Right-Wing Populism

No, I don't want to write about POTUS here, but rather about the co-chair of "The Alternative for Germany" (AfD).

Wulf Schmiese holds his head so it won't shake (©Fabian Weiss/ZDF/dpa)

During the summer slump, Germany's Second Television (ZDF) interviews leading politicians from all parties about their views on the state of the nation. Alice Weidel of the AfD was among them.

I watched the summer interview and was simply appalled by how it unfolded. Wulf Schmiese, renowned ZDF Berlin correspondent - fully aware that one cannot get away with challenging Alice with provocative questions - had deliberately phrased his queries factually.

"Ms. Weidel, what is your stance on climate change?"

Alice didn't give an answer, but simply emphasized the AfD position: "Climate change has always existed. All this fuss about climate protection makes everything expensive and takes money out of people's pockets. It has to go."


"How does the AfD intend to halt the decline of the automotive industry and strengthen Germany as an industrial hub?"

Instead of an answer, Alice launched a vitriolic tirade against the euro: "The euro is a weak currency. What has it accomplished? It has impoverished the population and led to job losses."


Then Schmiese confronted Weidel with one of her earlier statements: "All Syrian refugees in Germany must have their protected status revoked. They must remigrate. If they do not return to their homeland voluntarily, then they must be deported."

When Schmiese mentioned the lack of readmission agreements with Syria and Afghanistan and thus the de facto impossibility of repatriation, Alice unleashed another tirade against him and the viewers:

"The federal government has enabled unchecked illegal immigration. This has thrown Germany's internal security into disarray. Knife attacks and mass rapes are commonplace. Women and girls no longer leave their homes."

Schmiese returned to his question: "But what about an orderly repatriation?"

There was no answer; instead: "Listen, Mr. Schmiedel, it all starts with prevention. We're closing the borders; we're pulling out of the Schengen Agreement. 1.3 million Syrians will be deported."

And Alice continued, "The people are being systematically lied to by the governing CDU and SPD, and I, too, don't want to be lied to anymore by some Flachzangen (dimwits) up there."


This interview is a lesson in populism. Populists sell complexity as a scam and celebrate simplicity as the solution.

For populists, there's always someone to blame - incompetent scientists, a broken currency, a missing border protection - and all it takes is the stroke of a pen for everything to be fixed.

A classic example is Brexit, which was celebrated as the British people's liberation from the European yoke. Ten years later, it is proving to be a historic mistake. The United Kingdom's gross domestic product is low, investment is lacking, and productivity is suffering. The British were promised sovereignty and a return to their former glory; what they got was bureaucracy and frustration.

Presently, America - and with it, the world* - are suffering from a senseless war that shows no signs of ending (Iran) and from a global economy that is falling into disrepair (tariffs).
*We Europeans, in addition, are suffering from Putin's inhumane war in Ukraine

Note: Aggression is no substitute for competence; anger is not a strategy; and noise does not equate to leadership.

Experience shows (Hungary): Those who give power to populists do not end up with the promised golden age, but rather with chaos and problems.

Haven't we Germans learned anything? Should we not recognize the arsonists in our own house before they set it on fire?

**

Grenjaðarstaður and Myvátn

On the fourth day of our trip to Iceland, we first visited the open-air museum of the Grenjaðarstaður peat farm.

The Grenjaðarstaður parish had been based at the peat farm since 1865.

A layer of peat on the rocks

Volcanic rock, peat from the surrounding area, and driftwood were used to build the farmstead. Most of the driftwood came from Siberia and took up to five years to reach this location.

Immediately to the left of the entrance to this housing complex is the so-called "Golden Room," which is furnished entirely in the style of the 19th-century bourgeoisie. The middle photo shows Pastor Benedikt Kristjánsson, who served here as pastor from 1876 to 1907. His wife, Regina Sívertssen, is pictured on the left. She died in 1884, and Benedikt married Ólöf Ásta, his second wife, pictured on the right.

Initially, cooking was done over an open fire. In the old peat-farmhouses, there was very little ventilation.

The women, who worked at the hearth from dawn to dusk, suffered from lung and eye diseases.

You will find a coffee pot just about anywhere in Iceland

So the modern stove came at just the right time. The women working here could occasionally look out the window and watch what was going on at the neighboring farm.

On the left: By moving the end panel, the bed width could be adjusted to suit individual needs.

Adjacent to the "kitchen" is the Pilthúsið, a room that served as both a sleeping and working area for the workers at Grenjaðarstaður.

