The Greens were supposed to be Europe’s new hope. At the twilight of the Trump era, their champions on both sides of the Atlantic argued that they would be the perfect antidote to the far-Right. Back then, the largest and most powerful Green Party in Europe was Germany’s, and it was said to be uniquely positioned to counter polarisation. According to liberal logic, the Greens would excite voters bored with Germany’s conventional centre-Right (CDU) and centre-Left (SDP), “stabilise” the political centre, and unite different segments of the electorate with their “hopeful message” and “outsider status”. A Green wave, it was hoped, would crush the rising populist tide.
But something went wrong. In fact, it appears that the exact opposite has happened. The Greens have been eclipsed by the far-Right they were supposed to counter: the Greens are currently polling at 13%, while the far-Right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has seen its popularity soar to 20%. Since last summer’s high of 23-24%, the German Greens have plummeted ten points in the polls. And in Bremen last month, they saw their worst regional election result in the northern state in over 20 years.
The poor showing in the north-western city is symbolically significant: it was there that the party entered a state parliament for the first time, in 1979, as the Bremen Green List. And while Germany’s smallest state is not considered a bellwether, the loss is a reminder that the party remains deeply unpopular with vast swaths of the poor and working class. In Bremen, fears that the Greens’ climate policies will inflict harm on Germany’s industrial base are felt especially acutely: when the city’s powerful shipbuilding industry collapsed in successive waves in the Eighties and Nineties, tens of thousands of workers lost their jobs. The end of the Cold War compounded the devastation, as the city-state’s booming defence industry was subject to dramatic cuts.
To this day, Bremen has not recovered. The current unemployment rate stands at 11.4% — about twice the national average and the highest in Germany. One in four people is at risk of poverty. While the Greens have paid lip service to voters’s economic concerns, claiming that climate-friendly policies need not “come at the expense of social justice”, many are unconvinced. It is not difficult to see why. One of the Greens’s most controversial plans, which will probably come into force next year, will phase out old oil and gas heating systems, replacing them with climate-friendly heat pumps. The process is expected to cost up to €13,000 per household.
The Greens have always been perceived — rightly or wrongly — as a party of privilege. In 1979, the US ambassador to West Germany, Walter J. Stoessel J, described party members as “unpolitical dreamers, mellow lifestylers, counter-culture, anti-nuclear, anti-technology, back to nature romantics with a few cynical leftists thrown in for good measure”. He also noted that they “drew most of their supporters from the urban areas, specifically from well-educated middle and upper-middle class voters under 30”.
In its earliest days, the party was comprised largely of young militants. The Green movement emerged out of the tear gas and violence of the 1968 student revolt. It was virulently opposed to prevailing social norms, which they understood as not only inherently oppressive, but also key to understanding their parents’ submission to Nazism: “authoritarian” social structures, embodied by both the state and the family, could explain why the previous generation had so tragically failed to resist. The Greens concluded that society could inoculate itself against the resurgence of fascism through the deliberate destruction of social taboos.
This line of thinking led the young Greens down a dark path. The protests of 1968 had revived interest in the works of Freud disciple Wilhelm Reich, who described the supposed links between authoritarian submission and sexual repression. In his book Mass Psychology of Fascism, he wrote: “Suppression of the natural sexuality in the child makes the child apprehensive, shy, obedient, afraid of authority, ‘good’ and ‘adjusted’ in the authoritarian sense … it paralyses the rebellious force.” Influenced by these works, early Green party members pushed for the removal of the two sections of Germany’s penal code that criminalised sex between adults and children.
There were also visible manifestations of paedophile activism during the Eighties. “Paedosexual” rights groups showed up at Green Party events in Nuremberg, bringing with them street children housed at the Indianerkommune. About a decade ago, the Greens ordered an investigation into the party’s past involvement with pro-paedophilia groups and child sexual abuse. During the investigation, it was discovered that the influence of paedophiles on the party was much stronger than previously thought — and that for a brief period in the mid-Eighties, the Greens “practically served as the parliamentary arm of the paedophile movement”. In November 2014, the party held a press conference, at which leaders apologised to the victims of sexual abuse.
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SubscribeThe German Greens represent everything that is wrong about politics in the west. They are shallow, dim-witted ideologues who care more about greasing the wheels for friends and family than advocating policies that would actually benefit their voters.
Above all, they are utterly incompetent and incapable of getting anything done. They want to force every household to purchase expensive and inconsistent heat pumps. Meanwhile, after five years and $5 mill they still haven’t installed a heat pump in their own party headquarters. Let that sink in for a moment. They want to force heat pumps on everyone, but can’t manage to do it for themselves.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/12/german-greens-ridiculed-failing-install-heat-pump/
The news gets even better for Germans. Economy Minister Robert Habeck warned today that Germany may be forced to wind down or even switch off industrial capacity if Ukraine’s gas transit agreement with Russia isn’t extended after it expires at the end of next year. Maybe, just maybe, shutting down the last nuclear power plants was not such a good idea.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-12/germany-warns-of-industry-shutdown-if-russian-gas-stops-flowing#xj4y7vzkg
Go Team Germany!! You are a shining example for everyone in the west, the canary in the coal mine of economic devastation brought on by mind-numbingly stupid economic policy.
Excellent analysis
The main issue with green parties and their supporters is that as individuals they are invariably privileged deeply unpleasant narcissists
Bingo.
You can talk about politics all you like, but people will not vote for groups that are dislikeable and obnoxious. Hillary being another example.
The follow on effect is that because they are narcissistic, their politics is similarly horrible.
And people voted in Trump and he still has big following. Let’s remember Merkel stupidly closed nuclear plants led by nasty greens
Does “obnoxious” in your eyes include a certain Mr Donald Trump? Apart from making endless provocative, disgusting and indeed childish comments about people and countries he didn’t like, he has proved a one-hit wonder, and is now a serial loser at elections.
And people voted in Trump and he still has big following. Let’s remember Merkel stupidly closed nuclear plants led by nasty greens
Does “obnoxious” in your eyes include a certain Mr Donald Trump? Apart from making endless provocative, disgusting and indeed childish comments about people and countries he didn’t like, he has proved a one-hit wonder, and is now a serial loser at elections.
That’s just silly. Is Caroline Lucas a “deeply unpleasant narcissist” for example? This isn’t analysis, it’s just name calling, which is a terrible tendency on this forum.
Bingo.
You can talk about politics all you like, but people will not vote for groups that are dislikeable and obnoxious. Hillary being another example.
The follow on effect is that because they are narcissistic, their politics is similarly horrible.
That’s just silly. Is Caroline Lucas a “deeply unpleasant narcissist” for example? This isn’t analysis, it’s just name calling, which is a terrible tendency on this forum.
Yes, the Green movement is bottomed on a deep regret that the human animal even exists. The human animal cannot survive without the red flower; the other animals all can. The human animal is thus the one mis-fit, and, in the estimation of the Greens, needs to got rid of.
I think most readers will think your comment rather cryptic – at least I do! What is this “red flower”?
I think most readers will think your comment rather cryptic – at least I do! What is this “red flower”?
This frankly is a somewhat over the top rant, though I agree with quite a bit of it! Let me explain: when we really do not like some phenomenon, institution or person, people have a tendency to concatenate a whole series of negative adjectives and adverbs – the rhythm of three often sounds convincing and is often used in rhetoric – and rather more than is justified.
The Greens (as a whole) can’t logically be simultaneously be described as both ideologues and corrupt. Robespierre, you may recall was described as the “sea-green incorruptible”, but of course he was also a ruthless fanatic.
Excellent analysis
The main issue with green parties and their supporters is that as individuals they are invariably privileged deeply unpleasant narcissists
Yes, the Green movement is bottomed on a deep regret that the human animal even exists. The human animal cannot survive without the red flower; the other animals all can. The human animal is thus the one mis-fit, and, in the estimation of the Greens, needs to got rid of.
This frankly is a somewhat over the top rant, though I agree with quite a bit of it! Let me explain: when we really do not like some phenomenon, institution or person, people have a tendency to concatenate a whole series of negative adjectives and adverbs – the rhythm of three often sounds convincing and is often used in rhetoric – and rather more than is justified.
The Greens (as a whole) can’t logically be simultaneously be described as both ideologues and corrupt. Robespierre, you may recall was described as the “sea-green incorruptible”, but of course he was also a ruthless fanatic.
The German Greens represent everything that is wrong about politics in the west. They are shallow, dim-witted ideologues who care more about greasing the wheels for friends and family than advocating policies that would actually benefit their voters.
Above all, they are utterly incompetent and incapable of getting anything done. They want to force every household to purchase expensive and inconsistent heat pumps. Meanwhile, after five years and $5 mill they still haven’t installed a heat pump in their own party headquarters. Let that sink in for a moment. They want to force heat pumps on everyone, but can’t manage to do it for themselves.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/12/german-greens-ridiculed-failing-install-heat-pump/
The news gets even better for Germans. Economy Minister Robert Habeck warned today that Germany may be forced to wind down or even switch off industrial capacity if Ukraine’s gas transit agreement with Russia isn’t extended after it expires at the end of next year. Maybe, just maybe, shutting down the last nuclear power plants was not such a good idea.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-12/germany-warns-of-industry-shutdown-if-russian-gas-stops-flowing#xj4y7vzkg
Go Team Germany!! You are a shining example for everyone in the west, the canary in the coal mine of economic devastation brought on by mind-numbingly stupid economic policy.
