Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Nord Stream pipeline to be relaunched — German chancellor candidate

Alice Weidel speaks at the AfD party congress in Riesa, Germany, January 11, 2025 in Riesa © Getty Images / Sean Gallup
RT | January 11, 2025

Alternative for Germany (AfD) co-leader Alice Weidel has pledged to put the sabotaged Nord Stream gas pipelines back into operation if her party emerges victorious in next month’s general election.

AfD members met in the town of Riesa on Saturday to formally approve Weidel as their candidate to succeed Chancellor Olaf Scholz, whose coalition government collapsed late last year. Weidel’s nomination marks the right-wing AfD’s first bid for the chancellery in its 11-year history.

In a speech after the nomination vote, Weidel promised to implement harsh immigration policies – including the “remigration” of immigrants already living legally in Germany – and to scrap Scholz’s green policies in a bid to drive down energy prices. Restoring energy ties to Russia is vital to this latter goal, she explained.

“We will put Nord Stream back into operation, you can count on it,” Weidel told her party.

Germany relied on Russia for 55% of its natural gas supply before the Ukraine conflict escalated in February 2022. Much of this gas flowed through the Nord Stream 1 pipelines, with the parallel Nord Stream 2 lines due to come online in 2022. However, Berlin revoked the certification for Nord Stream 2 several days before Russia’s military operation in Ukraine began, and both sets of lines were destroyed in an act of sabotage in September of that year.

While German investigators have reportedly settled on the theory that the pipelines were destroyed by Ukrainian saboteurs, American journalist Seymour Hersh maintains that they were blown up by the CIA and US Navy. The head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergey Naryshkin, has blamed “professional saboteurs from the Anglo-American special services,” referring to the US and UK.

Scholz’s decision to halt Russian energy imports, coupled with his government’s green policies, has led to soaring electricity costs in Germany, forcing some of the country’s manufacturing giants – including Volkswagen and BASF – to close plants and lay off workers.

The AfD is not the only German party that wants to repair and reopen Nord Stream. The leftist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) has also demanded that they be brought back online, with BSW MP Sevim Dagdelen calling last week for the gas lines to “finally be put into operation,” and for the German government to “stop giving money to Kiev!”

Germans go to the polls to choose a new government on February 23. The AfD is currently polling at around 20%, ahead of Scholz’s center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) at 16%, but behind the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) at 31%. However, even if the AfD were to emerge as the largest party next month, all of Germany’s other mainstream parties have ruled out entering a coalition with it.

January 11, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Austrian President creates political chaos as Green ideology fights against reality

By Patrick Poppel | January 10, 2025

The EU member state Austria is struggling with a weakening economy and a high government deficit. In the parliamentary elections at the end of September, the Freedom Party FPÖ became the strongest force in parliament for the first time with 28.85 percent of the vote. The conservative ÖVP (Austrian People’s Party) gained 26.3 percent, followed by the social democratic SPÖ with 21.1 percent.

It has been a few months since elections took place in Austria, but the country still has no government. After the NEOS(New Austria and Liberal Forum) withdrew from the talks in Austria, the negotiations between the ÖVP and SPÖ also failed.

Chancellor Nehammer announced his resignation. In Austria, negotiations between the Chancellor’s party ÖVP and the social democratic SPÖ have been broken off. A spokesman for ÖVP leader explained in a written statement to the newspaper Die Presse: “We have tried everything up to this point. An agreement is not possible on essential key points, so there is no point in a positive future for Austria.”

Nehammer stated in a video message that he wants to resign as the head of government and as the head of the conservative ÖVP. He said he would retire from the post in the coming days. Nehammer made it clear that he was still not prepared to hold coalition talks with the right-wing FPÖ under Herbert Kickl.

The conservative ÖVP had been in talks about a coalition with the SPÖ and the liberal NEOS since mid-November. It is normal for the Federal President to appoint the party that has the most votes from voters to form the government.

But Austrian Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen supported negotiations between the other parties in order to keep the FPÖ from participating in a government. But his plan totally failed.

The ÖVP repeatedly emphasized during the election campaign: there will be no coalition with the Kickl-FPÖ. But after the negotiations between ÖVP, SPÖ and NEOS failed, there should now be talks between ÖVP and FPÖ.

The parties are not strangers to each other on all points – even if it often seemed so in the heat of the election campaign. The ÖVP described Kickl as a right-wing extremist, conspiracy supporter and security risk for Austria. The new acting ÖVP boss, Christian Stocker, who was ÖVP general secretary during the election campaign, spoke particularly harshly against Kickl in parliament.

Now things look different, however. Stocker is supposed to lead the negotiations with Kickl for the ÖVP. And Stocker assumes that both sides will ignore everything that was said during the election campaign.

Many experts in Austria now assume that the FPÖ and ÖVP will have a much easier time with each other in the negotiations than the ÖVP, SPÖ and NEOS in the negotiations of the last three months. Because when it comes to financial policy, which caused the first coalition attempt to collapse, the ÖVP and FPÖ are much closer together.

Both parties are economically liberal and do not want to place additional burdens on large businesses and owners. ÖVP and FPÖ want to scale back climate policy and there are also similarities when it comes to asylum and migration as both want a restrictive policy.

The biggest differences are likely to be in foreign policy. The FPÖ repeatedly showed an understanding for Russia. Kickl calls for an end to military support for Ukraine and is skeptical about the European Union. The ÖVP, on the other hand, is a pro-EU party.

