
Climate Change or Climate Hoax? Skeptics and Activists
Climate change splits people less along facts than along interests, and this DW documentary tracks that split across two countries. In Germany, activist Anja Windl describes why she glues herself to streets and defaces artwork and private planes with her group The Last Generation, arguing that politicians, business and ordinary citizens in a wealthy, high-emitting country are not doing enough. Thorsten Alsleben, managing director of an industry-funded lobbying group, calls her tactics counterproductive and pushes instead for a carbon tax and free-market solutions, noting Germany produces only about 2 percent of global emissions. Some 9,200 kilometers away in Langsa, on Sumatra's northern coast, the film follows Anto Purnomo, who fells mangrove forests for a living despite knowing they store carbon and protect the coastline, and Taufik Hidayat, who works to stop that deforestation. By pairing German activists and lobbyists with Indonesian loggers and conservationists, the film shows how the same crisis produces radically different daily calculations depending on who has to feed a family and who is arguing policy from an office.