“Green parties cannot succeed unless they shake their associations with liberal privilege; from today’s vantage point, they seem like a luxury from better times.”
Maybe I’m in the minority, but I don’t care about this at all. You can be the most privileged, pampered politician on the face of the earth – but for god’s sake just be competent. Don’t pass policies that only benefit the privileged. Have vision. Build things. Don’t rule by fear and tear everything down.
Net Zero unambiguously means an end to the building of things. Net Zero demands we tear everything down. Net Zero is so impoverishing fear is necessary to force people to accept the unacceptable.
To gain an appreciation of just how reductive and destructive Net Zero will be, read the work of UK FIRES (a goverment funded policy organisation).
There has always been a type of person attracted to this type of doomsday sacrifice and self-flagellation. Religions were founded on this stuff. The Greens have become the modern day church for these beliefs.
I really don’t think people have a clue how devastating net zero will be. It will literally destroy our way of life. People think we will get there with energy efficiency and renewables. Not even close. Not even in the next universe. It will require shutting down vast swaths of industry and agriculture. The Netherlands is seriously thinking about shutting down a third of its ag output. Yet this won’t get them even close to net zero.
I have seen a convincing lecture explaining how it can actually be done (I can’t immediately find the link). However we would need a large increase in the amount of mining, particularly to provide the vast amounts of metals needed for wind and solar power and electricity storage plants. (This transformation will however of course be very costly in itself).
However, many of the same groups of environmentalists campaigning for clean energy are at the same time campaigning to prevent mining! The State of Maine has completely banned all mining. So then in reality China supplies it all….
I have seen a convincing lecture explaining how it can actually be done (I can’t immediately find the link). However we would need a large increase in the amount of mining, particularly to provide the vast amounts of metals needed for wind and solar power and electricity storage plants. (This transformation will however of course be very costly in itself).
However, many of the same groups of environmentalists campaigning for clean energy are at the same time campaigning to prevent mining! The State of Maine has completely banned all mining. So then in reality China supplies it all….
The Greens are, ironically, more “far” in their politics, rigidity and extremity of beliefs, intolerance for dissent, than the supposedly “far” right.
And now more scientists are arguing planet earth needs more CO2 not less but that is against the group think of the West
Which scientists? Have you visited the Alps or the Himalayas and seen the vast retreat of the glaciers? This isn’t proof positive, but with many temperature measurements taken by organisations like NASA, it seems to be that there is no serious doubt the climate is on a warming trend. We have also known that carbon dioxide, which humanity has undoubtedly been emitting greater and greater quantities of, is a “greenhouse gas” for 150 years.
The “CO2 is plant food” argument is of course correct, but then again water is both essential for life and at the same time can drown us!
I think the Right need to get off this particular line of argument, where the evidence seems to get weaker and weaker, which is becoming a kind of quixotic Flat Earth position.
However this doesn’t require hugely costly and extremely inefficient “Net Zero” policies, as they generally are, even in their own terms. Instead, embrace mostly adaptation and resilience as the main response to climate change (which also has the advantage that it doesn’t matter so much what causes it) and use economic reasoning to get the best effect for a given amount of funding. This is exactly what Bjorn Lomborg and the Copenhagen School have been arguing for decades. The numbers of people dying as a result of extreme climate events has hugely decreased because we have become richer and better able to protect people and structures. We haven’t seen millions of Dutch people drowning as sea levels have risen, and this is also increasingly true even in Bangladesh.
Which scientists? Have you visited the Alps or the Himalayas and seen the vast retreat of the glaciers? This isn’t proof positive, but with many temperature measurements taken by organisations like NASA, it seems to be that there is no serious doubt the climate is on a warming trend. We have also known that carbon dioxide, which humanity has undoubtedly been emitting greater and greater quantities of, is a “greenhouse gas” for 150 years.
The “CO2 is plant food” argument is of course correct, but then again water is both essential for life and at the same time can drown us!
I think the Right need to get off this particular line of argument, where the evidence seems to get weaker and weaker, which is becoming a kind of quixotic Flat Earth position.
However this doesn’t require hugely costly and extremely inefficient “Net Zero” policies, as they generally are, even in their own terms. Instead, embrace mostly adaptation and resilience as the main response to climate change (which also has the advantage that it doesn’t matter so much what causes it) and use economic reasoning to get the best effect for a given amount of funding. This is exactly what Bjorn Lomborg and the Copenhagen School have been arguing for decades. The numbers of people dying as a result of extreme climate events has hugely decreased because we have become richer and better able to protect people and structures. We haven’t seen millions of Dutch people drowning as sea levels have risen, and this is also increasingly true even in Bangladesh.
The ‘Greens’ might do well recall the fate of one Girolamo Savonarola, not to mention Latimer, Cranmer and Ridley.
The Greens provide some pretty easy targets, but most of the comments on this forum on this topic are simply ill thought-through rants. What about all those vast arrays of wind turbines and solar power arrays? Aren’t they “building things”? New heat pumps replacing boilers may well be less efficient than the gas boilers they replace, but it’s certainly a constructive and not a destructive act to build them. Ditto electric cars!
2024 update: the Greens are now protesting a Tesla plant being built near Berlin. A plant that will produce nothing but electric cars.
2024 update: the Greens are now protesting a Tesla plant being built near Berlin. A plant that will produce nothing but electric cars.
I really don’t think people have a clue how devastating net zero will be. It will literally destroy our way of life. People think we will get there with energy efficiency and renewables. Not even close. Not even in the next universe. It will require shutting down vast swaths of industry and agriculture. The Netherlands is seriously thinking about shutting down a third of its ag output. Yet this won’t get them even close to net zero.
The Greens are, ironically, more “far” in their politics, rigidity and extremity of beliefs, intolerance for dissent, than the supposedly “far” right.
And now more scientists are arguing planet earth needs more CO2 not less but that is against the group think of the West
The ‘Greens’ might do well recall the fate of one Girolamo Savonarola, not to mention Latimer, Cranmer and Ridley.
The Greens provide some pretty easy targets, but most of the comments on this forum on this topic are simply ill thought-through rants. What about all those vast arrays of wind turbines and solar power arrays? Aren’t they “building things”? New heat pumps replacing boilers may well be less efficient than the gas boilers they replace, but it’s certainly a constructive and not a destructive act to build them. Ditto electric cars!
Net Zero unambiguously means an end to the building of things. Net Zero demands we tear everything down. Net Zero is so impoverishing fear is necessary to force people to accept the unacceptable.
To gain an appreciation of just how reductive and destructive Net Zero will be, read the work of UK FIRES (a goverment funded policy organisation).
There has always been a type of person attracted to this type of doomsday sacrifice and self-flagellation. Religions were founded on this stuff. The Greens have become the modern day church for these beliefs.
“Green parties cannot succeed unless they shake their associations with liberal privilege; from today’s vantage point, they seem like a luxury from better times.”
Maybe I’m in the minority, but I don’t care about this at all. You can be the most privileged, pampered politician on the face of the earth – but for god’s sake just be competent. Don’t pass policies that only benefit the privileged. Have vision. Build things. Don’t rule by fear and tear everything down.
A fascinating summary of the history and current ideology of Germany’s Green Party. I keep reading about the coming backlash to unrealistic “green” policies, but so far I don’t see it. People don’t support much of the climate agenda, yet on it rolls. Where and how is common sense reasserted?
How do you know this?
I take it you are talking about ‘the people’ who are the audience here, many of which are in an echo chamber.
The propaganda is overwhelming. People are bombarded with hysterical claims. Take the Canadian wildfires as an example. Trudeau, Biden, climate activists and the media all drive this narrative that the fires are caused by global warming. Yet easily accessible statistics refute this narrative. Trudeau’s own forestry dept has stats on its website showing the number of wildfires have decreased in Canada since 1992. Why would politicians say this? Trudeau could simply ring up the forestry dept and ask for these stats. We are being misled by the people entrusted to run our govts.
It’s not the number of fires that is the issue. It is their severity and widespread nature. The problem is not being solved, it is getting worse. Neither Trudeau or Biden want to do anything that will negatively impact on the fossil fuel industries, so all they can offer is window-dressing. The Climate is heating so the fires will get worse and the people in charge who could do something about it refuse. As you say they are misleading us.
Chris buddy, you are seriously missing the point. Sure, the severity is increasing. What do you expect. NASA has confirmed that the earth is 15% greener than in the year 2000. More fuel means more severe bushfires. Here in Australia, we have just finished a triple La Nina and Indian Ocean Diapole (both natural phenomena); which means heavy rains. I can see the effect, it is greener than ever, we have an increase in insects, birds, and other animals. There is plenty to burn even with fire reduction measures.
Climate change is a natural phenomena, the climate has been changing for the last few billion years and will continue to do so. If you want a steady climate, make yourself a bubble.
No.
You need 3 things for a fire.
Ingnition, fuel and air.
A forest will not burst into flames if the temperature rises from say 30 degrees to 50 degrees.
For spontaneous combustion of wood, paper or cardboard a temperature of 250 degrees C is required, so that is never going to happen.
You have to have a source of ignition.
That can be lightening, arson or carelessness.
Even if the climate is heating up, which it is not, it does not effect the rate or frequency of wildfires.
This wildfire claim by the climate alarmists
is very childish and anyone believing this just hasn’t thought things through.
