Given the current UK government’s eagerness to show to the rest of the world what a progressive, eco-enlightened and righteous country would look like, it is only natural that some of us who lack the required credulity might want to question the utopian vision they have painted for us all. And who could blame us, considering how much these moral leaders are emphasising the transformative, difficult and radical nature of the endeavour? Unfortunately, for those of us who lack the conviction and zeal of a Miliband, there seems to be no real prospect of an effective political challenge emerging any day soon. Even so, it remains the case that whilst one group of individuals peddles the case for a Big Rock Candy Mountain, and others warn of trouble brewin’, none of us really has a crystal ball.
Except for one thing, because actually there is no need for any clairvoyance in this instance. That’s because the UK is not the first country to have made a bid to lead the peloton frantically racing its way towards glorious oblivion. That honour goes to Germany, who got there long before Miliband and company had the grand idea of pursuing their grand ideas. Yes, they’ve been there, done that and got the T-Shirt.
And the T-shirt says ‘Aargh!!!”
A sorry tale
Yes, I’m sorry to rain on Mr Miliband’s parade, but Germany’s bid for eco-glory was already up and running way back in 2010. Christened ‘Energiewende’, Germany’s bid for the moral vanguard promised a brave new world and yet delivered a dog’s dinner of failed policies and targets. It was the baby of the Green Party, who hitched up with the SPD to concoct a scheme which entailed an early phase out of nuclear power, leading the way for a complete transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. The target was, and still is, ‘climate neutrality’ by 2045. And with climate neutrality would come lower domestic bills, increased security of supply, a revitalised economy, a green jobs bonanza and the unending admiration and gratitude of the rest of the world. And it might still do so were it not for the failure to understand the importance of nuclear supply, the physics of intermittency, the economics of subsidised technologies, the realities of grid expansion and the German weather.
Frankly, the track record of Energiewende just doesn’t make for good optics. Let’s start with that push for the speedy removal of nuclear energy from the equation. The fact that this was pursued ahead of the establishment of a suitable renewables alternative, betrays the real objective of the Greens. Unlike the Swedes, who were genuinely focused upon reducing greenhouse gases and saw the promotion of nuclear power as a key element of their strategy, the German Green Party were primarily concerned with the eradication of nuclear power – whatever the cost. Wind and solar power were important to the Greens, but only for that reason. Sure, a transition from reliance upon fossil fuels was on the table, but with far less urgency. The upshot was to initially create an increased reliance upon fossil fuels to bridge the gap between nuclear’s departure and renewable’s arrival. As Chancellor Merkel conceded at the 49th World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos on 23 January 2019:
We will have phased out nuclear energy by 2022. We have a very difficult problem, namely that almost the only sources of energy that will be able to provide baseload power are coal and lignite. Naturally, we cannot do without baseload energy. Natural gas will therefore play a greater role for another few decades. I believe we would be well advised to admit that if we phase out coal and nuclear energy then we have to be honest and tell people that we’ll need more natural gas.
Worse still, by the time the realisation dawned that wind and solar are too unreliable to service Germany’s industrial demand for dispatchable energy, it was too late. Far from improving upon energy security, brownouts, which had been previously unknown, became increasingly commonplace as renewables penetration progressed. And far from reducing bills, prices soared in order to cover the grid upgrade costs and the grotesquely subsidised new technologies; neither of which delivered the promised green jobs bonanza as China stepped in to dominate the supply chain. And it’s not as if any of this had any impact on Europe’s emissions record, since a combination of domestic renewables targets and cap-and-trade policies simply encouraged the export of emission allowances to countries such as Spain and Italy. Germany was trashing its economy for no environmental benefit whatsoever.
You’d think that Energiewende’s parlous history and unremitting failure to meet its emissions targets would mean that the German government’s appetite for ‘climate neutrality’ by 2045 would have waned by now, but that is not the case. And the clue for why this should be so lies in a statement that can be found on the Agora Energiewende think tank’s website, which explains exactly what Energiewende is:
It is a large-scale economic and ecological project motivated by scientific insights and ethical considerations with far-reaching economic and societal impacts.
