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In case you were thinking it can't keep getting worse

26 Oct 2022 | OP ED Watch

Carson Jerema writes in the National Post, “it will keep getting worse. The cost of gas will continue to rise – and with it, the price of just about everything else. Once this pandemic-induced inflationary period has passed, the Liberals’ enthusiasm for forcing Canadians to lower their standard of living will only grow. Of course, they won’t phrase it that way. They will call it a ‘transition,’ or ‘putting a price on pollution,’ or Canadians ‘doing their part to fight climate change.’” However, he then said “The government might even believe some of it.” And the fact is, they believe all of it.

Jerema does not. He growls that “The reality is that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine showed that the indulgences of green-obsessed politicians in the West are a direct threat to the people of Ukraine, whose lives are being destroyed by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s energy-financed assault, as well as a threat to working people the world over whose ambitions include being able to afford rent and not freezing in the dark. Some countries are beginning to realize this and slow down or reverse their own ‘transitions,’ most notably Germany, which is busy seeking alternatives to Russian natural gas.” But people like Trudeau can’t see it, or if they can, they can’t see what it means.

Jerema tries to explain it to them:

“It would be one thing if there was a viable option to accelerate a transition to, but the choice isn’t between dirty oil and some clean, plentiful and reliable unicorn fuel. It is a choice between expanding the increasingly efficient extraction of oil and gas, supplemented by renewables, on one side, and a world full of shortages and higher and higher fuel costs on the other. Unfortunately, the government has been consistent and unyielding in its goals. After he was named environment minister last fall, Steven Guilbeault said, ‘Natural gas emits greenhouse gas and contributes to climate change. We have to reduce those emissions just like we have to reduce coal emissions.’”

After noting the government’s dodgy accounting on its carbon tax rebates, he adds “Trudeau’s goal of ‘accelerating the transition’ ignores the fact that it was an expedited shift to renewable energy driven by government fiat that left Europe vulnerable in the first place. Solar and wind power are still too unreliable and battery technology is not nearly advanced enough. Relying on renewables to replace energy from shuttered coal and nuclear plants while also being overly reliant on Russian natural gas has been disastrous.”

Thus “Trudeau’s policies will not bring stability, as he claims, but could, instead, force a replay of European energy politics over the last 20 years.” And instead of freedom from want and dependence on tyrants, we’ll be more beholden to them despite our fatuous hopes.

Exactly. What you see is what you get. Including the stupidity.

P.S. With Vladimir Putin deliberately targeting Ukraine’s energy sector in a murderous fit of petulance, you’d think people would get the importance of nuclear, fossil fuel and yes also hydro power. Instead someone actually commented on one of our videos (regrettably YouTube does not seem to permit the copying of links to comments) that “Russia is obviously concerned about renewables providing energy security. Russian missiles and drones have destroyed 90% of wind power and 50% of solar power facilities in Ukraine. Just like in the US, fossil fuels keep people dependent on entrenched power. Renewables by contrast provide a path to (low cost) energy independence.” To which we can only reply, with the Duke of Wellington, “If you can believe that you can believe anything.”

10 comments on “In case you were thinking it can't keep getting worse”

  1. On the contrary Alan, we have a good example in the not too distant past of where this might go if we don't stop Putin. Back in the 1930s Hitler was allowed free rein to grab territories ('lebensraum') in Eastern Europe. Britain and France together could easily have stopped him in about 1937 but they elected not to, and so Hitler was encouraged to continue and the rest is history, including World War 2. If Putin is allowed free rein in Ukraine and successfully grabs it, he will almost certainly continue grabbing more and more territory (Moldova, Georgia, Romania and so on) until the West is forced to take action. You can stop Putin now, or you can stop him later. Take your pick. Putin is not an aberration. Russia has been an expanding empire-building entity since about 1700.

  2. I'd like to keep this courteous, so I won't reply in the tone you have chosen to adopt; that being said, where do you get your history from? Insofar as what may happen in the future, admittedly this is just speculation; but if historical precedent is of any use whatsoever, Putin replicating Hitler's tactics, even if his strategy is woeful, would lend credence to the original poster's comment.

  3. If I were in a war I would also target power plants. It's just good tactics. It's a debilitating action and it's actually easily repaired. The actual power infrastructure is the hard part to fix.
    Any side in war is committing atrocities according to the other side. The only real lesson from history is that the winner usually gets to decide that his atrocities were in the name of the greater good, while the opponent was a servant of evil.
    If Hitler had stopped in Poland and northern France and consolidated his power for a few decades, we would be living in a world where the history books would call his conquests justified to free the impoverished and struggling (former) north-western European countries. Same if Napoleon had stopped before going into Russia.
    It's all rationalization-rubbish after the fact. Leading up to any war there are hundreds of "but mommy, he started it!" "nu-uh, he looked at me funny first!" type of arguments, just with more expensive words (and consequences).
    Remember: "When two tribes go to war, A point is all that you can score", it's this point: "us big and strong, you weak, so us right, you wrong... now give us tribute!"
    The only side that is actually right is the side that stays out of the conflict OR tries to deescalate, not by helping one side win, but by getting people to talk to each other and settle the problem like responsible human beings.

  4. "And the fact is, they believe all of it."
    That is, at the very least, debatable. There is garden-variety hypocrisy, and then there is climate hypocrisy. Anyone whose carbon footprint is as large as Trudeau's, or Al Gore's, or David Suzuki's, or... [take your pick] cannot be taken seriously as a climate crusader. They can't possibly be so delusional as to think that their own emissions don't stink. They just don't care; the cost of saving the planet must fall on others. And that makes them climate hoaxsters, climate hustlers - on a balance of probabilities. I mean, it's not like nobody every notes Trudeau's hypocrisy, so he could be blissfully unaware of it. He is reminded all the time, and he just doesn't care.

  5. CBC viewers may believe that Putin is Putler and an unstable mad man. But the reality and the complex history that has led up to this conflict paint a much different picture.

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