You aren’t entirely right about the wildfires. Tinder has less and less moisture content the higher the temperature, and is therefore more likely to produce large scale and possibly uncontrollable wild fires when that ignition event does happen, as it always will and always has, thousands of years before day trippers and arsonists existed.
More importantly you make the claim, not just that Mankind is not causing a significant portion of global warming, but that there isn’t any global warning at all. From what I read, there is now overwhelming evidence, including by direct temperature measurements from space, that the Earth’s climate IS currently on an overall warming trajectory (which doesn’t mean that some regions couldn’t actually become cooler).
I wish the people rightly concerned about the huge cost, AND poor effectiveness, of Net Zero policies, would get off this particular red herring position, as it makes them increasingly look like cranks. If you want more graspable and less “elite” evidence, you could have a quick look at the extent of glacier retreat in every mountain range in the world for a start. And farmers seem to think a big and quite rapid shift is going on.
You aren’t entirely right about the wildfires. Tinder has less and less moisture content the higher the temperature, and is therefore more likely to produce large scale and possibly uncontrollable wild fires when that ignition event does happen, as it always will and always has, thousands of years before day trippers and arsonists existed.
More importantly you make the claim, not just that Mankind is not causing a significant portion of global warming, but that there isn’t any global warning at all. From what I read, there is now overwhelming evidence, including by direct temperature measurements from space, that the Earth’s climate IS currently on an overall warming trajectory (which doesn’t mean that some regions couldn’t actually become cooler).
I wish the people rightly concerned about the huge cost, AND poor effectiveness, of Net Zero policies, would get off this particular red herring position, as it makes them increasingly look like cranks. If you want more graspable and less “elite” evidence, you could have a quick look at the extent of glacier retreat in every mountain range in the world for a start. And farmers seem to think a big and quite rapid shift is going on.
If you look at acres burned, there is no substantial increase. The worst years we’re in the early ‘90s, then it dropped, and then it has increased again in the last 10 years.
http://nfdp.ccfm.org/en/data/fires.php
Even if there has been a slight increase in acres burned, you could attribute this to our lack of forest management. The federal govt of Canada spends virtually nothing on forest mngt and fire prevention. To be fair, forest fires are a provincial responsibility, but if the Prime Minister is running around wailing about forest fires, you think they would spend more than $40 mill over five years trying to prevent them.
The climate is warming, but by far the biggest reason for wildfires is the great reduction of the practice of controlled smaller fires thereby clearing flammable brushwood.
Ah, the big bad fossil fuel industry, digging up that coal and drilling for oil and gas for absolutely no reason, or worse, because they want to destroy the planet!
This is ludicrous and childish stuff – at the moment and for at least the next few decades, trying to shut down hydrocarbon production everywhere would lead us to mass starvation in pretty short order. In any case, attempts to control forest fires by directly reducing CO2 emissions in the same area is a farcically inefficient way of going about tackling the issue, as Bjorn Lomborg had been arguing for decades. Let’s say that wild fires in Australia have increased. (Actually I don’t think this is the case, they are reported far more because of the climate narrative itself and the general increase in the amount of news reporting
– and particularly it’s hyperbolic and catastrophist nature, but let’s put that point aside for a minute.
The increase in C02 emissions over Australia, a nation of 25 million people, are overwhelmingly produced elsewhere, most obviously in China and India! So Australia destroys a significant wealth generating industry, while the average temperature is reduced perhaps by 0.01C, an indiscernible difference. Most environmental activists are completely innumerate and have no understanding of basic economic concepts, and that is near criminal. Far more people on the planet by the way due of cold than of heat.
Both Biden and Trudeau, whom I have little time for, have signed up for Net Zero policies, which I consider costly and ineffective, but they do have to have some slight regard for other issues, such as the economy and the current lack of practical, economical and – often forgotten – portable alternatives to fossil fuel use. Let’s stop those awful tractors used on farms tomorrow, and the use of artificial fertiliser. The disastrous effects of this would make any deaths, disease and injuries due to direct climate warming the tiniest drop in a very large ocean.
…..a further point I neglected is that to date western Net Zero governments have largely been exporting emissions to other parts of the world, hence the embarrassing spectacle of the Biden administration imploring Saudi Arabia to increase oil production. (If they’d further developed the US’s own sources, stored because of Net Zero, as Trump would have done, they might well not have needed to undergo this humiliation).
Quite extraordinarily, even the nutty fanatics of “Just Stop Oil” seem to go along with this, there having been to.my knowledge no demonstrations at all at any ports or hydrocarbon importing or transfer facilities, or at the Chinese or Indian embassies (the climate ’emergency’ taking a distant second place in their ideology to anti-(western!) colonialism. Instead they make the much more sensible decisions to block ambulances, tube trains and even bike lanes! It is almost a parody.
Chris buddy, you are seriously missing the point. Sure, the severity is increasing. What do you expect. NASA has confirmed that the earth is 15% greener than in the year 2000. More fuel means more severe bushfires. Here in Australia, we have just finished a triple La Nina and Indian Ocean Diapole (both natural phenomena); which means heavy rains. I can see the effect, it is greener than ever, we have an increase in insects, birds, and other animals. There is plenty to burn even with fire reduction measures.
Climate change is a natural phenomena, the climate has been changing for the last few billion years and will continue to do so. If you want a steady climate, make yourself a bubble.
No.
You need 3 things for a fire.
Ingnition, fuel and air.
A forest will not burst into flames if the temperature rises from say 30 degrees to 50 degrees.
For spontaneous combustion of wood, paper or cardboard a temperature of 250 degrees C is required, so that is never going to happen.
You have to have a source of ignition.
That can be lightening, arson or carelessness.
Even if the climate is heating up, which it is not, it does not effect the rate or frequency of wildfires.
This wildfire claim by the climate alarmists
is very childish and anyone believing this just hasn’t thought things through.
If you look at acres burned, there is no substantial increase. The worst years we’re in the early ‘90s, then it dropped, and then it has increased again in the last 10 years.
http://nfdp.ccfm.org/en/data/fires.php
Even if there has been a slight increase in acres burned, you could attribute this to our lack of forest management. The federal govt of Canada spends virtually nothing on forest mngt and fire prevention. To be fair, forest fires are a provincial responsibility, but if the Prime Minister is running around wailing about forest fires, you think they would spend more than $40 mill over five years trying to prevent them.
The climate is warming, but by far the biggest reason for wildfires is the great reduction of the practice of controlled smaller fires thereby clearing flammable brushwood.
Ah, the big bad fossil fuel industry, digging up that coal and drilling for oil and gas for absolutely no reason, or worse, because they want to destroy the planet!
This is ludicrous and childish stuff – at the moment and for at least the next few decades, trying to shut down hydrocarbon production everywhere would lead us to mass starvation in pretty short order. In any case, attempts to control forest fires by directly reducing CO2 emissions in the same area is a farcically inefficient way of going about tackling the issue, as Bjorn Lomborg had been arguing for decades. Let’s say that wild fires in Australia have increased. (Actually I don’t think this is the case, they are reported far more because of the climate narrative itself and the general increase in the amount of news reporting
– and particularly it’s hyperbolic and catastrophist nature, but let’s put that point aside for a minute.
The increase in C02 emissions over Australia, a nation of 25 million people, are overwhelmingly produced elsewhere, most obviously in China and India! So Australia destroys a significant wealth generating industry, while the average temperature is reduced perhaps by 0.01C, an indiscernible difference. Most environmental activists are completely innumerate and have no understanding of basic economic concepts, and that is near criminal. Far more people on the planet by the way due of cold than of heat.
Both Biden and Trudeau, whom I have little time for, have signed up for Net Zero policies, which I consider costly and ineffective, but they do have to have some slight regard for other issues, such as the economy and the current lack of practical, economical and – often forgotten – portable alternatives to fossil fuel use. Let’s stop those awful tractors used on farms tomorrow, and the use of artificial fertiliser. The disastrous effects of this would make any deaths, disease and injuries due to direct climate warming the tiniest drop in a very large ocean.
…..a further point I neglected is that to date western Net Zero governments have largely been exporting emissions to other parts of the world, hence the embarrassing spectacle of the Biden administration imploring Saudi Arabia to increase oil production. (If they’d further developed the US’s own sources, stored because of Net Zero, as Trump would have done, they might well not have needed to undergo this humiliation).
Quite extraordinarily, even the nutty fanatics of “Just Stop Oil” seem to go along with this, there having been to.my knowledge no demonstrations at all at any ports or hydrocarbon importing or transfer facilities, or at the Chinese or Indian embassies (the climate ’emergency’ taking a distant second place in their ideology to anti-(western!) colonialism. Instead they make the much more sensible decisions to block ambulances, tube trains and even bike lanes! It is almost a parody.
It’s not the number of fires that is the issue. It is their severity and widespread nature. The problem is not being solved, it is getting worse. Neither Trudeau or Biden want to do anything that will negatively impact on the fossil fuel industries, so all they can offer is window-dressing. The Climate is heating so the fires will get worse and the people in charge who could do something about it refuse. As you say they are misleading us.
More than 40 million of the UK’s population will use a car today. Half the population will fly this year. All of the population live a quality of life only feasible with fossil fuels and intense resource extraction. These are the choices people freely make.
The UK climate agenda of Net Zero requires the end of personal mobility by 2040, the end of flying, and a 75% reduction in consumption. None of that will happen by the free choice of individuals.