On the other side of the corridor is Elísabet Jónsdóttir's room. She was the wife of Pastor Kristjansson's successor, Pastor Pétur Hjálmarsson. Elísabet was exceptionally musical. She was not only the parish organist and choir director, but also one of the first women to publish her compositions in Iceland. In her room, she taught not only music but also needlework.

In the farm's pantry, you admire a barrel used to store salted fish, as well as a butter churn.

The Grenjaðarstaðarkirkja stands in the churchyard. It was built of wood in 1865. The bells date from 1663 and 1740 and hang above the gateway.

The church's interior is kept simple.

Our next stop was the picturesque area around Lake Myvátn, which ranks among Iceland's most remarkable sights, particularly due to its volcanic features.

A basaltic eruption of the volcano Krafla 2300 years ago formed a natural dam, preventing accumulated water from draining away. It pooled into Myvátn, the Lake of Midges.

The midgets were many, annoying, and some of them biting. We bought mosquito nets to cover our heads.

©Wikipedia

The rift between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which we already met at Đingvellir, also runs through this region. The Myvátn area remains volcanically active.

 

The rift is widening. The midges rejoice: Iceland's land area is steadily growing.

**

40,047,425,768,420.22

In April 2025, POTUS announced that he will fight the U.S. trade deficit with tariffs: "We're going to be giving back refunds out of the tariffs because we've taken in literally trillions of dollars, and we're going to be giving a nice dividend to the people, in addition to reducing debt. As you know, I inherited a lot of debt, but it's peanuts compared to the kind of numbers we're talking about."

Yesterday a bomb exploded. In an AP article, "The US national debt now stands at $40 trillion," I read:

"The national debt surpassed a record $40 trillion on Wednesday, a staggering milestone as defense costs, social programs like Social Security and Medicare and interest on the burgeoning deficit make up an enormous share of federal spending."

Mr. President, the national debt is neither peanuts nor was it reduced. It actually rose more sharply than the government and experts had previously forecast. Originally, the debt was expected to reach $39.4 trillion by the end of fiscal year 2026.

 

©AP

One explanation of this debt explosion is the war with Iran, which has now been ongoing for nearly six months; 18 U.S. soldiers have been killed, and according to U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, the cost had reached $37.5 billion in July. There is no end in sight.

This record-high debt is even drawing criticism from within the ranks of Trump's Republicans, where Senator Rick Scott joined the protest of many lawmakers writing, "Americans deserve better." He called on Congress to "get spending under control and balance the budget."

Thomas Jefferson, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, wrote in a letter: "I count frugality among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt among the greatest dangers."

However, the Trump administration shows no signs of cutting back on spending. The tax bill known as the "Big Beautiful Bill," which Congress passed last year, will further destabilize public finances in the coming years.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, an undisturbed POTUS unveiled a new construction project to a crowd of journalists: Replacing the White House driveway.

"This was always asphalt, which is very basic, not appropriate for a great house - for a great place like the White House," and Trump continued, "The driveway has been redone with a very special stone: California-mined white granite. "

"Without even having to go into the White House, they [his guests] get out of the car on the beautiful new roadway. They get out of the car, and they walk down this path onto that [new] helipad, and they can have cocktails and everything outside of the White House, and then they go into the ballroom. "

Trump's tour of the ongoing White House projects underscored how central construction is to his presidential legacy.

"One thing I know how to do is build … I love construction, I love seeing things properly taken care of. The projects will be here long after we're gone."

Financially, POTUS's construction frenzy is peanuts compared to the unprecedented $40 trillion figure of national debt, but it is politically hazardous.

The $40 trillion includes not only defense spending in the almost-6-month-old war in Iran but also government efforts to lower the cost of gas and groceries for U.S. citizens.

As explained by a White House spokesman, "The Trump administration has been focused on slashing waste, fraud, and abuse in federal spending while accelerating economic growth to get America's debt-to-GDP ratio trending in the right direction."

U.S. National Debt as a Percentage of GDP (©NZZ)

The trend goes the opposite way.

In 2025, the U.S. federal budget deficit stood at $1.8 trillion, which equaled 5.9 percent of GDP. In the EU, a budget deficit of more than 3 percent of GDP is already considered unacceptable.

The development of national debts as a percentage of GDP
for the USA, China, Germany and Switzerland.
For Germany, the effect of the Schuldenbremse and the Corona pandemic
on the curve's shape is clearly visible (©NZZ)

Michael A. Peterson, CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, stated, "If we want to improve our living standards, today and for the next generation, now is the time for lawmakers to put our nation on a more affordable and sustainable path."

