One faction is calling for heating and air conditioning to be turned off in meeting rooms so councilors can “feel first hand the consequences of their actions”. But the OB refuses.
“If you don’t want to hear, you have to feel”: This is a pedagogical concept that has been tried and tested for centuries. It is based on the realization that it is always better to learn something through experience than just through theoretical explanation. So if the child doesn’t want to believe that an oven is hot, then responsible parents let it touch the switched-on stovetop so that it cleverly burns its little fingers – a lesson for life.
The parliamentary group consisting of the ÖDP and the Munich List in the city council now had an idea of how the sensitivity to the climate problem could be increased among the people’s representatives in the city hall: by switching off the air conditioning and heating in the meeting rooms in order to “save valuable energy and to let the city councilors feel the consequences of their actions up close”. Because: “The decisions of the Munich City Council are always made in well-tempered meeting rooms, even in extreme weather conditions.”
That’s probably the reason why nothing is progressing on climate protection. If the city councilors really sweated during the summer session and had to debate shivering in gloves and scarves in the winter, then the debates would be shorter and the resolutions would be more consistent.
The application dates from July of this year, when temperatures of more than 30 degrees were reliably measured. Unfortunately, it took until the foggy autumn until the mayor answered: Dieter Reiter said that he could not comply with the project – but not with regard to the health and well-being of the city councillors, but to the furnishings and works of art in the halls.
If the air conditioning is switched off, the humidity can no longer be regulated. And then, if the humidity was too high, the Piloty painting in the large boardroom would begin to mold. However, if the air lacks the necessary moisture, the wood carvings, paneling and ceilings would crumble within a very short time. So once again nothing will happen with climate protection in Munich – only in the town hall, there is the best climate there, as it has been for times and still.