I’d say the claim that the vast majority of people don’t support the climate agenda is evidenced by (a) no one (not even you*) voluntarily giving up their 1st world lives and (b) no campaign group clearly spelling out what impoverishment Net Zero actually demands
*Knocking out irrelevant comments using a world wide web and computing built with the most energy intensive resources.
**See UK FIRES for what Net Zero by 2040 means. Compacted earth structures and glass rationed? Yes, actually.
Some valid points, but people going about their general lives does not mean they ‘don’t support the climate agenda’. There has to be technological and economic solutions to provide people with options which will in time create a more sustainable existence. At the moment net zero policy isn’t offering those options and is completely unrealistic, and that applies to industry too. But there you go, on a global level that’s why we’re screwed.
The people who support the climate agenda are the same people who were driving alone wearing masks in their cars.
In other words, gullible fools.
lmao, very creative!
Have you ever entertained an original thought even once in your life ?
Or are you going to follow the BBC and mainstream media narrative no matter what ?
Have you ever entertained an original thought even once in your life ?
Or are you going to follow the BBC and mainstream media narrative no matter what ?
lmao, very creative!
There are no magic technological alternatives. Thermodynamics, quantum physics and chemistry are not changing in the next 17 years.
The people who support the climate agenda are the same people who were driving alone wearing masks in their cars.
In other words, gullible fools.
There are no magic technological alternatives. Thermodynamics, quantum physics and chemistry are not changing in the next 17 years.
If that is what Net Zero fir the UK does imply, which I’m somewhat sceptical of, the target simply isn’t going to be met, law or no law. (The government can then sue itself, and we can pay the legal costs and fines!). China and India and most non western countries
in general appear to have a much better balanced policy than the single issue obsession we see in the West. They certainly aren’t going to ban flying, and I very much doubt the West will either.
Eventually, at some point, there will have to be an energy transition, because hydrocarbons are a finite resource and energy demand is increasing as most countries get richer.
I’m not such a sceptic as you; it’s certainly now the case, somewhat to my surprise, that wind and solar provide generally the cheapest electricity generation. The next major thing to crack is storage and balancing generation and demand, for the obvious problems of intermittent energy generation. But some people on the sceptical not to say hostile Right seem to completely give upon likely further innovations and efficiencies.
Some valid points, but people going about their general lives does not mean they ‘don’t support the climate agenda’. There has to be technological and economic solutions to provide people with options which will in time create a more sustainable existence. At the moment net zero policy isn’t offering those options and is completely unrealistic, and that applies to industry too. But there you go, on a global level that’s why we’re screwed.
If that is what Net Zero fir the UK does imply, which I’m somewhat sceptical of, the target simply isn’t going to be met, law or no law. (The government can then sue itself, and we can pay the legal costs and fines!). China and India and most non western countries
in general appear to have a much better balanced policy than the single issue obsession we see in the West. They certainly aren’t going to ban flying, and I very much doubt the West will either.
Eventually, at some point, there will have to be an energy transition, because hydrocarbons are a finite resource and energy demand is increasing as most countries get richer.
I’m not such a sceptic as you; it’s certainly now the case, somewhat to my surprise, that wind and solar provide generally the cheapest electricity generation. The next major thing to crack is storage and balancing generation and demand, for the obvious problems of intermittent energy generation. But some people on the sceptical not to say hostile Right seem to completely give upon likely further innovations and efficiencies.
Yes, that is the downside of being a balanced, common sense, truth-seeking sort … one inevitably end up in this pesky ‘balanced, common sense, truth-seeking’ echo chamber. I suppose the antidote would be to engage with unbalanced, nonsense, propagandised echo chambers.
You still haven’t responded to me on the 400 feet of sea rise due to glacial retreat over the past 28,000 years and why the last three feet is incontrovertibly down to mankind. Thoughts?
Wildly off topic.
You can’t back up what you claim because you haven’t a clue what you are talking about. When the poster above asks a valid question, you brush it off as being ” Wildly off topic”.
He hasn’t asked a valid question, I’m baffled by his reference to asking me previously too. He’s clearly confused with historical ecology and climate change caused by the CO2 greenhouse effect. Not the only one it seems!
Oh I’m “sorry”, I thought I had flushed you away but then saw that it was in reply to a comment by Frank McCusker – another reaper of downvotes. You guys c/h unt in packs don’t you?
Apology accepted.
Sorry to be pious, but abusive comments don’t actually make you sound like you are on the winning side of an argument…..
Apology accepted.
Sorry to be pious, but abusive comments don’t actually make you sound like you are on the winning side of an argument…..
Oh I’m “sorry”, I thought I had flushed you away but then saw that it was in reply to a comment by Frank McCusker – another reaper of downvotes. You guys c/h unt in packs don’t you?
He hasn’t asked a valid question, I’m baffled by his reference to asking me previously too. He’s clearly confused with historical ecology and climate change caused by the CO2 greenhouse effect. Not the only one it seems!
You can’t back up what you claim because you haven’t a clue what you are talking about. When the poster above asks a valid question, you brush it off as being ” Wildly off topic”.
Could I ask you to please repeat those fascinating facts, as I’m too stupid to find them!
Ever since the late James Ephraim Lovelock CH CBE FRS (26 July 1919 – 26 July 2022) ‘blew the gaff’ on the Greens, I have garnered everything I can about this arrant nonsense.
We are in an interglacial. This means that the ice at the poles can grow or shrink depending on the length of time of an interglacial. The last glacial maximum was about 24 – 28,000 years ago. Since that maximum the glaciers have been retreating from a line roughly at the south coast of the UK all the way around the globe in the northern hemisphere with the same repeated in the southern hemisphere. Due to that retreat and thaw sea levels have risen by about 400 feet. I would think that around 8,000 years ago there would have been colossal glacial meltwater lakes / oceans and some of those may well have caused the giant floods mentioned in things like the bible. There have been mini ice-ages such as in the medieval to early 19th Century which would have seen some degree of glacier growth in the Alps and across Europe for example. Once that mini ice-age was over the glaciers will have tended to accelerate their apparent thawing but really it will just have moved back to toward the point it would have been but for the mini ice-age. I think thats where we are now. I want to know how the 3 feet predicted as “the end of the world” is beyond-all-reasonable-doubt down to mankind and not natural processes related to earth’s many rotational cycles around the sun. We don’t just orbit the sun in a fixed position; the earth wobbles and shimmies on its corkscrew orbit of the sun, and is also affected by the positions of the other planets, as the sun in turn flies through the galaxy at 500,000 mph.
The problem with interglacials is that there is limited evidence of what happened during previous versions. It is likely they have been going for billions of years but that because some of them coincided with, say, raised levels of oxygen around the time of the dinosaurs (they would have needed a higher concentration of oxygen to be able to grow to such massive sizes) and consequently higher temperatures the inter-glacials will have been much longer and perhaps have seen the complete melting of all glaciers. We don’t know because any evidence to support these theories will have melted in an interglacial.
As I said. Wildly off topic. These things have nothing to do with CO2 and the greenhouse effect, you can learn about it here: https://climatekids.nasa.gov/greenhouse-effect/
Block.
Block.
As I said. Wildly off topic. These things have nothing to do with CO2 and the greenhouse effect, you can learn about it here: https://climatekids.nasa.gov/greenhouse-effect/
We are in an interglacial. This means that the ice at the poles can grow or shrink depending on the length of time of an interglacial. The last glacial maximum was about 24 – 28,000 years ago. Since that maximum the glaciers have been retreating from a line roughly at the south coast of the UK all the way around the globe in the northern hemisphere with the same repeated in the southern hemisphere. Due to that retreat and thaw sea levels have risen by about 400 feet. I would think that around 8,000 years ago there would have been colossal glacial meltwater lakes / oceans and some of those may well have caused the giant floods mentioned in things like the bible. There have been mini ice-ages such as in the medieval to early 19th Century which would have seen some degree of glacier growth in the Alps and across Europe for example. Once that mini ice-age was over the glaciers will have tended to accelerate their apparent thawing but really it will just have moved back to toward the point it would have been but for the mini ice-age. I think thats where we are now. I want to know how the 3 feet predicted as “the end of the world” is beyond-all-reasonable-doubt down to mankind and not natural processes related to earth’s many rotational cycles around the sun. We don’t just orbit the sun in a fixed position; the earth wobbles and shimmies on its corkscrew orbit of the sun, and is also affected by the positions of the other planets, as the sun in turn flies through the galaxy at 500,000 mph.
The problem with interglacials is that there is limited evidence of what happened during previous versions. It is likely they have been going for billions of years but that because some of them coincided with, say, raised levels of oxygen around the time of the dinosaurs (they would have needed a higher concentration of oxygen to be able to grow to such massive sizes) and consequently higher temperatures the inter-glacials will have been much longer and perhaps have seen the complete melting of all glaciers. We don’t know because any evidence to support these theories will have melted in an interglacial.
The anthropogenic effect is on a much much shorter timescale and looks like a sharp spike on the graph. I think the argument that man is influencing the climate is pretty clear: CO2 is a greenhouse gas for a start, as we have known for 150 years. (I once was arguing with someone who was arguing that the “greenhouse effect” didn’t exist, which must be news to gardeners! And then, well before what I agree is an overblown and often hysterical political and media response, I was learning as a child about the runaway greenhouse effect on Earth’s twin planet, Venus, caused by a very dense atmosphere of CO2 and other greenhouse gases)
And yes, water vapour is also a greenhouse gas, but mankind is not pumping more and more of that into the
atmosphere, as we are certainly still doing with carbon dioxide. It’s the rate of change that is important.