Given the Green Party’s genesis as an unholy alliance between a far-right with its nostalgic feelings towards the Nazi Party’s take on environmentalism, and a far-left licking its Marxist wounds following the collapse of the Soviet Bloc, one need not guess at the extent to which the ‘ethical considerations’ and desired ‘economic and societal impacts’ would entail the deindustrialisation of a capitalist West. From a technical perspective, Energiewende has been, and will continue to be, an unmitigated disaster. But from an ideological perspective, it is still right on schedule, if not a bit ahead, in bringing about a return to a pre-industrial scenario that is ideal only in the minds of those with the ‘right’ ideological leanings.
When is a failure a success?
The definition of madness is the expectation that simply repeating a failed strategy would somehow yield different results. On the presumption that the UK government is seeking a technically successful Net Zero transition, the fact that they are just blindly following the Germanic formula (complete with the same ground-working of false promises) looks like sheer lunacy. But that is a massive presumption I just made there. Just as Germany is pursuing an ideological dream dressed up as scientifically justifiable risk management, so is the current UK government. And just as Germany will stubbornly continue whilst the ideology burns strong, so will we. It is for that reason that I fear that rational arguments based upon engineering and physical realities are likely falling on the deaf ears of a self-deceptive political class, particularly now that the current class is majoring in left-wing ideology whilst flunking technology. If the lessons of Energiewende are not enough to dissuade the powers that be, then you just know that there is a deeper motivation at play than simply tackling climate change. Maybe it is the underlying values rather than the science and economics that drive the thinking. And maybe we need to reconsider what our opponents might define as failure before we try to persuade them that they are doomed to fail.
Climate Scepticism 
“As Chancellor Merkel conceded at the 49th World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos on 23 January 2019”
It’s not as though Mutti hadn’t been warned about the risks of Energiewende nearly a decade earlier:
“Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin has told German businessmen that they may have to rely on Russian firewood for heating if they do not want to construct new nuclear power plants or bring in Russian gas supplies. At a business conference organized in Berlin by the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Putin recognised that “the German public does not like the nuclear power industry for some reason.” He continued: “But I cannot understand what fuel you will take for heating. You do not want gas, you do not develop the nuclear power industry, so you will heat with firewood?” Putin then noted, ‘You will have to go to Siberia to buy the firewood there,’ as Europeans ‘do not even have firewood.’
https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/IT-Putin_suggests_Germans_replace_nuclear_with_firewood-0112105.html
LikeLiked by 1 person
John, you write:
If the lessons of Energiewende are not enough to dissuade the powers that be, then you just know that there is a deeper motivation at play than simply tackling climate change.
It’s interesting that you wrote that around the time that I was pondering why Ed Miliband, in his performance during the House of Commons’ mutually back-slapping debate on AR6, referred to climate change only once but to energy security seven times.
Is this because he doesn’t actually care about climate change after all? Is it because he thinks that the population doesn’t care about climate change as much as we are always being told it does, but that he’s pretty sure it cares about energy security? Is it because he thinks a change in messaging is required? But if it’s all about the messaging to keep the public on board with the project, then what ultimately is the project really about?
LikeLiked by 3 people
Mark,
This sort of agenda shifting is the hallmark of someone with an ulterior motive. We had it with acid rain. First they said it was all about the acidification of lakes and forests. Then when that idea was debunked, they said no, it’s really all about our children’s health. They already had the legislation in place before the debunking so I suppose they had to come up with something to justify what they’d done.
Well I say ‘debunked’ but there are still plenty who believe the acid rain story.
LikeLike
I’m fond of claiming that our purported ability to achieve Net Zero using existing technology is demonstrable nonsense for anyone with a GCSE in a STEM subject and a calculator. But I recently discovered that Miliband has A-levels in double maths and physics. with grades good enough to gain a place at Oxford (albeit to study PPE, an unusual choice). He must be able to see that the national energy policy that he is putting forward cannot possibly work, which raises the obvious question: Why? I don’t like any of the possible answers to that question.
