this post was submitted on 09 May 2024

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236

Germans fear migration more than climate change, study finds (www.dw.com)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

115 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Europeans — especially Germans — are increasingly keen on curbing immigration and are less focused on climate change, according to a study by a Danish-based think tank.

Europe has seen a sharp rise in the share of people who say that reducing immigration should be a top government priority, according to a study published Wednesday. Germany is topping the list.

At the same time, there was less desire to prioritize fighting climate change in the same countries, according to the survey commissioned by the Denmark-based Alliance of Democracies Foundation think tank.

Nearly half of German respondents put focus on migration

Since 2022, an increasing number of Europeans say their government should prioritize "reducing immigration," rising from just under 20% to a quarter.

Meanwhile, concern about climate change was on the slide across the continent.

"In 2024, for the first time, reducing immigration is a greater priority for most Europeans than fighting climate change," the report said.

"Nowhere is this reversal more striking than in Germany, which now leads the world with the highest share of people who want their government to focus on reducing immigration — topping all other priorities — and now nearly twice as high as fighting climate change," the report read.

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[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 145 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Bad news, Germany, because immigration is about to increase because of climate change.

Right-wing media has really done a number on critical thinking.

[–] rustydrd@sh.itjust.works 42 points 1 year ago (6 children)

From what I see, lots of people in Germany understand that some countries will be hit hard by climate change. The key issue is that they don't care, and instead of stopping climate change their solution to this is to shut the borders and let no one in. These people are so resistant to changing their way of life, they'd happily trade people's lives for it.

[–] illi@lemm.ee 11 points 1 year ago

Worst thing is they are fucking it up for their kids and/or grandkids who will be forced to change their way of life because of the hellscape they'll inherit

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[–] TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's because when right-wing politicians get into power, the first thing out the window is education and critical thinking. You can't have a population that thinks too much because they're harder to control.

[–] CitizenKong@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

"So long as they (the Proles) continued to work and breed, their other activities were without importance. Left to themselves, like cattle turned loose upon the plains of Argentina, they had reverted to a style of life that appeared to be natural to them, a sort of ancestral pattern...Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbors, films, football, beer and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult." George Orwell, 1984

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[–] KISSmyOSFeddit@lemmy.world 66 points 1 year ago (5 children)

uncontrolled migration is largely caused by the effects of climate change on poor southern countries.

[–] werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

I came to say this exactly. Also I just realized that I would love to move to a beautiful beach area in one of the Pacific facing tropical countries....places where poor people migrate away from.... Does that make sense? That having money protects you from climate change? If basically a middle class person from the US can be rich in these poor countries, does that mean that they are less affected? You can afford fruits and vegetables if you have money? What if more rich assholes move into the area? Do they also get to still afford fresh bananas, and strawberries? Something tells me that they would quickly saturate the area like here in Seattle where every event seems to be packed to the brim with people. There's just a packet room no matter what you choose to do. Hiking? Shoulder to shoulder. Swimming? Sardines in a can. Etc.

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[–] DarkThoughts@fedia.io 38 points 1 year ago (11 children)

Propaganda works and people are stupid.

[–] thejml@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It does. We really need positive propaganda. Dupe everyone into thinking that climate change is real, we have to do something now, doubling down on renewable and sustainable resources is required, etc. I’d love to brainwash everyone into believing that public education needs more funds and resources. Or that rivers and lakes shouldn’t be polluted.

[–] Akasazh@feddit.nl 4 points 1 year ago

They problem is that climate change makers people feel guilty all the time and afraid (true most likely) that they will feel the financial repercussions, and not the big corporations.

So blaming the other is an easy way to feel superior and deal with the uncertainty rage.

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[–] Benchamoneh@lemmy.dbzer0.com 36 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've got news for you guys, one of these things is going to radically affect the other.

Maybe the key to getting old people to care about climate change is to frame the mass displacement and migration that will occur as a direct result of it.

[–] wondrous_strange@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That is pretty genius for sure but I think the issue is that these people think that once shit hits the fan they will be able to stop the desperate masses at their border by legalisation or whatever.