An exciting time is now beginning for Austria. Nehammer is still chancellor. Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg will now officially take over the office on an interim basis, as Federal President Van der Bellen’s office explained. However, Schallenberg does not want to take part in a possible FPÖ-led government.

Protests from the liberal and left-wing spectrum can now be expected. A call to participate in a planned “human chain to defend democracy” demonstration in front of the Federal Chancellery in Vienna comes from, among others, the Catholic Action Austria (KAÖ).

The protests are directed against a possible blue-black government led by the FPÖ. Behind the event are social and church organizations, as well as groups that support environmental issues and refugees. In this spirit, a new government must now be put together.

This political chaos is the result of the Federal President’s actions. Austria has not had a new government for over 100 days, the political mood on the streets is tense and the society is divided. It now remains to be seen how the new government will be put together.

Patrick Poppel is an expert at the Center for Geostrategic Studies in Belgrade.

January 10, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | Leave a comment

New York On The March To Climate Utopia

By Francis Menton | Manhattan Contrarian | January 2, 2025

In a post a couple of weeks ago on December 21, I observed that the country of Germany appeared to have won the race among all countries and states to be the first to hit the “Green Energy Wall.” Its pursuit of the “renewable” wind and solar electricity fantasy has put it in a spot where regular wind/sun droughts cause huge electricity price spikes, and major industries have become uncompetitive. It has no solution to its dead end, and can go no farther.

If Germany has “hit the wall,” what is the appropriate analogy for New York? New York passed its Climate Act with great fanfare in 2019. The Act orders that we are to have a “net zero” energy system by 2050, with interim deadlines along the way. The first serious deadline arrives in 2030, where the official mandate is 70% of electricity generation from “renewables” (aka “70 x 30”). That deadline is now just five years away. Within the past year, all the efforts to move toward the 70 x 30 goal are falling apart, as anybody who had given the subject any critical thought knew that they inevitably would. But nobody in authority has yet been willing to acknowledge that this has turned into a farce.

Here’s my analogy: New York is like the cartoon character Wile E. Coyote, who has run off the cliff and is now suspended in mid-air, apparently not knowing what will happen next.

We know what’s next: shortly, he will crash to earth.

Consider a few data points:

Off-shore wind procurement

The Scoping Plan developed under the Climate Act calls for some 9000 MW of offshore wind by 2035. People with elementary-school-level arithmetic skills knew that this amount of intermittent generation would not be nearly enough to replace the amounts of dispatchable generation set to close; but maybe this would at least be a serious start. By early 2023, it was reported that some 4300 MW out of the 9000 MW were in “active development,” with wholesale prices having been agreed to with developers in the range of $100/MWh.

But then reality started to hit. In this post on October 15, 2023 I reported that “essentially all” of the developers of the 4300 MW of off-shore wind in “active development” had backed out and demanded price increases in the range of 30 – 50% to proceed. New York rejected that maneuver, but ultimately had no option other than to re-bid the contracts and get bids in the range that the developers were demanding.

On February 29, 2024, the State announced that it had accepted re-bids for two of the projects in question, for a total of only about 1700 MW and at a price of over $150 per MWh. (This level of price would require retail electricity prices in the range of at least $0.40 per kWh and would be completely uneconomic if it were to become the norm for New York electricity production.).

Meanwhile, the remainder of the offshore wind procurement appears to be in complete disarray. On April 19, E&E News reported that New York had canceled efforts on three of its big offshore wind development areas, Attentive Energy, Community Offshore Wind, and Excelsior Wind. These three, had they proceeded, would have totaled about 4000 MW out of the 9000 MW 2035 goal. Excerpt:

New York canceled power contracts for three offshore wind projects Friday, citing a turbine maker’s plans to scrap its biggest machines. The news is a heavy blow to the U.S. offshore wind industry and a major setback for the climate ambitions of New York — and President Joe Biden. The three projects would have delivered 4 gigawatts of offshore wind to the state, amounting to almost half of New York’s 2035 goal.

At this point nobody has any idea how to get large amounts of offshore wind developed around New York at a price anybody is willing to pay. And of course, nobody has a solution to the intermittency problem either.

Green hydrogen

The New York regulators have recognized that a de-carbonized and predominantly wind/solar electricity generation system will require something called the “dispatchable emissions-free resource,” or DEFR, to make it work. The best idea that anybody has for the DEFR is so-called “green” hydrogen, that is, hydrogen produced by some non-emitting system, like wind, solar, or hydro.

Currently, only negligible amounts of green hydrogen are produced in the world, and none in New York. But somehow, New York got the idea that it could make this work. Two green hydrogen facilities have been granted state subsidies and are supposedly under way. One is being developed by a company called Plug Power, and is at an industrial park called STAMP west of Rochester; and the other is being developed by Air Products at Massena, on the St. Lawrence River. Both of these facitilities are almost comically small relative to the amounts of hydrogen that would be needed to fully back up New York’s electricity generation in a world of mostly wind and solar generation. But at least they would be something.

On October 18, the Batavian reported that the Plug Power hydrogen facility was “on pause.” Excerpt:

Chris Suozzi, VP for business and workforce development at the Genesee County Economic Development Center, reportedly told a Washington, D.C.-based commercial real estate firm that Plug Power’s STAMP project is on hold. . . . “They’re not ready to go,” Suozzi reportedly said. “They’re on pause. We don’t know what’s going to happen with them at this point.”