But none of this all implies that we are in a “climate emergency” or that the world is going to end in 9 years from wherever we happen to be at the moment!.
Wildly off topic.
Could I ask you to please repeat those fascinating facts, as I’m too stupid to find them!
Ever since the late James Ephraim Lovelock CH CBE FRS (26 July 1919 – 26 July 2022) ‘blew the gaff’ on the Greens, I have garnered everything I can about this arrant nonsense.
The anthropogenic effect is on a much much shorter timescale and looks like a sharp spike on the graph. I think the argument that man is influencing the climate is pretty clear: CO2 is a greenhouse gas for a start, as we have known for 150 years. (I once was arguing with someone who was arguing that the “greenhouse effect” didn’t exist, which must be news to gardeners! And then, well before what I agree is an overblown and often hysterical political and media response, I was learning as a child about the runaway greenhouse effect on Earth’s twin planet, Venus, caused by a very dense atmosphere of CO2 and other greenhouse gases)
And yes, water vapour is also a greenhouse gas, but mankind is not pumping more and more of that into the
atmosphere, as we are certainly still doing with carbon dioxide. It’s the rate of change that is important.
But none of this all implies that we are in a “climate emergency” or that the world is going to end in 9 years from wherever we happen to be at the moment!.
“The people who don’t agree with me are in an echo chamber”! I can’t resist making the point that this is obviously entirely unlike those people who deny that there is any anthropogenic warming of average Earth temperatures at all!.
The propaganda is overwhelming. People are bombarded with hysterical claims. Take the Canadian wildfires as an example. Trudeau, Biden, climate activists and the media all drive this narrative that the fires are caused by global warming. Yet easily accessible statistics refute this narrative. Trudeau’s own forestry dept has stats on its website showing the number of wildfires have decreased in Canada since 1992. Why would politicians say this? Trudeau could simply ring up the forestry dept and ask for these stats. We are being misled by the people entrusted to run our govts.
More than 40 million of the UK’s population will use a car today. Half the population will fly this year. All of the population live a quality of life only feasible with fossil fuels and intense resource extraction. These are the choices people freely make.
The UK climate agenda of Net Zero requires the end of personal mobility by 2040, the end of flying, and a 75% reduction in consumption. None of that will happen by the free choice of individuals.
I’d say the claim that the vast majority of people don’t support the climate agenda is evidenced by (a) no one (not even you*) voluntarily giving up their 1st world lives and (b) no campaign group clearly spelling out what impoverishment Net Zero actually demands
*Knocking out irrelevant comments using a world wide web and computing built with the most energy intensive resources.
**See UK FIRES for what Net Zero by 2040 means. Compacted earth structures and glass rationed? Yes, actually.
Yes, that is the downside of being a balanced, common sense, truth-seeking sort … one inevitably end up in this pesky ‘balanced, common sense, truth-seeking’ echo chamber. I suppose the antidote would be to engage with unbalanced, nonsense, propagandised echo chambers.
You still haven’t responded to me on the 400 feet of sea rise due to glacial retreat over the past 28,000 years and why the last three feet is incontrovertibly down to mankind. Thoughts?
“The people who don’t agree with me are in an echo chamber”! I can’t resist making the point that this is obviously entirely unlike those people who deny that there is any anthropogenic warming of average Earth temperatures at all!.
Whoever controls the information controls the narrative. This is true of Covid, Ukraine, Green-movements, LGBT. This is where nudging can help, but as we see corporations, the groups that actually sell us stuff need access to cheap money (hyper-financing), favorable governance and insider relationships. The right people always help the right investments work out. Which is one reason you might want companies like Blackrock to own part of your company.
They have to rank highly on the ESG scale to be blessed insiders to things, which include not having governments litigate against you, or news groups write bad things about you. Which is why we see the green agenda pushed even in the commercials corporations put out. What’s the connection there? Connections are important. Did they go to the right university? Do they know the right people? Do they go to the right parties, and if so, do they agree with the right things? Who funds the politician? Who pays the EU politicians large sums of money in the think-tank, or NGO they also legally work for?
In the US politicians can trade stocks with insider information and its all legal… How? They declared it so… No corruption or conflict of interest there? What’s the game in the EU?
This has a few scintillas of truth, but is basically a wild conspiracy theory. Presumably there was previously a conspiracy to say the planet was on a cooling trajectory, but the conspiracists couldn’t make their minds up which one to go with …..
The world and human society, is an extremely complex mechanism, one could almost say, organism. There is rational analysis, self interest, groupthink, prestige opinion, and many other interacting phenomena occuring at the same time. Both the Left and Right however seem to be addicted to simplistic single causes eg ‘systemic racism’, ‘The World Economic Forum’ (which by the way Mr Putin was once invited to, not a notably well-known “progressive” woke world government type of person!)
This has a few scintillas of truth, but is basically a wild conspiracy theory. Presumably there was previously a conspiracy to say the planet was on a cooling trajectory, but the conspiracists couldn’t make their minds up which one to go with …..
The world and human society, is an extremely complex mechanism, one could almost say, organism. There is rational analysis, self interest, groupthink, prestige opinion, and many other interacting phenomena occuring at the same time. Both the Left and Right however seem to be addicted to simplistic single causes eg ‘systemic racism’, ‘The World Economic Forum’ (which by the way Mr Putin was once invited to, not a notably well-known “progressive” woke world government type of person!)
How do you know this?
I take it you are talking about ‘the people’ who are the audience here, many of which are in an echo chamber.
Whoever controls the information controls the narrative. This is true of Covid, Ukraine, Green-movements, LGBT. This is where nudging can help, but as we see corporations, the groups that actually sell us stuff need access to cheap money (hyper-financing), favorable governance and insider relationships. The right people always help the right investments work out. Which is one reason you might want companies like Blackrock to own part of your company.
They have to rank highly on the ESG scale to be blessed insiders to things, which include not having governments litigate against you, or news groups write bad things about you. Which is why we see the green agenda pushed even in the commercials corporations put out. What’s the connection there? Connections are important. Did they go to the right university? Do they know the right people? Do they go to the right parties, and if so, do they agree with the right things? Who funds the politician? Who pays the EU politicians large sums of money in the think-tank, or NGO they also legally work for?
In the US politicians can trade stocks with insider information and its all legal… How? They declared it so… No corruption or conflict of interest there? What’s the game in the EU?
A fascinating summary of the history and current ideology of Germany’s Green Party. I keep reading about the coming backlash to unrealistic “green” policies, but so far I don’t see it. People don’t support much of the climate agenda, yet on it rolls. Where and how is common sense reasserted?
If you want to understand the Green Party in Germany (and many other things going on in the West today), you need to understand the rise of a companies ESG score (a score created by an NGO funded by another George Soros NGO with the word Democracy in the name). Companies and politicians will do just about anything to faithfully have a high ESG score. Because it’s how they access among other things, central bank cash and credit, which with Quantative Easing (money simply given to the central banks by the government), essentially subsidized money. The politicians and these corporations therefore have a sort of symbiotic relationship. It’s funny, perhaps the politicians son might work for them, or some other back scratching, corporate funding of a government official or party, or insider information or help can be given. Therefore, they are all, multi-national corporations and governments, in seemingly unwavering lock-step on a whole host of issues.
Sounds a bit like Mussolini’s fascism, no?
Many parallels to the certain governing ideas of a certain Italian man that came to power in 1922, no?
Sounds a bit like Mussolini’s fascism, no?
Many parallels to the certain governing ideas of a certain Italian man that came to power in 1922, no?
If you want to understand the Green Party in Germany (and many other things going on in the West today), you need to understand the rise of a companies ESG score (a score created by an NGO funded by another George Soros NGO with the word Democracy in the name). Companies and politicians will do just about anything to faithfully have a high ESG score. Because it’s how they access among other things, central bank cash and credit, which with Quantative Easing (money simply given to the central banks by the government), essentially subsidized money. The politicians and these corporations therefore have a sort of symbiotic relationship. It’s funny, perhaps the politicians son might work for them, or some other back scratching, corporate funding of a government official or party, or insider information or help can be given. Therefore, they are all, multi-national corporations and governments, in seemingly unwavering lock-step on a whole host of issues.
I know little of the German Greens, but the British variety are simply woeful. In their current state they barely qualify as a pressure group, let alone a credible political party. Which suits them very well. The closer a party gets to being credible the more they have to actually consider what their policies might cost or what the consequences might be if they were enacted.
The various leaders of the Greens know they don’t stand a vegan’s chance at an arm-wrestling contest of getting into any kind of power and so are free to spout a load of righteous-sounding , though essentially meaningless, slogans and rhetoric that they’ll never actually have to deliver on. Again – a perfect fit for the ideologically pure Corbynistas who’ve quit labour and who’d much prefer protesting and carping from the side-line to actually having to govern.
The Green’s record in Brighton – the one place where they’ve had a sniff of control – has been a shambles. All gimmick and no substance – why? – because they never think through a policy beyond imagining it will sound good to a group of like-minded vegangelists at one of their interminable meetings.
They introduced “meat-free Monday” throughout the council’s eateries, but had to back down when the bin men demanded bacon butties or wouldn’t work.
Gender-neutral lavatories went the same way when regular folk refused to pander to such nonsense.
