Calls for rigid and draconian CO2 emissions reduction targets in Germany have been dealt a body blow.
Germany’s Federal Economics Minister Sigmar Gabriel of Angela Merkel’s coalition partner the SPD socialists has dumped a load of cold water on the extreme demand for a rapid shutdown of the country’s coal power plants.
German Federal Ministry of Economics Minister and SPD party chief Sigmar Gabriel calls a shut down of Germany’s coal power plants “an illusion” and “mass disinformation of the people”. Photo credit: www.sigmar-gabriel.de
The Berlin based center-left online daily Der Tagesspiegel here reports on remarks Gabriel made in response to a question posed by a Greenpeace activist during a discussion with French economist Thomas Piketty at the Federal Ministry of Economics in Berlin.
Earlier in the day activists had dumped 8 tonnes of coal in front of the Ministry in protest. They request Berlin shut down all German coal-fired power plants. Der Tagesspiegel describes Gabriel’s mocking reaction to the demand (my emphasis):
When the Greenpeace and others demand that all German coal power plants be shut down, that is hardly more than ‘mass disinformation of the people‘ which ‘will not lead to a single tonne of CO2 being saved for the global climate,’ Gabriel added. He is in favor, however, of the European Emissions Trading being set up again so that coal becomes more expensive. ‘I also have nothing against Greenpeace bringing its coal here. ‘We can always use coal here.’ Gabriel ended the exchange.”
The soicialist/environmentalist Tagesspiegel termed Gabriel’s remarks as an “éclat”.
Rapid shutdown of coal power “an illusion”
In the meantime, the online Spiegel reports today that Merkel’s influential Economics Minister is now in a hefty conflict with the country’s Ministry of Environment, which is pushing to reduce Germany’s CO2 emissions 40% compared to 1990 levels by 2020. Spiegel writes that would mean shutting down 15 to 20 coal power plants in a country where the energy supply is already strained. Gabriel is searching for ways to avoid this. Spiegel writes:
Der SPIEGEL quoted Gabriel with the words: It is ‘an illusion to believe that Germany could exit both nuclear energy and coal at the same time.’ Gabriel could imagine a postponement of the climate protection action plan, which is to be introduced in the Cabinet on December 3.”
Say what you want about socialist Gabriel, but this time, as Federal Economics Minister, he sees things very clearly and soberly.
“Say what you want about socialist Gabriel, but this time, as Federal Economics Minister, he sees things very clearly and soberly.”
Oh come on. His party fellow Barabara Hendrickx, environment minister, has last week not ruled out the necessity of shutting down coal power plants to reach the EU mandated CO2 reduction goals.
What we see now is that Greenpeace is presented as a faux “representation of the people demanding climate justice”, calling for most extreme actions, giving Gabriel+Hendrickx (both SPD) the opportunity to present themselves as “rational”.
So the press can now say, look, peons, we know that you want to shut down all combustion processes immediately, but you little birdbrains better listen to your wise master from the SPD who wants to shut it down very slowly.
Centuries old Hegelianism.
I wish the activists would dump 8 tons of coal in front of my house, I could heat my home and domestic hot water for 3 years with that amount.
All I ask for is a few hundred barrels of oil, in exchange for buying a low-energy vacuum cleaner. That’s a fair deal, surely?
Fantasy meets reality.
There is no amount of windmills or solar panels that can replace coal.
It is just not possible.
When will the west proscribe Greenpiss as a terrorist organisation?
They are not directly financed by the EU commission but they have subsidiaries that get EU grants.
You think the EU commission will designate their foot soldiers as terrorists? EU commission does even designate only half of Hamas as terrorist. (Their “political wing”, in EU speak.)
Not the West, but hasn’t India done something like that?
I believe so. The Indian government views NGOs like Greenpeace as a threat to their national security, and frankly, rightly so.
Henning Nielsen:
New Zealand removed their status as a “charity”. This makes donations more expensive for the gullible, and taxes their turnover, from whatever sources.
Great idea, IMHO!
Here is the link:
“Following an Intelligence Bureau (IB) report that alleged foreign-funded NGOs were creating obstacles to India’s economic growth, the Home Ministry has clamped down on Greenpeace, an international campaign group present in 40 countries.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/06/19/crackdown-india-curbs-greenpeace-funding/
The result seems to be something like in New Zealand.
Hooray for Sigmar Gabriel! When will other politicians heed this quote from the book in http://tinyurl.com/ptgrz34 :
“Global warming did serve a couple of useful purposes. The issue has been a litmus test for our political class. Any politician who has stated a belief in [man-made] global warming is either a cynical opportunist or an easily deluded fool. In neither case should that politician ever be taken seriously again. No excuses can be accepted.”
So – question: IF Germany were to reduce her CO2 emissions by 40%, what would that mean to the total CO2 HUMAN emissions that are now pegged to approximately 4% of the TOTAL CO2 emitted into the atmosphere each year?
Wiki provides data that shows Germany emits ~2.3% of that 4% (~0.09% of TOTAL) . After a 40% reduction, Germany would now emit ~1.4% of human emissions. So, all CO2 going into the atmosphere would be reduced by ~0.04%?
