All is not yet lost. An extraordinary movement — “Rettet die Bienen” (in English, “Save the Bees”) — has swept through the German state of Bavaria, where I live. I was not even aware of it until it was well underway. Earlier this year there were placards everywhere urging people to sign a petition calling for a referendum in support of environmental protection. The petition required signatures from about one million people: the equivalent of 10 percent of eligible voters in order to be submitted to the Bavarian legislature. Between Jan. 31 and Feb. 13 this year, it got 1.8 million, stunningly overachieving.

The coalition was built through an alliance of the Green, Social Democratic, and Ecological Democratic parties, nature conservation groups, environmental foundations, research organizations, organic food companies and distributors, and bee producers. Families and young people joined in. And it captured our emotions with its simple slogan.

The movement has been so powerful that Bavaria’s longtime governing party, the Christian Social Union, which had not been at the forefront of climate change conversations and tended to resist serious environmental protection measures, responded by voting into law what the petition called for. The law commits the government to preserve the environment, support organic farming, increase the number of natural meadows, prevent further losses of biodiversity, protect clean water and limit pesticide use. Along with saving the bees, insects, amphibians, reptiles, birds and wild herbs are to be protected. If put into practice, it will be extraordinary.

Environmental concerns across Germany have given the Green Party a level of prominence unimaginable in the United States. And the country’s political system — where two or more parties almost always form coalitions to govern — could favor the Greens, who are surging in opinion polls. They might become the most popular political party in the country .

In the 1960s, when I was studying to become a historian, it became fashionable to talk about the “tragedy of the commons.” What was a commons anyway and, if it existed, why would its disappearance be tragic? This led me to develop my own definition: The commons was quite simply a central place in European villages that drew townspeople together, where animals grazed and communal events occurred. This may have been a historical fantasy, but over the years it sustained me in believing that there were public goods — clean air and water, transportation, protection against crime, old age security, education and health care — that should be supported in the interest of all.