They tried to run a local referendum to see if residents would be prepared to accept a nearly 5% tax increase. Again the idea was shelved once it was pointed out – by rather more practical souls – that A) of course the people would vote No, and B) that the cost of running the referendum, at £900,000, was almost as much as they were hoping to raise from the tax hike anyway.
As ever, it is all rhetoric and slogan with them. They were proud to announce several years ago that Brighton residents could face a £50,000 fine if they failed to sort out their recycling and put a rogue piece of plastic in the wrong bin. Strong stuff. But it was so overblown that most residents stuck two fingers up and completely ignored the threat.
A few years ago the Green’s total mismanagement of the rubbish collection – a central plank in their policy platform – got so bad that bin men went on strike. The collections were being changed so often that neither residents nor collectors knew what was happening. As a result no one recycled and the rubbish piled up in the streets. Benefitting only the seagulls, who became a menace.
Given the many unreconstructed Trots who are attracted to Green Party politics, many of their own people went out on strike in support of the bin men and against their own policy positions.
They are a joke.
Absolutely correct they are a joke and
very childish with it.
About the only things worth recycling are aluminium cans and foil and possibly cardboard.
Everything else should go in landfill.
Absolutely correct they are a joke and
very childish with it.
About the only things worth recycling are aluminium cans and foil and possibly cardboard.
Everything else should go in landfill.
I know little of the German Greens, but the British variety are simply woeful. In their current state they barely qualify as a pressure group, let alone a credible political party. Which suits them very well. The closer a party gets to being credible the more they have to actually consider what their policies might cost or what the consequences might be if they were enacted.
The various leaders of the Greens know they don’t stand a vegan’s chance at an arm-wrestling contest of getting into any kind of power and so are free to spout a load of righteous-sounding , though essentially meaningless, slogans and rhetoric that they’ll never actually have to deliver on. Again – a perfect fit for the ideologically pure Corbynistas who’ve quit labour and who’d much prefer protesting and carping from the side-line to actually having to govern.
The Green’s record in Brighton – the one place where they’ve had a sniff of control – has been a shambles. All gimmick and no substance – why? – because they never think through a policy beyond imagining it will sound good to a group of like-minded vegangelists at one of their interminable meetings.
They introduced “meat-free Monday” throughout the council’s eateries, but had to back down when the bin men demanded bacon butties or wouldn’t work.
Gender-neutral lavatories went the same way when regular folk refused to pander to such nonsense.
They tried to run a local referendum to see if residents would be prepared to accept a nearly 5% tax increase. Again the idea was shelved once it was pointed out – by rather more practical souls – that A) of course the people would vote No, and B) that the cost of running the referendum, at £900,000, was almost as much as they were hoping to raise from the tax hike anyway.
As ever, it is all rhetoric and slogan with them. They were proud to announce several years ago that Brighton residents could face a £50,000 fine if they failed to sort out their recycling and put a rogue piece of plastic in the wrong bin. Strong stuff. But it was so overblown that most residents stuck two fingers up and completely ignored the threat.
A few years ago the Green’s total mismanagement of the rubbish collection – a central plank in their policy platform – got so bad that bin men went on strike. The collections were being changed so often that neither residents nor collectors knew what was happening. As a result no one recycled and the rubbish piled up in the streets. Benefitting only the seagulls, who became a menace.
Given the many unreconstructed Trots who are attracted to Green Party politics, many of their own people went out on strike in support of the bin men and against their own policy positions.
They are a joke.
Excellent article. I’m glad the author gave appropriate prominence to this party’s links to the paedophile lobby. A shame that 68er bourgeois “rebel” Daniel Cohn-Bendit didn’t get a specific mention though. So I’ll rectify that now:
https://www.dw.com/en/pedophilia-accusations-haunt-green-politician/a-16791213#:~:text=Accusations%20of%20pedophilia&text=Cohn%2DBendit%20in%20his%201975,That%20represented%20a%20problem.%22
Thanks for reminding me of what a loathsome gobshite D C-B was. I still recall the name but had forgotten his reprehensible behaviour.
“Loathsome gobshite” – highly apposite
Let me warn you not to allow “gobshite” into your lexicon. It is so spot on so often that, once adopted, it is almost impossible to relinquish.
Indeed, possibly the greatest word in the Anglo-Irish vocabulary.
In my previous occupation one of our most used phrases to sum up a persons character or behaviour was that they were “guilty of gobshitery with malice aforethought.” Still makes me smile
In my previous occupation one of our most used phrases to sum up a persons character or behaviour was that they were “guilty of gobshitery with malice aforethought.” Still makes me smile
Indeed, possibly the greatest word in the Anglo-Irish vocabulary.
Let me warn you not to allow “gobshite” into your lexicon. It is so spot on so often that, once adopted, it is almost impossible to relinquish.
He is also a convicted child molester.
Father Jack couldn’t have put it better.
“Loathsome gobshite” – highly apposite
He is also a convicted child molester.
Father Jack couldn’t have put it better.
The argument then was children as young as 11-12 could give their ‘consent’ to sex with adults. Fortunately they didn’t get the law changed. Today these people are considered paedophiles.
It’s the same groups who argue today that children with anxieties over their gender should be given medication and surgery as long as they ‘consent’ to it. Unfortunately they didn’t even need to get the law changed. But I wonder in 15-20 years time what we’ll make of those arguing today for genital mutilation of minors.
It won’t take 15 or 20 years.
Ordinary people people are already rebelling against this wickedness and the woke agenda.
We are indeed rebelling against this wickedness. But we have to keep talking about this because I’m not certain we’re winning. There is now a lot more public discussion about this issue, but so many institutions, corporations and charities – along with so much of the media – have been captured by the militant trans lobby. So while I hope you’re right, we mustn’t rest on our laurels.
We are indeed rebelling against this wickedness. But we have to keep talking about this because I’m not certain we’re winning. There is now a lot more public discussion about this issue, but so many institutions, corporations and charities – along with so much of the media – have been captured by the militant trans lobby. So while I hope you’re right, we mustn’t rest on our laurels.
It won’t take 15 or 20 years.
Ordinary people people are already rebelling against this wickedness and the woke agenda.
Yet DCB still regularly appears on French television and appears to be highly regarded for heaven knows what reason!
Thanks for reminding me of what a loathsome gobshite D C-B was. I still recall the name but had forgotten his reprehensible behaviour.
The argument then was children as young as 11-12 could give their ‘consent’ to sex with adults. Fortunately they didn’t get the law changed. Today these people are considered paedophiles.
It’s the same groups who argue today that children with anxieties over their gender should be given medication and surgery as long as they ‘consent’ to it. Unfortunately they didn’t even need to get the law changed. But I wonder in 15-20 years time what we’ll make of those arguing today for genital mutilation of minors.
Yet DCB still regularly appears on French television and appears to be highly regarded for heaven knows what reason!
Excellent article. I’m glad the author gave appropriate prominence to this party’s links to the paedophile lobby. A shame that 68er bourgeois “rebel” Daniel Cohn-Bendit didn’t get a specific mention though. So I’ll rectify that now:
https://www.dw.com/en/pedophilia-accusations-haunt-green-politician/a-16791213#:~:text=Accusations%20of%20pedophilia&text=Cohn%2DBendit%20in%20his%201975,That%20represented%20a%20problem.%22
I’ve always thought, even as a young child, that there was something shallow and self-indulgent about politicians and activists advocating for plants and animals. Sure, encourage people to minimize waste and be kind to other living creatures, but did we ever need a whole political movement geared toward this?
I’ve always thought, even as a young child, that there was something shallow and self-indulgent about politicians and activists advocating for plants and animals. Sure, encourage people to minimize waste and be kind to other living creatures, but did we ever need a whole political movement geared toward this?
Most Greens seem to be deeply negative people who are not really happy unless they are unhappy, and making everyone around them unhappy too. They seem to blend self- hatred and self-flagellation with sanctimonious self-regard in a viscerally unpleasant way,
Trying to find common ground with them is telling – as soon as it seems possible, the Green will adeptly move to a more extreme and shocking point of view to sabotage any agreement, because of course, it isn’t what they want. Were it to be, it would be readily available, after all – who among us doesn’t want to keep the environment in which we live in good shape?
But one is always left with the impression that, were it to be found, they wouldn’t actually enjoy the utopia they preach as what they really, really enjoy is “the battle – the struggle”. In German, “Kampf” and in Arabic, “Jihad”.
Both very evocative terms, and I think rather apt to the Greens. Their extreme-Left dogma is mainly deployed simply to provoke and annoy, and the dippy-hippy overtones are completely false – they are, as we see constantly, terrifyingly uniform and authoritarian. But then, as we all know, Fascism comes in both Left and Right wing flavours, doesn’t it?
In a practical sense and maybe not a in technical sense, (for the hair-splitters) fascism is a another word for authoritarianism or totalitarianism.
Sometimes distinctions are important. It’s not hair splitting to distinguish authoritarianism, let’s say repressive, but limited, government reach (keep your head down and don’t get involved in politics) and totalitarianism (the state’s power is all encompassing over the judiciary, all government institutions, education, civil society, freedom – with demands that the population actively support the regime.
Sometimes distinctions are important. It’s not hair splitting to distinguish authoritarianism, let’s say repressive, but limited, government reach (keep your head down and don’t get involved in politics) and totalitarianism (the state’s power is all encompassing over the judiciary, all government institutions, education, civil society, freedom – with demands that the population actively support the regime.