 
Do I read correctly? I think we would be lucky if we could keep our present standard of living.

Indeed, Margaret Spellings, president and CEO of the Bipartisan Policy Center, countered, "The federal debt is already raising the cost of living and choking out other spending and investment, threatening our economy and Americans' long-term prosperity."

And Mr. Peterson, please don't just write, but show the direction to the U.S. lawmakers to put your nation on a more affordable and sustainable path.

Here are two letters to the editor on the AP article:

One pragmatic: "Cut the Defense budget to $250B (same as China who has 4x's the population) and then tax the rich at 1950's levels (90%)."

One radical left (?): "… we seem to have mountains of money to be spent on war and killing; military contracts funneling tax dollars to corporate cronies and members of the Trump family. Our historic landmarks in the Capitol city that were once examples of a dignified Puritan heritage have now been flounced out in gold with Trump's name pissed all over them, and the middle-class that is supporting this excess is rapidly disappearing under a tax burden that the wealthy are exempted from. Fiscal conservatism is no longer embraced by the GOP … Hoarded wealth seems to be the goal, and if the economy crashes, we've already seen that the rich will be first in line for their bailout, while the rest of us deal with the consequences. The wealthy are rarely touched by the 'Hard Choices' that will be made."
**

The Great Drought of 1540

Hot and dry summers like the one we're experiencing now have occurred time and again, which is why the article "The Year-Long Unprecedented European Heat and Drought of 1540 - A Worst-Case Scenario," published in the journal Climatic Change, caught Red Baron's attention.

I tried to read the original article - especially since my late friend Iso is a co-author - but Springer Publishing has a paywall that can only be passed for €39.90.

In the article, 32 climate historians have painstakingly compiled, analyzed, and evaluated data from more than 300 chronicles, i.e., records kept by farmers, churches, and lock keepers, revealing Europe's great natural disaster.

It's a shame, but the price was too high. However, the European heat and drought wave of 1540 is well documented elsewhere, so I've compiled the information from those freely available sources.

The weather disaster of 1540 had already begun in 1539 in southern Europe but went unnoticed north of the Alps. In Spain, people had been holding processions to pray for rain since October. 

In Italy, the winter of 1539/40 was dry and warm "like July." Although the 16th century fell right in the middle of Europe's Little Ice Age, not a single drop of rain fell from October 1539 to early 1540, while people were rather sensitive to wet and cold summers.

North of the Alps, the millennium drought of 1540 began in the winter. As early as February, a high-pressure system formed over Europe, blocking the influence of the Atlantic and, in turn, the supply of moisture. Although a few storms still moved in, by April the continent was largely shielded from rain clouds.

For 26 weeks, no precipitation fell from France to Poland and from the Po Valley to northern Germany. From late June to early August, not a single drop cooled the brutal heat. An unprecedented 11-month-long Megadrought swept across Europe, including the British Isles.

The dried-up earth reflected even more heat into the atmosphere, feeding an unbearable heatwave. Temperatures were five to seven degrees above the high 20th-century levels. Reformer Martin Luther interpreted this as a sign of the end times. Officials ordered clergy in Germany, Italy, and England to beg God for forgiveness and pray for rain.

Hans Stolz, a winemaker from Guebwiller, Alsace, provided a detailed month-by-month account of the drought of 1540:

©Wikimedia

The year 1540. Although January of that year was unusually cold, February began warm and dry throughout; in March, it rained for three days, and on the first morning after that, there was frost; once the morning passed, the day became quite warm until the end of March; April was completely dry and arid, with no rain or snow falling until the end; May was completely dry and nice until the end; a quarter pound of grain was worth a pound of wine. June was completely dry at the beginning, but toward the end it rained occasionally, though not much, and there was plenty of hay; the month of June began to become terribly dry, and remained so until the end, so that such a dreadful water shortage began in this country that the people suffered great hunger due to the lack of grain, and the crops ...

Streams dried up and grew narrower and narrower. Even major rivers like the Elbe, Rhine, and Seine were so small that one could wade across without getting one's feet wet.

No water powered the mills to grind grain into flour: flour and bread prices skyrocketed.

The harvest withered, and most food was in short supply. With nowhere to pasture, cattle died of heat stroke and hunger, decimating Europe's dairy supply.

As early as the beginning of August, the trees were shedding their bone-dry leaves, as if it were already fall.

