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EU Farmer Blockades Represent a Serious Setback for EU’s Climate Agenda

BY DAVID THUNDER | THE FREEDOM BLOG | FEBRUARY 8, 2024

Many major arteries connecting Europe have been obstructed or brought to a standstill in recent days by a wave of protests by farmers against what they claim are overly burdensome environmental targets and unsustainable levels of bureacracy associated with EU and national farming regulations.

The warning shots of this showdown between policymakers and farmers had already been fired on 1st October 2019, when more than 2,000 Dutch tractors caused traffic mayhem in the Netherlands in response to an announcement that livestock farms would have to be bought out and shut down to reduce nitrogen emissions. Early last year, Polish farmers blocked the border with the Ukraine demanding the re-imposition of tariffs on Ukrainean grain.

But it was not until early this year that an EU-wide protest was ignited. German and French protests and tractor blockades made international news, and the blockades were soon replicated in Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Greece, Netherlands and Ireland. Major highways and ports were blocked and manure was poured over government buildings, as farmers across Europe expressed their frustration at rising farming costs, falling prices for their produce, and crippling environmental regulations that made their products uncompetitive in the global market.

It seems the farmers have European elites rattled, which is hardly surprising, given that EU elections are just around the corner. While the European Commission announced Tuesday it was still committed to achieving a 90% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in Europe by 2040, it conspicuously omitted any mention of how the farming sector would contribute to that ambitious target. Even more tellingly, the Commission has backed down or fudged on key climate commitments, at least temporarily.

According to Politico, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced on Tuesday that “she was withdrawing an EU effort to rein in pesticide use.” The climbdown on this and other Commission proposals relating to farming was rather embarrassing for the Commission but politically inevitable, given that the protests were spreading rapidly and farmers were showing no signs of going home until their demands were met. As reported by Politico,

A note on the possibility of agriculture cutting down on methane and nitrous oxides by 30 percent, which was in earlier drafts of the Commission’s 2040 proposal, was gone by the time it came out on Tuesday. Similarly excised were missives on behavioral change — possibly including eating less meat or dairy — and cutting subsidies for fossil fuels, many of which go to farmers to assist with their diesel costs. Inserted was softer language about the necessity of farming to Europe’s food security and the positive contributions it can make.

The EU Commission is playing a dangerous game. On the one hand, they are attempting to placate farmers by making expedient short-term concessions to them. On the other hand, they are holding fast to their commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions in Europe by 90% by 2040, while fudging on the fact that a 90% emission cut in 16 years would have drastic implications for farming.

It is clearly politically expedient, especially in an election year, to put out this fire of farming discontent as soon as possible, and buy some peace ahead of June’s European elections. But there is no avoiding the fact that the Commission’s long-term environmental goals, as currently conceived, almost certainly require sacrifices that farmers are simply not willling to accept.

Independently from the merits of EU climate policy, two things are clear: first, EU leaders and environmental activists appear to have vastly underestimated the backlash their policies would spark in the farming community; and second, the apparent success of this dramatic EU-wide protest sets a spectacular precedent, that will not go unnoticed among farmers and transport companies, whose operating costs are heavily impacted by environmental regulations like carbon taxes. The Commission’s embarrassing concessions are proof that high-visibility, disruptive tactics can be effective. As such, we can expect more of this after June’s EU elections if the Commission doubles down again on its climate policy goals.

February 10, 2024 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | | Leave a comment

‘Vassal’ Scholz Gov’t Ignoring Nord Stream Terrorism Despite ‘Colossal Damage’ Done to Germany

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 09.02.2024

Tucker Carlson asked President Putin who he thought blew up the Nord Stream pipeline network and why, with the Russian leader offering a response which included an assessment of the competence of the current German government. Sputnik reached out to a lawmaker from Germany’s fastest growing opposition party for his take on Putin’s comments.

“Who blew up Nord Stream?” Carlson asked Putin at the midpoint of his two-hour-long interview. “You, for sure,” Putin jokingly replied. “I was busy that day. I did not blow up Nord Stream,” Carlson assured. “You personally may have an alibi, but the CIA has no such alibi,” Putin answered.

“You know, I won’t go into details, but people always say in such cases: ‘look for someone who is interested’. But in this case we should not only look for someone who is interested, but also for someone who has the capabilities. Because there may be many people interested, but not all of them are capable of going to the bottom of the Baltic Sea and carrying out this explosion,” Putin continued. “It is clear to the whole world what happened, and even American analysts talk about it directly,” Putin said, citing evidence laid out publicly about Washington’s responsibility for the Nord Stream attack.

Vladimir Putin, in an interview with Carlson, explained who blew up the Nord Stream pipeline.

“Who blew up Nord Stream?” the reporter asked.

“You for sure,” the president replied.

“I was busy that day. I did not blow up Nord Stream. Thank you though,” Carlson said.

Asked why Germany, the main economic loser from the attack, has remained silent on the terrorist incident despite essentially being targeted by its own NATO ally, Putin said he believes “today’s German leadership is guided by the interests of the collective West rather than its [own] national interests.”

“After all, it is not only about Nord Stream-1, which was blown up, and Nord Stream-2, which was damaged, but one pipe remains safe and sound, and gas can be supplied to Europe through it, but Germany does not open it,” Putin said, pointing to the energy crisis currently rocking the country, and suggesting the nation is being led by “highly incompetent people.”

Over 15 months after the Nord Stream incident, German authorities have yet to release the findings of an official investigation.

Eugen Schmidt, a Bundestag lawmaker from the opposition Alternative for Germany (German acronym AfD) Party who has made several parliamentary inquiries on the matter, told Sputnik that the lack of interest in finding the culprits of the attack is a sign of not only incompetence, but vassal status.

“Even the fact that the investigation has been classified as ‘secret’, i.e. the public is isolated as much as possible from it, despite the colossal harm done to both the German economy and the country’s prestige in general,” is concerning, Schmidt said.

Instead, the lawmaker noted, Germans have been treated to regular doses of misinformation in media reports citing intelligence officials that the Nord Stream attack was “supposedly done by some group of Ukrainian swashbucklers,” despite comments by Germany’s own investigators that only a small handful of nations have the capability to target pipelines 80 meters underwater in the Baltic Sea.

“The goal, apparently, is to divert public opinion from the real masterminds, the real perpetrators, and of course, the beneficiaries. It’s quite obvious that the beneficiary of such an act is first and foremost the United States. And technically, they could do it. That is, they are one of the few countries that could pull off something like this,” Schmidt stressed.

The politician recalled how President Biden warned publicly in February 2022, with Chancellor Scholz standing beside him, that the US would “bring an end” to Nord Stream if the Ukrainian crisis escalated.

“That is, there is a huge number of factors, plus Seymour Hersh’s investigation, all suggesting that the United States both planned and carried out this terrorist attack,” Schmidt said.

In the middle of it all, Germany’s government has not only demonstrated its “absolute incompetence,” but has “shown that they are absolutely dependent on the United States, that they are not able to pursue any sovereign policy. They’ve shown their status as a vassal. That’s why they’re hiding the results of the investigation,” the lawmaker believes.

Germany’s ruling elites are almost entirely dependent on America, Schmidt stressed. “They are actual American agents of influence here in Germany. They do not pursue their own sovereign policy. They pursue US policy in Germany. In other words, they’re not seeking to make Germany independent or to pursue policies in the interests of Germany itself. They’re absolutely dependent on the US. Therefore, the country’s entire policy does not meet its own national interests.”

The authorities’ incompetence is perfectly highlighted by its reaction to possibly the worst economic crisis in Germany’s postwar history, according to the lawmaker. “They’ve recruited ideologically-motivated people who have no idea how the economy works or how to correctly implement the country’s policies, especially in economic terms, how to protect the country’s interests so that the economy works effectively.”

Instead, Schmidt lamented, the government is filled with officials whose top priorities include the climate agenda, or accepting even more immigrants into the country. “No one is busy with the work for which they are there. They are simply carrying out their own ideological projects.”

The consequences include an economy “bursting at the seams, with businesses closing and moving abroad,” and Germany being treated like “some kind of foreign policy dwarf” on the world stage, the lawmaker said. “Energy prices are breaking records. We’re paying crazy amounts of money for American liquefied natural gas at the same time that we’re imposing sanctions on [Russian] pipeline gas.”

There are still “sound political forces” in Germany, Schmidt stressed, including AfD, and these are gaining more and more public support, resulting in media smear campaigns and accusations of “Nazism,” “right-wing populism,” and of being in bed with the Kremlin, which the lawmaker has personally experienced.

“Every imaginable propaganda cliché is being used to discredit our party using all possible means. Because [the authorities] are confused and afraid of losing their warm places,” engaging in witch hunts against the opposition instead of actually earning the public’s trust, up to and including calls to ban the AfD outright.

“This is a completely ridiculous and impossible situation that harms democracy in the country,” Schmidt said, adding that unfortunately for the government, the attacks on the opposition are reflected in public opinion polling, where the ruling coalition has set records to become possibly the most unpopular government in German history.

Fresh polling by the Erfurt-based Institute for New Social Answers, one of Germany’s leading social research institutions, found the Traffic Light coalition government, which includes Chancellor Scholz’s Social Democrats, the Greens and the Free Democratic Party, collectively polling at just 32 percent support. The same poll found that the mainstream socially conservative opposition Christian Democratic Union has 30 percent support, with the AfD sitting at 20.5 percent (5.5 percent more than Scholz’s Social Democrats), and former Left Party lawmaker Sarah Wagenknecht’s new party at 7.5 support (three percent more than the Free Democrats).

Germans are set to go to the polls sometime between late August and late October of 2025, unless the Bundestag is dissolved earlier and snap elections are called.

February 9, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, War Crimes | , , | 1 Comment

Green Energies Shattering German Economy… Industrial Production Falls 7th Consecutive Month

By P Gosselin | No Tricks Zone | February 7, 2024

-1.6%!

That’s how much Germany’s industrial production fell in December, 2023. It’s the seventh-straight month of decline as the country’s energy woes mount.

One reason is reported by the Wall Street Journal today: ”Germany’s Industrial Production Falls For Seventh-Straight Month” in December 2023, far worse than expected.

To underscore the seriousness, 2023’s industrial production result is a whopping 10% below pre-pandemic levels.

One of the major drivers behind the demise is arguably the country’s disastrous energy policy, which has entailed shutting down cheap and steady conventional sources such as nuclear and natural gas and increasingly relying on unstable wind and solar energy. Energy prices have soared over the past years, thus driving inflation.

Things aren’t expected to improve much any time soon as the country is currently being plagued by strikes by train drivers, airport and airline personnel, who are fighting for higher wages that have been eroded away by high inflation. Energy supplies remain unstable and are expected to stay high.

Farmers are angry and have been demonstrating for weeks, often blocking transportation routes.

If there’s any light at the end of the tunnel, it’s a very faint one and the tunnel may be very long.

Currently many companies are announcing plans to move operations to business- friendlier locations.

February 8, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | | Leave a comment

Protesting Farmers Win Big Concessions, But EU Leaders Dig in Their Heels on Net Zero Climate Target

By John-Michael Dumais | The Defender | Febraury 7, 2024

Following the protests in Brussels last week by farmers from across the European Union (EU), the European Commission offered some concessions to the agricultural sector — but said it will not scale back its plan to cut 90% of greenhouse gas emissions by 2040, Reuters reported Tuesday.

The new commission plan drops the requirement to reduce farm-related emissions such as nitrogen, nitrous oxide and methane by one-third and removes the recommendation that EU citizens eat less meat, The Telegraph reported.

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Tuesday also offered to drop her proposal requiring farmers to cut pesticide use in half by 2030, saying it had become “a symbol of polarisation,” according to The Guardian.

Other concessions included limiting Ukrainian agricultural imports and delaying rules for setting aside more land to promote soil health and biodiversity.

At the behest of von der Leyen’s center-right European People’s Party, the revised commission plan features language praising the value of the agricultural sector, noting its importance for attaining the EU goal of food sovereignty, wrote Politico.

The compromise comes after weeks of escalating demonstrations by farmers in France, Spain, Germany, Portugal, Italy, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Lithuania and other EU countries against several policies — from fuel subsidies and unfair trade practices to green emissions rules and taxes — that they said threaten their livelihoods.

The farmers argued the climate regulations have singled them out unfairly, imposing a disproportionate burden compared to other industries that also damage the environment, according to the Washington Examiner.

Over the past several weeks, tractors in several European cities blocked major highways and city streets — even an airport — forcing national governments to the negotiating table before the EU Parliament summit in Brussels last week.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition last month agreed not to eliminate a tax rebate on new agricultural vehicles, and to more gradually phase out subsidies on agricultural diesel fuel.

In France, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal’s government in January increased subsidies to livestock farmers, withdrew plans for a fuel tax hike, promised to clearly define lab-grown meat, banned the import of food grown with a neonicotinoid pesticide already prohibited in the country and suspended its pesticide-reduction plan.

Despite concessions, protests continue

Despite the concessions already made — and amid European Commission members releasing statements in support of farmers and their plight — farmers in multiple European countries continue to protest ahead of the June EU elections.

Farmers in Spain this week blocked major roadways in and around major cities in a series of protests, with a farming lobby calling the EU debate a “blame game.”

Italian farmers are massing in Rome to protest cheap imports from outside the EU, with banners featuring slogans such as “No farmer, no food.”

Dozens of Greek farmers’ organizations voted on Tuesday to descend on Athens with their tractors, blocking motorways to gain government concessions. These include speeding up reconstruction after the severe flooding last September in Thessaly, the heart of Greece’s agricultural production.

Even Croatian farmers are considering joining the EU-wide actions, citing green policies and trade agreements.

“We believe that the demands that are discussed at the protests in the EU are something that we agree with, and they are about problems that the entire EU is facing,” said Mladen Jakopović, president of the Croatian Chamber of Agriculture, on Tuesday.

EU leaders are hoping to quell the ongoing farmer protests in the months before the EU Parliament elections in June due to fears the unrest could yield a wave of populist candidates who are less eager to enact the climate measures.

EU’s climate policies remain largely unchanged

The recent accommodations for farmers offered by the European Commission have not changed its overall goal of achieving climate neutrality (net zero) by the year 2050, or its interim goals of a 55% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and a 90% reduction by 2040, according to Politico.

Wopke Hoekstra, the European commissioner for Climate Action, announced the goals Tuesday at the European Parliament meeting in Strasbourg.

European People’s Party spokesperson Peter Liese on Monday said his party’s support for these goals depended on a greater emphasis being placed on “positive opportunities” for farmers and less on “new instruments that rather see the farmers as an enemy of climate policy.”

The commission’s recommendations are not yet laws, which the next commission will consider after this summer’s EU elections. The EU Parliament and EU members will need to agree before such proposals are set in stone.

The climate target recommendations come as the German government, after scrapping its nuclear power reactors, last month announced plans to spend billions on new gas power plants to ensure long-term energy security.

John-Michael Dumais is a news editor for The Defender. He has been a writer and community organizer on a variety of issues, including the death penalty, war, health freedom and all things related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

February 8, 2024 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | | Leave a comment

Germany’s energy crisis deepens further due to Biden’s halt of U.S. LNG projects

Germany has dug itself into an energy hole

By P Gosselin | No Tricks Zone | February 4, 2024

Due to the environmental and climate hysteria over the past decades, Germany has steadily moved to shut down its vast  fleet of nuclear reactors, coal power plants, and even natural gas supplies (a major supply line from Russia got blown up).

Moreover, Germany is moving to ban fossil fuel heating systems for homes, and mandating electric cars by 2035.

Now in an energy crunch

Since the supply of natural gas from Russia got cut off, it became necessary to find an alternative source quickly – from USA in the form of imported LNG. The German government approved the construction an LNG terminal at the north German coast in record time. This would help secure Germany’s energy supply. Surely the USA could be viewed as a reliable partner.

That was the plan – until President Joe Biden unexpectedly put a stop to further LNG projects. Now, Germany suddenly risks finding itself in energy isolation. It’s panic time in Berlin.

“Devastating energy crisis”

“Germany is facing a devastating energy crisis that seriously threatens its security of supply,” reports Germany’s Blackout News. “Biden’s decision now has far-reaching consequences that could pose serious problems for German energy policy.”

Also see. berliner-zeitung : 26.01.24

The USA is the world’s largest exporter of LNG, but because of climate protection, Biden bowed to pressure from climate radicals and stopped plans to build new export terminals. This development has sent shockwaves through energy-starved Germany.

According to US government officials, four U.S. terminal projects are directly affected by Biden’s decision.

Berlin has backed itself into a corner with its years of misguided green energy policy. Now the chickens are coming home to roost.

February 4, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | Leave a comment

Von der Leyen celebrates ‘a great day for Europe’ as farmers trash Brussels

By Rachel Marsden | RT | February 2, 2024

“Agreement! The European Council delivered on our priorities. Supporting Ukraine…. A good day for Europe,” tweeted unelected European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Thursday, as EU farmers “high-fived” her by throwing eggs, lighting fires and dumping manure in Brussels, where a reported 1,300 tractors gathered in protest.

Surely it must have been in anticipation of this “great day for Europe” that Brussels rolled out the barbed wire to keep the bloc’s own struggling farmers at bay while its leaders cut yet another check for Ukraine — after threatening the one anticipated holdout with national economic “blackmail,” as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban qualified it. It’s hard to believe that this meeting actually took place in Brussels. These officials are so disconnected from reality that it may as well have been held on a whole other planet.

Unlike the Ukrainian products making their way onto Western European dinner plates to stick it to Russian President Vladimir Putin (because turtlenecks and short, cold showers apparently failed to do the job), this crisis is certifiably EU-made. No one knows this better than the farmers, who also realize that it makes more sense to blockade the streets of Brussels than the national highways of their home countries, which they’ve been doing with overwhelming public support – from nine out of every ten citizens in the case of France, according to a recent Odoxa poll.

It was the EU with its climate change obsession that imposed a Common Agricultural Policy on farmers across the entire bloc, managed by bureaucrats divorced from the reality on the ground. Pencil pushers use EU Copernicus satellite images to spy and crack down on farmers whose paperwork doesn’t match – even if any discrepancies can be chalked up to uncontrollable but temporary conditions like the weather.

It was also the EU that piled on regulations under the pretext of ensuring the quality of farm products, while at the same time flooding the bloc with grain, poultry, and other imports from Ukraine. Does “Chernobyl chicken” mass-produced by workers who are paid a pittance represent a threat to the physical health of citizens and economic health of farmers? If not, then why can’t Brussels take its jackboot off the necks of its own farmers so they can compete on a level playing field? The EU has also suddenly decided to ease up on some pesticide bans, angering greens. Paris is promoting the idea that ideologically-driven bans need to end, which seems like a tacit admission of their uselessness. So what should we be more worried about now – ideologically-driven authoritarianism under the guise of health consciousness, or an actual health threat?

And what about that Ukrainian grain that EU officials demanded Russia unblock to feed the poor in developing countries? It turns out that Turkey and Russia were right when they raised the alarm about it just being dumped right next door in Europe, and it sounds like Russian President Vladimir Putin was effectively a bigger defender of EU farmers’ interests than Brussels was. But who’s even surprised anymore by Brussels’ misplaced priorities, given the image that has now emerged of another €50 billion ($54 billion) going out the door to Kiev, in support of a country that’s undercutting the EU’s own farmers without even being in the EU itself?

It was also the EU that screwed itself, its entire population, industry, and farmers out of cheap Russian energy, driving inflation that caused consumers to turn to cheaper food products and, in turn, driving industrial distributors to buy more cheaply, favoring Ukrainian imports. French President Emmanuel Macron said that he’d now be merciless with those industrials, as he limbers up to toss them under the tractors instead of taking responsibility for his own inaction or blaming Brussels for a top-down anti-Russia policy that’s doing far more harm than good.

The farmers’ problems are existential. And while some French farming union chiefs have called for the suspension of blockades in light of the most recent series of promised reforms announced by Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, it’s not clear whether the rank and file will actually listen in the long term. These are people who don’t talk much, but when they do, they’re direct and concrete. As one farmer told me, “Our feet may be in the dirt, but the dirt is clean” – in contrast to some politicians who have different narratives depending on their audience. Even with the suspension of the blockades on Friday, union reps admit that if government action and implementation doesn’t follow shortly, then the blowback from the same farmers risks being “catastrophic.”

For many farmers I’ve spoken with, it’s far too little, and way too late. The average French farmer’s income, estimated by government statistics back in 2021 at around €17,700 a year (for people who regularly work 70 hours a week), has since been subjected to even more blows. Yet governments have insisted on milking this particular cow until there’s nothing left. How else to explain the careless decision to raise taxes on farm fuel by 3 cents a liter, every year, and the insistence on maintaining such a policy at a time when the price of energy had skyrocketed as a result of knee-jerk anti-Russian ideological choices imposed by the EU? Until the tractors spilled onto the highways in France, Paris showed no interest in reversing this tax policy, which was implemented to drive the “green transition” away from conventional energy, and against all pragmatic reality. Clearly French officials knew of its devastating impact, as it was one of the very first concessions that Attal tried tossing like a speed bump in front of the advancing tractors on January 26 – and which the farmers rolled right over, demanding more.

Then there’s Queen Ursula briefly breaking from her fawning over the EU farmers’ current nemesis, Ukraine, to propose easing their “administrative burden.” Too bad she didn’t do that before letting Ukraine into the market in the first place. Guess she could always just blame Putin for making her do it. The bureaucracy is so overwhelming at this point that her proposal to the farmers is like offering to save people drowning in the ocean by tossing them a bucket. She could have stopped the paperwork pile-on at any time, but didn’t.

And how exactly could she know this demagoguery was killing European farming? You’d think that the first clue would have been the fact that EU policies ended up strong-arming Dutch farmers to sell their land to the government because their cattle’s nitrogen emissions exceeded climate policy limits.

Macron has now started to lobby the EU to restrict Ukrainian imports. Wow. You’d think these tractors were Decepticon Transformers about to rise up and kick their behinds, the way that all these EU leaders are suddenly springing into action. But the fact that an elected president even has to go cap in hand to plead with unelected Brussels bureaucrats, rather than make sovereign decisions in the best interests of his own country, is pathetic. Like, what if they say no? Then what? Does Macron think that he’s going to single-handedly and permanently derail the new Mercosur free trade deal, ready for signature, and set to flood the EU with even more farm products from Brazil and the rest of South America?

If Macron, or any other EU leader had any courage, they would have vetoed the €50 billion for Ukraine and demanded that it be used in consultation with EU farmers to ease their burden and “unscrew” the bloc. That’s a lot of bought time for the EU to figure out how to deconstruct the mess that it has made of its own house through corruption and special interests – all in hope that one day, people doing honest work can also make a commensurately decent living.

Rachel Marsden is a columnist, political strategist, and host of independently produced talk-shows in French and English.

February 2, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | Leave a comment

IMF accused of domestic meddling after telling UK to reach net zero targets by raising taxes

BY THOMAS BROOKE | REMIX NEWS | JANUARY 30, 2024

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been accused of intervening in the U.K.’s domestic politics by warning Chancellor Jeremy Hunt against tax cuts so that net zero targets can be achieved.

In the latest update to its economic forecasts, IMF analysts said that the U.K. Treasury should not be considering cuts to taxation — as hinted at recently by Hunt ahead of March’s budget statement — and should instead raise it in particular areas — all at a time when ordinary Brits continue to struggle with the cost of living.

“Preserving high-quality public services and undertaking critical public investments to boost growth and achieve the net zero targets, will imply higher spending needs over the medium term than are currently reflected in the government’s budget plans,” an IMF spokesperson said.

“Accommodating these needs… will already require generating additional high-quality fiscal savings, including on the tax side.

“The IMF has recommended strengthening carbon and property taxation, eliminating loopholes in wealth and income taxation, and reforming the pensions triple lock.

“It is in this context that staff advises against further tax cuts,” they added.

U.K. conservatives, however, hit back at the global financial institution and accused it of meddling in domestic affairs ahead of a general election expected later this year.

Speaking to Remix News, Conservative MP Dame Andrea Jenkyns said: “It is simple, as Conservatives we should have lox taw and freedom of choice.

“We cannot be telling people how to heat their homes or what cars to drive. Say no to net zero!” added the former government minister.

Former Brexit Party MEP Martin Daubney accused globalist elites of wanting ordinary people to be “poorer, colder, and hungry to fund their eco-vanity projects and keep the taxes rolling in.”

“Supranational super-quango interferes in British domestic affairs in an attempt to keep us saddled with high taxes. Globalism is awful,” added the London-based Bruges Group think tank.

Ahead of the Spring Budget, Chancellor Hunt reiterated his desire to cut taxes but added that “it is too early to know whether further reductions in tax will be affordable.”

“We continue to believe that smart tax reductions can make a big difference in boosting growth,” he added.

January 30, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , , | Leave a comment

NITROGEN 2000 The Dutch Farmers’ Struggle

BIG PICTURE with James Patrick | Release date: January 1, 2023

Nitrogen 2000 is a 45 minute documentary on the Dutch Farmer struggle of 2019-23. 70% of Holland is owned by small cattle farmers and since 2019, the Dutch government has been advocating a 50% forced buy out of their land. This amounts to a nationalization of a third of the territory of Holland. Will this plan play out? Will the farmers be able to resist this encroachment? Watch and share the film to raise awareness of this important issue.

