Policy-makers must act now, but first, they need to understand how nature actually works. The physicists Harald Lesch and Axel Kleidon express frustration over the widespread unwillingness among broad political circles to understand how nature functions—an essay intended as a wake-up call.
DIE NATUR IST KEIN PARTEIMITGLIED
(Nature Belongs to No Party)
by Harald Lesch & Axel Kleidon
C. Bertelsmann/PRH Germany, March 2026
Again and again, political and economic leaders act as if we can simply ignore the laws of nature, and like to think that technology can perform magic tricks à la Harry Potter. In « Nature Belongs to No Party », two physicists speak truth to power: they explain in clear terms that nature does not negotiate, is not a party member and won’t cede to our demands. What exactly do energy-efficiency and climate protection entail? Why does energy depreciate? And what policies would a government that understands how nature works adopt?
DIE NATUR IST KEIN PARTEIMITGLIED is useful ammunition for anyone who’s as frustrated and angry as the authors about the seeming inability of politicians to tackle climate change head on.
Harald Lesch is a professor of theoretical astrophysics at the Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, and one of Germany’s most famous scientists. He has presented several accessible and popular science programmes, and written and co-written many popular and bestselling books.
Axel Kleidon studied physics and meteorology at the universities of Hamburg and Purdue. After graduating with a PhD in meteorology, he did a postdoc at Stanford and joined the faculty of the University of Maryland. Since 2006, he has led a research group at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena. In his research, he uses thermodynamics to quantify natural energy conversions within the earth system, and applies this approach to understanding atmosphere-biosphere interactions, our planet’s response to global change, and the natural limits of renewable energy.