As if famine wasn't enough, Europeans were also chased from their homes by forest and structural fires. The dry ground caught fire, and forest and brush fires blazed across the countryside, creeping into the towns densely packed with half-timbered houses. There wasn't any water to put out the fire.

In Germany alone, 33 towns burned. The blaze of Einbeck reduced the entire town to ashes in a matter of hours, causing as many as 500 deaths. For weeks, gray smoke shrouded the continent, behind which the sun and moon nearly vanished as pale red glimmers.

Instead of water, God delivered wine - some of the best ever "created." The extreme heat meant that by the usual harvest time, grapes in Germany and France had dried almost to raisins. The resulting "late harvest" or Spätlese wine was deliciously sweet.

A "Kaiserwein" was harvested in Würzburg from a grape crop that had largely withered away and was pressed into specially crafted Prunkfässer (ceremonial barrels).

It was a stroke of luck; the 1540 Würzburg Stein is considered the oldest known single-vineyard wine and the invention of the Spätlese style.

The Millennium Wine of 1540 is in the middle bottle.

The last known bottle of this wine is kept at the Bürgerspital zum Heiligen Geist in Würzburg.

Most wells and springs lay barren. Those that still gave a little water were strictly guarded. In some regions, drinking wine was cheaper and safer than drinking water, since peasants were charged for well water, which was often contaminated by human waste.

Several hundred thousand people lost their lives because of dysentery, an intestinal infection that causes bloody diarrhea. It is thought that the death toll from disease had the greatest impact of all the miseries wrought by the 1540 drought. Estimates are that half a million Europeans succumbed to diseases, most after drinking tainted water.

With tens of thousands left unhoused, unemployed, and often diseased, local leaders quickly gave in to paranoia to explain the calamities. Authorities searched for scapegoats. At the time of the Reformation, they were found in religious opponents and climate refugees wandering around Germany.

Temperature anomaly in Freiburg for July and August 2026 (©BZ)

What about 2026? For weeks now, Red Baron has watched nature wither from exceptional dryness: the grass is yellow, the Dreisam is nearly dry, and the soil has turned to dust. More and more trees are dropping their leaves. Rivers like the Rhine have turned into trickles.

         In Freiburg, 2026 holds the longest streak of temperatures above 30 °C, and the summer is not over yet (©BZ)

Spring 2026 and the first half of summer rank among the driest ever recorded. The drought is comparable to the historic dry spells of 1976, 2003, and 2018. 

©Hadi/Wikipedia

Are we facing the threat of a millennium drought like in 1540? 

©Copernicus

The 2026 drought will probably not end in the summer. It will extend well into the fall, and rivers are likely to reach even lower levels in early fall than they are now.

Burning of witches (©Wikimedia)

The 16th-century drought and today's drought are similar in many ways, but back then, the blame wasn't placed on climate change - it was on witches. Hungry migrants were rounded up and tortured in hopes of eliciting confessions.

In 1540, for city fires, Martin Luther gave credence to fake news of a papal plot to incinerate Protestant towns.

In 2026, forest fires raging across Europe are being blamed on paranoid arsonists.

On Monday morning, I witnessed a rare weather phenomenon. I think they call it rain. People were dancing bareheaded, and dogs were sticking out their tongues to catch the precious drops.

It was too little, too late.

**

Of Craters, Rural Postmen, and Cruise Ships

Our journey continued northward. Along the way, we stopped at the Grábrókargigar craters.

We read: From the parking (on the left), the crater system is easily accessible via wooden staircases. Since time was short, our group started by visiting Grábrók only.

On our way, I admired the moss that had grown on the lava that had flowed out of the volcano 3600 years ago. Our tour guide, Andrí, corrected me: "It's not moss, but lichen."

Suddenly, the handrails were missing, so Red Baron had to drop out halfway through because of his balance problems.

Our small group set off toward Akureyri. Along the way, we stopped in Stadur, where in years past six rural mail carriers from various postal services would meet on the 15th of every month to exchange mail. This made the site Iceland's largest postal center. 

The monument was erected in memory of Iceland's rural postal service.

On our way to the Capital of Northern Iceland, Akureyri, we made another photo stop at the plateau of the Holtavörðuheiði highlands ...

... and were rewarded with the view on an impressive rock spire.

After that, Andrí drove us to the Akureyri Botanical Garden, which is located about 45 meters above the port city of Akureyri. Since the garden is located approximately 50 kilometers south of the Arctic Circle, it is an interesting experimental and demonstration piece of earth. The Lystigarður Akureyrar boasts approximately 7,000  plants. These include Icelandic species as well as those from Arctic regions and high mountain areas.