LikeLiked by 2 people
“Why?” is a question that is currently cropping up on several current threads here at Cliscep. [See for example John C’s comment on the Totalitarianism thread.] There are lots of possible reasons, but none of them are “because it’s the right answer.”
As sceptics, part of our problem seems to be that the decisions that our politicians make are so “obviously wrong.” This makes logical responses pointless, and leads us to suspect pseudo-religious motives and others that we can gain no purchase on. I have long hoped that our politicians’ attachment to Net Zero is as strong as Stalin’s was to Nikolai Yezhov. We shall see: reality will soon begin to pry at their grip!
LikeLiked by 2 people
John – Jit gives a good link https://youtu.be/pK5KN18wtbA over on “the case against NZ – 4th update” thread with an interview with Bjorn Lomborg.
He mentions Germany’s ‘Energiewende’ & heat vs cold deaths in the clip. Well worth a view.
As for your last question/thought –
“maybe we need to reconsider what our opponents might define as failure before we try to persuade them that they are doomed to fail.”
Out of curiosity, I went to Wiki for a definition of “failure” – partial quote –
“Failure is the social concept of not meeting a desirable or intended objective, and is usually viewed as the opposite of success.[1] The criteria for failure depends on context, and may be relative to a particular observer or belief system. One person might consider a failure what another person considers a success, particularly in cases of direct competition or a zero-sum game. Similarly, the degree of success or failure in a situation may be differently viewed by distinct observers or participants, such that a situation that one considers to be a failure, another might consider to be a success, a qualified success or a neutral situation.
It may also be difficult or impossible to ascertain whether a situation meets criteria for failure or success due to ambiguous or ill-defined definition of those criteria. Finding useful and effective criteria or heuristics to judge the success or failure of a situation may itself be a significant task.”
LikeLike
Friend of the channel Francis Menton has a piece on the Energiewende as well.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Jit,
I think these people find it quite easy to rationalise what we find irrational. All you have to do is to take account of externalities by conjecturing a sufficiently steep damage function with respect to time and you can then argue that an accelerated deindustrialisation is the most cost-effective way forward.
LikeLike
I would respect that as a coherent argument, if someone was honest enough to make it. But that is not what we have had so far. So far we have had the “obviously wrong” line that we can keep all the nice things we like and get rid of all the nasty fossil fuel we don’t like.
LikeLike
You were derided as a conspiracy theorist a few years ago if you dared to suggest that climate policy was not about climate change and that carbon reduction measures were just a fig leaf for a grand, world-conquering socio-political schema modelled on Marxist and fascist principles. You were labelled a conspiracy theorist for pointing to statements by influential people that this was exactly the plan all along and that preventing climate change was just the easily digestible scientific Bait ahead of the Great Switch.
Many there are who have swallowed the bait and the Great switch is now in full swing as we proceed rapidly towards deindustrialisation, economic decline and social disintegration, via the quite simple method of energy rationing. The big idea is, if you make energy much more expensive and a lot more scarce, then you can exchange the much hated twin evils of free market capitalism and liberal democracy for a more palatable eco-fascist/Marxist totalitarian regime based upon so called ‘stakeholder capitalism’ – which basically means you and I get poorer and more miserable by the day and ‘they’ (the elite rulers) get a lot richer and more powerful by the second.
Nice. Proceeding as planned. Just one minor problem, well two actually: the Bait is not proving to be as easily digestible in the dying days of the Age of Reason as they thought it might be, and the actual climate – under the control of the ever capricious Mother Nature – is not quite playing ball as it should do, and the rebellious natives are beginning to notice.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I should just mention not any old conspiracy theorist, but a Science denying Moon Landing conspiracy theorist/far right Holocaust denier suffering from a very bad case of Dunning-Kruger. So obsessed were they that the ignorant public should swallow the Bait whole and uninterrupted, that they came down heavily on those innocent few Bait deniers, disproportionately investing millions in the attempt to discredit them via numerous ‘fact checking’ operations, mainstream media run counter propaganda and credentialed academic research. All that, and it still didn’t work.
