would you advise students who find themselves in discussions with climate change deniers within the university? 

Luisa Neubauer: For people who question the consensus of more than 97% of publishing peer reviews on the climate crisis, I would ask with what understanding they are in scientific institutions if they obviously don't have the capacity to accept scientific truths and findings as such, even if they may not fit their worldview. The problem is much less the climate change deniers than those who downplay the severity. That's a very dangerous form of climate change denial. To say, yes it's there, but it's not so bad, we still have years. And that's where it gets dangerous. It implies a relativisation that one can acknowledge. That's socially acceptable, politically acceptable, that's open to criticism. That's what's represented in the Bundestag. And those are the ones you have to expose (…) and even if you can't change these people's minds, there's always the audience that's part of it and that needs to be made aware of it. 

Sprachrohr: If you had to formulate the content of your book in an appeal to students, what would it be? 

Luisa Neubauer: Learn about possibilism. Understand what situation we're in. Organise yourselves! Come together and realise that this future you've been dreaming of for so long is possible if you shape it yourselves. And ideally, read the whole book. (laughs)

Sarah Schmittinger