In the flow or just followers?

I love my coffee maker. In the morning, I flip its toggle switch and a short time later I'm enjoying freshly brewed filter coffee - half the battle for a successful start to the day. What's so special about it? Said toggle switch has the wonderful, unique property of leaving the machine on until I move it to the opposite position, namely when I've had enough good, hot coffee and leave the house coffee-fueled. Try to buy a new coffee maker that offers you this comfort! The EU has set a maximum time for all of us to keep our coffee hot, so all modern models switch off automatically after about forty minutes. My coffee machine dates back to a time when climate change was still called the greenhouse effect and the diesel engine - believe it or not - was still granted a raison d'être, even its factual advantage over other types of drive in terms of economy and low emissions was part of its image, and that in the mainstream media! Needless to say, I also love my diesel-powered vehicle for its many benefits.

Interestingly, BMW CEO Zipse recently gave an extremely plausible explanation for the automaker's reluctance to make a complete switch to electric vehicles. While BMW plans to sell half of its cars with pure battery drive in 2030, Zipse told Passauer Neue Presse that while there will be cities, regions and countries in the next 15 years where the transformation process to electric mobility will be complete - that will not be the case in all of the 140 markets BMW serves worldwide. If a manufacturer then no longer has an internal combustion engine offering, it would lose half its market volume and find itself on a course of entrepreneurial shrinkage. The assessment of Thomas Koch, head of the Institute for Piston Engines at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), from 2019 in the VDI News is also valid: "The latest diesel and exhaust aftertreatment technologies are beyond reproach." For the latest Euro 6 diesel vehicles, NOX emissions in city traffic are on par with gasoline engines, and the_{CO2 advantage of} diesel engine propulsion compared to gasoline engines is also indisputable, according to Koch.

In surface technology, too, sectors such as electroplating have suffered a drastic loss of image, mainly fueled by administrative and political considerations. Countless areas depend on electroplating processes that, like cars, are closely intertwined with our everyday lives: the chrome-plated faucet we turn on, the safe bridge we drive over that is protected from corrosion, the paper produced in plants that would be unthinkable without electroplating technology. Similar discrepancies between actual benefits and public perception can be observed in solvent-based paint applications, where in the course of the green image that is now expected of just about every product, water-based paint alternatives are to be substituted - whatever the cost, and be it any reference to reality. The reason often given is: because the customer wants it that way and because it is good for the environment. Or would it be more correct, following Zip's statement, to say: Because a certain part of the customers in a certain zeitgeist (i.e. for a limited time) and in certain regions want it that way and the environment benefits from it in a certain way under certain circumstances? After all, a closer look often reveals that the arguments for the substitute solutions promoted or even downright pushed in the name of environmental protection and occupational safety do not stand up to any examination of overall contexts - for example, with regard to the increased consumption of other resources or highly questionable raw material procurement processes as well as quality losses which, on balance, lead to higher material and energy consumption - and are therefore not real solutions! Even more obvious is the impact it has on everyday working life in the manufacturing sector, for example, when restrictive regulations come into force without their (quite foreseeable) effects having been thoroughly thought through and objectively considered beforehand. Behind the scenes of the colorful but black-and-white Disney World, as it is served up with particular pleasure and success to the frustrated idealists among us, a reality takes place that by no means obeys binary laws of good and evil. Here, as elsewhere outside the realm of fantasy, the laws of nature prevail. For example, since the REACH regulation came into force in 2007, electroplating companies of all sizes have been tacitly expected to shoulder the significantly increased administrative burden it has entailed without complaint. Demanding a quid pro quo from the EU or the federal government would seem like sacrilege, but why really? If it is the taxpayers of the European Union, whom ECHA represents by definition, wouldn't they also have to be compensated from the same pot for each of the new requirements that are imposed on the taxpaying, job-creating and "system-relevant" SMEs throughout Europe?