Britain could have increased fracking for nat gas but didn't. Why? Because Russia pumped $95M into anti-fracking advocacy. Noted the head of NATO, Russia “engaged actively with environmental organisations… to maintain Europe’s dependence on Russian gas”https://t.co/4SfrNJcaJv pic.twitter.com/ciQFu2KV8R
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) February 25, 2022
Michael Schellenberger (both above & below) points out how eco-superstition (significantly funded by Russia as deliberate disinformatsia) persuaded both European countries and America to avoid energy production to save the earth!, thereby rendering both dependent on exported Russian energy. Vladimir Putin obviously believed that that dependency gave Russia a free hand to invade Ukraine.
How is it possible that European countries, Germany especially, allowed themselves to become so dependent on an authoritarian country over the 30 years since the end of the Cold War?
Here’s how: These countries are in the grips of a delusional ideology that makes them incapable of understanding the hard realities of energy production. Green ideology insists we don’t need nuclear and that we don’t need fracking. It insists that it’s just a matter of will and money to switch to all-renewables—and fast. It insists that we need “degrowth” of the economy, and that we face looming human “extinction.” (I would know. I myself was once a true believer.)
John Kerry, the United States’ climate envoy, perfectly captured the myopia of this view when he said, in the days before the war, that the Russian invasion of Ukraine “could have a profound negative impact on the climate, obviously. You have a war, and obviously you’re going to have massive emissions consequences to the war. But equally importantly, you’re going to lose people’s focus.”
But it was the West’s focus on healing the planet with “soft energy” renewables, and moving away from natural gas and nuclear, that allowed Putin to gain a stranglehold over Europe’s energy supply.
As the West fell into a hypnotic trance about healing its relationship with nature, averting climate apocalypse and worshiping a teenager named Greta, Vladimir Putin made his moves.
While he expanded nuclear energy at home so Russia could export its precious oil and gas to Europe, Western governments spent their time and energy obsessing over “carbon footprints,” a term created by an advertising firm working for British Petroleum. They banned plastic straws because of a 9-year-old Canadian child’s science homework. They paid for hours of “climate anxiety” therapy.
While Putin expanded Russia’s oil production, expanded natural gas production, and then doubled nuclear energy production to allow more exports of its precious gas, Europe, led by Germany, shut down its nuclear power plants, closed gas fields, and refused to develop more through advanced methods like fracking.
The numbers tell the story best. In 2016, 30 percent of the natural gas consumed by the European Union came from Russia. In 2018, that figure jumped to 40 percent. By 2020, it was nearly 44 percent, and by early 2021, it was nearly 47 percent.
For all his fawning over Putin, Donald Trump, back in 2018, defied diplomatic protocol to call out Germany publicly for its dependence on Moscow. “Germany, as far as I’m concerned, is captive to Russia because it’s getting so much of its energy from Russia,” Trump said. This prompted Germany’s then-chancellor, Angela Merkel, who had been widely praised in polite circles for being the last serious leader in the West, to say that her country “can make our own policies and make our own decisions.”
The result has been the worst global energy crisis since 1973, driving prices for electricity and gasoline higher around the world. It is a crisis, fundamentally, of inadequate supply. But the scarcity is entirely manufactured.
Europeans—led by figures like Greta Thunberg and European Green Party leaders, and supported by Americans like John Kerry—believed that a healthy relationship with the Earth requires making energy scarce. By turning to renewables, they would show the world how to live without harming the planet. But this was a pipe dream. You can’t power a whole grid with solar and wind, because the sun and the wind are inconstant, and currently existing batteries aren’t even cheap enough to store large quantities of electricity overnight, much less across whole seasons.
In service to green ideology, they made the perfect the enemy of the good—and of Ukraine.
Larry Cloetta
“Why were Victoria Nuland and her buddies at the State Department so hell bent on ousting the government of another country, half a world away, that was friendly to Moscow, and replacing it with a corrupt one that is friendly to the U.S.? Just like the U.S is known to have done in Chile, el Salvador, and Nicaragua?”
“Well, she thinks it served U.S. interests, that’s why.”
“When Russia made eminently reasonable requests, through normal diplomatic channels, repeatedly for months, that the Ukraine not be turned into an armed NATO state, on Russia’s border, a request of the West to merely put into writing a firm promise made by the U.S. to Gorbachev that NATO would never move towards Russia, would never include members on Russia’s border, would never move eastward, “not even an inch”, but a firm promise that Gorbachev failed to get in writing;….when Russia made these reasonable requests for months, and they were all rejected by the State Department, why was that?”
“It was not in the best interests of the U.S. Somehow. The way we figured it. Something about our values. Or Obama’s values. Something.”
“But they said rejecting this request, and reserving the possibility of making the Ukraine a NATO state, was a red line, so why didn’t you reconsider, since living up to your earlier guarantees would have cost the West nothing, and preserved the peace.”
“It was not in the best interest of the U.S. as Tony Blinken understands it. Besides, the Russians were bluffing.”
“Russians don’t bluff.”
“Well, we know that now. Didn’t study history much in school. Who knew?”
“People who studied history in school. People who knew that while America lost something less than 500,000 dead in WWII, the Russians lost over 26,000,000 people and suffered incalculable damage to their homeland after they were invaded, for the umpteenth time, from the west, this time by Germany, who was their ally. That’s why Russia understands the world the way they do, and makes the requests they make. It’s an existential situation for them. Life or death, literally, in ways Americans can never fully appreciate, being isolated on all 4 sides by land and sea that make invasions and attacks virtually impossible.
So, it was the actions of the U.S state department that led to this, and the blame is solely theirs, because they could have easily prevented all this.”
“Well, I don’t know about any of that, but Putin is Hitler!”
Seattle Sam
We are routinely victimized by delusionals. Delusional people who think they can stop the entire earth’s climate from changing. Delusional people who think they can stop a virus from spreading with face diapers. Delusional people who think they can eradicate poverty or drug traffic by declaring a “war ” on it. Delusional people who think they can reduce inflation by printing even more money. Delusional people who think the UN can accomplish ANYTHING. Delusional people who think they can reduce homelessness by making it easier for people to live on the streets.
You know, maybe these people aren’t delusional. Maybe they’re just trying to get what THEY want at our expense.
Boligat
Why is it that everyone in a position of power thinks everything, every situation is binary, either/or, this or that, there are two sides to every story, NATO/Russia?
There has to be more than two solutions.
Oh, wait, there are more than two solutions. How about a third option:
Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland forget about NATO and then join with Ukraine to form their own alliance. Declare themselves neutral and sign mutual protection treaties with NATO and Russia in the event that they are invaded. The new alliance (FELLPU) serve as the buffer that Russia wants, but does not align with anyone, unlike NATO and Belrus.
T. Shaw
Simply put, Putin is spending the excess profits he’s made from Biden’s and Greta Thunberg’s destructive [something for nobody], fake environmental knee-capping of US oil production to conquer Ukraine.
And, the USSR would still be dysfunctional if Reagan had listened to those [expletive-deleted] scumbags.
Does Larry Coeletta, above, actually believe Russia propaganda [lies] and feigned hysterical, aggressive paranoia?
If so, he’s a useful fool. And, he is not alone. The DoD [e.g., Douglas Macgregor, PhD; ret. Col – never made general], CIA, State Department, etc. were/are crowded with such infiltrators.
I can’t fathom what runs these filthy animals. Is it Treason? Is it defeatism – treason’s pretty sister [better red than dead]? Is it cowardice? No, it can’t be stupidity. They mostly have advanced degrees in centuries of international debacles. And, they never learn from History. So, we repeat it every time.
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