Money is the answer, hear me out on this…

I’m a capitalist, and I think we need higher taxes. OK, now that I’ve offended both the left and right, let’s get into it.

Where I live, this year, in March, the high was 33 °C (81 °F). In May, we had a night with frost and icicles forming on my balcony. June went up to 38 °C (100 °F).And today, on July 8, it’s 13 °C (55 °F) at noon.

You know, the temperature median for this region when I was a child, about 20 years ago, used to be around 20 °C (68 °F) in Spring and went up to 30 °C (86 °F) with a few hotter days every now and then. Sure, we had heatwaves going up to around 40 °C (104 °F), but those were the exception, not the norm.

I think we can stop pretending the climate is fine. It is not. Farmers are reporting major problems growing food in areas that used to be very fertile. There are regular droughts interrupting shipping on rivers in Europe. There are almost annual floods in areas that used to get them every 10 to 100 years.

Just moaning and complaining won’t cut it, so what should we do?

Cleaning up the mess we’ve made of our planet’s climate within the last two centuries will probably take about one millennium—if we stop polluting within a decade or two. Getting our act together now, will not benefit us much, but mostly future generations. Given those time spans, It’s absolutely understandable that many feel there is nothing they can do, and even that some people have decided not to care and just enjoy their life. In Germany, we have a derogatory proverb to describe those people: “Let the deluge come when I’m gone.” (German: “Nach mir die Sintflut.”).

But, as a species, we are capable of working on timescales larger than quarterly earnings reports, election cycles, or even our lifespan. And to solve the climate crisis, we must do so or die.

The worst polluters are the super-rich and large corporations. We’ve known this for decades, and we know what to do about it: make them pay taxes. It’s just that increasing taxes is unpopular, even when those taxes are designed to only impact people with more than a billion in their bank accounts—which is absurd! Why those making 100 € an hour keep insisting those making 10 € an hour are the problem, and not those making 1,000 € an hour, is baffling! Nobody wants your measly couple of thousand a year in taxes.

It’s a special kind of self-absorbedness to think your 100,000 € annual income is even worth mentioning in this context, you poor pretend-rich peasant. You don’t even own a permanently staffed yacht with a helicopter landing pad for easy access. You’re not worth the trouble, we need to tax the rich, not you.

If you live in Germany, and only if you do, you should sign this petition to do exactly that before August 11, 2025. If you live elsewhere, try to get something like this on the political agenda. It's not just about stopping the accumulation of money in places where it harms the working class, it will positively impact the climate as well.

I am convinced that given the right incentives in the form of taxes and subsidies, capitalism can soften the blow from the already happening and inevitable-to-get-worse climate crisis. I am certain the current structure of taxes and subsidies is making things worse. And the problem is not a lack of political and economical tools, it’s political will. And political will is fuelled by mostly two things: Pressure from the people, and the deep pockets of the super-rich, lobbying and donating.

Taxing the super-rich attacks this issue while providing the funds required for climate action—and other luxuries like, you know, education, roads, safe drinking water, public libraries, etc.