This is far too sweeping a denunciation. Even in this article it is made clear that not all Greens think alike. Greens have campaigned on a number of important issue, which include air, sea and fresh water quality and biodiversity. I think it’s a bit of a stretch to consider that profit making companies would have cleaned up their act on their own accord.
Some of them are beginning to realise that the single issue obsession with carbon emissions over other important environmental issues may be a strategic mistake: Michael Schellenberger is one well known such.
“Fascism” is one of the most overused terms in the political and ideological vocabulary. No, fascism doesn’t come in a left wing flavour; that is a contradiction in terms. Ok, we can argue until the cows come home about “Left” and “Right”, but a common rule of thumb is that leftwing thought stresses internationalism, and right wing, nationalism.
There have only ever been two “fascist” states, Mussolini’s Italy and National Socialist Germany, which though the latter was very different (and considerably more evil) in many ways, it is usually accepted had enough commonalities to be put into the same category. Fascist states did not, unlike Communist ones, abolish private industry and place it under state control. There is no doubt that “the nation” in an almost mystical sense was the primary focus of Fascism, as opposed to class in Marxist-Leninism.
However, left wing ideologies can certainly become totalitarian (called Communist in the Marxist-Leninist case).
You can’t (yet?) call green movement totalitarian or anything like it because there are huge numbers of contrary voices. However you can certainly detect an intolerant incipient authoritarianism which has the potential to become a totalising ideology.
In a practical sense and maybe not a in technical sense, (for the hair-splitters) fascism is a another word for authoritarianism or totalitarianism.
This is far too sweeping a denunciation. Even in this article it is made clear that not all Greens think alike. Greens have campaigned on a number of important issue, which include air, sea and fresh water quality and biodiversity. I think it’s a bit of a stretch to consider that profit making companies would have cleaned up their act on their own accord.
Some of them are beginning to realise that the single issue obsession with carbon emissions over other important environmental issues may be a strategic mistake: Michael Schellenberger is one well known such.
“Fascism” is one of the most overused terms in the political and ideological vocabulary. No, fascism doesn’t come in a left wing flavour; that is a contradiction in terms. Ok, we can argue until the cows come home about “Left” and “Right”, but a common rule of thumb is that leftwing thought stresses internationalism, and right wing, nationalism.
There have only ever been two “fascist” states, Mussolini’s Italy and National Socialist Germany, which though the latter was very different (and considerably more evil) in many ways, it is usually accepted had enough commonalities to be put into the same category. Fascist states did not, unlike Communist ones, abolish private industry and place it under state control. There is no doubt that “the nation” in an almost mystical sense was the primary focus of Fascism, as opposed to class in Marxist-Leninism.
However, left wing ideologies can certainly become totalitarian (called Communist in the Marxist-Leninist case).
You can’t (yet?) call green movement totalitarian or anything like it because there are huge numbers of contrary voices. However you can certainly detect an intolerant incipient authoritarianism which has the potential to become a totalising ideology.
Most Greens seem to be deeply negative people who are not really happy unless they are unhappy, and making everyone around them unhappy too. They seem to blend self- hatred and self-flagellation with sanctimonious self-regard in a viscerally unpleasant way,
Trying to find common ground with them is telling – as soon as it seems possible, the Green will adeptly move to a more extreme and shocking point of view to sabotage any agreement, because of course, it isn’t what they want. Were it to be, it would be readily available, after all – who among us doesn’t want to keep the environment in which we live in good shape?
But one is always left with the impression that, were it to be found, they wouldn’t actually enjoy the utopia they preach as what they really, really enjoy is “the battle – the struggle”. In German, “Kampf” and in Arabic, “Jihad”.
Both very evocative terms, and I think rather apt to the Greens. Their extreme-Left dogma is mainly deployed simply to provoke and annoy, and the dippy-hippy overtones are completely false – they are, as we see constantly, terrifyingly uniform and authoritarian. But then, as we all know, Fascism comes in both Left and Right wing flavours, doesn’t it?
David Attenborough spreads false scaremongering climate change on BBC. Endlessly. Then we have King Charles leading the way with no scientific training. Dangerous priveliged men
David Attenborough spreads false scaremongering climate change on BBC. Endlessly. Then we have King Charles leading the way with no scientific training. Dangerous priveliged men
The photo that accompanies this article had a strange resonance for me. I am reading a book about Rose Dugdale at the moment (The woman who stole a Vermeer) . It seems to me that the establishment have now ‘captured’ the radicals and castrated them, transforming them to the Castrati of our ‘modern’ era. I’m not implying any connection between Thunberg and Dugdale BTW.
P.S. The Greens are part of the ruling coalition in Ireland at present and their modus operandi appears to be to throw money at things like excessive bicycle lanes, building standards(expensive!) etc. Of course the builders/developers, most of whom wouldn’t be seen dead on a bicycle, are only too happy to hoover up the public money.
What have you got against bike lanes? There is nothing more cringeworthy in my view, than ranting right wingers, and some motorists trying to prevent measures to encourage a cheap, non polluting and healthy means of travel. Of course not all the design has been done right, but overall there has been a huge improvement in cities like London.
What have you got against bike lanes? There is nothing more cringeworthy in my view, than ranting right wingers, and some motorists trying to prevent measures to encourage a cheap, non polluting and healthy means of travel. Of course not all the design has been done right, but overall there has been a huge improvement in cities like London.
The photo that accompanies this article had a strange resonance for me. I am reading a book about Rose Dugdale at the moment (The woman who stole a Vermeer) . It seems to me that the establishment have now ‘captured’ the radicals and castrated them, transforming them to the Castrati of our ‘modern’ era. I’m not implying any connection between Thunberg and Dugdale BTW.
P.S. The Greens are part of the ruling coalition in Ireland at present and their modus operandi appears to be to throw money at things like excessive bicycle lanes, building standards(expensive!) etc. Of course the builders/developers, most of whom wouldn’t be seen dead on a bicycle, are only too happy to hoover up the public money.
Indeed. Woke environmentalism has costs that the far-Left wants the less fortunate to bear/subsidize which is very unfair. The far-Right is not the antidote to the far-Left. A middle ground is needed.
Who is or who are the far-right ?
No-one seems to know.
Trying to engage in a debate with a trans rights activist (impossible!) on the FT comments section the other day, I was – predictably – informed that I was a fascist for stating that sex is binary and immutable. Still, once any pretence of reasoned engagement was abandoned I at least had some fun. They really do live down to their reputation, don’t they – humourless, hysterical and wrong about everything.
Agreed, simply wonderful sport!
Agreed, simply wonderful sport!
Those people who disagree with any leftie about anything at all, ever.
Exactly.
What happened to your other interesting post about rising sea levels etc?
Exactly.
What happened to your other interesting post about rising sea levels etc?
Boris Johnson – or so many insisted… Ludicrously of course, as he was actually a centre-Left/Green liberal…
He isn’t a conservative, that’s for sure.
Aided and abetted by the Cummings creature, lest we forget.
He isn’t a conservative, that’s for sure.
Aided and abetted by the Cummings creature, lest we forget.
Here in France anyone to the slightest bit right of centre is described as ‘Far right’.
Trying to engage in a debate with a trans rights activist (impossible!) on the FT comments section the other day, I was – predictably – informed that I was a fascist for stating that sex is binary and immutable. Still, once any pretence of reasoned engagement was abandoned I at least had some fun. They really do live down to their reputation, don’t they – humourless, hysterical and wrong about everything.
Those people who disagree with any leftie about anything at all, ever.
Boris Johnson – or so many insisted… Ludicrously of course, as he was actually a centre-Left/Green liberal…
Here in France anyone to the slightest bit right of centre is described as ‘Far right’.
True, although I can’t help but feel that liberals seem to label ‘far-right’ anybody who does not get on board with their insane ideologies.
Who is or who are the far-right ?
No-one seems to know.
True, although I can’t help but feel that liberals seem to label ‘far-right’ anybody who does not get on board with their insane ideologies.
Indeed. Woke environmentalism has costs that the far-Left wants the less fortunate to bear/subsidize which is very unfair. The far-Right is not the antidote to the far-Left. A middle ground is needed.
In a way it is encouraging that the Green Party, depository of educated class cultishness, is a hot mess.
Educated fools.
There is little point in being educated, if one lacks critical thinking skills.
Educated fools.
There is little point in being educated, if one lacks critical thinking skills.
In a way it is encouraging that the Green Party, depository of educated class cultishness, is a hot mess.
Sounds like Ambassador Stoessel’s characterization of the Greens was spot on.
Nothing like reality to shipwreck a political movement built in Cloud Cuckoo Land. That and their past(?) history of advocating for pedophilia.
Sounds like Ambassador Stoessel’s characterization of the Greens was spot on.
Nothing like reality to shipwreck a political movement built in Cloud Cuckoo Land. That and their past(?) history of advocating for pedophilia.
No, for reasons I explained in my book, The Fading of the Greens in 1994 ( Yale University Press,London).
To be Green, iow to care for the environment, preserve wildlife and habitats is, if sometimes naïve, not a bad thing.
What is bad is the marxists piggybacking on to it. Hence the term watermelon, red on the inside. This is the same as those who piggy backed onto our Labour Movement which wanted fair pay and conditions. Inspired by philanthropists who saw the waste of a downtrodden underclass; a loss of human resources from whom Einsteins, Newtons and Shakespeares could never emerge.
Ooh look! A movement we can hijack and bend to our political aspirations, said the misanthropes.
