By Lucas Hauser | Editor-in-Chief
Experiencing something from another culture and in another language can be a difficult but insightful task. For my German class in sophomore year in high school, as we discussed the environment and how German-speaking countries are working towards sustainability, we watched a German reality TV show called Die Klimaretter, which means “the climate saver.” Klimaretter brought me and the class immeasurable amounts of joy, although probably not in the ways the producers of the series intended.
Actually watching the show introduced some drama. Inexplicably, as we were halfway through the series, the link to the show (free) broke for viewers in the United States. After reaching out to the production company directly, they mailed us (for free) DVDs of the entire series and some Klimaretter-themed swag. Although we were blown away by the generosity of the makers of Klimaretter, their nice gesture did little to cover up the laughable quality of the show.
The premise of the show was a competition between three different families to see who could live most environmentally-friendly. Each episode focused on a different subject of conservation (driving cars, hot water use, electricity, etc.), and teams won points by contributing the least CO2 into the atmosphere. This seems reasonable enough but was executed about as poorly as the Four Seasons Landscaping press conference.
Let’s use conservation of hot water as an example because this was one week’s challenge for the contestants. The episode begins with an overview of how much hot water contributes to global warming and climate change, and the extent to which average Germans overuse this resource in an environmentally-damaging way. Then, after measuring each family’s typical CO2 output, the Klimaretter competition begins! First, families take simple everyday steps to reduce their impact, such as using the dishwasher (and fewer dishes) instead of washing by hands, taking shorter showers, and re-wearing clean clothes to reduce water use for laundry. Simple enough, right?
If the competition for each episode ended at this point, it would be an informative, inspirational, and mildly entertaining (if corny) show. However, the contest progresses throughout each episode and the series to be more ridiculous and obscure the conservationist message. For the rest of the episode, each family competes in an extreme conservation mode. Trying to go a whole day without electricity, no hot water (taking a cold shower under the hose in the backyard), and so on. Instead of making the effort to save the environment look manageable and seem like fun for the whole family, suddenly combating climate change became an unbearable burden that was hardly sustainable for reality contestants WHO WERE GETTING PAID. I don’t understand how this sends kids a good message or inspires them to help. Making it seem like these efforts are going to destroy people’s lives in highly uncomfortable ways (I, for one, am not on board for showering with the garden hose) doesn’t advance environmentalism- it hurts the movement trying to change people’s destructive habits.
My greatest complaint comes with the finale of Klimaretter. The three teams, Blauwal, Eisbaer, and Penguin (Blue whale, polar bear, penguin), had to determine a winner. After weeks of working hard to change their daily lives to help the planet, they all entered with points requisite to their efforts. As a die-hard fan of Team Blauwal, this was very encouraging for me because they had done an excellent job so far. Unfortunately, for absolutely no good reason, the last episode involved environmental trivia and some sort of obstacle course, which granted enough points to make all of the hard work in previous episodes essentially useless. And one of the kids on Team Blauwal couldn’t figure out the obstacle course, sending them to last place. Why would you design a competition like this?
At the end of the day, Klimaretter was fun enough to watch in German class, I guess. Better than grammar exercises or other work we could have done. However, this show designed to inspire kids to help the environment, through its unsustainably overzealous challenges and a competition that trivialized any rewards for all of the actually environmentally-friendly behavior, actively undermined its goals through painfully predictable and preventable choices.
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