The pausing or cancellation of a green hydrogen project should surprise no one. The past year has seen major cancellations of much larger such projects by big players like Australia’s Fortescue and Origin. The fact is that the cost of producing green hydrogen is a large multiple of the cost of getting natural gas out of the ground for the same energy content, besides which natural gas is a much superior fuel in every way (higher energy density, easier to handle, less corrosive, less subject to leaks, far less dangerous and explosive, etc.). Meanwhile, the developer of the STAMP green hydrogen project, Plug Power, reported as its results for the third quarter of 2024 a loss of $211 million on revenues of $174 million. They are hoping for a loan from the federal Department of Energy to keep themselves going. I wonder what Chris Wright is going to think about that.

The Air Products facility in Massena plans to use hydro power from a dam on the St. Lawrence to produce its hydrogen. Excuse me? The hydro power is already dispatchable. How can it possibly make any sense to use dispatchable electricity to produce hydrogen whose purpose is to make dispatchable electricity? At least about 40% of the energy is going to get lost on the round trip from electricity to hydrogen and back to electricity. It simply has to be that there is a better use for the St. Lawrence River hydro power than turning it into hydrogen and then using the hydrogen. But nothing here makes any sense.

Clean Path Transmission Line

Another key facility to make renewable energy work for New York was supposed to be the Clean Path transmission line. This is a proposed 175-mile high-capacity (4 GW) transmission line to bring to New York City and the downstate region power generated at various new “renewable” (wind and solar) facilities being developed in the northern and western parts of the state. The stated cost of this major project was to be $11 billion.

On November 27, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority informed the Public Service Commission that the Clean Path project had been canceled. Here is a copy of the NYSERDA letter. Here is a piece from Utility Dive on December 3 about the cancellation.

I don’t find any discussion about the reasons for the cancellation, but it has to be that the developers figured out the the economics did not work. Here’s the problem: because wind and solar generators only work about 20-40% of the time, this enormously expensive transmission line would not be operated at anywhere near its capacity. Likely, it would only average about one-third of capacity. That means, compared to a line that operates at or near 100% of capacity, its charges for transmission would be about triple.

The cancellation of this line has only occurred within the past month, and I haven’t seen anything about plans for a re-bid or an alternative strategy. So far, nobody is saying “this can’t possibly work.” But no matter how you approach the problem, the cost of transmitting intermittent wind and solar power from far upstate to New York City is going to be around triple the cost of transmitting power from a natural gas plant that runs nearly all the time.

So here we are, suspended up in the air, and nobody seems to realize that we will shortly crash to earth. Everybody involved is trying to milk the last dollars out of the taxpayers before the crash hits.

January 5, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | Leave a comment

The 2050 Net Zero Climate Scam

By William Levin | American Thinker | December 29, 2024

Twenty fifty is the official date for net zero emissions. According to the experts, it is the last chance to stop a catastrophic rise in temperature. The leading source for climate change science, the U.N. IPCC, says so. Corporations run commercials helpfully informing the public that net zero is a top priority. Few can outdo Delta Air Lines, which promises compliance using “a fully sustainable long-haul aircraft [that] has yet to be invented.”

The urgency is palpable and the science compelling. Humanity itself is at risk without net zero CO2 and non-CO2 emissions.

Politically, 2050 is the ideal climate date because it is close enough to justify immediate action, and just far enough as to be unprovable for climate disaster.

For a science so settled and a date so specific, there must exist a wealth of data scientifically supporting the hypothesis that 25 years from now marks a deadline and turning point for the Earth’s future.

An A.I. query provides the answer:

The target year 2050 for achieving carbon neutrality is primarily driven by scientific consensus and international agreements aimed at limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Paris Agreement outline that reaching net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050 is crucial to avoiding catastrophic climate impacts.

A.I. is correct that the IPCC and the signatories of the Paris Agreement are the parties responsible for promoting 2050 net zero.  But who exactly are these organizations, and do they deserve our trust?

The IPCC is a political body consisting of 195 member-governments, charged with providing assessments in support of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. In theory, the IPCC mandate is to collect the best available climate science. The IPCC expressly commits that its “reports should be neutral with respect to policy.” And by its own admission, “the IPCC does not conduct its own research.” Its role is to summarize the objective science.

The signatories to the Paris Agreement are likewise 195 nations convened under the auspices of the U.N.  But unlike the IPCC, the Paris Agreement signatories make no pretense to being a scientific body, and indeed, no one is confused on this point. The signatories are a political body and the Paris Agreement a purely political document.

With an overlapping membership, it should come as no surprise that the two organizations coordinate their efforts.  In the process, the IPCC has become the loudest and most strident advocate for existential change in human activity.  In the latest IPCC report, deepening red gradient shadings convey that the Earth is a looming inferno.

According to the IPCC, the danger of imminent collapse due to rising CO2 and non-CO2 emissions, particularly methane, requires immediate action. Humanity must downsize and restructure the global economy, including, in their modest terminology, “governments, private sector, and civil society.” Everyone is responsible, and everyone must contribute.

