Auto-posing and monster storm: What is the Earthling doing in Erding?

What contrasts: Just a moment ago, the thunder from the exhausts of souped-up, but also standard sports cars with stars, propellers, and rings in the grille, now the thunder from the sky. And how: Almost it throws the weather-resistant author off his bike saddle, the storm strikes so violently and suddenly, it does not stop even before the Bavarian state capital Munich. Arm-thick branches snap ominously and break like matchsticks from the sturdy trees along the Isar bike path. In no time, the popular bike route is devastated and hardly passable. A chestnut tree as thick as an arm span on the bike path rips a piece of tarmac with it and falls diagonally onto the asphalt strip, lying there the next day like a stranded whale. What is so frightening is, on the one hand, the intensity, and on the other, the suddenness with which the storm broke out. A few minutes later the gusts calm down - and the briefly genuinely "apocalyptic atmosphere" turns into a "normal" summer thunderstorm, which unfortunately brought far too little rain with it. Whatever.

A good hour earlier, the scene in a popular pizzeria on Langen Zeile in the actually quite idyllic and historic city center of Erding. The city name fits perfectly in this case: Because here one is grounded again that the climate crisis does not seem to arrive at all in some circles and minds. On the contrary. You have to be careful not to remain in your "bubble" of scientific and fact-based sobriety.

This is a different bubble, more of a "babbling bubble": Rows of lowered and high-powered sports cars circle around the block, passing the author who of course arrived by bike, supplying him with not just Olio di Olive but also Olio di Petrolio for the pizza. Spontaneous, naturally absurd thought: Why isn't this pretty old town long closed to car traffic? There will be reasons.

Perhaps also resistances from those who here - it is really exclusively men, mostly younger, in really exclusively BMW, Mercedes, and Audi - make their rumbling mischief and likewise celebrate a (certainly not last) fossil after-work party, which in turn contributes to global warming and eventually to the storm that will soon befall the author. Or better said, to the storm that might be even more severe in 20 years. Because, of course, the climate is an extremely sluggish system - and what is served today as "weather" are the CO2 emissions from decades ago.

All the more important, then, to stop it immediately, as the highly esteemed Spiegel columnist and incorrigible "rationalist" Christian Stöcker once put it, "constantly burning fossil stuff," whether in heaters, power plants, or automobiles. But as it is presented in Erding, this is not to be expected anytime soon. And as long as this in the true sense "fossil circling" is not "socially ostracized" or simply banned, it won't be.

What, it's already banned?! These respective violations have been punishable by fines of up to 100 euros in Germany since April 28, 2020, according to Wikipedia on the topic of "car posing." Only, what good are laws if the very lenient law enforcers in Bavaria do not really enforce them - and tolerate the posing as in Erding.