It is 5 to 12

It is five minutes to twelve – the clock is ticking, the second hand running ever faster – it will soon be time… we all know the game. That pressing sense of time rushing by – a stream we can never stop, which always seems to flow faster and faster. Like the ever-hurried rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, we try desperately to keep pace.

Whether you are just watching the final minutes of the nerve-wracking 24 finale and Kiefer Sutherland narrowly escapes death, you have been putting off studying for the exam for weeks and now have to pull an all-nighter before the test, fuelled by three Red Bulls, or you still have no Christmas present for Grandma on 23.12. – the feeling is always the same.

A sheer panic, a time pressure against which we feel small and powerless. In exactly this moment we are then most angry with ourselves – if only I had started studying earlier! Why didn't I simply sort out the presents weeks ago? If only I had got up earlier, I wouldn't have missed the train!

If only, if only.

As nerve-wracking as this old German saying is, it is unfortunately usually just as apt. Even more frustrating, however, is when we are under time pressure that is not our own fault, but has been imposed on us through the actions – or inactions – of others. This frustration multiplies in situations where a third party has made conscious decisions with the knowledge or sheer ignorance of how these decisions will create stress for others in the future. A very complicated thought experiment, I know; my brain is already smoking from formulating this sentence.

All the more important, then, is that we tear apart this concept. Because we as the world's population are today the victims of exactly such an unjust power structure. We as the victims of human-caused climate change.

Looking at the different camps of the climate change spectrum, we quickly recognise three groups: climate deniers, doomsday thinkers and highly motivated climate activists. These insult each other across the chasm that constantly grows between them – in eternal search for the ultimate climate culprit. Particularly alarming are the representatives of doomsday mentality.

They have given up in the race against time and completely lost hope that we as humans can still avert our downfall through seemingly unstoppable global warming. How deeply this thought is now anchored in society becomes clear in the dissolution of the Austrian climate activist group Letzte Generation in August 2024. In their final press statement it says: "We see no prospect for success anymore."

For them, the matter is settled, they seemingly take their place in a daze and now want to be inactive spectators and let time run out until the last grain of sand has fallen through the hourglass. And although I am a convinced environmental activist and advocate, I can understand the frustration that has led them to this behaviour. A feeling of injustice that we as a generation now have to clean up the mess. The threatening time pressure of climate change as a constant companion. A tension born from unnatural phenomena that our predecessors produced.

Why does this task fall to us? Why didn't THEY take care of it back then? And so we are back to the topic of if only.

Even though this clever saying warns against it, I would now like to work myself into a rage with fictional scenarios and wishful thinking: I was shocked to discover during my research for this article that the first scientist, a Briton named Guy Callendar, who wanted to draw attention to the little problem of global warming, published his discoveries and his hypothesis of industrial CO₂ emissions as the cause back in 1938.

1938!!

Had people listened to him then instead of laughing at him, we could have been working on solutions to combat climate change for 86 years now and could have prevented much human and natural suffering through the brutal consequences of the change.

Let us look at the next environmental science breakthrough in history – the creation of the Keeling Curve. This is the brainchild of geochemist Charles David Keeling, who in 1958, after five years of intensive data collection, evaluation and calculations, created a curve which on the one hand modelled the relationship between the burning of fossil fuels and the CO₂ content of the atmosphere and on the other hand predicted the rapid increase in this concentration over the next 60 years – should nothing change in our behaviour regarding these energy resources.

I say it again – this curve was created in 1958 and backed up with scientific datasets. Had people responded appropriately to this information, we would now have solution approaches from 66 years of innovation to rely on. But no – a large part of the population dismissed these findings or simply ignored them.

Let us travel a bit further in time – in 1967 the first scientifically proven computer model of global climate by researchers Syukuro Manabe and Richard Wetherald was created. This predicts that a doubling of CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere could raise global temperature by 2 degrees.

That was thus a full 57 years ago. And yet there are still people, important, influential people with world-changing political power, who refuse to acknowledge the link between our greenhouse gas emissions and global warming.

Absolutely absurd, especially given the fact that we now get to experience the consequences of this seemingly unstoppable warming first-hand. One is left wondering whether one could indeed have prevented some of these catastrophic consequences had one only implemented strict environmental protection measures on a large scale 57 years ago.

Would the coral reefs still shimmer in their former splendour under water? Would entire coastal cities not have had to be wiped out by violent hurricanes? Could Venezuela still have glaciers? Could we have protected communities that have now lost all their possessions through floods and landslides? We all know that these constant fake scenarios are absolutely not good for our mental health, and yet such a rant can sometimes be extremely liberating.

Hot tip on the side: when the measure is once again absolutely full, whether due to eco-anxiety or other time stress, a fervent, powerful scream out of the open window is extremely recommended and liberating – even if the neighbours then briefly think you are being stabbed.

Despite all this, we must let the past be the past and focus on the here and now. Only if we do this can we ensure that there is still a future for us and our planet at all. So let us please collectively learn from the mistakes of our predecessors and GET TO WORK RIGHT NOW. No more hiding from hard facts or eternal procrastination – we must act today!

Fortunately, there is now a huge range of climate role models who show us how we, regardless of which area of society we are in, can actively become part of the solution. In coastal regions of Bangladesh, where rising seas threaten existence, floating gardens and resilient farming methods defy the advancing waters and secure livelihoods there despite critical circumstances.

In China's urban conurbations, so-called Sponge Cities are emerging as testimonies to sustainable urban planning that cushions both flooding and droughts. Worldwide, innovative dam projects in endangered coastal regions protect communities from rising sea levels. These examples clearly show that anyone, no matter who, no matter where in the world, can now immediately become part of the climate solution – so that our descendants do not suffer even more time pressure.

Or worse still, time might actually run out.

So it would be wonderful to know that our descendants will not look back on us in anger, with a grudge about our inability to act. How fabulous it would be if future generations could report with pride about our sustainable drive to act, grateful that we finally got going and grew beyond our transience.

Each and every one of us can thus become Kiefer Sutherland and in the final minutes of the season finale, when the cruel end seems unstoppable and draws ever closer, become a hero.

But the clock is ticking – it is five minutes to twelve.