I love art. Thinking back to the days spent on vacation with my family, images of artwork come to my mind, created by Caravaggio, Raffael, Botticelli and many others. When other families chose to stay in a beach club at some sunny Southern place, I always got the feeling that my parents chose the places we went to based on the question if there was another art museum nearby. Holidays spent in the late summer heat of one of those beautiful small Italian towns, always with the certainty to reach the next museum in half an hour’s car drive. By the time I turned 16, my biggest birthday wish was to visit the Biennale in Venice. I remember artwork showing German soldiers whose guns seemed to be drowning in a sea of blossoms. An installation of three-legged wooden stools by Ai Weiwei, who was not yet considered critical at that time. At least not by the public other than the Chinese government. For the first time, I experienced what makes art political.

Today, the political dimension of art is no longer expressed by the motif on a canvas, but by what climate activists pour on top of it. Mashed potatoes on top of a Monet, van Gogh’s sunflowers covered with tomato soup, the famous Mona Lisa dipped in cream pie. Activism and its culmination in vandalism is not new in attracting public attention, to some extent it is certainly necessary for what activists themselves would probably call the greater good. However, as a person who loves these artworks, reading about museums being the new target of climate activism left me angry and with a lack of understanding. If van Gogh or Monet would still be alive, I am pretty sure they would become environmentalists themselves. What would they paint if there were no more sunflowers and ponds teeming with water lilies in this world? They would – eventually – become jobless.

The director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies recently commented on the link between society and climate change. His basic claim being that there is no alternative for societies of capitalist structures than to work against nature. Climate change as a “wicked problem” (a problem without a solution) as long as societies remain characterized by capitalism, democracy and consumerism. While he is not the first person to blame capitalism and to question green growth, it was the democracies mentioned that got me thinking. And eventually reconsidering my anger against climate vandalism.

One of the fundamental principles associated with a democratic social structure is freedom. Freedom includes the right of individuals to live their lives the way they want to live it, to love whom they want to love, to express and stand up for their convictions. However, freedom does also include the choice not to stand up for anything. Not to engage in climate activism. Not to be concerned by climate change at all. While the world around us continuously evolves and the consequences of global warming undoubtedly occur, the perception with which a person encounters their environment is a matter of individual choice. The choice to actively impact climate development which is literally embodied in the term climate activism, or the choice not to do anything. In other words: the freedom not to do anything.

Art has been and always will be an expression of freedom. It is no coincidence that limiting freedom of art is a common way to restrict political activism in an autocratic system. However, to the extent that art reflects freedom in a democracy, it is to be questioned whether individual freedom is precisely what stands in the way of finding an adequate response to the threats of climate change. If an adequate response to these threats requires different social structures than democratic institutions, I am beginning to understand the link between climate change and the artworks of van Gogh, Monet and da Vinci. Although understanding does not necessarily have to include consent. However, the question has turned into a more pressing one: what would be the alternative for a social structure that is capable of dealing with climate change?