Costly climate policy may be heralding Germany’s next socially explosive powder keg
Welt science journalist Axel Bojanowski warns in last Sunday’s ‘Welt am Sonntag’ that higher prices on CO2-intensive activities such as short haul flights will hit people who fear high costs more than they fear climate change.
“The Elite of the Climate Activists”. ‘Welt am Sonntag’ leading article by Axel Bojanowski.
As Germany’s September national elections approach, politicians have been announcing ideas they believe will help save the planet, and thus think are popular among the public. Many of these ideas and promises include higher prices on CO2, Co2 intensive products (like meat, cars, single family homes and flights) and/or outright bans.
But these politicians run the risk of seriously misjudging how such measures will come across the working classes, many of whom are already weary of the Corona lockdowns and restrictions, and are struggling to make ends meet.
Already 20% of Germany’s citizens are living near the poverty level and 6 million survive only with government assistance.
“For them and their children the cost of climate protection is a much greater threat than climate change,” comments Bojanowski. “Also other groups who struggle to make ends meet like the self-employed and small company owners have a particular reason to worry about additional costs and regulations.”
Germany’s transition to green energies, the Energiewende, was promised in 2004 to be affordable – not to cost more than one scoop of ice ice cream a month. But that promise has melted away faster than ice cream on a hot day. Fuel prices have since surged and Germany’s electricity prices are near the highest in the world, if not already the most expensive – and the country still remains very far away from being CO2 -free.
But instead of easing the pace of transition to green energies, and thus the pain for citizens, Angela Merkel’s government has doubled down and now pledge to become CO2-neutral already by the year 2045 – in just 24 years!
Have there been protests? Plenty says Bojanowski. The problem, though, is that they have been ignored by the media, who prefer instead to keep their focus on Fridays for Future climate protests.
Why are the media not taking the other protests seriously:
Bojanowski writes:
“That they get little attention can be traced back by sociologists in that those affected have hardly any access to mass media – in contrast to the climate movement. According to researchers of the Sinus Institute, for the classes of the ‘intellectuals, established and sociological’, climate change is especially important. Many journalists belong to these classes, other studies show.”
On one hand in Germany, we have masses who are out protesting real problems but not being listened to. And on the other hand we have a smaller class of elitists protesting climate change and getting all the media attention.” Climate change is the dividing issue.
Another problem, Bojanowski points out, is that most government climate measures have been aimed at assisting the rich in buying new electric cars, and helping them revamp their luxurious homes to use smart green energy systems. “Again those profiting are the climate-interested elites, who are able to afford flights.”
The climate activists elite gets all the attention because behind them there are economic/political powers pushing for this politics to be implemented. These are also those who pay or even own the press and or have the political power to influence the press.
Pols are buying and corrupting science. Doing far more harm than good.
I hate to break the news to you but the vast majority (>70%) of the German people bleed Green. As far as I know there is no pro-growth, anti- Green Party in Germany. Perhaps German will change their tune as the cost and pain quota rises. For now the media-political nexus can ignore those who are big losers in the Energiewende. For now though, the majority remains impervious to science, facts or logic.
I disagree.
While the prevailing sentiments are pro-environmental, they do not automatically follow the Greens per sé. The CDU/CSU and SPD put on green coats, aping the “environmental” policies of the Greens; to keep their habitual voters in their pasture.
While it’ll take decades to undo the CO2-phobia and resulting Energiewunde; Germans are unlikely to ever vote for a Party that wants to charge 60 €/tonne of CO2. Their voters are, after all, demographically those who buy and drive large SUV and partake in numerous short-hop flights.
In a highly-taxed society as foreshadowed by the Greens, the well-salaried government and crony-capitalist jobs will dry up as those actually producing stuff throw in the towel when the costs of working escalate and instead partake of the “generous” welfare state; subsidised by container recycling. (Arbeit soll sich lohnen.) The exodus of expertise is already under way.
