On Friday, the supporters of Fridays for Future want to demonstrate again all over the country, they also meet in downtown Mainz.

Luisa Neubauer, head of the climate protection movement in Germany, had announced the climate strikes: The flood disasters had once again made it brutally clear that the time was urgent to finally do more to save the climate.

This is how Neubauer and her mostly young colleagues justify the new calls for protest.

For this they are now being harshly criticized: Fridays for Future is instrumentalizing the crisis and taking advantage of current suffering to conduct politics, it is said on social media.

Instead of marching through the cities protesting with colorful posters, the activists in the crisis regions should rather lend a hand and better help those who have lost their belongings and maybe even relatives and friends.

But this criticism is wrong for several reasons.

Firstly, the professional rescuers have pointed out often enough in the past few days that it is of little help and even dangerous when citizens who are willing to help move to the crisis regions now.

Activists have been warning for years

Second, the activists cannot be accused of lacking empathy for those affected: in recent days they have often called for donations for those in need. Above all, however, the accusation that Fridays for Future slaughtered the disaster that hit the country in tidal waves for their own agenda is misleading. For years the activists have been warning of such catastrophes as they have now occurred. With their protest, they don't jump on a suddenly appearing train. On the contrary: the young climate protectors are characterized by tirelessness and thus staying power.

In the end, however, the movement had become quieter. That was due to Corona, but also because the activists neglected their core competence. Instead of focusing on the climate issue, the demos focused on other injustices: racism, for example, ongoing discrimination against women and homosexuals, social problems. The climate activists also suffered from the fact that they increasingly sought to join forces with radical leftists, and that they did not distance themselves from forest occupiers who were willing to use violence, for example. The flood disaster, which now so vividly demonstrates the need to overcome any hesitation when it comes to climate protection, is therefore an opportunity for Fridays for Future to start again. The difficulties pointed out by young peoplewill not get any smaller in the years to come.