We walked down when we noticed a huge cruise ship in the distance, anchored in the harbor.

We approached Akureyri's church. The Akureyrarkirkja is a Lutheran church completed in 1940.

The church's interior is simple in design and sparsely decorated.

The giant cruise ship looms menacingly from behind our bus. What happens to a town of 20,000 residents when several thousand crusaders and crew members suddenly pour into it?

Iceland is sparsely populated, with about 400,000 inhabitants, of whom 140,000 live in Reykjavík and approximately 250,000 in the surrounding metropolitan area.

We were exhausted from the long bus ride and glad to finally check into our "bungalows" near Akureyri under the mild night sun.

It was just the beginning. Many more highlights were still in store for us.

**

Berthold from the Offstage

Today marks the 70th anniversary of the death of a writer, a master of the German language, and a political voice of conscience: Berthold Brecht.

The graves of Berthold Brecht and Helene Weigel at the Dorotheenstädtischer Friedhof in Berlin.

Berthold Brecht, the already successful author, was an ideological communist who fled Germany on February 28, 1933 - one day after the Reichstag fire and two days before the Nazis seized power - first to Prague, Vienna, and Zurich, and then to Paris. Further stops on his journey into exile - the Nazis had stripped Brecht of his citizenship - included Svendborg (Denmark), Lidingö (Sweden), and Helsinki.

In May 1941, Brecht received an entry visa to the United States and traveled with his family via Moscow and Vladivostok by ship to Santa Monica, California, where he lived in a rented house.

After the war ended, the House Un-American Activities Committee questioned him on October 30, 1947, asking whether he had ever been a member of a Communist Party. Brecht truthfully answered "no."

However, he could no longer stay in America. The following day, he traveled to Paris and soon after to Zurich. Switzerland was the only country that granted the stateless Brecht a residence permit.

Finally - since Brecht remained barred from entering the Western occupation zones of Germany - he traveled from Zurich via Prague to East Berlin in October 1948 at the invitation of the East German Cultural Association for the Democratic Renewal of Germany. 

The result of this statelessness was Brecht's "Flüchtlingsgespräche," Refugee Conversations at a wooden table in the spartan train station restaurant in Helsinki between the physicist Ziffel and the worker Kalle: "The passport is the noblest part of a human being. It doesn't come into being as easily as a human being does. A human being can come into being anywhere, in the most reckless way and without any good reason, but a passport never does. On the other hand, it is recognized when it is good, whereas a person can be as good as he wants and still not be recognized."

This loose collection of dialogues premiered on February 15, 1962, in the Werkraum of the Munich Kammerspiele, and Red Baron - I was a doctoral student at the university at the time - was there.

Famous Erwin Piscator directed the production, and the cast included cabaret artist Werner Finck as the tall, somewhat clumsy bourgeois intellectual and physicist Ziffel, and the Swabian folk actor Willy Reichert as the stocky, down-to-earth communist worker Kalle.

Ziffel had fled Germany primarily because the Nazis had exploited science for their war effort. He argues philosophically and ironically.

Kalle had already been imprisoned in a German concentration camp. He views the world with a sharp, materialistic class consciousness.

In their dialogues, the protagonists deconstruct the "virtues" of diligence, patriotism, and courage. Bad governments demand these virtues from their citizens to cover up mismanagement, wars, and their own mistakes. An ideal state doesn't need any heroes, capitalism, or fascism. 

For Ziffel and Kalle, National Socialism is not an "accident"* of history, but a logical consequence of the capitalist economic system, which relies on dictatorships in times of crisis. 

*Nor is it bird droppings

In the waiting room "Exile," the two refugees explore the agonizing feeling of waiting, their dependence on visas, and their longing for a homeland that no longer exists.

Against this backdrop, Brecht's warnings from beyond the grave regarding the current political situation in Germany read like an omen. The author is Florian Harms, editor-in-chief of the German news service T-Online.

Once again, Red Baron is promoting someone else's work and providing the translation of the German text here:

Greetings to you who are reading this:

You must listen to me. Today marks 70 years since my death, and as is the custom with all those who were a thorn in the side, I have been set in marble so that I may remain silent. 

But even in life, I considered silence to be the worst of all arts. That is why I speak once more today. It will be a short speech, for the dead have little time.