Seriously? Big whoop in terms of anthropogenic CO2 but horrible and devastating to the German people!
The Greens are insane!
And the heating power of ALL CO2 is only ~0.01% (that’s one tenthousandth) of solar input which enables the atmosphere to function to make all life on earth possible. Try http://tinyurl.com/ot2hlp4
And as JoNova says: “Burn oil, feed the starving plants of the world I say! ” at http://tinyurl.com/oc93zk4
“So, all CO2 going into the atmosphere would be reduced by ~0.04%? Seriously? Big whoop in terms of anthropogenic CO2 but horrible and devastating to the German people!”
Notice that all German politicians and journalists operate under Kantian Gesinnungsethik (difficult to translate, something like “intention ethics”), where the Gesinnung, the righteousness of ones intent, counts, not the efficacy.
So, the question of whether it’ll make a difference has NEVER been asked in Germany.
“…the righteousness of ones intent, counts, not the efficacy.”
That describes to a “T” the unstated and “below the radar” rationale of liberals here in the US. Worse, the majority of our media never calls them to account.
From the philosopher, Kant? …never knew its source before.
Thanks!
Basically the ideological roots go, Kant – Hegel – Marx – Frankfurt School. Importantly Kant denied man’s ability to know objective reality. Thus in effect denying causality. It goes downhill from there.
Re-elected Premier of the German state of Brandenburg Dietmar Woidke recently said in an interview (on German TV) that renewable energy sources are unreliable and require reliable lignite (brown coal) to support them. (at around the 11 minute mark.)
“Energy transition only WITH lignite”
NGO have a world wide massive respect from populations as seen from many polls. We can imagine the rationale of: They are perceived as not belonging to political party, nor to any government nor to industry lobby and do on… A pity !!
Indians have shown that Greenpeace is indeed tightly interknitted with many other green NGO with lovely names (friend of earth, children and so on..). Their fundings are very obscure, essentially from US and green german billionnaires. It is an immense masquerade as I suspect these billionnaires giving funds are indeed reimbursed by the secret budget “special operations” of White House at disposals of President. Most of these NGO are corrupting influencial politicians, union leaders, media to propagate their official “raison d’etre” but in fact their deeply hidden targets are to develop, install US domination everywhere: Very easy for them, they are never controlled by elected governments.
The only way to kill this is to ban all of them, the rare good amongst the many bad ones, an omelet need some eggs to be broken. Thence, their offical “good generous” missions can be performed by local government funded public health organizations.
S.Gabriel 180° turned his green mind about late 2012 in view of the uncontrollable booming green bubble cost. Of course he was one of the most efficient activists and politician in power who – for 20 years – preached for greeneries, wind farms and other dreams. His and colleagues’ fault has been to listen only the voices sharing the same credo, essentially “flexible engineering consultants”, not those of reality. His responsability is clear. But for 2 years he is the only visible politician who courageously, against his party’s trend, tries to reverse steam, hold brakes before too late. All others, led by Merkel, are of so big cowardice that they prefer to not see reality and still push (no more coal, only expensive gas, wind and german sun..) up to the end of their mandates by 2017.
A shame for Germany and the many idiots who follow it !!
Merkel has her very own tactic: She never says anything of consequence. She mostly wins elections because voters fear a purely socialist coalition could take control otherwise.
[…] “ I have nothing against Greenpeace bringing its coal here. We can always use coal…” […]
Ah, Gabriel clarifies the position of the SPD as Climate Saviours: His party colleague Hendricks demands closure of German coal power plants. Gabriel sees no contradiction with his position he says; but he is sure that the decision which plants to close must be left to the companies, and that no CO2 emission is reduced by a German plant closing, because the CO2 certificates would only be used somewhere else in the EU; so the real solution is to reduce the number of CO2 certificates further he says.
http://www.n-tv.de/wirtschaft/Gabriel-will-an-Kohlekraft-festhalten-article13939821.html
So, fellow Europeans – who do you think will have the financial firepower to get himself the needed emission certificates?
The SPD wants to de-industrialize Germany’s indebted satellite states.
So if Gabriel is really such a smart fella as others here have alleged, it is 100% clear that he has the intent of using the Climate Change scare to bulldoze the economies of extraGerman EU territories.
[…] Source: https://notrickszone.com […]
What I simply cannot understand is why Germany, up there as the most advanced educated country, insists on keeping the ‘dangerous man-made global warming noose’ around its neck, threatening to jump?
The political caste and half of the population are so inundated with (their own) propaganda that they hate themselves, think of their own race or Volk as pure evil, and want to destroy it to atone for their own perceived sin. They call themselves atheists but act in a very religious manner.
It is a collective madness, mostly spread by the four big media blocs in Germany. Mental chains for a mentally terminally weakened people.
It goes in fits and starts; and as the renewables madness is very slightly, and only verbally, ramped down, other madnesses are ramped up. Sanity is not even a goal anymore (and usually called sexist, racist, homophob, islamophob, mysogyn and chauvinist.)
Mental darkness.