I am a Green voter in Australia and I do not recognise the German lot as something I would vote for. They come across as a bunch of middle-class light weights who hold the people they claim to represent in total contempt.
Their warmongering is off the scale as well and is leading to the complete collapse of the economic base of their country. The silence regarding the destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipelines to me in unfathomable. It is almost like they wanted it to happen regardless of the negative consequences for their fellow citizens, not to mention the environmental catastrophe the escaping gas created as part of the wider environmental disaster that is the Ukraine SMO, which they fully support.
Life is uncertain for a lot of the worlds inhabitants when things are going well. I find it hard to accept that ones own government would be the major contributor to this uncertainty. It’s frivolous politicians such as these that are the problem. I wouldn’t vote for them. Fortunately the Greens are still OK in Australia but you need to be constantly on alert as the same tendencies and tensions exist here as well.
“Fortunately the Greens are still OK in Australia ”
Evidence?
Australia used to have some of the lowest energy prices in the world, giving it an economic advantage over many competing nations. Now they’re working overtime to catch up with Europe. They have huge coal reserves, which they won’t use themselves, but will gladly sell to China.
And in Oz, despite having sizeable stocks of uranium in the ground, nuclear is totally out of the question. They prefer wind and sun and to live vastly more expensive and exciting lives.
And in Oz, despite having sizeable stocks of uranium in the ground, nuclear is totally out of the question. They prefer wind and sun and to live vastly more expensive and exciting lives.
Australia used to have some of the lowest energy prices in the world, giving it an economic advantage over many competing nations. Now they’re working overtime to catch up with Europe. They have huge coal reserves, which they won’t use themselves, but will gladly sell to China.
There’s nothing OK about the Greens in any part of the world.
Many green policies are not green at all.
eg, the UK importing wood chip from North America to burn in the Drax power station.
Apparently, wood chip is cleaner to burn than coal although it has a lower calorific value and therefore requires much more to be burned.
The Greens and the climate change cult do not have science on their side.
They are largely inumerate and do not have even a basic understanding of science.
They avoid scientific debate because they cannot debate and can only shout their opponents down.
The Greens have an agenda, they are ignorant middle-class do-gooders, with all the manufactured goods such as I-phones and I-pads
They have expensive and useless EVs that they will never give up. Yet, everyone else should take the bus.
The Greens are a cancer.
You have got to be kidding me. The Aussie greens are total anglophobes. In Brisbane, Councilor Sri had more complaints against him than the rest of the council combined. They got Lidia Thorpe into the senate, and she is as racist as they come. They are the most hate filled political party in Australia; and we have Pauline Hanson and that mongrel Palmer. Plus we recently has ScoMo as PM, not to mention Abbott and Rudd. The bar is set so very low for politicians in Australia and the Greens fail to even reach that.
The Greens held the balance of power in the Gillard government and what sentient Australians learned from that experience is that they are definitely not OK.
And their malign influence is felt at every level of government – if anything, they do most harm at local government level.
I think the German Greens, for all their faults, are rather more desirable than your presumable position that Ukraine should surrender! The war was launched by Russia, on top of an earlier armed incursion in Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea. The United States were obviously ‘war mongers’ through 1940 and 41 as they provided much needed supplies to Great Britain which was in a desperate situation.
There seems to be a lot of disagreement about the cause of the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline – it could be the Ukrainians, though I’d read they didn’t have the capability, and seems to me more likely the Americans. But in any case, it is disastrous war, with vast and tragic amounts of destruction including hydroelectric dams and even nuclear power stations being endangered. It is just obvious that a vast environmental disaster is also being created, one which however it seems a tad of a stretch to blame “the Greens” from any nation for! In this case, there is a much better place to point the finger – at Vladimir Putin. (And I think we can say, perhaps with a couple of advisors, his alone, as senior figures in his government did not know the invasion was coming).
You also seem to engage in one of those smear styles of argument: ‘Ukraine is an environmental disaster zone’ – well quite possibly it is, being, exactly as the Russian Federation, is a post-Soviet state. So Ukraine (and only Ukraine) is being blamed for its history now.
But, putting aside the largely irrelevant – or let’s better say entirely independent – issue of the Russia-Ukraine war – you haven’t actually given any of us any idea as to why the Australian Greens “are ok” in your opinion on their key goals, and the German Greens are not. (Aren’t the Oz Greens they just as much Net Zero zealots, who want to close down your coal industry?) – and it’s a shame you didn’t say more on this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Greens
Includes this: “On foreign policy, the party says that it wants “Independent, transparent and accountable foreign and defence policies based on mutual respect.” It says that it does not see China as a threat to Australia, that the future of Taiwan is not a concern for the country, and that the Coalition government’s view on the Solomon Islands-China deal are racist”.
In other words, they sound pretty much like progressive fools, not dissimilar from many other western leftist parties.
“Fortunately the Greens are still OK in Australia ”
Evidence?
There’s nothing OK about the Greens in any part of the world.
Many green policies are not green at all.
eg, the UK importing wood chip from North America to burn in the Drax power station.
Apparently, wood chip is cleaner to burn than coal although it has a lower calorific value and therefore requires much more to be burned.
The Greens and the climate change cult do not have science on their side.
They are largely inumerate and do not have even a basic understanding of science.
They avoid scientific debate because they cannot debate and can only shout their opponents down.
The Greens have an agenda, they are ignorant middle-class do-gooders, with all the manufactured goods such as I-phones and I-pads
They have expensive and useless EVs that they will never give up. Yet, everyone else should take the bus.
The Greens are a cancer.
You have got to be kidding me. The Aussie greens are total anglophobes. In Brisbane, Councilor Sri had more complaints against him than the rest of the council combined. They got Lidia Thorpe into the senate, and she is as racist as they come. They are the most hate filled political party in Australia; and we have Pauline Hanson and that mongrel Palmer. Plus we recently has ScoMo as PM, not to mention Abbott and Rudd. The bar is set so very low for politicians in Australia and the Greens fail to even reach that.
The Greens held the balance of power in the Gillard government and what sentient Australians learned from that experience is that they are definitely not OK.
And their malign influence is felt at every level of government – if anything, they do most harm at local government level.
I think the German Greens, for all their faults, are rather more desirable than your presumable position that Ukraine should surrender! The war was launched by Russia, on top of an earlier armed incursion in Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea. The United States were obviously ‘war mongers’ through 1940 and 41 as they provided much needed supplies to Great Britain which was in a desperate situation.
There seems to be a lot of disagreement about the cause of the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline – it could be the Ukrainians, though I’d read they didn’t have the capability, and seems to me more likely the Americans. But in any case, it is disastrous war, with vast and tragic amounts of destruction including hydroelectric dams and even nuclear power stations being endangered. It is just obvious that a vast environmental disaster is also being created, one which however it seems a tad of a stretch to blame “the Greens” from any nation for! In this case, there is a much better place to point the finger – at Vladimir Putin. (And I think we can say, perhaps with a couple of advisors, his alone, as senior figures in his government did not know the invasion was coming).
You also seem to engage in one of those smear styles of argument: ‘Ukraine is an environmental disaster zone’ – well quite possibly it is, being, exactly as the Russian Federation, is a post-Soviet state. So Ukraine (and only Ukraine) is being blamed for its history now.
But, putting aside the largely irrelevant – or let’s better say entirely independent – issue of the Russia-Ukraine war – you haven’t actually given any of us any idea as to why the Australian Greens “are ok” in your opinion on their key goals, and the German Greens are not. (Aren’t the Oz Greens they just as much Net Zero zealots, who want to close down your coal industry?) – and it’s a shame you didn’t say more on this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Greens
Includes this: “On foreign policy, the party says that it wants “Independent, transparent and accountable foreign and defence policies based on mutual respect.” It says that it does not see China as a threat to Australia, that the future of Taiwan is not a concern for the country, and that the Coalition government’s view on the Solomon Islands-China deal are racist”.
In other words, they sound pretty much like progressive fools, not dissimilar from many other western leftist parties.
I am a Green voter in Australia and I do not recognise the German lot as something I would vote for. They come across as a bunch of middle-class light weights who hold the people they claim to represent in total contempt.
Their warmongering is off the scale as well and is leading to the complete collapse of the economic base of their country. The silence regarding the destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipelines to me in unfathomable. It is almost like they wanted it to happen regardless of the negative consequences for their fellow citizens, not to mention the environmental catastrophe the escaping gas created as part of the wider environmental disaster that is the Ukraine SMO, which they fully support.
Life is uncertain for a lot of the worlds inhabitants when things are going well. I find it hard to accept that ones own government would be the major contributor to this uncertainty. It’s frivolous politicians such as these that are the problem. I wouldn’t vote for them. Fortunately the Greens are still OK in Australia but you need to be constantly on alert as the same tendencies and tensions exist here as well.
Nothing wrong with ‘green’ ideology, philosophy and principles. It’s their policies that are rubbish.
Spot on!
The policies that is.
That doesn’t make sense.
The policies are derived from their ideology, philosophy and principles.
Their ideas are childish and emotive and definitely not scientific.
I would venture to say that everyone supports the concepts of less pollution, sustainable living and a healthy environment…? How one goes about that is obviously open for debate.
Well yes, but what does that mean?
CO2 is not a pollutant. It is a trace gas
but vital to all life on earth and 97% of CO2 is natural. These fools are telling us that the 3%
of CO2 of anthropogenic origin is going to cause catastrophic climate change.