Pragmatism paints a paler shade of Green

ImaginebeingPR a in a crisis-hit government. Which news image would you dread more: footage of monster mechanical claws tearing up lush fields to expand a coal mine, or of a riot squad dragging away Greta Thunberg, the impish, Swedish-born patron saint of climate-change activism?Little more than a year into their stint in a three-party national government, found both of these disasters spooling relentlessly across millions of televisions. The events took place in mid-January near the tiny hamlet of Lützerath in North Rhine-Westphalia. In what environmentalist groups had billed as a last stand, thousands of demonstrators braved freezing drizzle to protest against the expansion of an open-cast lignite mine, a city-sized gash of beige in a sea of green. After several days of muddy scuffles against a science-fiction backdrop of giant diggers, police bodily removed the last protesters, including Ms Thunberg.