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[–] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 33 points 1 year ago (19 children)

Ameribro here. I've hosted a German exchange kid. She was really, really worried about immigration and "preserving German culture". I pointed out to her that:

Culture is not a fixed thing, it's always drifting a little bit, with or without immigrants. That's why old people always complain about how different everything is.
Germany is actually younger than the US as a state by about a century, and contemporary Germany has really only existed since either the end of WW2 or the fall of the Soviet Union, depending on your view. (IMO, the collapse of East Germany is non-trivial. Her mom was an East German and described to us how they had an entirely separate culture with different groceries and everything and all that just vaporized into nothing when the wall fell, replaced with West German culture almost overnight). So, what does it really even mean to be defending German culture?
There's always hardship when a new group of people arrive, but over time you usually end up with something that's better than what you had before if you can learn to embrace it. US culture has, in spite of our issues with racism, tangibly benefitted from immigration over the centuries.

She wasn't receptive to it. A lot of Europeans who hold anti-immigratiom views insist that it's different for Europe when they have immigrants than it is for the US. I've yet to have one persuasively explain why that's true and not just whiny exceptionalism.

[+] CHINESEBOTTROLL@lemm.ee 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

[deleted]

[–] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I think the question that really needs to be answered is how you plan on enforcing cultural normality. If, as you say, Germans have had a strong identify regardless of historical causes and conditions, it sounds like they've figured their culture out throughout the decades and centuries without someone pointing a gun at them over it. So then why should the force and violence of the government be necessary now, and to what extent? Are we just talking arresting brown people, or should we start arresting anyone who speaks something besides German in public, since they're eroding the culture too?

I also wanted to respond to your remark about emulating the US. You don't give rich old white men enough credit, they've managed to turn the country into a shambling wreck all while keeping everyone else locked out of governance. Maybe if we'd had those other voices, we wouldn't have Donald Trump soliciting a billion dollar bribe to roll back all of our environmental protections.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (12 children)

Are we just talking arresting brown people, or should we start arresting anyone who speaks something besides German in public, since they’re eroding the culture too?

The fuck are you on about.

If you want to get a handle on this I suggest you start with concepts such as the assimilation capacity of a population as well as the possible speed of different kinds of natural cultural drift. If you want to avoid to avoid fuelling xenophobic ressentiment, what you need to make sure is that cultural drift caused by new arrivals is lower than what people accept, in that case people become more tolerant of that kind of shift, though of course that has a limit (and that's fine). OTOH if you exceed it, people become less tolerant of shifts. In other words: Culture is a non-newtonian fluid. You create resistance by pushing too hard, if you go in gently there very well might be no resistance at all.

The erm force applied to that non-newtonian fluid is more or less number of arrivals multiplied by germane cultural difference multiplied by economical impact. When Germans flock to Sweden the Swedes worry about those "closed up and private" people, they're somewhat taken aback by directness but secretly also somewhat glad that there's someone actually complaining in public, not just in private. In the numbers that we're talking about the Swedes aren't worried in cultural terms, though there's some gripes among some around housing prices in rural areas (not among the Swedes selling the houses, of course). Berliners are way more worried about Swabian arrivals.

And, really, let's take Sweden as an example because they've been so... Swedish about the whole thing. Over decades their immigration worked just fine, they had a certain number and that number didn't exceed the assimilation capacity, and then Swedes said "we are the best so of course we'll take in more" and more came and assimilation failed -- and the Swedes, being Swedes, never complained in public. It's a high-trust environment, of course you trust others, even if government policy led to, one way or the other, segregation: Arrivals live in one place, native Swedes in another. Which then makes it even harder for the new arrivals to even acculturate much less assimilate, leading to more segregation, leading to more difficulties. At some point a dam broke and Swedes stopped complaining in private and complained in public -- the backlash. Which led to people who were born in Sweden from perfectly assimilated parents suddenly found themselves on the outside of their own culture.

If, instead their politicians had started early saying "we need to actively work against that segregation, we need to change our public housing policy to make sure that neighbourhoods are mixed, and if that doesn't suffice we need to limit the number of new arrivals" things would've went very differently -- such a policy would have increased assimilation capacity. But that would've implied things such as Sweden not being perfect which is unthinkable to a Swede... at least to say aloud. Fucking swots.

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[–] tmjaea@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

Unfortunately we do have such narrow minded people in Germany. Even sadder they apply this mindset onto their kids

[–] Amoxtli@thelemmy.club 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Culture is identity. Isn't that obvious from looking at different people all over the world? It is true, there is a clash of cultures because everyone is proud of their identity. Nationalism is extremely powerful because it is human instinct to look upon kinship. Humans are social animals.