Further, the ability to make stuff in Germany is collapsing, along with the electrical power grid’s stability — now reliant on expensive, imported power. Early next year, another 11GW or so of domestic power generation goes offline by government edict; without replacement. All of those subsidised EV’s will have little chance of recharging; even if Merkel’s 1 million rapid chargers (requiring ~200GW more electrical power) are all built and connected.
The Great Coalition of the CDU and SPD actually secretly signed off on the nuclear shutdown the September before Fukushima. Not the Greens.
It sure looks like the greens are in total lockstep now with Biden – see statements by the Green possible next Chancellor. Absolute Russo-phobia reigns – it has become the war party today.
As the GroKo did put on green coats the danger is they actually end up in Biden´s shoes and start some anti-China, anti-Russia sabre rattling.
Still, that should backfire – been there done that….
Rich elitists profit while the masses get punished!
Gosh.
Never heard of that happening before.
Stoppt den grünen Feudalismus !
Stop Green feudalism !
https://www.bueso.de/stoppt-gruenen-feudalismus
Pro growth, pro Belt-and-Road-Initiative, and right to the point!
Mainstream media, well known, are at it all the time. Even the Sueddeutsche Zeitung often has New York Times pages added.
The faster Germany, Australia, California, etc. implement green dreams, the sooner everyone will see that green dreams and reality are very different.
The plan to replace a reliable electric grid, powered mainly by fossil fuels, AT GREAT EXPENSE, with an unreliable electric grid, powered mainly by wind and solar renewables, is anti-science, anti-economic growth, and anti-common sense.
The green dreamers’ goal is to take charge, tell everyone how to live, and change everything.
They set impossible to meet CO2 emissions reductions goals, which will allow to the government to seize even more power, by claiming: ‘We are behind schedule, so we MUST HAVE new laws and regulations to speed up work, and save the planet … for the children’.
Meanwhile, those of us interested in real science, and having common sense, with no desire to rule the world (that eliminates all leftists) … are not being allowed to enjoy the best climate on this planet for humans, animals and plants since the late 1600’s coldest temperatures of the Little Ice Age centuries.
We have also enjoyed the past 45 years of mild harmless global warming, as the planet got greener, and really cold areas, such as Siberia, got warmer winter nights.
We are so lucky to live in an interglacial period, and a mild warming trend too!
But leftists won’t allow us to celebrate the current wonderful climate. They are never happy, so why should we be allowed to be happy?
The coming climate crisis predictions began with oceanographer Roger Revelle in 1957, and never stopped. In those good old days, scientist had uncertainty. And they did not wave their arms and get hysterical about the imagined climate 100 years in the future.
(A) Since 1957, we have had 64 consecutive years of always wrong predictions of a coming climate crisis, as the actual climate got better and better, and
(B) We have had about 40 years of climate computer games — whose average represents the “government bureaucrat science consensus” — predicting more than twice the rate of global warming that actually happened. And their accuracy has NOT improved in 40 years, demonstrating that accurate climate predictions are NOT a goal.
And then we are told, believe it or not, that (A) + (B) adds up to: “The Science is Settled”
But even worse than nonsense about settled science, we are told the words that every dictator and his lapdog bureaucrats swears by: YOU MUST DO AS WE SAY, WITHOUT QUESTION, WHETHER WE ARE RIGHT OR WRONG !
The so called “Precautionary Principle” in the ultimate insult to intelligence — politics, not real science.
I’m sorry that I don’t have a solution other than hoping the climate gets cold enough that people notice — like the first four and one half months of 2021. I know this sounds depressing, so I’ll try to relieve the stress with one of my lame jokes:
I have been trying to use the precautionary principle
on the wife, to win arguments, for 40 years.
This is how it usually goes:
Me: “You MUST do as I say whether I’m right or wrong”
Wife: “Who died, and made you the boss?”
Me: “Well. I’m the boss in this house, and you’re nothing”
Wife: “That’s right: You’re the boss of nothing”
“… the vast majority (>70%) of the German people …”
As someone once said: The devil is in the details.
More info on the “green” component of the German population is of interest.