Not only must GDP be lowered, but the world must immediately and drastically curtail fossil fuels; limit global agriculture output based on emissions, not feeding the world; spend and redistribute upwards of $125 trillion; rely on expensive, unreliable, discredited solar and wind for global power needs; and virtually ignore nuclear power, all the while “prioritizing equity, climate justice, social justice, inclusion and just transition processes.” To make the math work, governments and the private sector must implement on a global scale yet-to-exist carbon capture technologies, of unknown cost and consequence.

There is no imputation here that climate science is not real. It is the political choices of the IPCC at issue, specifically the 2023 Sixth Assessment’s Summary for Policymakers, as opposed to the physical scientists reporting as Working Group 1. As summarized by scientist Roger Pielke, “it is not within the IPCC’s mandate to call for action or to implore urgency.”

The IPCC task is to vet and summarize thousands of complex models and scientific papers produced annually. In each instance, a climate model incorporates assumptions not easily aggregated. The IPCC solution groups the models into five arbitrary scenarios based on forecasted warming in 2100. At no point does the IPCC ever declare one set of scenarios more likely than another.  Indeed, as aggregators, they have no scientific basis for making any such assertion. In these scenarios, 2050 does not exist as a scientifically significant year. It is simply a point on the curve connecting the current temperature to the 2100 end point.

To get to 2050, and urgency, the IPCC needs to import the political findings of the Paris Agreement.

In 2015, the Paris Agreement signatories reviewed the then most current IPCC report, the 5th Assessment. These 195 government actors arbitrarily concluded that “well below 2 degrees Celsius” of warming was the maximum threshold the Earth could survive. Nothing in the IPCC 5th Assessment supports the “well below 2 degree warming” as a scientific consensus. No IPCC evidence identifies a scientific threshold for global warming beyond which the Earth tips into collapse. Especially relevant, the signatories to the Paris Agreement in no manner highlighted 2050 as a year of special climate meaning, nor would it matter, scientifically speaking, if they had.  Following the 5th Assessment, the Paris Agreement target date is merely a “long-term temperature goal,” with one reference to “the second half” of the century.

The Paris Agreement signatories went farther, deciding by imperial fiat that the temperature goal needed a guardrail, the now infamous, endlessly repeated 1.5-degree-warming “limit.” In popular parlance, many, many people will swear that 1.5 degrees of warming is a scientifically valid statement of the limit to global warming, beyond which climate catastrophe ensues.

As important to note, all IPCC warming targets, including the Paris Agreement, start from the pre-industrial period 1850–1900. According to the IPCC, 1.1 degrees of warming has already occurred, meaning the Paris Agreement target at present is a mere 0.4 degrees over 75 years to the IPCC 2100 model date. This equates to an imperceptible 0.005 degrees of annual warming — hardly the stuff of headlines and catastrophic collapse.  And nothing compared to the 10 degrees of warming observed in the Earth’s last interglacial warm period in Siberia some 115,000 to 130,000 years ago.

It needs to be said as loudly as possible. The 1.5-degree climate tipping limit has no basis in any finding of the IPCC. It is the arbitrary finding of 195 political actors, in defense of the non-scientific “well below 2 degree” catastrophe, magically transported by the IPCC from 2100 to 2050.

How does the IPCC move the climate clock back 50 years, in violation of its 2100 science? By intentional sleight of hand, the IPCC provides a science answer to a policy question. How much CO2 can be emitted before the 1.5-degree target is breached? The sole source of the 1.5 degrees is the Paris Agreement.

Pro-IPCC climate scientists confirm that the global warming limit, whether it be 1.5 degrees from the Paris Agreement or some other number, is based solely on “value judgments and choice,” not “climate science.” (See page 7 chart.) The IPCC would have readers believe the exact opposite: that the global warming limit is scientifically determined, and those who disagree are “science deniers.” It is a deception of massive consequence.

Twenty fifty, as it turns out, is a long con between 195 governments and the IPCC.

As part of his Day One actions, President Trump needs to, once again, remove the U.S. from the Paris Agreement and disavow the overtly political IPCC Sixth Assessment Summary for Policymakers. The IPCC global prescription is not scientific, and it most certainly is not benign.

January 5, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | Leave a comment

2025 Looks Bleak For Germany… Energy The Most Expensive In Europe … Growing Speech Tyranny

2025 in Germany will be a year of more energy inflation and loss of free speech rights

By P Gosselin | No Tricks Zone | January 1, 2025

Effective today, Germany’s CO2 surcharge will rise from 45 euros a tonne to 55 euros, which will further fan inflation and social discontent.

Already Germany’s electricity prices are among the highest in the world, and the most expensive in Europe:

Chart: strom-report.com/ 

Germany clamps down on dissenters, free speech

2025 will not be an easy year for dissenters and critics of the government, as this is increasingly being criminalized in Germany thanks to recently passed laws and acts that aim to suppress free speech in Germany.

The former head Germany’s Constitution Protection Authority (Bundesverfassungsschutz), Thomas Haldenwang (CDU Party), suggested last February when presenting measures to fight right-wing extremism, that human thoughts and speech patterns need to be under surveillance and become the business of the government: “It’s also about shifting verbal and mental boundaries. We have to be careful that thought and language patterns don’t become embedded in our language.”

Mocking the state now verboten

Haldenwang’s boss, Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser (SPD Party), wants to treat vocal conservative protesters in the same way as organized crime groups: “Those who mock the state must deal with a strong state.”