LikeLike
Jaime,
The wonder is that an openly anti-democratic agenda can be pursued whilst those who simply observe it taking place can be labelled conspiracy theorists. For example, it isn’t a conspiracy theory to point out that our friend Schellnhuber held a public conference in Essen in 2009 titled ‘The Great Transformation – Climate Change as Cultural Change’, in which speaker after speaker stood up and decried democracy as being the root of all our problems. Is it any wonder that the whole process appears so undemocratic to we deniers? Is it any wonder that the whole project seems to us as being founded on an alien set of values?
The anti-democratic manoeuvring is not just a means to an end but an end in itself. That the Online Safety Bill even renders this observation as potentially being a harmful non-crime is not just protecting the project, it is an objective of the project. At the Essen conference, Schellnhuber called for an elite of scientific guardians to be embedded in the legislative process. As he put it, “Without a compass you cannot steer a ship”. Yes, but do we really want an unelected technocracy deciding what direction the ship should take? Well, that’s what we have, I’m afraid. Schellnhuber has his wish and to hell with anyone who points it out.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Jit,
I would respect that as a coherent argument, if someone was honest enough to make it. But that is not what we have had so far. So far we have had the “obviously wrong” line that we can keep all the nice things we like and get rid of all the nasty fossil fuel we don’t like.
I both agree and disagree. I agree that the ‘obviously wrong’ line is an important part of the strategy designed to con people into swallowing the anti-democratic medicine. However, I disagree to the extent that there are plenty of economists out there prepared to come up with economic models designed to provide a veneer of coherence. For example:
https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2023/12/05/benefits-of-accelerating-the-climate-transition-outweigh-the-costs
Personally, I think all of this economic modelling is just pigs in makeup.
LikeLike
To get a feel for the ethical and political basis for the Energiewende you only have to look at the background of those who were instrumental in its conception.
Take, for example, Hermann Scheer. Known by some as the European Al Gore, he was the guy who led the group of MPs and bureaucrats who were responsible for pushing through Germany’s Renewable Energy Act of 2000, the legislation that provided the legal basis for Energiewende. Scheer was a former left-wing student who put himself about during the 1968 student protests before then cutting his teeth as a prominent member of the communist-backed Peace Movement. In that capacity he wrote a book titled, ‘Liberation from the Bomb’, explaining how the Western world should disarm totally and re-employ the arms industry’s scientists and engineers in developing solar power so that Europe could get rid of its harmful industrial base and instead farm Saharan sunshine. In that way the West could create a ‘hydrogen society’ under the benevolent purview of the Soviet Union. Despite his rise to prominence as Germany’s principal energy legislator, he had no background in physics or engineering. When New Scientist asked him how this came about, Scheer simply conceded, “I had not read a single book on renewable energy. I just did my own thinking”. Later in his career he was seen to quote approvingly the German writer Carl Amery in saying that mankind’s survival dictated the “fastest possible destruction of the industrial system, at any price”.
Then there was Joschka Fischer, another left-wing student of the sixties who had a particularly violent past. In fact, he was a far-left terrorist with overt sympathies for the PLO and links with the likes of the Red Army Faction. In May 1981, he was implicated in the murder of the Hessian Secretary of Commerce Heinz-Herbert Karry. But he then renounced violence to become leader of Germany’s Green Party. Fast forward a few years and we see him enjoying an illustrious career in German politics as Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor. His stated ambition was to create an ecological energy system that “would be the central innovation for an ecological restructuring of society”. Once a left-wing extremist, always a left-wing extremist, I suppose.
The point is this: Do these look like the sort of guys who were just following the science? And is this what we can assume Miliband is doing now?
