In the 1960ies, the following beautiful slogan was quite popular:
Imagine someone declares war and nobody goes there!
We found this an interesting mental concept.
Now let us imagine there is war and airplanes with deathly cargo – conventional or nuclear – are to start. And then a volcano breaks out and stops the deathly weapons from being launched. History would call this a fortunate stroke of luck.
Now a volcano erupted and fortunately we are not involved in any major war. There is just a small war. Getting the supplies there will probably get a little harder. Air-traffic is restricted. The restrictions might well not have been necessary, but – as always – we have an extremely over-developed awareness of safety.
And we start understanding that even a long flight pause will certainly not be the end of the world. And that we are probably far too often away from home, both in our private and business lives.
But let us assume the restrictions for airplanes are really necessary and are kept up for a longer period of time.
What would happen?
The economy would once again be really uprooted. Well, we are used to that, aren’t we? Except this time it would not be the banks that are most concerned, but instead the airlines and the tourist sector. But nominally spoken, the damage would not be all that grave – at least compared with what we experienced with the banks. A few billion Euros would suffice to get back to normal in no time.
Some business trips that never made sense anyway, too, would be cancelled. The vacation abroad would be replaced by a vacation closer to home. Thus, other business sectors would benefit.
The climate and consequently our planet Earth could recuperate a little. And the term globalization would have to be re-defined. We would have to forego cherries from South-Africa. But most of the challenges we would face would be solvable through the internet.
Otherwise, the question what consequences a long-term volcano eruption might have is quite interesting. Some cooling? Less sunshine? Or nothing at all.
But what about politics?
All of a sudden, politicians demand that the ban of night-flights should be reversed as soon as we are back to normal air traffic. Our Minister Ramsauer wants to see a plane up in the air to take measurements of actual emissions. But Mister Ramsauer said a lot recently. He is both opposed to Lorries overtaking each other and in favour of letting old traffic signs remain legitimate. He also said that he wants to give the communal administrations a few hundred million Euros so they can mend all the potholes on the federal highways.
He never said that car traffic in Germany is subsidized to the tune of 50 billion Euros. Nor did he say that it would have been quite easy to put a higher tax rate on fuel, instead of introducing tolls.
And since the situation in Afghanistan simultaneously gets more and more complex – as was easily foreseeable – there is a wide-spread warning by “politics” against starting a discussion about whether or not our mandate in Afghanistan makes any sense.
And I am sure we would manage to get all those people who ended up far from home back quite easily. Angela Merkel, too, will soon be back in Berlin with her entire entourage. After all, she is on her way home after – together with President Obama – saving the world from nuclear weapons in terrorist hands.
RMD
(Translated by EG)
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