Climate change activists have been busy doing their best to rouse people out of their stupor and general complacency. What better way to do that in an Insta-friendly place like Vienna than to inject a little bit of unexpected and, frankly, fun flavour to some of the most photographed sights in the city?

I do not subscribe to Austrian TV or read local newspapers because of the language barrier so I only became aware of the activists’ shenanigans with the Brunnens (fountains) on my morning walk earlier today…

I get to Schwarzenbergplatz to find that Stadt Wien had already turned off the jets so what remained is a pool of tepid water in a festive green hue tinged with a sort of jaundice yellow. I take aim with my handy only to be confronted by a Polizei Wien van coming towards me not in their usual casual friendly manner but in the way that might make a person of reasonably sound mind perceive they are about to be stopped for some dodgy questioning. I ready myself. The police van comes at a very leisurely pace within just half a metre of my corpus. I stare right at the driver-police and smile at him and his cohort to illicit a disarmed response. To my part-surprise, the driver-police smiles back and drives on at increased speed. Oh, the disappointment. I had got myself prepped for an interesting tête-a-tête. Alas, I have to save my practised quick talking for another time.

Climate change is real. It’s time everybody took it as seriously as any other killer catastrophe… Especially the top 10 % of the world’s consumers who go about their fantastically hedonistic and over the top lifestyles as if change only has to happen for the bottom 50% who have never actually benefited much from the hyper industrialisation that’s caused all of this.

These relatively minor acts of ‘vandalism’ are acts of desperation from a generation who understand the imminence of what’s to come.

Schwarzenbergplatz fountain after the Climate Change demonstrations on 28.03.23

By the time I got to the infamous Brunnen on Neuer Markt, Stadt Wien cleaners had almost fully drained the fountain

Schlagwörter » Klimaschutz

Green fountains in Vienna