LikeLiked by 1 person
“Germany’s rude economic awakening
After a spate of bad news involving giants like Volkswagen and Intel, the mood in Germany has turned gloomy.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-rude-economic-grief-spending-olaf-scholz/
…companies continue to cite high energy costs as a competitive disadvantage, a situation compounded by increasingly strict environmental norms for Germany’s traditional industries.
In Duisburg, home to Europe’s largest steel-making plants, workers are bracing for substantial cuts. ThyssenKrupp, the erstwhile national steel champion, is struggling to remain competitive despite the promise of about €2 billion in government subsidies to ease its “transformation” away from CO2-emitting production.
The government’s goal is to turn Duisburg into a center for “green” steel, replacing coal-fired steel furnaces with new ones powered by hydrogen. Whether that’s a realistic goal is a matter of dispute, given that creating “green hydrogen,” or hydrogen produced with renewable energy, requires copious amounts of both wind and electricity, which is both expensive and logistically difficult.
Bärbel Bas, the SPD president of the German parliament and a native of Duisburg, visited her hometown this week for a “steel summit” to discuss the crisis enveloping the industry. Invoking the tens of thousands of jobs at stake, Bas insisted “there must be a future” for the Duisburg steel hub.
“Domestic steel production is also essential for Germany,” she added. “Germany shouldn’t become dependent on others for this important raw material.”
The question, however, is how the steel industry will survive given an additional challenge: lagging demand. Germany’s steel industry employs about 80,000 workers, but most producers have reduced output amid a growing glut, triggered by the weakness in Germany’s car and machinery sectors. ThyssenKrupp shares have dropped nearly 60 percent over the past year. Last month, several board members of ThyssenKrupp’s steel subsidiary, including former SPD leader and economy minister Sigmar Gabriel, resigned amid a dispute over management’s strategy for the business….
LikeLiked by 2 people
“German Green leaders resign after dismal election results
The party is mired in “the deepest crisis” it has faced in a decade, one of its outgoing leaders said.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-greens-leaders-resign-dismal-election-results-omid-nouripour-ricarda-lang/
The leaders of Germany’s Greens on Wednesday announced that they will step down following a string of poor election results that have sparked a full-fledged crisis within the party.
“New faces are needed to lead the party out of this crisis,” Ricarda Lang, one of the two current leaders of the party, told reporters.
In a key election in the eastern region of Brandenburg on Sunday, the Greens crashed out of the state parliament, winning just around 4 percent of the vote, below the 5-percent threshold needed to gain parliamentary seats and a drop of nearly 7 percentage points from the last election in the state five years ago.
That result followed other poor outcomes for the party in state elections earlier this month and in the European election in June. The Greens are currently polling at 10 percent nationally, nearly 5 percentage points below their result in the last federal election in 2021.
Sunday’s election outcome in Brandenburg illustrated the Greens are mired in “the deepest crisis our party has faced in a decade,” Omid Nouripour, the other outgoing leader of the Greens, told reporters.
The Greens have seen their support drop as voters have turned much of their attention away from the party’s core issue of fighting climate change…
…The three parties have clashed on everything from military aid for Ukraine to a scheme, promoted by the Greens, to replace gas boilers with heat pumps.
Many voters, particularly on the far right, came to see that last measure as a symbol of the Greens’ overreach when it comes to environmental regulations. The Greens’ ambitious push for a clean energy transition has also come under scrutiny given high electricity costs, which have contributed to an exodus of major industry….
Some mistake, surely? Mr Miliband assures us that these types of policies will bring our energy bills down.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Mark – “The three parties have clashed on everything from military aid for Ukraine to a scheme, promoted by the Greens, to replace gas boilers with heat pumps. Many voters, particularly on the far right, came to see that last measure as a symbol of the Greens’ overreach when it comes to environmental regulations.”
Like how “particularly on the far right” regarding gas boilers v heat pumps, is shoehorned into the article. What a strange thing to say!!!
LikeLike
It seems to be a tactic used to force people away from certain beliefs, or at least publicly admitting such beliefs. Only the far right would oppose a ban on gas boilers. I am not far right. Therefore, I cannot be opposed to the ban on gas boilers. Etc.