“We want to take account of the fact that hate on the internet also occurs below the threshold of criminal liability,”said Federal Minister for Family Affairs Lisa Paus (Greens) at her press conference on February 13 on the topic of ‘Hate on the Internet’.“Many enemies of democracy know exactly what falls under freedom of expression on social media platforms,”

Meant by “enemies of democracy” here are opposition forces, even when democratically elected.

Unwanted election results may be annulled

In response to comments in favor of the conservatives made by Elon Musk, German President Frank Walter Steinmeier hinted he would annul the results of the upcoming February 23 national elections if he doesn’t like the results.

So in Germany, it’s watch what you say and, if the old parties don’t like the election results, then they might just annul them. Germany is slipping back quickly to darker times.

January 1, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Full Spectrum Dominance, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | | Leave a comment

11 Reasons why the “EV Transition” will NEVER happen

MGUY Australia | December 25, 2024

Mark P Mills gave an extended talk on EV mandates in November, at Hillsdale College, Michigan, and in this video I’ve extracted 11 key points that explain why the much vaunted “EV transition” will never happen.

Go and watch the full video here:    • EV Mandates vs. Freedom | Mark P. Mills  

Ten Reasons why you should NEVER buy an EV:    • TEN reasons why you should NEVER buy …   #electricvehicle #electriccar #evfire #ev

☕️ Want to support this channel? Buy me a coffee! ➜ https://m-g.uy/donate

December 29, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Video | 2 Comments

Decline of German Greens the result of stupid energy policy and war madness

By Patrick Poppel | December 25, 2024

The Green Party is currently preparing for the federal election. To this end, they also put original green concerns up for discussion. The Greens’ entire election campaign is now tailored to their top candidate, Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck, a special election campaign where a personality is put in the foreground.

Criticism of the minister should be avoided as much as possible, at least until the date of the federal election. But the concept didn’t fully work. Some Greens close to the climate movement, such as Luisa Neubauer, noted that Habeck simply questioned a central goal of green climate policy in an interview.

In an interview that Habeck gave at the industrial summit, he answered the question of whether the date of the coal phase-out was in question: “Yes. For me, energy security is always the current priority.” Now the answer is also fodder for the many Habeck opponents in the parties, who have for years accused Habeck of an ideological energy policy that leads to the de-industrialization of the country.

In mid-December, when Habeck gave the interview, the price of electricity on the exchange had risen massively due to the dark season, no wind and hardly any sun. Even a steelworks in Saxony had to be disconnected from the energy grid for a short time because of this. Of course, this is not good news for a Green candidate for chancellor.

But Habeck avoided discussing his statements further. He preferred to talk about the fact that the construction of new gas-fired power plants was intended to compensate for the electricity loss caused by nuclear and coal-fired power plants being taken off the grid.

However, due to the premature end of the federal coalition, the Power Plant Act can no longer be implemented during this government period. Whether it will be back on the Bundestag agenda after the new elections also depends on whether the Greens will return to government responsibility.

According to current surveys, the CDU/CSU (Union Party) is likely to become the strongest party and could enter into an alliance with the SPD (Social Democrats) or the Greens. At the same time, there are politicians in the CDU and even more so in the CSU who almost see Habeck as their main opponent and, above all, no longer want to see him in the Federal Ministry of Economics.

But it’s not just about the reputation of the party’s top candidate. So now everyone asks themselves the question; what are the themes of the party, which at the beginning of its existence campaigned for peace in Europe and the protection and improvement of the ecology.

When it comes to peace and weapons disarmament, the Greens have finally switched to the other side since the beginning of the Ukraine conflict in 2014. No other party is as committed to escalation with Russia as the former green “Peace Party”. Both the Union Party and the Greens want to send Ukraine even more and accurate weapons against the Russian army.

But this course is also causing more and more Green voters to think, as this decision goes exactly against the party’s original direction. But in addition to the peace issue, the failure and unclear approach to energy policy is certainly also a point that will have a negative impact on the election.

First the party was against nuclear energy, then for solar power and wind turbines, then against coal-fired power plants and now against gas from Russia. Many voters are no longer familiar with this issue and are confused.

It is particularly tragic that the Greens are completely failing on exactly these two core issues of peace and energy. If this course continues, the future of this party is very uncertain.

Of course, the Greens are always a very interesting junior partner for large parties, as the current situation shows that they make a lot of compromises in order to be able to become part of a government. But with this behavior they regularly lose favor with their voters and always receive poor results in the following elections. All surveys show this clearly.

Since the Greens lost a lot of power, especially in the last regional elections in eastern Germany, it is clear that this party is unlikely to be successful in the federal elections. The Green Party of Germany has put itself in a situation from which it will be difficult to get out.

The only role this party can play in the future is as an extremely small, compromise-ready junior partner of other parties, which are trying by all means possible to prevent the patriotic forces from participating in the government.

Patrick Poppel is an expert at the Center for Geostrategic Studies in Belgrade.

December 25, 2024 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Militarism | | Leave a comment

EU risks losing gas supplies from Qatar – energy minister

RT | December 22, 2024

Qatar will stop gas shipments to the EU if member states enforce new legislation on carbon emissions, the Gulf nation’s energy minister Saad al-Kaabi has told the Financial Times (FT). Qatar has become an important supplier to the bloc after Brussels resolved to wean itself off Russian gas following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022.

