Fridays For Horsepower: German Motorists Challenge Greta’s Bleak Future

Christopher Grau is a self-described “gearhead” and “technician,” but he still has a thing or two to learn about being an influencer.

His performance wasn’t particularly good in his latest video — the picture was shaky and the sound terrible — but that didn’t stop more than 150,000 people from watching his hour-long diatribe against Germany’s current climate protection policy.

Unlike many critics of Germany’s planned tax on CO2 emissions, though, he wasn’t railing against it because he found it halfhearted or weak. He was indignant that any such scheme exists at all.

Grau, a full-time mechanic who mostly repairs Fords, appears in the video as a young man with a receding hairline and a black hoodie. He programs engine software and optimizes exhaust manifolds and cylinders.

Very few people, aside from car tuning enthusiasts, had ever heard of his four-man company, Beast Factory. But all that changed in late September when he posted a short Facebook entry to vent his frustration with all the climate demonstrations.

In it, he fantasized about a Love Parade for Future, which he now says was just a joke, a flippant idea. But his friends from the car scene loved it, and he received countless positive comments.

A friend then created a Facebook group called Fridays for Hubraum (Fridays for Horsepower) and made Grau an administrator. According to the group’s description, they intend to “counter the rampant climate mania with some fun.” And they wrote: “There are more of us.”

“Apparently I struck a nerve,” Grau says on the phone. The response has been overwhelming. The closed Facebook group already boasts more than 540,000 members.

One Slogan Was All It Took

Grau appears to have unintentionally launched a collective movement for concerned motorists — and all it took to unite this new online resistance was a slogan.

Wait, resistance? What exactly are they resisting?

“Paternalism,” they say. Also, the “pretension” and “holier-than-thou terror” embodied by Greta Thunberg and her followers.

Grau’s group is a sign of the growing dismay felt by many German voters. It shows just how polarized German society is over the climate issue.

Walking through central Berlin or another major German city on a Friday, a person could be forgiven for thinking the Germans are all on the same page when it comes to environmental protection.

But while many parents write permission slips for their children to attend the Friday climate protests — where they are joined by teachers, artists, and scientists — another segment of society sees this new protest wave as a direct assault on their way of life.

The comments in the Fridays for Horsepower group — or any other “climate skeptic” online forum — reflect the anger felt toward young people who have taken issue with virtually every aspect of their parents’ generation: how they travel from A to B, what they buy, how they produce goods and services, what they eat and even what they enjoy.

And it’s hard to escape these critics. They can be found online, in the media and on the street. In Hamburg and Munich, owners of SUVs find notes on their vehicles that say things like, “Your car is too big,” or, “Climate change leaves me feeling cold.”

There are also more detailed messages like, “Ever consider taking responsibility for your actions? Or does your ego need such a flashy car?”

To which the recipients of these messages may think, ‘Excuse me? There are people who see the sheer existence of my vehicle as an act of aggression? Aggression is going around and sticking notes on cars!’

At least that’s how many of the motorists who go online to vent their frustrations see it.

Read rest at Spiegel Online