No telling how much money this trait has cost me. It's just the way I'm hard-wired, though.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5910404&forum_id=2#50175366)

His father taught him to arrive ten minutes early, wait for the green pedestrian light even at three in the morning, and never put brown glass into the green-glass container.

By adulthood, Helmut had developed a comforting theory of history: humanity had spent several thousand years making mistakes until the Federal Republic of Germany finally discovered the correct way to organize society.

He inherited his father’s small industrial-components factory near Düsseldorf. Sixty people worked there, producing obscure pieces of machinery that nobody understood but everybody apparently needed.

Then Fukushima happened. Germany accelerated its nuclear phase-out, and Helmut was delighted. “Nuclear belongs to the twentieth century,” he explained to his father over dinner. His father, who had spent forty years running an energy-intensive factory, asked what would replace it.

“Renewables.”

“And when there is no wind?”

“Gas.”

“From whom?”

“Russia.”

His father stared at him. Helmut smiled patiently. The older generation simply did not understand the modern world. Russia would become peaceful through commerce. Wandel durch Handel. Buying enormous quantities of Russian gas while dismantling German nuclear plants was not a contradiction. It was a strategy.

In 2015, Helmut discovered another moral imperative. He put a Refugees Welcome sticker beside the factory entrance and enthusiastically defended Merkel’s decision to admit large numbers of asylum seekers. When people raised questions about integration, housing, security or the political consequences, Helmut disliked the questions more than he worried about the answers. Germany had a responsibility. Responsible people did not ask irresponsible questions.

The years passed. The AfD grew. Arguments over migration became nastier. Municipalities complained about capacity. Helmut concluded that the real problem was insufficient openness. When somebody suggested that policy itself might have contributed to the backlash, Helmut looked genuinely disturbed. The consequences of a morally correct decision could not possibly constitute evidence against the decision. That would be illogical.

Then, in February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. Helmut was appalled. Within weeks, he explained that Germany must end its dependence on Russian energy. Nobody at dinner mentioned that Helmut had spent fifteen years explaining why dependence on Russian energy was actually enlightened interdependence. Helmut certainly did not. That opinion had quietly ceased to exist.

Unfortunately, his factory continued to exist. Its energy bills rose sharply. His accountant began bringing him increasingly unpleasant spreadsheets. German industry, Helmut explained to his employees, now had to become resilient, green and geopolitically responsible. Then Germany shut its final nuclear reactors in 2023.

Eventually the accountant returned with the spreadsheet Helmut had spent three years avoiding. Production in Germany was becoming too expensive. Part of the factory would have to move. Helmut studied several alternatives and finally selected Poland. Costs were lower, industry was welcome, and electricity was available. He preferred not to investigate too carefully how that electricity was generated.

Helmut drove across the border in his electric Mercedes. Behind him, sixty years of his family’s industrial history were being dismantled piece by piece. Helmut parked beside the entrance, plugged in his car and looked approvingly at the little green charging symbol.

Germany, he thought, had once again shown the world how to decarbonize.

https://x.com/d_foubert/status/2107486935199465791?s=20

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5910404&forum_id=2#50175535)