If any EU country imposes penalties on Qatar under the bloc’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, Doha would stop exporting its liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the bloc, al-Kaabi told the outlet on Sunday.

QatarEnergy, the state-owned energy company, has long-term LNG contracts with several EU countries, including Germany, France, Italy, and the Netherlands.

The EU’s corporate due diligence rules, adopted in May 2023, are part of the bloc’s strategy to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. The legislation states that non-compliance is punishable with fines of up to 5% of the company’s annual global revenue. Al-Kaabi argued that such fines would significantly impact QatarEnergy’s revenue, which directly supports the state of Qatar and its citizens.

”If the case is that I lose 5% of my generated revenue by going to Europe, I will not go to Europe… I’m not bluffing,” Kaabi said. “I cannot lose that kind of money – and nobody would accept losing that kind of money,” he pointed out.

It would be impossible for an energy producer like QatarEnergy to align with the EU’s net-zero target as stipulated by the directive because of the amount of hydrocarbons it produces, the minister explained.

If slapped with hefty penalties, QatarEnergy would not break its LNG contracts but would try and find legal avenues.

”I will not accept that we get penalized,” he said. “I will stop sending gas to Europe.”

Following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, the EU started replacing Russian pipeline gas with more expensive LNG from the Middle East and the US. The bloc still gets pipeline gas from Russia via Ukraine’s transit network but the agreement between Moscow and Kiev is set to expire on December 31. The authorities in Kiev have repeatedly stressed that the deal will not be renewed.

December 22, 2024 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | 1 Comment

Geopolitical auto-asphyxiation: Here’s why Germany is heading for irreversible decline

Berlin is unable or unwilling to finally abandon a pernicious groupthink that subordinates its interests to Washington’s misguided political agenda

By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | December 22, 2024

Oops, he’s done it again: Tech mogul, richest man in the world, and also now new bestie of American President-elect Donald Trump, Elon Musk has used his massive social media clout – as owner of X and a personal account with more than 200 million followers – to post about politics. And here we don’t mean his unhelpful recent intervention in how Americans – barely – keep their rickety government contraption from stuttering to a halt for lack of cash.

Nope, this is about Germany: With regard to Europe’s Sick Man on the Spree (there is another one on the Seine, of course), in his first post Musk waltzed in, guns blazing to support the right-wing AfD (Alternative for Germany) party in the run-up to the snap elections on February 23.

Only the AfD, he pronounced with typical modesty, can “save Germany.” In a second post, a few days later, Musk reacted to a murderous attack on a German Christmas market in the city of Magdeburg. This time, he called Germany’s lame-duck Chancellor Olaf Scholz “an incompetent fool” who should resign forthwith.

Some Germans are aghast. How dare Musk, an American, intervene in our elections? Deeply unpopular German minister of health Karl Lauterbach, for instance, went almost comically Victorian with his performance of righteous ire for public display, calling Musk’s statements “undignified and highly problematic.” Shocking, shocking indeed!

Interestingly enough, most of the same Germans still have no problem with Joe Biden, also an American, having helped Ukraine blow up their vital energy infrastructure and then mightily promoting the de-industrialization of Germany and the EU as a whole by subsidizing companies which move to produce in the US. Others think it’s totally normal that German politicians, such as Michael Roth – head of the German parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, no less – massively interfere in the politics of, say, Georgia, not only by messing with its elections but also trying to literally instigate a coup. Judge not, lest ye be judged…

So, let’s cut out the daft pearl-clutching: I am German, and I find it very objectionable when Musk fails to post about the genocide in Gaza, instead taking the side of the Israeli perpetrators. But I could not be less concerned about him stating his opinion – it’s not more than that – about what party would be best for Germany, even thought I do not agree at all. As to calling Scholz what he actually is, go ahead Elon. There, I am even on your side.

Once we dispense with the huffy-puffy theatrics, what is really at stake here? And why would it even matter so much to some Germans what Musk has to say about their politics?

It’s not complicated: Musk has hit a very sore spot. And the name of that very sore spot is Germany. Yes, all of it, or at least, everything that has to do with its tanking economy and, frankly, delusional politics. Here’s how:

On December 16, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a confidence vote in the German parliament. That was no surprise but the plan from the beginning. Or to be precise, since November 6, when the former governing coalition of Greens, Free Democrat market liberals, and Scholz’s own Social Democrats imploded with a nasty bang. After that, the no-confidence vote – even if it came with some predictable yet pretty fake drama and backbiting – was merely a formality on the way to snap elections, scheduled for February 23.

On the face of it, the above may look like a minor politics-as-usual hiccup: Sometimes coalitions don’t work out and a country needs new elections to – hopefully – start over with a new government. In postwar Germany (the Cold War Western version and the post-unification one together), this procedure – based on article 68 of the constitution – is not unprecedented; it has been used 5 times before.

But this is not that sort of case. Rather, the snap elections are only one small symptom of a much deeper, all-pervasive malaise: By regularly reading the news about Germany, you could easily come to feel that Europe’s former economic locomotive and political first-among-not-so-equals is now a very unhappy country, economically in severe, persistent decline and politically – to put it kindly – badly disoriented. And you would be right. Except things are even worse, and I write that, let me remind you, as a German.

