Absurd Scenes As Police Clash With Climate Protesters Barricaded In Abandoned German Village

Just when you thought this timeline couldn’t possibly get any dumber.

Patently absurd scenes took place during and after hundreds of police began clearing climate change protesters out of an abandoned village on Wednesday in a showdown over the expansion of an opencast lignite mine that has highlighted tensions around Germany’s climate policy during the country’s ongoing energy crisis.

The protesters formed human chains, made a makeshift barricade out of old containers and chanted “we are here, we are loud, because you are stealing our future” as dumbounded police in helmets moved in. Some threw rocks, bottles and pyrotechnics although nobody is reported to have superglued themselves to something else. According to Reuters, police also reported protesters were lobbing petrol bombs.

The demonstrators, wearing masks, balaclavas or biosuits (and all probably in their mid teens, with purple hair and extremely bored) have been protesting against the Garzweiler mine, run by energy firm RWE in the village of Luetzerath in the brown-coal district of the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Of course, climate activist and patron saint of idiots everywhere, Greta Thunberg, who recently was dethroned as the world’s “green” oracle by the up and coming sex symbol Sophia Kianni, and desperate to once again be in the spotlight plans to join the demonstration on Saturday, a spokesperson for Luetzerathlebt environmentalist group told Reuters. By then, however, it will be too late.

Economy Minister Robert Habeck of the Greens called for no further violence after police and protesters scuffled.

“Leave it at that – from both sides,” he told reporters. but police say the standoff – a true modern-day version of Kent State… well, not really – could take weeks to resolve.

As the officers moved in, some activists perched on the roofs or the windows of the abandoned buildings, chanting and shouting slogans, because that’s what they do; sometimes they also throw tomato soup at precious paintings and superglue themselves to random stuff.

Lutzerath this morning pic.twitter.com/t48S3ytUtZ

— alex thomson (@alextomo) January 10, 2023

Others hung suspended from wires and wooden frames, or were holed up in treehouses to make it harder for police to dislodge them after a court ruling allowed for the demolition of the village now otherwise empty of residents and owned by RWE. Which of course only made the bored, purple-haired teenagers even angrier.

Julia Riedel, who said she has been camping in the village for two-and-a-half years – because jobs are for wimps, not for courageous crusaders against evil companies that deliver electricity – said the demonstrators had taken up their positions “because the issue here is whether the climate will cross the tipping point or not.”

Actually, the issue is that Julia is a spoiled little brat who needs some purpose in her life, which is otherwise a miserable and empty existence, even if that purpose is to make Greta Thunberg’s puppetmaster parents even richer.

Luckily police, who had water cannon trucks on standby, led away and carried some protesters from the site. It’s unclear if Julia was among them.

The project has underscored Germany’s dilemma over climate policy, which environmentalists say has taken a back seat during the energy crisis that has hit Europe after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, forcing a return to dirtier fuels.

It is particularly sensitive for the Greens party, now back in power as part of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition government after 16 years in opposition. Many Greens oppose the mine’s expansion, but Habeck has been the face of the government’s decision.

“The empty settlement of Luetzerath, where no one lives any more, is the wrong symbol in my view,” Habeck said with reference to the demonstration.

#Luetzerath pic.twitter.com/XxM1gQLkxl

— Kristian Frigelj (@Kri_Fri) January 11, 2023

Some disagreed: Birte, a 51-year-old midwife who joined the protest on Sunday, was in tears as police led her away. She said it was important for politically moderate citizens to attend the protest, to show “that these are not just young, crazy, violent people, but that there are people who care”.

As it turns out, it was mostly young, crazy, violent people.

Police have urged the protesters to leave the area and remain peaceful, but since protesters would have to go back to their empty lives devoid of meaning and purpose, they refused.

“It’s a big challenge for the police and we need a lot of special forces here to deal with the situation. We have aerial rescue specialists,” said police spokesperson Andreas Mueller. 

“These are all factors that make it difficult to tell how long this will last. We expect it to continue for a least several weeks.” Of course, once temperatures turn subzero in Europe, the confrontation between will be over in seconds.

Meanwhile, a Reuters eyewitness saw police using heavy machinery to start dismantling high barricades. RWE said earlier on Wednesday it would start to dismantle Luetzerath, and had begun building a fence around the area.

“RWE is appealing to the squatters to observe the rule of law and to end the illegal occupation of buildings, plants and sites belonging to RWE peacefully,” RWE said.

Not lost on any third party observers is just how idiotic the whole scene looks from outside: the fallout of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has prompted Scholz’s government to change course on previous policies for Germany, a country which solemnly pretended to be enamored with the idiocy that is the “green new deal”, so much so that the Greens actually believed their own lies, and so did the people… the same people have now pay the highest price for power and heat since the Weimar republic.

And so, from a symbol of progressive green-isn, Germany has regressed to the dismal era of flourishing fossil fuel, crushing the idealistic hopes and visions of an entire generation of idiots. Among German’s relapses include firing up mothballed coal power plants and extending the lifespan of nuclear power stations after Russia cut gas deliveries to Europe in an energy standoff that sent prices soaring.

Of course, it wouldn’t be Germany if it didn’t demonstrate it has learned absolutely nothing, and as a virtuous offset to its pissing on progressives dreams and ideals, the government has brought forward the date when all brown coal power plants will be shut down in North Rhine-Westphalia, to 2030 from 2038, acceding to a campaign promise from the Greens. In other words, much more idiocy awaits the German virtue signalers.