AB8032 04DEC 09:15 TXL/BERLIN-CPH

FREQUENT FLYER

The sun has a certain dimmed glow as it rises over Berlin. I am in a taxi on my way to the airport. The strange mix of the typical german high-kitch of all the christmas-light-decorations and that warm radiant sunlight, creates a dystopian atmosphere. Something uncanny is reflected in this hybrid schein – the mix of natural and articifical light merges as a new mutant mist.

An hour later I am standing on the flat concrete surface of Tegel Airport. The day is now grey – that immense Berlin grey. I always get excited when I am allowed to walk directly on the airplane parking-strip from the gate to the airplane. There is something strangely sensational in walking there, besides an airplane on the immense flat area. Something about the flatness and the stretch of the landscape. The smell of fuel and the sound of the roaring engines. Something cinematic, the widescreen of the spatial experience.

But as always when entering an airplane – a guilty pleasure. In the newspaper I am reading about the COP21, Climate Summit in Paris. About the complex, labyrinthine negotiations on global warming, that only an unexpected miracle can bring even close to an acceptable result. What is at stake is exactly this lifestyle. What we need to change is exactly this; moving around, in between fully lit metropolises by airplane. In and out of airports and hotels. In and out of the guilty pleasures of a lifestyle, that seems in direct conflict with the survival of the planet as we know it.