It’s a warm Sunday afternoon in Berlin, at the end of the summer, and the crowds strolling under the Brandenburg Gate seem hopeful but preoccupied. The city has once again caught up with the prosperity it lost in World War I, and the rebuilding and reunification of Berlin after WWII must seems to have gratified the older generation here, many of whom bear dreadful wounds in their eyes.
Just down the street, at the Soviet monument, there is a palpable sense, still, of revenge for the atrocities of war, for the dreadful suffering and the extinctions of millions.
By mistake, we got off the bus in front of a nearly endless field of gray concrete blocks, and we thought it was very startling before we even knew it was a monument to the murdered peoples of Germany, especially the Jews.
So Berlin seems like a sober city, a place of deep reflection on the plight of humankind. And as such, perhaps, it is a good place to go in search of the future — the future of renewable energy, the future of climate change strategies, and maybe, the future of the human race.
The devastation, and the recovery, is an amazing testament to the resilience of humanity in the face of catastrophe.