[Or am I being too cynical? Does this come from the “denier” playbook of defining what permissible beliefs are?]
LikeLiked by 1 person
A meme:
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1837973899725738188
He’s not wrong.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Jit – think you are spot on, nudge in action.
Only other reason might be the German right gaining votes & the need to paint the majority as “far right”.
LikeLike
“Germany burns 700 MW of oil-fired output as wind hits 10-yr low(Montel)
With wind generation levels at their lowest since 2014, Germany was producing 700 MW of power from oil-fired units, their highest output in four weeks, Montel Analytics said on Wednesday.”
From Montel News:
“There is no wind in the centre and north of Europe. There is a battle for that power, which is causing the shortage,” said Jean-Paul Harreman, managing director at Montel Analytics.
He was referring to a spike in day-ahead prices, with two hours this evening exceeding EUR 800/MWh, while spot baseload for today out-turned at a near two-year high. The day-ahead market for Thursday looked less tight but the most expensive hour still hit EUR 408.26/MWh.
LikeLiked by 1 person
And the German coalition government is falling apart as arguments over Net Zero intensify:
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/11/07/german-government-collapses-over-refusal-to-budge-on-net-zero/
LikeLiked by 3 people
“German manufacturers warn of the sector’s ‘formidable crash'”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg5kpweqjzo
In the 44 years since Beckhoff Automation opened for business, owner Hans Beckhoff says he hasn’t seen an economic crisis like this one.
“You can usually expect a crisis about once every five to eight years,” says Mr Beckhoff. “This time it’s a formidable crash, a really deep one.”...
Worse than during covid. Worse than during the global financial crisis. What could possibly have caused it? Well, you can count on the BBC not to mention the Energiewende (or the barking mad “green” policies imposed on German manufacturers by both the EU and the Germand traffic light coalition (now defunct):
German firms have been hit by a number of problems in recent years. These include the steep energy price hikes that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, rising general inflation, and increased competition from China.
Companies also complain about rundown German infrastructure, such as the country’s much criticised rail network,, external bridges and roads, all three of which state-owned broadcaster Deutsche Wells describes as “aging and crumbling”.
Other businesses highlight what they see as a heavy bureaucratic burden at both national and European levels, inconsistent government decision-making from Berlin, plus higher labour costs and staff shortages.
I suppose “heavy bureaucratic burden” might cover the EU and German government “green” policies, but if so, it’s interesting – and telling – that the BBC can’t bring itself to name them explicitly. It even manages to turn reality on its head:
U-turns the government has made in recent years include walking back subsidy programmes for heat pumps and electric vehicles. This hit both domestic sales and net-zero targets. Berlin declined to comment.
But while political flip-flopping hasn’t helped German companies, many look to China as the key strain, especially on Germany’s carmakers, which have been hit by two problems.
Domestic demand for vehicles has cooled in China, and China now has a strong car industry of its own, with an aggressive export policy.
It gets better. The crisis might actually be good for Germany:
And many agree that this crisis may be just what Germany needs. In the post-war years, the country proved it had the capacity to produce an “economic miracle” against the odds.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“In the post-war years, the country proved it had the capacity to produce an “economic miracle” against the odds.” What’s the German for Marshall Plan?
LikeLiked by 2 people
“German power generator pleads for more secure electricity supply to offset renewables”
https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/20241123257/german-power-generator-pleads-for-more-secure-electricity-supply-to-offset-renewables
‘Dunkelflaute’ sends wind power generation plummeting in U.K. and Germany in November.
“And in Germany (for years) we have been acting as if the question of adding secured power is something that can be postponed. We can already see very clearly today what happens when power is switched off and no backup is provided for renewables.”
That’s Markus Krebber, CEO of German multinational energy company, publishing a plea about the state of Germany’s energy sector after a 12-day wind drought led to a spike in the price of electricity to EUR800 MWh on November 6….
