As an Austrian citizen, what is your perception of Europe? In sports I cheer for Austria. Of course, I could question that but it wouldn’t help much. Recently, I’ve followed a couple of contests in which Europe is playing America and I could observe myself cheering for Europe, whether the contestant is French or Romanian or Austrian I don’t care. It’s interesting to see this European patriotism develop in me and I guess there should be more such competitions if one wants a European identity to grow in people’s hearts. As a geographer, climatologist and scientist, what do you think of Europe’s role in the spectre of the climate crisis? Europe has got CO2 targets for 2050. In all earnest, no one really cares about CO2 molecules. It’s the political, ethical and ideological meaning the molecules carry — are they luxury or poverty emissions, for example. Molecules may be the same chemically, but they have a “social” life. That’s what’s interesting to people and the ethical, political and ideological disagreements finally come to the fore. So, reducing emissions by 90% until 2050 is not a vision people’s hearts are at. Maybe their learned minds, but not their hearts. If politicians
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