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Federal Environment Agency: The sky over the Ruhr is blue again!
“The sky over the Ruhr region must be blue again.” This demand made by Willy Brandt during a speech on 28 April 1961 in the Bonn Beethoven Hall is rightfully seen as the start of environmentally conscious political thinking in Germany. In so doing, Brandt brought a regional problem previously ignored into the focus of sociopolitical debate- long before there were notions of ’environmental protection‘ or ‘environmental politics‘. He drew attention to the downsides of the German economic miracle: although the smoking chimney stacks were the key to prosperity, the unfiltered industrial fumes increasingly burdened the health and sense of well-being of many people in the Ruhr area. read more
