[LFG] direct democracy, brexit, populism, sciecne, air traffic

[Stefan Müller]

Dear colleagues, dear friends,

Sorry for writing to you on topic that is not immediately relevant to
linguistics. But it is a matter of life and death, it affects climate
change and hence a large number of people, post factual argumentation
affects us as scientists, our budgets our reputation.

So, here is the problem. Berlin has a referendum next week. The
Berliners are asked whether they want to keep the old airport TXL even
after the new one has opened. This referendum will take place at the
same time as the elections of the German government take place. the
referendum is - in principle - completely pointless since Berlin is only
one of the three partners who decide about the airport (the state
Germany, the country Brandenburg and Berlin). The decisions have to be
unanimous and Germany and Brandenburg are for closing. So the whole
referendum is misused by populists like the party FDP, who initiated the
referendum, and the extreme right wing party AfD.

The airport is in the middle of the city as many of you may know. It was
built during the cold war when West-Berlin was surrounded by the wall.
Like the Hong Kong city airport it is not needed anymore and should be
closed now. The airport is number one airport in Germany as far as noise
emission is concerned (Bundesamt für Statistik). Over 300.000 people are
affected (city of the size of Mannheim). The FDP ignores the right of
health, which is constitutional right in Germany.

They propagate unlimited growth especially for the air industry
(especially low cost airlines like Ryanair, who payed the FDP). They
estimate 60Mio-90Mio passengers (now about 30) and they call the
connection between weather extremes and climate change "fake news". All
of this is very dangerous for everybody on this planet and for us
scientists in particular.

All this is documented in a 75 page paper, that I would like you to
circulate (the URL, not the paper itself):

http://bit.ly/TXL-zu

If you have connections to media, please tell them about the crazy
Berliners. Maybe they want to report about this.

If you are on twitter, please share:
https://twitter.com/TXL_facts/status/907521046689001472

On FB please share (it is a fun challenge for the opponents, fully
documented in my paper):
https://www.facebook.com/255521414619332/photos/a.808539525984182.1073741847.255521414619332/811097762395025/?type=3&theater

Maybe share it with a little comment explaining what is going on.

Thank you for sharing and thank you for not flying.

Tired

	Stefan