The 39th Anniversary of the Chernobyl Catastrophe in a World Blind to Environmental Concerns

Unfortunately, I am getting a bit angry at society at large during these last months. Sure, there were many larger and smaller political issues that demanded time and attention from everyone. Lest we forget that there is a brutal war going on in Ukraine, Palestine, Yemen, and unfortunately many other parts of this world. But have most people seriously gone nuts over tariffs on Bourbon, peanut butter, Harley-Davidsons, cars, iPhones, and what not? Don’t get me wrong – what Trump is doing to the US looks to me from the outside like Fascism in spé, and the other dictators in the world never disappoint if we need more uplifting topics to talk about over lunch.

But have you – like most of the mainstream media in the so-called Western World – forgotten the ongoing climate crisis amidst the relentless claims that refugees and migrants would ostensibly be the rootcourse of all the problems caused by capitalism? On 15 April the World Meteorological Organization proclaimed that 2024 was the warmest year in Europe ever recorded:

“Europe is the fastest-warming continent, and the impacts of climate change here are clear. 2024 was the warmest year on record for Europe, with record temperatures in central, eastern and southeastern regions. Storms were often severe and flooding widespread, claiming at least 335 lives and affecting an estimated 413,000 people. During the year, there was a striking east-west contrast in climate conditions, with extremely dry and often record-warm conditions in the east, and warm but wet conditions in the west.” (World Meteorological Organization, 15 April 2025).

Oh, and three days later a “Deadly storm” (Deutsche Welle, 18 April 2025) hit Italy, Switzerland and France, causing floods, destruction, electricity outages, and suffering. But sure, to quote the media’s new favourite US-American President, “They never talk about the environment anymore. You know why? […] It’s one of the great scams of all time.” (Friends of the Earth, 12 July 2018). I wonder what the people of New Orleans think about such statements. But – unfortunately – Trump is right in one thing: the climate movement has become quieter, as resources dwindle, activists are under repression and stress (think about the lawsuit against Greenpeace in the US), and the overall bombardment of the media fills everyone with dreadful images of war and immediate threat by our neighbours. Out of the playbook of Gustave Le Bon’s “Psychology of the Masses“.

Well, the legacy of Chernobyl refocusses our attention back to the state of the environment and what we as humans are doing to everything living on this earth. With ever greater ingenuity we are inventing new ways to kill each other, to control the movement of people, to collect humanity’s data, to make rich people richer and the poor even poorer. All with great success. And yet, we fail miserably in containing the problems caused by ONE wicked nuclear reactor out of the roughly 450 active ones in the world that exploded. By the way, if someone has still not gotten the memo: nuclear energy does not help in trying to mitigate the consequences of human-made climate change. While it takes too long to build and is too expensive, it simply poisons us and the plants and animals we are living from.

As news like the drone strike on the Chernobyl sarcophagus on 14 February 2025, which caused a hole in precisely that shelter that is supposed to protect Europe from the still radiating remains of Chernobyl-4, came in, it seems most people were simply more concerned, whether the prices for a new iPhone (who needs a new iPhone anyway?) will go up because of Trump’s erratic trade policies. In the meantime – and people who read my texts know that I have a critical attitude towards the nuclear industry – heroic workers at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant are trying to repair the damage done by the horrible war taking place. Surely, a Bundeswehr bolstered with billions and billions of euros to ostensibly protect Germany against foreign threats has come to the aid of wartorn Ukraine in repairing the structure, wouldn’t they? I was waiting for a news story announcing that. Maybe it has slipped my attention, but I guess they have rather spent the money on US-American weaponry.

So, while the great mass extinction is going on all around us for everyone with eyes to see, most people I know are rather busy with following the next nuisance the powerful people of this world are coming up with to keep everyone busy and to keep the dollar, the euro, the rouble, the yuan, the yen, and whatnot rolling into the right pockets. Sorry, I am frustrated and I hope, that in this regard, you are, too.

If anything, Trump and Co did succeed in flooding the media with their agenda, keeping everyone busy like headless chicken. In the meantime, we are destroying the foundation of the world sustaining our lives. Please, stop worrying so much about iPhones, Teslas, the biographies of mega-capitalists, and other useless stuff. Instead try to help your local community, your local forest, and the few wild animals left around us. Shop sustainably – or better do not shop at all. Since we are talking about Chernobyl here, go ahead and get your electricity from truly sustainable sources and support companies that work to get rid of the nuclear in the mix. Maybe go and get your own solar panel this summer. Make a choice!

The legacy of Chernobyl demands that from us.