Tadzio Müller Told Us So. With Added Windmills of Shame.

German political scientist, author and climate activist Tadzio Müller is pretty dark. But even he’s having trouble coping with the news. So he’s reading dystopian climate fiction, because it’s less depressing. Most recently, friend-of-the-show Stephen Markley’s The Deluge (despite my correcting him it’s actually a ‘thrutopia’ and according to experts Markley consulted if not a best case scenario then certainly a mid-case).

Markley has been really quite spookily prophetic.

[You can catch up on our chat with Markley here:]

If The Deluge seems a challenging book to get turned into a prestige TV drama over five seasons - personally I think a UK, German, Irish, French or consortium of production houses is a better bet than Hollywood to actually get it made in this environment - then at least RAND Corporation should be throwing a consulting contract at Stephen because it’s like the guy travelled in time and saw the hurricanes, floods, wildfires, and how they perversely drive right-wing-populist backlash that we’re experiencing.

Given the week that’s in it we of course had to talk about the wildfires but also the rise of Alice Weidel and Tadzio decoding her “Windmills of Shame” comment, which to a non-German just sounds like Trump with better writing but to this German sounds a lot more purposeful and sinister.

Yesterday we let you know about the Yale Program of Climate Communication’s report of public opinion here in the UK showing broad (but as Tadzio would argue, shallow) support for climate reality and doing something about it:

Thank God for Englishmen!

Tadzio argues it would be a mistake to ignore the fact that there is a coherent political strategy at work behind those kind of daft-sounding comments that fly in the face of supposedly overwhelming support for climate solutions whether they’re from AfD, Donald Trump, or Nigel Farage. ¹

I should mention that Tadzio has his own book out - available later this spring in English - the rough translation of the title is Between Peaceful Sabotage and Collapse: How I Learned to Love the Future Again. But don’t wait - after you listen or watch this third chat between your friendly neighbourhood neoliberal shill here and this German gay communist being far more articulate in English than the native speaker, subscribe to his “Peaceful Sabotage” newsletter to get a sense. Unlike the grumpier, earnest end of the climate movement, the great thing about Tadzio is that he (despite being as prone to depression as I am) is just so damned funny. But we did our best to keep him honest - despite the fact that when we first spoke a year ago we both made some predictions about 2024. If anything, his dark foreboding low-balled how bad the year would be.

In 2025 I think we’re probably more in sync. And careful listeners will hear him trail “Collapse Camp” - a successor to “climate camp” - which will be apparently a mini-festival at the end of August where you can share bushcraft and other survival tips for coming climate catastrophes while also doing the things festivals are generally known for. We’ll keep you informed.

In this episode²:

00:00 Introduction: Shame and Guilt in Politics

01:02 The Rise of Fascism in Germany

03:12 The Collapse of Societies

08:33 Climate Change and Irrationality

23:20 The Politics of Catastrophe

38:34 A Rainbow Family and Right-Wing Politics

39:12 Facing Fears and Political Solidarity

39:42 FEMA and Fascist Militias

41:39 Redefining Progressive Politics

42:22 Personal Anecdotes and Community Engagement

44:24 The Emotional Labor of Acceptance

47:32 Solidarity and Collective Prepping

49:38 Dystopian Futures and Political Realities

55:00 Enemies and Political Negativity

01:07:56 Looking Forward: Collapse Camp and Future Plans

Up Next

We’ve got so many good episodes coming your way soon. On Solar Geoengineering, on the grid, on algorithms for justice, green computing, on storytelling in this age, and a special guest in the episode coming out this week: Laurent Segalen³, energy trader, investor and host of Redefining Energy. It’s a great chat about a lot but specifically on a project that could do as much to upend geopolitics as to disrupt thinking about how energy markets work.

1. Absolute state of these people:

And this is THE PR PHOTO. These guys saw the state of this crowd and said “yeah that’s the image we want to project”.

2. Apologies for the video quality - I had a laptop malfunction at my end, so we’re using a cloud backup. And at about 42 minutes you’ll see we had a bit of a moment where one my dogs lost her poodle-deranged mind. I left it in because - little known fact - in the Chinese calendar this is actually the Year of the Chaos Raccoon.

3. I know, right?!