I see my country well-fed, yet seething with discontent. It has been taught to distrust, and now it distrusts the wrong people - not those who deceive it, but those who warn it. The seats of government and the parliaments, the offices and city halls no longer serve the people, and I ask: Who benefits when you smash them to pieces? Where trust falls, freedom does not rise. Instead, men rise who are loud.

I know the agitators. I saw them when they first came, in brown uniforms, with simple slogans for people who were a nuisance. People laughed at them, then voted for them, then idolized them. In the end, everything was destroyed. "The womb from which this crawled is still fertile," I once wrote. It was a warning, and warnings do not lose their validity.

Eighty-one years after the end of Hitler's regime, many are once again following those who promise simplicity but mean cruelty. They do so carefree, like stepping into the water on a summer day without knowing how deep it is. They say a fish never swims into the same net twice. People, however, are happy to swim right into it if the net is decorated with blue instead of brown flags and music is playing. I see it, and I'm worried.

For while you argue over who hates the state the most, there's a man in the East waging war. I won't call him a general, for generals lead armies; he, however, leads an army of butchers who are tearing Ukraine apart. He has plunged Europe into its deepest crisis since 1945 and is now striking at you as well: drones over airports, arson at warehouses, assassination plots against corporate leaders, sabotage of what is dearest to you. Hundreds of cases have already been counted. 

And yet many of you still believe that this man can be dealt with through compromise. He cannot. Evil must be brought to its knees; otherwise, it will sweep you off your feet—take it from someone who has seen more evil than all of you put together. Remember this: War is not far off. It's already in your basement, setting the clock.

It has eager accomplices. They set invisible traps for you ... They stoke anger and rake in billions upon billions of dollars: colorfully packaged rumors, portioned out, delivered right to your bedside. The executives at Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and that thing called X don't profit from peace - they profit from strife. Hate gets more clicks than reason, and whatever gets more clicks gets amplified. That's how they've built a business out of your worst traits and call it "community."

I'm telling you the old truth anew. "First comes food, then morality," I wrote. But these gentlemen and their henchmen have realized that you eat the most when you sell morality first. They feed you anger until you puke, and send the bill to democracy.

I have my concerns, but I also have hope. In every country, there are decent people. They aren't the loudest; often, they're the weary ones. But there are many of them - more than the agitators believe - and their time has come. Not tomorrow, when the fishermen's nets have been hauled in at Halle, Magdeburg, Schwerin, and Rostock*. Not the day after tomorrow, when the neighbor with the match is already standing in the living room. Decent people everywhere should unite.

*There are upcoming State elections in Sachsen-Anhalt und Mecklenburg-Vorpommern

A decent person does not look away. One who steadfastly calls a lie a lie, even if it is shared a thousand times over. One who would rather help a discredited government office than shout it down. One who knows that freedom is not a summer retreat, but a work that must be built upon daily, because many are trying to undermine it every day.

So show that you are decent! That would be my wish. And in the spirit of those who came before me, who also wrote and suffered for this country - Lessing, Heine, Tucholsky - all of whom knew that a people can lose its reason as easily as a glove. That is what I can tell you on the 70th anniversary of my death, through the pen of a small-time journalist. Stand up. I can no longer do so myself.

**

Europe's Summer of 2026

There hasn't been any significant rainfall in southwestern Germany since mid-June, while one heat wave has followed another. The fifth one is on its way and will peak this Friday at 38°C (100°F).

 
Here is a photo gallery showing the full extent of the heat and drought damage in the Old World.

 

The Rhine River at Cologne (©AP)

The fire fronts of wildfires in Spain, Portugal, France, and Greece (©AP)

Beachgoers on France's Atlantic coast are contemplating wildfires near Bordeaux  (©AP)

Burnt-out forests ... (©AP)

... and charred cars (©AP)

Heat protests in Zurich, Switzerland (©AP)

A lorry is crossing the Tejo River in Spain (©AP)

At temperatures above 30 C, Leipzig's streetcars squeeze the insulating bitumen out of their track bed (©AP)

A swimming dock on Lake Constance leads to dry land (©AP)

A whirlwind over Lake Constance is an extremely rare phenomenon (©AP)

Swimmers in Romania next to a World War II shipwreck in what remains of the Danube River (©AP)

The dry bed of the Haslacher Dorfbach in Freiburg (©Kathrin Blum/BZ)

Freiburg's Park on the Lake (©Kathrin Blum/BZ)

How similar the landscapes look: New York's Central Park (©AP)

It follows a horror scenario for the Americas.

      

(©NYT)

Will the 2026 El Niño affect Europe's climate?

**