Once upon a time there was an emperor who loved his people very much and wanted to spare them a life of sin. He summoned the chamberlains from his court and asked them what the greatest of all sins was. They named outgassing as the greatest of all sins – by which they meant the emission of CO2. At first, the emperor got a real fright, since he was constantly outgassing himself when he was breathing. If a life without sin means a life without breathing, then he becomes afraid and afraid. But the chamberlains explained that breathing was not meant, but the burning of fossil fuels. Anyone who does not recognize this is a step backwards and not a progressist.
After this point was clarified, the emperor sent out his heralds and had them announce throughout the empire that in the future all heating systems using fossil fuels would no longer be permitted. The people cheered him because they finally felt liberated from the greatest sin of all and because no one wanted to be seen as a backward stepper. In addition, people thought quietly that an electric heater with electricity from nuclear power could also provide a warm room.
The chamberlains heard this, and they shook their heads in concern. They declared that the second greatest of all sins is nuclear power. Since they had inherited this knowledge from their forefathers, they called atomic current their original sin. The emperor quickly freed the people from this sin by shutting down all nuclear power plants in the country. The people cheered again, because of course everyone here wanted to be counted among the progressives and not among the backwards. Secretly, however, it wondered how it was supposed to get warm feet in the cold winter.
But the emperor promised the people cozy and warm rooms if they were only willing to buy the cute new heat pumps. Since the people loved cute things more than anything, there was no stopping the cheering this time either. Then the people found out that the prices for the cute little heat pumps weren’t small and cute at all. But the emperor reassured them again and promised that he would pay the excessively high prices from his own coffers. As is well known, however, this casket was long empty. And the people began to suspect that the emperor would probably get the money from him first before he could distribute it. But everyone kept cheering because they didn’t want to stand aside and be seen as a stumbling block to progress.
The people wanted to know whether the expensive, cute heat pumps would also warm up the houses in the icy winter. But of course, said the chamberlains, just look at our northern neighbors. In Nordland there are heat pumps everywhere, which work perfectly even at minus 40 degrees Celsius. They didn’t say that many pumps there don’t get heat from the air but from the ground, because that didn’t seem to be particularly important to them. And if it gets really cold, the cute heat pumps can heat the houses directly with electricity. That too has been tried and tested in Nordland. Electricity is ten times more expensive in this country than in Nordland, but the Kaiser wants to pay for that out of his own pocket. The people were not really convinced, because they suspected that the emperor’s large casket once again meant the many small caskets of the people. But no one wanted to show themselves to be seen as backwards in front of the others.
The people asked where all the electricity was supposed to come from. It is not only needed for the warm rooms, but also for the new cars and for the industry of the future. Not from fossil fuels and certainly not from nuclear power plants, the Kaiser announced, but from green matter made from wind and sun. The chamberlains had explained to him how a lot of green matter could be produced very quickly and with a lot of skilled workers. They had also explained to him how the green material could then be brought to where it was needed through many new power lines. The Emperor did not exactly understand these explanations, but in the end he did not want to appear as a backward stepper, but as a progressive one.
Even when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining, the chamberlains had a solution ready. You only have to build very large power storage systems, which you don’t yet know how they are supposed to work with, but with which you can certainly make a lot of money. When it comes to making money, one can confidently trust in the inventiveness of entrepreneurs, because capitalism has to be useful for something. However, the people saw how some entrepreneurs were already moving to other countries where people were less afraid of original sin and where electricity prices were low. And it also observed how the entrepreneurs took away the jobs that the people didn’t really like but to which they had somehow gotten used to. But the people still hesitated to voice their growing doubts so as not to show their weaknesses in front of the others.
Then a blind seer, who had lived long years in a distant, dark pine of honey and nuts, came back to his homeland. He was not particularly popular with the people, the emperor and his chamberlains – they just called him the oeconomicus. He asked around in the country and said: “But the Emperor is naked.” That wasn’t true, because the Emperor wore a well-tailored suit made of the finest thread. But the people understood what Oeconomicus had meant and now also shouted: “The emperor is naked.”
How did the emperor fare? This is best read in the original by Hans Christian Andersen:
It seemed to him they were right, but he thought to himself, “Now I must endure the procession.” And so he held himself even more proudly, and the Chamberlains went, carrying his train, which was not there.
