Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring and Monet’s Haystacks all got visited by climate activists this year. The activists were keen to glue themselves to the priceless works of art leading to the creation of a new word in the Dutch language that is the language of a majority of the people living in Belgium. Such activists are called “klimaatklevers” or “climate gluers”.
Climate gluer has been chosen as word of the year in Flanders and in the Netherlands, a country that shares our language. Nearly 15,000 people voted. Climate gluer received the backing of 23.7% of people.
According to the Van Dale Dutch dictionary a “klimaatklever” is an activist who glues him or herself to an object of symbolic value in order to draw wider attention to climate issues.
‘Concentration crisis’ came home second in Flanders (but would have had my vote). It describes failing concentration due to distraction by others (e.g. colleagues) or technological appliances like smartphones.
Flemings chose ‘energy tourism’ as the third most popular word of the year. It describes the practice of heading for sunnier climes to flee energy bills.
It’s very exceptional that Flemish and Dutch voters pick the same word. This only happened once before with the word “selfie” in 2013.