This is a first and quite possibly a watershed event when it comes to media sentiment towards green energies. It appears it’s no longer taboo in Germany to mock green energy.
In the past German public television and mainstream media always kept the wagons circled around the anthropogenic global warming theory and the Energiewende (transition from fossil fuels and nuclear power over to renewable energies). Now it is becoming the butt of jokes and surprisingly sharp satire on late-night German comedy shows.
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Last Friday ZDF German television (Germany’s version of the BBC) launched a blistering parody at the now collapsing Energiewende. The German government obstinately refuses to acknowledge that it is a monumental failure and will never work. Late-night comedian Oliver Welke openly calls the Energiewende a religion: “All you have to do is believe.”
When ZDF television mocks the project, then you know it’s in very serious trouble.
The parody stems from Angela Merkel’s grand coalition government’s refusal to accept the findings of an expert commission who gives the Energiewende project a grade of “F-minus”. Welke openly asks if Angela Merkel’s Grosse Koalition (grand coalition) government – abbreviated GroKo – formed with Sigmar Gabriel’s center-left SPD Social Deomcrat party “has gone nuts” after refusing to listen to the advice of the experts.
At the 0:57 mark, Welke reiterates the findings of the commission: “The green power subsidy is causing the power price to go up and leads to less climate protection.” Adding at the 1:17 mark: “Why are they doing that? It’s totally illogical.”
Albrecht Humboldt joins Welke in the parody, confirming at the 1:28 mark that the Energiewende makes no sense but that this is all beside the point. It is something “you just have to believe in! The Energiewende works only if we all really believe in it!” he proclaims sarcastically.
At the 1:47 mark Welke demonstrates to the audience just how nuts the Energiewende has become:
Last year every German forked out €240 for green power fees…babies, seniors, every German. A total of 21.8 billion euros for power that on the market has a value of only €2 billion. That’s sick!”
This quality of criticism Welke aims at the Energiewende in Germany is unprecedented in sharpness and cynicism for mainstream media. The wheels the green-energy wagon are truly coming off in Europe. The green-energy dream is in irreversible collapse.
The remainder of the harsh parody mocks the Energiewende as a religion that requires full faith from its followers. Though the brunt of the jokes is aimed at the GroKo (grand coalition government) the real target is the Energiewende and the policy of early retirement at age 63.
At the 4:25 mark Tina Hausten sarcastically tells the audience:
Stop questioning the policies. Thinking about them just gives you a headache! Just pay and be happy!”
To which everyone responds by singing: “Oh happy days!”
At 4.29 Welke says: “This new GroKo sect is starting to scare me!”
At the very end at the 6:10 mark Welke makes it official:
Yes, so the GroKo is now officially deemed a religion.”
I’ve prepared a rough transcript of the entire parody in English and have sent it over to Hajo Smit at Climategate.nl here, who will add English subtitles to above video.
“When ZDF television mocks the project, then you know it’s in very serious trouble.”
When ZDF television mocks the project, you know Merkel wants to stop it. Hegelian dialectic 101; let ZDF play the opposition voice. Anyone who thinks ZDF is not 100% controlled has never watched it. German public broadcasters are controlled by a supervising board full of bloc party politicians; often premier ministers of the lands amongst them.
So encourage criticism by the populace, which will be satisfied that they can suddenly voice their previously suppressed opinion, then, “grudgingly”, satisfy the demands of the people for cheaper energy. Merkel builds up the momentum for the eradication of the subsidies for new installations.
DirkH 12. März 2014 at 19:39 | Permalink | Reply
I sincerely hope you are right.
Congratulations, Germany! Great to see that the taboo barrier about criticism of the Energiewende and CAGW is breached by the most devastating weapon of all -irony. The people who write these texts are acutely aware of public emotions, otherwise, their comedy would flop. So there is all reasom to believe that their satire expresses the views of a large part of the German population.
The second act of the play will be the -in Norwegian- “faneflukt” (“Fahnen Flucht”?), the shameless retreat by the politicians, covering themselves with all kinds of bad excuses.
Thanks to Mr. Gosselin for this great article!
Thanks!
Very incisive. 🙂
You have been giving me hopes for “Wende” which unfortunately transformed into disappointment.
Let’s hope this is real.
You can’t blame the Germans for not trying. No one has poured so much into this effort hoping it would work. But now they see that the results are stunningly meager and that unless they bail out soon, they’re going to go over the cliff. I agree with Dirk’s assessment that the emergency brakes are being pulled. Hopefully it is so, and not that the ZDF is merely having a brief, temporary flash of sanity.
Wow. Just watched it. The cheapest Brechtian Agitprop one could imagine. Witless, boring, Daily Show standard.
So, I stand by my diagnosis that we don’t see creativity here but a very simple political maneuvre executed by the cheapest apparatchiks they could find.