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[–] SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

And Germany's population, and with that the economy, would start shrinking without immigration. That's what a fertility rate of 1.7 gets you. Things would go downhill fast enough.

[–] realitista@lemm.ee 9 points 1 year ago

People would just start blaming the politicians for the rampant inflation and reduction in services that a scarcity of workers creates, and then vote in some fascist to "fix" it, first and foremost without allowing immigration. He will overthrow the media and judiciary and "fix" it by starting wars with the neighbors or doing ethnic cleansing at home.

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[–] eatthecake@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There’s always hardship when a new group of people arrive, but over time you usually end up with something that’s better than what you had before if you can learn to embrace it. US culture has, in spite of our issues with racism, tangibly benefitted from immigration over the centuries.

Now tell that to the native americans and see how well they take it.

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[–] leds@feddit.dk 31 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Some explain these people that climate chance is going to cause a lot more migration if not addressed

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[–] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 20 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Yet, in typical European fashion they would much much much rather interpret "reduce immigration" to mean "be mean to poor people here" than to mean "help stabilize developing nations and allow their economies to grow without squeezing them out using our country's dominant economic position (so people don't become economic migrants) and without support for bombing them every other decade (so people don't become war refugees)", which of course includes "address climate change (so people don't become climate refugees)".

No upstream thinking, just fascism fascism fascism.

[–] Badeendje@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Yeah .. that is one way to look at it. But the experience of a lot of people out in the world is that migrants who lived their formative years in dog eat dog situations have a different way of dealing with the world.. and that shit is also scary.

I have encountered kids as young as 12 with machetes on a chain around their neck under their shirt.. like what the fu..

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[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Climate change is an existential threat. They can see those swarthy heathens filling their cities and stealing their jobs or whatever the fuck they think whenever they see someone of a darker skin tone than themselves.

Guess what's going to exacerbate the migration issue, Germany?

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Wind turbans.

[–] gregorum@lemm.ee 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

climate change doesn't have dark skin or speak a different language...

[–] DarkThoughts@fedia.io 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Until hundreds of thousands of climate refugees from around the equator start to show up...

[–] nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 year ago

The average human will blame immigration for that as if immigration is a self contained problem and has nothing to do with the conditions they themselves are creating in other countries.

[–] raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I should get my emigration plans ready, I hate the German boomer racism and how it infected the younger population. Fuck racists, no matter how they label themselves.

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[–] Darkonion@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago

It’s literally the same issue. Changing climate is going to force mass migrations. Don’t like brown people? Maybe do everything you can to make sure their countries of origin remain liveable and prosperous. I’m guessing many would rather that then coming to some xenophobic land of full of a-holes in order to carve out some semblance of a future for their families.

[–] NatakuNox@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Welp, solve climate change and the migration crisis will go away. (along with stopping the exploitation of resources and interference in poor countries affairs.)

[–] RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Where are Germans afraid of migrating to?

[–] maegul@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Anyone have an understanding of how much migration Germany has lately? Is this all still a hang over from the Syrian refugee intake under Merkel? Is Germany a favoured destination generally within Europe? Or are Germans just “sensitive” about darker coloured people (which would be a bit odd given the Turkish migration that occurred after the war, unless that never went well either)?

[–] DarkThoughts@fedia.io 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ukrainian refugees are causing kinda the same backlash at the moment.

[–] maegul@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

Ah right. Obvious guess I should have made.

[–] PlexSheep 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I'm a German and I don't really notice much of it. The region I'm in already has quite a lot of people that aren't "traditionally German" and behave differently and speak languages other than German in public, it can be a little weird or unsettling sometimes, but many of them have good reasons sto stay here and immigration benefits society in the end I believe, also what is normal anyways. Maybe I just don't worry about it as many others in our nation apperently do?

[–] maegul@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Maybe I just don’t worry about it as many others in our nation apperently do?

Well the polls would suggest that.

it can be a little weird or unsettling sometimes

I find this striking. Some places just aren’t used to major migration events, and from this it seems to be true for Germany and even you however accepting you are. And not to be an immigration absolutist about it, but Europe might benefit from realising how common migration is elsewhere in the world.

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