But despite a long history of governmental procrastination on climate change, some of the protest groups today still think they might be able to make a difference. The U.K.-founded Extinction Rebellion, in particular, cite the research of the political scientist Erica Chenoweth: that peaceful civil disobedience against a repressive regime can be effective if 3.5 percent of the population joins in. That percentage of the population of Germany would be 2.9 million people, or 11.5 million people in the United States. The protesters, despite the startling increase in their numbers in the first few months of 2019, are nowhere near those figures. But as they grow, they are provoking strikingly angry responses, highlighting the generational nature of the upcoming climate change conflict.

The student protests in Berlin take place every week in front of the parliament, at the edge of a so-called prosecco socialist neighborhood filled with pricey boutiques and commuters on bikes. But the hip leftist inhabitants can be quite spiky when the climate protests inconvenience them. Last month, on February 1, activists from Extinction Rebellion and the direct action group Ende-Gelände (in English: “here and no further”) ran onto the neighborhood’s main road and waited for the traffic lights to turn green. While some stayed in human-barrier-mode, the others walked between the cars with a batch of fliers in one hand, and a bag of oranges in the other. Some drivers opened the windows to accept a flier and a snack; others got out their cell phones to film the protesters. “I’m showing the police!” one yelled while filming. “Are you crazy?!” others shouted. “I’m going to run you all over,” another promised.

The activists say they were called “scheiß Schwuchteln” (a homophobic epithet), and were refused water and bathroom use.

Last October, 26-year-old Merle and 21-year-old Clara from Berlin were among the Ende-Gelände activists who occupied a lignite mine in the Rhineland, whose mines emit more carbon than any other site in Europe. Last month, she was arrested along with 17 other activists after they tried to occupy two coal diggers at a plant in Lusatia, an eastern region where the coal industry is older than the current German constitution.

The workers who arrived at the mine at around 6 a.m. were not pleased to see them. (In theory, the group wants to communicate with the coal workers. In practice, Clara, told me: “it is hard to have a conversation when you have locked yourself into the excavator cab and are several meters off the ground.”) The police who arrested the activists held them in freezing squad cars for hours, responding to complaints with “It was cold on the digger too, wasn’t it?” The activists say they were called “scheiß Schwuchteln” (a homophobic epithet) and were refused water and bathroom use. One young man was hit in the face. Axel Vogel, the regional Green Party head, told me that there will be an inquiry into the police’s “very robust treatment” of the protesters.