Jim and Pit Horeyseck are 18 and 21 years old. Yet the two Hamburg University of Technology students have already been working as climate ambassadors for several years – and they have big plans.
It all started with an autograph. Or rather, the lack of one. Christmas 2021 at the Horeyseck family home in Nützen, northern Germany: 14-year-old Jim, a boy with a passion for adventure stories, eagerly unwraps his present – a biography of polar explorer Arved Fuchs. But contrary to what the bookshop had promised, the book is not signed by Arved Fuchs. Disappointment under the Christmas tree. But Jim comes up with a plan.
Shortly afterwards, Jim and his brother Pit, two years his senior, travel to nearby Bad Bramstedt, where Arved Fuchs lives. They hope to get the book signed after all. And indeed, they get the autograph – and much more. The polar explorer is immediately impressed by Jim's enthusiasm and curiosity. He seems the perfect candidate for Fuchs' youth expedition "I.C.E." (Ice, Climate, Education), which is due to sail to Denmark. There is just one problem: the minimum age for participation is actually 16. But when the 14-year-old submits an impressive essay on the warming of the Baltic Sea, Arved Fuchs makes up his mind: "This boy has to come along."
A Visit to the Federal President
And come along he does. The voyage lays the foundation for a career as a climate ambassador – not only for Jim, but also for his equally committed brother Pit. Since their school days, the two have regularly visited other schools to raise awareness of environmental issues. "We believe schools are the ideal place for this," says Jim. "Anyone who learns about climate, oceans and sustainability at an early age will be much better equipped to understand these issues later in life."
Jim (18) and Pit (21) Horeyseck are now both studying at Hamburg University of Technology. This autumn, they began their third semester of General Engineering Science. Their commitment to the environment remains as strong as ever. In the summer, for example, they gave a presentation at the UNU Hub Meeting "Engineering to Face Climate Change" to an audience of around 50 established researchers from Germany and abroad. In addition to school events, they are now invited to political gatherings, most recently to events involving former Federal Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer and a celebration hosted by Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Media outlets including NDR and the Hamburger Abendblatt have also reported on the young climate campaigners.
The Horeyseck brothers developed an interest in environmental issues at an early age. While still at primary school, Jim and Pit would go sailing with their father in a small dinghy in the Bay of Lübeck. There, they witnessed the Baltic Sea's growing environmental problems, including plastic pollution and eutrophication, at first hand. Some images have stayed with them ever since: a dead harbour porpoise washed up on the beach; a vast carpet of cyanobacteria covering the water. "We knew we shouldn't just sail into that algal bloom because we might get a skin rash," says Jim Horeyseck. His brother Pit adds: "At some point, we decided we didn't want to ignore these problems. We wanted to take action ourselves. That's how the idea for the project days came about."
Persistence and the "Youth Bonus"
Inspired by their experiences on the Baltic Sea and Jim's expedition with Arved Fuchs, the teenagers take the initiative and organise project days at their school. The events, featuring numerous workshops, grow steadily in scale. Jim and Pit even manage to attract experts from academia and politics, including State Secretary Katja Günther and biologist Professor Saskia Brix, for an evening panel discussion. In the end, 300 people attend, and television crews cover the event.
The Horeysecks' persistence pays off. "If we follow up with someone 20 times to ask whether they'd like to come to our event, people are more likely to forgive us than they would adults," says Jim. "Our father calls it our 'youth bonus'."
Youth bonus or not, the Horeysecks' mission is not necessarily getting any easier. In the battle for public attention, climate change constantly has to compete with one crisis after another: Ukraine, Gaza, Iran. Jim and Pit Horeyseck know many people their age who have become so frustrated that they have stopped following the news altogether. But environmental issues, Jim points out, will ultimately affect everyone, whether they like it or not. "Very few people want to make sacrifices when it comes to their lifestyle. So we need good ideas about how to manage the resources available to us in the future."
That is another reason why the brothers feel so at home at Hamburg University of Technology, which has adopted "Engineering to Face Climate Change" as its guiding ambition. "The focus on green technologies was actually the reason we decided to enrol here," reveals Pit Horeyseck. "Our goal is clear: we want to gain as much knowledge as possible, complete our degrees as quickly as we can and then work to advance renewable technologies."
Solution-Oriented Thinking
The brothers inherited their pragmatic engineering mindset from their father, who studied plant operations engineering. "At school, our teachers always seemed to tell us why things weren't possible," Pit recalls. "Our father, on the other hand, always explained why something could work. That taught us to think in terms of solutions from an early age."
And this approach extends beyond environmental issues. As part of his scholarship from the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, for example, Pit is involved in raising awareness of political extremism.
Jim also receives a scholarship, from the Hans-Böckler-Stiftung. Anyone who talks to the brothers quickly realises that they have a plan. It is almost reassuring that they do not yet know exactly where their journey will take them. Perhaps they will even pursue careers in politics.
Could becoming Federal Environment Minister be the ultimate career goal? "That would be a dream, of course," says Jim. His older brother Pit is more reserved. "To be honest, I've become a little sceptical about how much politicians can really achieve. Under certain circumstances, an engineer in a key position might actually be able to make a bigger difference."
Whether as politicians, entrepreneurs or researchers, perhaps one day Jim and Pit Horeyseck will be the ones signing books.