I think the REAL shots will be at the utilities and the coal companies as solar and wind continue to grow. Electric utilities will be toast for the most part in coming years.
Good article:
http://climatecrocks.com/2014/03/12/more-on-utility-death-spiral-in-germany/
Also, the coal companies are going to continue their long….painful death spiral over coming years and decades. They are pretty much the “Wang Computer” of the energy industry.
In the coming decades? Predictions! Predictions! Right now coal power is growing worldwide. There are many reasons for this: 1) cheap, 2) plentiful 3) steady and reliable and 4) with modern technology it is cleaner and more efficient than ever. It’s a life-saver. And you yourself, Buddy, are enjoying its benefits whether you want to believe it or not.
“Also, the coal companies are going to continue their long….painful death spiral over coming years and decades. ”
Sounds like a Julian Simon cornucopian to me. So, what’s the problem again, Buffy? I completely agree with you that solar and batteries will become cheaper all the time and that in 3 or 4 decades it will be economic. In rare cases solar is economic even today.
The problem with warmists in general is that they think they can rush it by increasing taxes and energy prices to the hilt and stuff their own pockets.
No, warmists, and especially you, Buffy: That’s just theft; it doesn’t solve a problem; it only strips the economy off the capital it needs to drive down prices. You are the problem; not the solution.
Buddy;
You can look forward to the happy day when base load and load chasing capacity is finally eliminated from the grid. Then people will be able to just go to bed or light candles or start their deisels when the sun goes down. Everyone will be better off for it.
Damn those evil utility companies, forcing people to use their electricity at night!
Buddy,
Can’t you read. Coal is everywhere and growing. I won’t waste my time giving you references because I think you don’t want to see. I do have references though. Don’t ever doubt me.
They closed the debate because their science was settled. So they appealed for satire and they will get it.
Thanks, Pierre.
Buddy is still pushing solar and wind. Until there is utility scale storage there will need to be reliable and instant power from alternative sources because clouds do come and wind does stop. When these happen people do not want all the food in their refrigerators to spoil, to take cold showers, or have the turkey half cooked for Christmas dinner. Thus, coal, gas, hydro and/or nuclear plants have to be in place. It is that simple. Look at this link and examine the green line.
http://transmission.bpa.gov/business/operations/wind/baltwg.aspx
Tonight as I type this, the wind is not blowing and the blades are not turning. Note the top blue line. That’s hydro power from large dams. The brown line is called “thermal” and you can scroll down to get an idea of what it is. Gases from landfills, saw dust and pieces from lumber mills, byproducts from paper mills. Tonight would be dark and cold if wind was the only source of power. Solar doesn’t produce at night unless one shines bright lights on the panels to harvest the subsidies (as was done in Spain).
~~~~~~~~~
I note this statement: “. . . the real target is the Energiewende and the policy of early retirement at age 63. ”
Just 2 days ago there was an essay in the WSJ about how to build an economic growth model for an aging society? Here’s a quote:
“The initial German retirement age was 70, later dropping to 65—but this was when life expectancy at birth was perhaps 40 years. Today, German life expectancy is over 80. Franklin Delano Roosevelt brought the same retirement age to the U.S. with Social Security in 1935, when U.S. life expectancy was 61, nearly two decades lower than today’s 79.”
[Nicholas Eberstadt and Michael W. Hodin; March 10]
The “ . . . aging population is a great untapped economic resource.”
Buddy only comes here after a pipe or a joint … there can be no other explanation. In his mind the drugs kill off the weak brain cells just leaving the clever brain cells … problem is that he can never get a logical argument strung together before those cells too, are killed off.
For some reasons I think Buddy is a woman.
I think you’re half right.
Buddy had probably sunk his family’s entire life savings into windmills and solar. You will lose your shirt sunshine.
I sat through 2 hours of last Friday from 2 “Buddies”. They were all for a concentrated heat solar power station in Port Augusta -South Australia.
Their justification was Global Warming about which their knowledge was limited. They presented a hockey stick graph from 2000 as “proof”. I think they were sincere, they had never read anything more. Still they knew more of that than about power stations.
Highlights (don’t laugh, I am not being satirical)
1. The 50 MW station would employ as many people as the current (part time) 500MW coal fired semi-obsolete one. (Pt. Augusta is on the edge of a desert and quite dusty, so they may be right).
2. To save money the 50MW station could use the old 500MW steam turbine.
3. With molten salt heat storage they could either provide base load or peak load during the day.
4. The power would be cheaper than coal or gas, but a little more expensive than wind.
Background:
S.A. has 26% wind capacity (which they claim supplies all the electricity on many days), the highest % in Australia.
S.A. has the highest electricity prices in Australia.
The 500MW station only runs during hot weather when the wind turbines don’t work well.