…A similar phenomenon was seen in Germany, where low wind speeds left the country’s wind farms generating barely 7% of their capacity. Grid operators warmed up coal-fired power plants to meet 30% of the morning’s demand, with another 18% coming from natural gas and 12% coming from solar farms, according to the Telegraph newspaper.…
…Germany’s generates electricity from a mix of renewable and fossil fuel sources, with wind and coal being the largest contributors. Germany’s share of wind and solar is three times the global average, and the country has been a leader in offshore wind and solar power generation.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Mark – from your link –
“A 12 day “Dunkelflaute” period of weather sent wind power generation tumbling in the UK, Germany and other parts of northern Europe in early November. The phenomenon, also known as a “dark wind lull”, describes periods when wind speeds plunge, leading to little to no generation from turbines.
On Tuesday November 5, for example, it meant wind farms were only able to meet 3-4% of the U.K.’s electricity demand during the morning and evening peaks, with gas-fired plants instead fired up to meet around 60% of demand. The remainder was met by nuclear and biomass power plants, along with solar farms and imports via interconnectors, according to grid transparency data.”
Wonder how much solar farms added?
LikeLike
“Germany’s Economic and Political Suicide”
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/12/27/germanys-economic-and-political-suicide/
…Once upon a time there lived a country that was the envy of the world. It was among the world’s pre-eminent producers of manufactured goods. From chemicals and pharmaceuticals to precision engineering and the brewing of beer, it was second to none. Its people’s work skills, industriousness and discipline became the national hallmark of civilisational success. The country gained fame and fortune in bringing the luxuries of fine automobiles to the world’s rich and aspiring middle classes.…
…Within the fateful score of years of becoming afflicted by the primordial cult of Gaia, the world’s envy has now become a sad basket case. Its economy has been tarnished as “the sick man of Europe”.…
...The economic rot induced by the adoption of Energiewende policies for the “energy transition” in 2010 resulted ultimately in the recession of the German economy in the last two years. Among the manifestations of this rot are the growth of corporate bankruptcies in double digits, soaring layoffs as the Federal Employment Agency said that the unemployment figure could exceed the three million mark for the first time in 10 years at the beginning of 2025, and the crown jewel of German industry, its automative sector, announcing massive job cuts.
According to a recent poll, 40% of industrial companies are currently considering reducing their production in Germany or relocating it abroad due to the energy situation; among industrial companies with more than 500 employees, more than half are now considering this. High labour costs, caused by the myriad regulations of a hyperactive administrative state, and among the world’s highest energy prices brought about by its Energiewende folly, have led to the nation’s de-industrialisation….
…To go from opulence to poverty and potential barbarism is but a short road, assured by the burden of high taxes in service of an alleged climate crisis, and an intolerable administration of “climate justice” that demands suffocating regulations on the private sector.
LikeLiked by 5 people
Mark,
That’s what worries me. Energiewende is such an obvious disaster, so why does anyone want to go down the same route? I can only think of two answers. Either the fear of extinction is so ingrained that economic ruin looks like the better option to the powers that be, or economic ruin is actually their intention. I don’t think either of these insane possibilities can be discounted
LikeLiked by 3 people
John,
The former might have at least some credibility if German politicians had not gone out of their way to close down near zero emissions nuclear power stations – all 17 of them, which 25 years ago supplied a quarter of Germany’s electrical power. The logical policy would have been to build more. The fear of extinction from climate change cannot explain why they were closed, nor really can safety concerns. They were the ideal answer to continued prosperity and climate change avoidance, providing affordable, dependable zero emissions electricity to power homes and industry. To replace them with expensive, intermittent, weather dependent, inefficient, economy-destroying ‘renewables’ makes no sense at all, if you’re hysterically trying to avoid carbon-induced extinction.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Jaime,
You’re quite right. They didn’t even make sure they had the renewables in place, such was their haste to get rid of nuclear. It’s difficult to believe that saving the world from co2 was the Green Party’s aim; more like saving the world from Western capitalism.
LikeLiked by 3 people