Please donate to my work. I made this film for free to help save Holland from loosing it’s patrimony. https://bigpicture.watch/donations/su…

Sign up for email notifications of releases of BIG PICTURE films and interviews https://bigpicture.watch/newsletter/

ENCOURAGING UPDATE: Dutch Agriculture Minister Adema puts bomb on nitrogen policy: ‘Totally out of control model of reality’ https://lc-nl.translate.goog/frieslan…

January 29, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Environmentalism, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , | 1 Comment

Germany’s dream of building a fleet of hydrogen-fired power plants is faltering

By Paul Homewood | Not A Lot Of People Know That | January 26, 2024

When green fantasies hit the brick wall of cold reality!

By 2035, Germany wants to produce 100% of its power in a climate-neutral way. To back up wind turbines and solar panels, whose production is expected to dominate in the coming years, the government initially envisioned a fleet of hydrogen-fired power plants.

But these plans are now faltering amid a prolonged government budgetary crisis, said Sigfried Russwurm, the president of Germany’s powerful industry association BDI.

In early August 2023, the German government triumphantly announced that the European Commission had essentially greenlit its plan for subsidised backup power plants.

That meant 8.8 GW of dedicated hydrogen power plants, alongside 15 GW of natural gas-powered ones that ought to switch to hydrogen by 2035 at the latest, in total representing about one-third of the German peak power demand of 2023. Climate-friendly power at the press of a button.

Because these plants would likely only produce power in periods of sustained low wind and low sun – known as “kalte Dunkelflaute” – they are unlikely to make a profit without state support.

And critically, the annual €7 billion earmarked for this purpose “evaporated” following a ruling from Germany’s top court, which restricted the government’s use of credit lines approved during the COVID-19 crisis.

With no hydrogen plants available as backup, coal power will likely be needed to fill the gap, the BDI chief warned.

“As long as the prospect of new backup power plants based on hydrogen does not get off the ground […] the solution in Germany will be the continued operation of coal-fired power plants,” Russwurm told the press on Tuesday (16 January).

Given budgetary constraints, the two industry associations are urgning the government to cut corners and ditch plans for hydrogen-fired power plants.

Industry groups are now urging the government to take action. “The Federal Government must now get its act together: We need a power plant strategy with clear framework conditions,” said energy industry association BDEW on 11 January.

“At least 15 gigawatts (GW) of new secure generation capacity will be needed in Germany by 2030,” the association added.

Given budgetary constraints, the two industry associations are urging the government to cut corners and ditch plans for hydrogen-fired power plants.

“To significantly reduce complexity and costs,” BDEW stresses the need to “reevaluate” the role afforded to hydrogen peak and hybrid power plants, due to their expensive components and limited impacts on supply security.

Russwurm is of a similar mind. Outlining the BDI’s priorities for the year, he used metaphors to explain what a hydrogen-fired power plant would look like.

Existing power plants can’t run on “pure” hydrogen because the “burners would simply melt”, he explained. Addressing this would require retrofitting the plants with ceramics, which would make them look like the nose of a spaceship folded inwards – a process that can be done but is costly, the BDI chief said.

“If these turbines are only supposed to run when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing, then they will be extremely expensive,” he added.

“I’m not even talking about the cost of hydrogen, which we don’t have, but only the investment costs of these new gas turbines and their new peripherals.”

Ultimately, this means Germany’s plan to entirely phase out coal power by 2030 looks unlikely to materialise. Instead, Germany will have to continue relying on gas-fired power plants to match growing demand for electricity.

https://www.euractiv.com/section/electricity/news/germanys-dream-of-building-a-fleet-of-hydrogen-fired-power-plants-is-faltering/

As the guy from BDI notes, 7 billion euros a year is just the cost of subsidising these hydrogen back up power plants. On top of that comes the cost of actually producing the hydrogen and the question of where the electricity will come from to do it.

January 27, 2024 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | | 1 Comment

Biden halts new LNG exports

The fuel is seen as a vital lifeline for Western Europe, which has cut itself off from cheaper Russian gas imports

RT | January 26, 2024

US President Joe Biden has ordered a pause on liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports from new projects in the country, citing their potential contribution to climate change. Energy costs in Western Europe have skyrocketed since nations such as Germany switched from Russian gas to American LNG, but Biden insists the continent doesn’t currently need additional supplies.

The pause will allow the US Department of Energy (DOE) to update the economic and environmental guidelines it uses when approving new export licenses, and will last for several months.

“During this period, we will take a hard look at the impacts of LNG exports on energy costs, America’s energy security, and our environment,” Biden said in a statement on Friday. The president added that the pause “sees the climate crisis for what it is: the existential threat of our time.”

According to the White House, roughly half of American LNG exports went to Western Europe last year, and the US has exceeded its annual delivery targets to the EU for each of the last two years. “Today’s announcement will not impact our ability to continue supplying LNG to our allies in the near-term,” Biden claimed in his statement.

Europe remains mired in an energy crisis. The continent’s former industrial powerhouse, Germany, is “in a particularly difficult situation” after abandoning Russian gas supplies, Economy Minister Robert Habeck told lawmakers last week. Prior to the imposition of sanctions on Moscow over the Ukraine conflict, Germany received 40% of its gas imports from Russia. Replacing this fuel with LNG from the US, as well as energy from Norway and the Netherlands, has come at a cost, with the German government forced to roll out massive subsidy packages to prevent its largest industrial firms from leaving the country.

German industrial output fell by 2% last year, while the entire economy shrank by 0.3% in the same time period, the country’s Federal Statistical Office reported last week. The office blamed the decline on high inflation, soaring energy prices, and weak foreign demand.

LNG is transported on large tanker ships to regasification plants, where it is heated to return it to a gaseous state. Germany has rushed to bring three such offshore plants online since early 2022, and plans to open three more over the coming months. The US has also built out its LNG export infrastructure to cope with the demand, including the Calcasieu Pass 2 project in Louisiana, which once certified will be the nation’s largest export terminal.

The Calcasieu Pass 2 facility will likely come before the DOE for approval in the coming weeks, where it will be stalled indefinitely by Biden’s pause. With half of the terminal’s output set to go to Germany, a spokesman for the project’s developer, Venture Global, told Reuters last week that the pause would send a “devastating signal to our allies that they can no longer rely on the United States.”

January 26, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , , , | 1 Comment

German steel production plunges to 15-year low

The home of the largest steel industry in Europe, Germany is facing a continuous crisis over sky-high electricity prices

By John Cody | Remix News | January 24, 2024

Steel production in Germany is cratering, reaching a low point last seen during the 2008 global economic crisis. Steel production dropped to 35.4 million tons in 2022, a decrease of 3.9 percent from 2021.

The hardest hit segment of steelworks was the electrical steel industry, which saw its production sink by almost 9 percent to 9.8 million tons, a figure even lower than the 2009 low. Overall, all segments of the steelworks industry in Germany saw declines.

Since the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war, there has seen a continuous downward trend in the German steel sector, in large part due to soaring electricity prices.

Kerstin Maria Rippel, managing director of the German Steel Federation, cited “weak demand” and “intentionally uncompetitive” electricity prices as being factors behind the crisis.

“The annual balance of steel production in Germany clearly shows that the situation for the steel industry (…) is very serious,” she added.

In what appears to be a shot at the ruling left-liberal government, Rippel says that her association notes an “urgent need for political action” regarding transmission grid fees, which have doubled since the beginning of 2023.

She is calling for state subsidies from the “Climate Transformation Fund” to help the sector finance a turnaround.

“We need a clear political concept on how the path to climate neutrality is to be sustainably financed,” said Rippel.

Soaring energy and material costs have hit German industry particularly hard, and the role of the Christian Democrats (CDU) in pushing for the phasing out of nuclear power — a move also supported by the Greens — has also played a role.

The Alternative for Germany party has pointed to the current left-liberal government, along with the previous CDU-led government, as being behind the long-term decline in Germany’s industrial sectors. However, the situation has grown especially dire under Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

“Only on Monday, the pharmaceutical and chemical giant Bayer announced a ‘significant workforce reduction’ by the end of 2025. The tire manufacturer Continental is terminating the 40-hour contracts of thousands of employees, and the gear factory Friedrichshafen (ZF) apparently wants to cut 12,000 jobs. However, the traffic light government doesn’t care about any of this,” wrote the AfD in a statement.

The AfD says it will reverse the green “energy transition” and repair the Nord Stream pipelines in order to return cheap Russian energy to German industry. The party also promises to reduce the tax burden and bureaucracy to jumpstart the German economy.

January 24, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Russophobia | , | 1 Comment

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