If only everything were as clear as in Pick from the Petteflet† Fascinated, I followed the films with the denouement in the Sterrebos near Born this week. This was the Torteltuin all over again† Bulldozing trees and animals for a car factory. One activist had climbed into the top of the highest oak tree, which the villains could not reach. Until two cops in the tray of a larger aerial platform approached him slowly. Friendly one shouted up: “This is asking a lot of the organization…!”
Humor to de-escalate. That clashes with the laws of drama. Mistake, violence, climax. But just as tears are no proof of the quality of a film, daring spectacle does not automatically mean that the activists are also morally right.
Two nature foundations had agreed to the extra nature compensation by NedCar and withdrew their objection procedure. Extra green compensation, noise barriers, natural wall, fruit trees, beehives. School children build insect hotels from the felled wood.
At the same time, Greenpeace was pouring sweet soy sauce on a tree at the Amersfoort headquarters of Staatsbosbeheer. The Dirty Election had won a commercial about their collaboration with Shell: ‘Together we plant trees.’
You can react cynically or naively to this. Of course Shell and NedCar are not green darlings. Under a perfect government, there had not been extreme cutbacks on Staatsbosbeheer for ten years, did not have to knock on the door of the business community, a great plan had been developed to design our country in an environmentally inclusive way, the Climate Goals had actually been achieved, without that 16 percent to increased CO2emissions of biomass, and we skipped laughing and barefoot through the fields full of flowering hasselberries.
Under our slightly less perfect government, companies and environmentalists then make a compromise themselves.
We can naively embrace all greenwashing, or cynically reject any offer of assistance. Nature has little of both. With only those inflexible tree climbers, the Sterrebos would also have been cut down, but then without beehives, without extra millions for nature, without the cooperation that is now taking place between local residents, companies and nature foundations.
Sometimes I fear that many of my generation have stuck in the simplistic world view of Pluk en Children for children. Every tree, every animal is vulnerable and absolutely sacred. Any commercial party is Gargamel, Cruella, Mrs. Helderder.
Cynicism and naivety are both black and white thinking. Both block the way out. Somewhere in the spectrum between the two is an area that could well be fertile. It’s called healthy pragmatism. It’s a mini-grove of a few hectares, but maybe we should learn to cherish it as the actual Torteltuin for a not ideal but a little greener, a little more achievable future.
Christian Weijts writes a column every Friday in this place.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of February 11, 2022