S.A. imports coal fired power from Victoria practically everyday.
It would require 106 of these solar tower plants to supply the minimum base load.
Those Italian liberals……what are they thinking?
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/03/12/3398671/italian-coal-shutdown/
Not sure why they are shutting down dirty coal plants. Don’t they need the electricity?
What do the Italians think? That making electricity is safe and clean and you can just walk into the closest Best Buy and buy it?
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/03/12/3395101/best-buy-solar-system-leasing/
Oh…..you CAN do that. My bad…:)
On your Italian Power story, couldn’t they get a photo of the Italian plant? The photo is of a Chinese plant, the stack isn’t a cooling tower, and if it was, it would be emitting steam, not smoke. The whole story is of a judge gone rogue and not complying with the law. If the photo caption has those kinds of errors, I begin to wonder about the whole story.
On the solar panel story, who do you think is paying for those panels? Most of the money comes from tax rebates and government subsidies. In other words, the tax payers. In several states, these schemes are coming under fire because the solar panel power is unpredictable, uncontrollable, and destabilizes the grid.
Ed:
Come on now….I expect better from a “coalie” like you:) You don’t like the picture…..so you dismiss the premise? Really?
Here’s a better picture…..it’s from another liberal outlet…”Power Engineering Internation”..:) Almost as liberal as the US Navy….
http://www.powerengineeringint.com/articles/2014/03/judge-orders-italian-coal-fired-plant-to-be-shut-down.html
Now about those “subsidies”. I personally don’t like ANY subsidies (including below market sales of leases). In fact…I would LOVE for the oil/gas/coal subsides to stop as well. THAT….would be great…:)
In addition…..ALL ENERGY SOURCES (coal/solar/oil/nat gas/etc) should be ACCOUNTABLE to pay for the total of all costs (that means if they pollute….they have to pay).
So I guess we agree…..:)
Cheer…..:)
We probably wont know about that one coal plant in Italy for some time yet. Maybe it was so bad it caused deaths, maybe it wasn’t. Neither article was very long on facts. Coal doesn’t need to be bad.
http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/pdf/the-facts-about-air-quality-and-coal-fired-power-plants-final.pdf
Keep in mind that everything alive emits CO2 during some or all of its life cycle, including you.
On subsidies? Yes, we agree. All subsidies should end. If an energy source cannot compete in the marketplace, it should not be artificially supported. Any distortion in the market simply reduces efficiency and costs money in the long run.
Buffy, BTW; whatever Italians or Best Buy do, is irrelevant to the question of whether computer models can forecast the climate to the year 2100.
They can’t, for a whole bunch of reasons, and we have witnessed their failure for 17 years now. So you can get all giddy about products you can buy somewhere and bide your time on any nonsense website like thinkprogress you can find; it doesn’t change the fact that most climate scientists have devolved to a crowd of politically connected charlatans.
Dirt:
“They can’t, for a whole bunch of reasons, and we have witnessed their failure for 17 years now.”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140311184706.htm
Those darn scientists and their research. They should just leave it up to Joe Bastardi and Christopher Monckton. What do scientists know anyway??
Cheers Dirt…:)
You don’t disappoint. Amongst all climate modelers you have chosen the most crooked, GISS; who help themselves by rewriting the temperature of the past via GISTEMP.
Do you do that intentionally?
One of their masterpieces:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/03/01/spectacular-data-tampering-from-giss-in-iceland/
Ahem, Buffy, your knowledge of climate science obviously does not exceed typing keywords into google; but what the GISS goon claims in the article is known as conjecture in scientific parlance; meaning, it just might come to pass; similar to me predicting that the next roll of the dice will yield a six; okay? That’s basically the level beyond which climate modeling has never risen.
Contrast that with the BBC ‘s slavish adherence to the global warming /renewable energy lunacy.
Hi Pierre, I am so envious of you guys over in Germany. Here in the UK the debate is over. Vast sums of money from the pension fund of the BBC have been invested in renewables aka fleece the sheep and they still adhere to the official party line.
I did not know that Borat was watched so widely in Germany, as the comedy scene in the ZDF programme most definitely bears a resemblance to some of the scenes Borat filmed on his road trip through the USA. The fact that the audience immediately recognised the drift of the comedy sketch is so heartening. Though, I did notice some guys looking around checking whether it was OK to laugh before joining in.
How long before we see something similar here in the UK, I don’t know, but, if I live that long, and get a telegram or card from the Queen – all subjects resident in the UK turning a 100 years of age get a message from our Monarch – I will let you know.
Compared to Germany, the losses you incur through renewables are a pittance. 24 bn EUR a year (2013 number) means exactly 300 EUR / year / capita. Only a third of this is visible in the electricity bill, as the other 2 thirds of electricity are consumed by public sector lardasses and private sector companies.
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