For what’s really gloomy – indeed, quite literally hopeless – about the current German doom is that no one with even a remote chance at political power in Berlin is prepared to honestly face the root causes of the country’s misery. Germany is not merely in a mess; it also has a dysfunctional non-elite that is in total denial about how to fix that mess. But before we get to that elephant in the misery room that almost all German politicians fail to acknowledge, with stereotypical thoroughness, let’s look at the wasteland their failure has made.

Take a few highlights. There are 84 million Germans. According to a major research institute in the country, a quarter of them have found out that their income is insufficient to make ends meet. In a similar vein, another new study based on official government data pays special attention to the cost of having a roof, any roof, over your head. It has just found that 17.5 million Germans are living in poverty. That is 5.4 million more than previously assumed. The reason they had escaped the traditional statistics is that the cost of their abodes had simply not been factored in. Once you, realistically, do so, a whopping 20 percent of Germans fall under the official definition of “poor.”

No wonder then that ever more Germans need soup kitchens – in German “Tafeln” – to simply have enough to eat. Indeed, demand for housing has grown so much that they even have to ration the food they are doling out.

More and more Germans have to abandon their pets because they simply can’t afford them anymore: cats and dogs are becoming a “luxury item,” and keep people in a “poverty trap.” Germany’s business mood, meanwhile, is “slumping,” according to Bloomberg.

We could go on, but the picture should be clear enough: Germans may be a little on the “Angst” side in terms of temperament, but this time, they are really in trouble. How did that happen to the industrial powerhouse and export champion? The core of the problem is, of course, the economy. It takes not a grain of alarmism – ask Bloomberg again – to observe that its very future is in danger: It is “ravaged” by an energy crisis; Chinese competitors squeeze it, while Chinese markets are being lost; and then there is US President-elect Donald Trump and his threats of brutal tariffs. And all of that on top of persistent stagnation entering its fifth year.

Indeed, for two years already the German economy has simply “flatlined,” and business is (not) looking forward to yet another year of no growth. Germany, a long report has just summed it up, is “reaching a point of no return,” on a “path of decline that threatens to become irreversible.”

Here is the crux: The mainstream parties now contesting the snap elections recognize that the situation is dire. How could they not without being laughed out of the room? They all offer suggestions, as you would expect, for what to do about it. Let’s set aside that such suggestions look a little silly when coming from the parties that made up the last government coalition. Why didn’t they implement their ideas then, after all?

Let’s just note that everything is rather predictable: The Social Democrats stress public spending and infrastructure and make unfounded promises to protect ordinary Germans from social decline, as if that process were not well underway already.

The mainstream Conservatives (CDU-CSU) emphasize lower taxes, budget cuts, less bureaucracy and red tape, and the magic powers of the market to unleash new growth. The market liberals from the Free Democrats do the same, just more extremely. And the Greens promise everything somehow, and then some, while making no sense at all. Everything as usual, in other words.

And yet, none of the above even dare name the one key issue that a new government could resolve quickly and that would have a decisive and fast impact on the German economy: namely the cause of that energy crisis that has hit crucial “energy-intensive” sectors the hardest but is, of course, affecting every single business and all the households, that is, consumers, one way or the other. The reason for that odd blindness is purely political, because that cause is very easy to identify. It’s the “structural blow” of “the loss of cheap Russian energy,” as even Bloomberg acknowledges.

It is true: Germany has an abundance of problems, some long predating the war in and over Ukraine: demography, under-digitalization, the infamous “debt brake,” a public debt limit so primitively designed it makes reasonable deficits impossible, and so on. And yet, the politically produced and self-imposed (Russia did not cut off the cheap energy, the West did, including via violent sabotage as in the Nord Stream attacks) energy crisis is decisive.

Imagine Germany, if you wish, as a past-their-prime, somewhat out-of-shape middle-class type. In principle, there is no reason such a person cannot rebuild by pursuing a healthy diet and decent exercise. Except, of course, you also cut off their oxygen supply by strangling them.

The added irony: Germany – with plenty of help from its big brother “ally” America and its dependent sponger Ukraine – is strangling itself. Auto-asphyxiation is, of course, a well-known and potentially lethal perversion, but usually it’s associated with aging rock stars in lonely hotel rooms. Seeing a whole country do it is peculiar.

In the current German party system, only two parties show signs of being willing to address this core issue instead of avoiding it: The far-right/right-wing AfD under Alice Weidel and the left-conservative BSW under Sarah Wagenknecht. What do they have in common apart from that? Nothing. Except, they both won’t be able to influence German government policy, at least not soon, and not after the February elections. The AfD is, actually, the second-strongest political party after the CDU-CSU Conservatives, according to current polls. Think what you will about Musk’s political tastes (absolutely not mine), but it’s a fact that he has spoken up for a party that almost a fifth of German voters prefer.

However, the mainstream parties swear that they will not allow it into a governing coalition. The BSW is doing reasonably well for a newcomer but may even be struggling to clear the five-percent barrier to gain seats in the new parliament, and it is certainly far from gathering the amount of votes that would make it indispensable for coalition building.

Here’s the final irony: Germany’s fundamental problem is not actually economic. The economy is in catastrophic shape, make no mistake. But the reason for that is political and even intellectual and moral: The inability or unwillingness to finally abandon a pernicious group think that subordinates obvious and vital German interests to the misguided political agenda of, ultimately, Washington and does not allow for what is obviously needed urgently: re-establishing and repairing a rational relationship with Russia.

