From adventurer to polar explorer: Arved Fuchs about fear, climate activists who harm their cause, and what he wants from the Minister of Transport for his 70th birthday.
He crossed Greenland on a dog sled, lived with the Inuit, circumnavigated Cape Horn in a folding kayak and hiked to the North and South Poles within a year. Arved Fuchs has been traveling to the most remote regions of the world for more than 40 years and has experienced man-made changes in the climate more directly than few others. Next week he will be 70 years old, in June he will set off on his next expedition.
t-online: Mr Fuchs, when was the last time you were really scared?
Arved Fuchs: Ui. I can’t say. There are always dangerous situations on my expeditions, it can be a heavy storm at sea or the thin, brittle ice. But fear is not a central theme for me. It is part of it because it shakes people up to be able to cope better with certain crisis situations. Just don’t panic.
Is the “last generation” reacting to the climate crisis with panic?
I can understand the desperation of young people, and I find it perfidious when they are put in the corner with terrorists. Nevertheless, I think it’s wrong what the “last generation” is doing.
Because she divides society with her sticking actions. We need the opposite: the solidarity of all social forces.
How can it be reached?
By taking people with us emotionally and showing them that we have no other alternative than to rely fully on renewable energy, for example – even if I don’t think the wind turbines in my area are nice. That’s where I see my task: to translate science in a clear way, to show what we destroy and lose if we carry on like this and what the consequences are for everyone. Images have to form in people’s minds. This is the only way we can reach people, not with a moral finger raised.
adventurers and explorers
Born in Bad Bramstedt in 1953, Arved Fuchs initially trained with the merchant marine, studied ship operation technology and in 1977 started his first expedition to the Arctic. This is followed by journeys through Greenland, in winter in a collapsible boat around Cape Horn, to Tierra del Fuego, Borneo and again and again to the Arctic Ocean. In 1989 Fuchs reached the South Pole together with the mountaineer Reinhold Messner and was the first person to hike to both poles in one year. For years he has been collecting data for research institutes on his travels.
The activists of the “Last Generation” say: This has been tried for too long. We don’t have time for that anymore.
I understand your impatience. And yes, they must be noisy and uncomfortable. But when they turn entire sections of the population against themselves, they achieve the opposite and damage the cause. Take Greta Thunberg and Fridays for Future, they did a lot more than the “last generation”.
Hardly anyone talks about them anymore.
It may be that the school strikes have worn off. The movement needs to change and is already changing. Many get involved in the public debate and judge politicians by what they have promised. To this day I don’t understand why the FDP is blocking a speed limit that has been proven to save an enormous amount of CO2 quickly? That’s exactly where they should start and keep annoying. This would also be accepted by the general public.
What do you think of the “last generation’s” call for a “social council” to draw up climate laws that the government then has to push through in parliament? It is a body composed of citizens who are selected by drawing lots.
That would be parallel politics. Why do we have elections? We have to exercise political influence within the framework of the existing order. It is good that young people, many of whom have been apolitical for a long time, are finally waking up and realizing that the big word intergenerational justice has so far been an empty phrase that needs to be filled with life. But it must be clear to everyone that the tasks ahead of us cannot be mastered overnight and must be borne by a broader society. To do this, we have to make people resonate so that they recognize the need. This is the great challenge we all face.
You try to do this by showing the beauty of these endangered places in your lectures and books. Don’t you also feed the longing to travel there and promote tourism, which also endangers these areas?
I definitely put on the shoe to awaken the longing for these places. But it would be wrong to ban people from traveling there. Anyone who recognizes the value of these landscapes is a multiplier for their preservation. You should only travel there sustainably. My crew and I don’t look through the air-conditioned cabin of a cruise ship. We’re standing outside on deck at minus 40 degrees in a storm. It’s about this direct experience of nature and not about consuming nature. I resist the latter. I condemn mass tourism and those monstrous cruise ships that go to regions where they don’t belong. What I do is lobby for the preservation of these unique landscapes.