Tarik Cyril Amar is a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory.

December 22, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

IS GREEN ENERGY GOING ATOMIC?

The HighWire with Del Bigtree | December 12, 2024

As big tech goes all in on artificial intelligence, the monumental amount of energy expected to be needed in the coming years has the 4 of the biggest US tech companies turning to nuclear energy. With lofty net zero goals appearing to not be coming to fruition, will nuclear be the new green energy?

December 13, 2024 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Nuclear Power, Video | | Leave a comment

Merkel Testing Public Opinion With Recent Praise of Russian Gas, German Politician Suggests

Sputnik – 12.12.2024

The head of the German Council for Constitution and Sovereignty, Ralph Niemeyer commented on national politics in the light of governmental crisis.

Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s recent remarks about the benefits of past gas supplies from Russia could have been an attempt to test public opinion on the possibility of resuming such supplies under a future government involving the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the head of the German Council for Constitution and Sovereignty, Ralph Niemeyer, told Sputnik.

Merkel said on Tuesday that she did not consider the years-long gas imports from Russia to Germany a mistake, noting that the arrangement was mutually beneficial.

“It is possible [that the statement was a test of public opinion]. A good quality of Friedrich Merz [CDU leader and chancellor candidate] is pragmatism. If he sees no other way forward, he quickly changes his approach,” Niemeyer said.

Merz could pragmatically disregard earlier promises to Volodymyr Zelensky and work to rebuild relations with Russia, he added.

The German government collapsed in early November after Chancellor Scholz fired Finance Minister Christian Lindner, the Free Democratic Party (FDP) leader, citing his unwillingness to greenlight new proposals for the 2025 budget and more aid for Ukraine.

As a result of the government split, February 23 has been set as the potential date for a snap general election. Scholz will submit a written request for a vote of confidence to parliament on December 11, with a vote to be scheduled for December 16.

If Scholz survives the vote of confidence, he will enter coalition talks with rival parties in a bid to prop up his minority government, which consists of the Social Democrats and the Greens. This scenario is considered unlikely due to a near-universal agreement in parliament on the need to hold an early election.

December 12, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Slovak MP Slams EU Leadership’s ‘Idiotic’ Russian Gas Sanctions

Sputnik – December 11, 2024

Reducing energy dependence on Russia became one of the European Union’s top priorities after the West unleashed its sanctions campaign against Moscow in 2022. The move has backfired on the continent, leaving Europe facing a crippling energy crisis, while Russia retained its position as the world’s largest gas exporter in 2023.

If the EU wants to drive its economy off a cliff, its self-destructive goal of halting Russian gas flows will get that result, Andrej Danko, deputy speaker of the National Council of the Slovak Republic, told Sputnik.

Ending imports of Russian gas will be a huge problem, he warned, adding that “whoever claims that this is not true is a fool.”

“Therefore, we need to talk about this problem, and a solution is needed,” Danko underscored.

The Slovak politician is set to visit Moscow in January to discuss prospects for Russian gas supplies in 2025.

He weighed in on EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s crusade of totally banning both Russian piped gas and LNG, specifically, recent remarks about wanting to discuss with US President-elect Donald Trump an increase in purchases of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States to replace Russian supplies.

The Slovak lawmaker admitted he was puzzled by her proposal.

“How much would US gas imports cost? What was the purpose then of Nord Stream 1, Nord Stream 2? What do they want to achieve? This will be a problem for Germany, where Ursula is from originally… If she wants to live in America later, then I get it. But if Ursula is going to live in the European Union, it’s impossible to understand her… It’s inconceivable for a person of her rank to say something like that,” Danko said.

Gas prices exceeded $500 per thousand cubic meters in Europe in November, with European gas futures reaching around €46 ($48.6) per MWh as Russia suspended fuel deliveries to Austria’s OMV. Furthermore, Ukraine is about to stop the transit of Russia’s gas through its territory by the end of the year, which could affect several European nations, including Austria and Slovakia.

Unless the EU changes its self-harming policy course, it won’t exist in 10 years’ time, Danko speculated. EU sanctions on Russian energy have generated a terrible situation, according to him, and people like Ursula von der Leyen are only driving the bloc’s economy into the ground.

He also voiced hope for dialogue between Moscow and Washington under incoming President Donald Trump. As for Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, he “does nothing for his people, he only creates problems,” Danko noted, likening the expired Kiev regime leader to a chattering “con artist.”

The EU’s energy problems are also linked to the Green Deal, Danko said, which “some jokers had come up with,” and foolhardy talk about scrapping nuclear energy.

He claimed the biggest problems were created by shutting down nuclear power plants under Germany’s then-Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Codified in a 2002 law, the nuclear phase-out in Germany was finalized after the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan. The country’s last trio of operating nuclear power plants, Emsland, Neckarwestheim 2, and Isar 2, were finally shuttered on April 15, 2023.

Berlin’s move to join the West’s energy sanctions against Russia and give up Moscow’s reliable and abundant energy supplies, along with the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage and the “green agenda” aimed at replacing fossil fuels and phasing out nuclear energy, have all contributed to Germany’s dismal economic data and looming deindustrialization.

Assessing the litany of mistakes made by the European Union, Danko speculated that if the continent hopes to achieve progress in energy and the economy, a fresh influx of “parties of the people” is needed to breathe new life into the EU.

December 11, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »