There is extraordinary flooding across Victoria lately in the land of Droughts and Flooding Rains. The Australian ABC is telling us that “flooding in Victoria is uncommon“. But a ten second search on Trove Australia turned up the forgotten floods of 1870, just as one example, with these glorious drawings (below). Those floods 152 years ago seemed to affect many of the same places as the floods of 2022: the Murray River was a “vast inland lake” and almost the whole distance from Sandhurst to Echuca, about sixty miles, was underwater. Melbourne became an “antipodean Venice”. A rain-bomb dropped on the Keilor Plains and three feet of water fell “in minutes”. Train lines were left suspended in the air, and men, women, children, horses, cattle and sheep sadly drowned. And at Echuca, the water stayed high for two whole months, starting on Sept 9th but not peaking finally until November 7th.
Imagine what the ABC could do for Australia if it had a billion dollars and access to the internet?
Floods in Victoria — Sandhurst, from the top of Bridge Street | Click to enlarge
The Wharf’s Echuca, families retreating from the low grounds | Click to enlarge
I saw the Murray for the first time, the most important river in Australia; but its appearance was not that of a river, but a vast inland lake, overflowing its banks in all directions, carrying death and destruction wherever it stretched. The houses on the New South Wales bank were buried to the eaves. The palings surrounding the gardens were just perceptible.
Flood levels at Echuca on the Murray River came and went during September peaking two or three times at 32 to 34 feet. But that was not the end of it. Even more heavy rain arrived at the end of October, and the water rose again. The highest point did not occur until November 7th when the river reached 38 feet.
High Street in flood at Echuca in 1870 Source: Trove
Once more Victoria has been visited by very severe floods, and every part of the country has suffered more or less. In fact, since 1859, there has been no such destructive flood in the country districts as that which occurred on the 9th September. Almost the whole distance from Sandhurst to Echuca, about sixty miles, was laid under water, and of course a great deal of damage was done to property. In the Ballarat and Geelong districts there was also great loss. We present a series of illustrations, of which the first two are sketches taken at the Murray, where the extensive plains on either side of the river were suddenly converted into a vast lake. Another view represents the bridge near Rochester on the Echuca railway.
…
Melbourne became an “antipodean Venice”
A portion of the town was transferred for the nonce into an antipodean Venice, and boats might have plied along the main street. Our artist, …was despatched to Echuca:—”I left Melbourne with the River Yarra at flood height... hardly had I been seated in the train than the whole area between Spencer-street and the Saltwater River spread out before me as one vast sea,and as we neared Footscray no traces of the river could be seen but half buried houses, black chimneys rising isolated out of the water, and the bridge with hardly the shape of the arch visible. Further on to the right the bridge at the racecourse had floated away, and was leaning half over against some cottages, of which the roofs only could be seen.
Floods at Railway Bridge, near Runnymede | Click to enlarge
A primitive Rain Bomb: 3 feet of rain in “minutes”
…On the Keilor Plains, he said, the rain came down in a positive sheet of water, unlike anything he ever saw before, and as the wind was blowing hard as well it was impossible to face it.
In a few minutes the line was covered to the depth of [three an a half feet], caused entirely by the downpour. So terrible and overpowering was the effect that the workmen stood awe struck. One of his men, a Scotchman, he accosted with, “Well, Sandy, what do you think of this?” ”Eh, man,” he exclaimed, “surely the end o’ the world has come at last.”
Around 12.30 am, an attempt was made to rescue residents on the low ground, including those at the residence of Robert Wright, the brickmaker on the banks of the creek, and dressmaker Betsy Gillies. In the nick of time, the Wright family got themselves across the deluge to safe ground. Miss Gillies was woken from her slumber and also escaped. In both cases, another few minutes, and the outcome would have been disastrous.
Attention then turned to the two cottages behind the Albion office, that of the Drummonds and Lairds. By now, the water was knee-deep and the current was too fast to safely cross. Constable James Mahon made a dash for it but was carried away. Fortunately, he managed to land on top of a pigsty and was able to get back to safety. He tried again and was able to save one of the children. Storekeeper Louis Lesser also headed across the water and rescued another child. He was also able to lift Mrs Margaret Drummond out of the water and on to the roof of a cowshed. Her husband, David Drummond got three children to safety and went back for three more, James and Margeret Jr and his niece Janet. He had one on his back and one in each arm as he made his way across. Suddenly, the current caught him, and all four were swept away.
Charles Loxton, the young accountant from the National Bank of Australasia (below). attempted to cross on his horse. They were both swept away, and it was then the rescue was abandoned.
…But looking around the town, it was anything but normal. It was devastating. “The scene when morning dawned was heartrending. Men, women, and children were found on chimneys and housetops; and all sorts of property was floating about”.
In Melbourne CBD, people used ferries to get around, factories were underwater:
…the central parts of the city were speedily deluged, and the torrents which swept down Elizabeth and Swanston streets stretched across the roadway, and reached the door steps on both sides of the street. The St. Kilda and Sandridge roads were both submerged several feet in places, and all approaches to Emerald hill for a time disappeared. From the railway to the Immigrant’s Home in the one direction, and from the Botanical Gardens to beyond Emerald-hill in the other, all the flats were covered with a sheet of water. Ferry boats were in requisition, and without the aid of these all pedestrian communication across Prince’s-bridge was entirely cut off. The whole of the low-lying land between the river and Clarendon-street, Emerald- hill, was entirely covered. The factories on the flats all suffered severely, while many of the small manufacturers have sustained losses which, in some cases, may cripple them in their operations.
Make no mistake, the story of our lifetimes is that we got wildly lucky. It’s not just that most our economy is no longer dedicated to finding fuel (for our corporeal bodies or our machines) but that a vast share of our lives is not consumed with collecting wood or dung, rolling up hay, or gathering berries.
The graph below shows a remarkable transformation from a lifestyle where 80% of all the work done was just the daily task of finding fuel. The advent of the industrial revolution cut that effort in half, but the wild success of coal power and technology in the 1800s cut it by factor of ten. It almost appears as if coal did not just fuel the 19th Century, but created the 20th Century too. It was the great disruptor…
The real energy transition in the last 700 years
This was the economic transformation of the United Kingdom
By the 1990s the hunt for all the energy we needed was just a tiny 7% of the economy. And the most remarkable thing about that which is not shown in the graph, was that the total energy consumed had not shrunk at all, it had exploded.
Four hundred years ago a person in the UK would expect to use about 20KWh each day. Today each person consumes nearly 200kWh of energy. And the whole population was about 4 million people then, so there are 15 times as many people, all using ten times as much energy. How rich we are…
Prior to the mid-seventeenth century, British society spent between 50 and 80% or more of GDP to obtain basic energy to survive. MacKay (2009) estimates that an affluent Briton currently consumes approximately 195 kWh per day per person while the average American consumes 250 kWh per day per person. He reckons that 400 years ago, in Europe, the average person sustainably consumed about 20 kWh per day per person, primarily from food and wood, which required approximately one hectare of forest per person. Obviously, not nearly enough forest exists now to support present population densities (Field et al. 2008).
“Trust the science” has morphed into “attention-seeking children toss soup on 8o million dollar painting”. This can happen when a generation is taught that their own culture is worthless, that weather is controlled by light bulbs, and that vandalism is an achievement.
This is end stage absurdity in the climate religion. Their words don’t even make sense:
“Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting or the protection of the planet and our people.” “The cost of living crisis is part of the cost of oil crisis. Fuel is unaffordable. To millions of cold hungry families, they can’t even afford to heat a tin of soup…”
Someone needs to explain supply and demand to the people at Just Stop Oil. If fuel is unaffordable the solution is morefuel. Drill for Oil baby, make civilization great again so people can heat up their soup.
I think the main message is: “don’t let anyone in wearing “Just Stop Oil t-shirts”.
Apparently the painting is covered with glass. To protect our national treasures perhaps it’s time we stopped rewarding vandals with prime time TV spots? Ten thousand farmers can protest for two months and they don’t get even 2 seconds of fame, so why should two teenagers with a soup tin get attention unless you want to encourage more people to defile national art?
But then again, the more people who see this protest and think it’s climate activists at work, the better. Who would look at this think “That’s it. I need an EV”. Just Stop Oil could be the dumbest science protest movement ever.
It makes more sense if this is actually a placement marketing campaign by Heinz:
BarronsNews: Just Stop Oil said in a statement its activists threw two cans of Heinz Tomato soup over the painting to demand the UK government halt all new oil and gas projects.
Just Stop Oil later tweeted: “Keep giving us new oil and gas, and you will keep getting soup.”
And the London Police said, “and we will arrest you”:
London’s Metropolitan Police said officers arrested two protesters from the organisation for criminal damage and aggravated trespass after they “threw a substance” at the painting in the gallery and glued themselves to a wall, just after 11 am (1000 GMT).
Philip Oldham @MrPhilipOldham says: That’s it. I’m going for a pointless drive.
For three years the workers of France revolted in Yellow Vestprotests week after relentless week, even though the media ignored them, they kept returning. President Macron had to do something that looked like he was listening. So 150 people won the lucky dip draw to be the actors in a show pretending to be “the People’s Government of France”. Only they, apparently, thought they were doing something important. For nine months these 150 people were supposed to learn climate science and figure out what the other 65 million French citizens would have chosen had they been there. Naturally, they were marinated and baked in approved ClimateThink, and no dissenting scientists or citizens were invited.
After this intense love in, they came up with a list of policies as big as a phone book, the government picked the ones they were probably going to do anyway, and flicked the ones they weren’t and then proclaimed the citizens had spoken! In theory there was supposed to be a Referendum option at the end, but this, well, nevermind, became just another round of votes in Parliament.
The 150 were selected from a pool of 225,000 to represent an illusory “cross-section of the French population across their age, gender, education level, socio-professional category, etc etc. ” But if half the population of France are skeptics, no one selected them. Thus we get a pseudo “mini-democracy” where we can avoid all those messy public debates, and 150 people can save the world while the 65 million sleep through it. Turn on the TV, and turn off your brain.
The Australian ABC loves it of course, and despite getting $3 million dollars to spend yesterday (like every day), it couldn’t find anyone who thought the Citizens Assembly was not wonderful.
For thirty years the Experts were the only people that mattered, but now the Permitted-Amateurs are here to save the day:
Asking “amateurs” for policy advice has one big advantage over the standard route of going to the experts, said Professor Curato.
Non-experts can encounter a problem without preconceived ideas – and this can lead to unexpected new solutions.
“If you’re a climate economist, you will only see the problem from an economic perspective. If you’re a climate scientist, you only see the problem from a scientific perspective,” she said.
“Experts don’t have the monopoly of good answers.”.
Of course, Permitted Amateurs were only taught permitted thoughts:
It started with a crash course in climate change, presented by the best French experts, [who hadn’t already been sacked, thinks Jo]… to get all the citizens up to speed on the latest science.
There was also the inevitable conversion of the rare short-lived B-meson subatomic skeptic that only seems to exist in high speed press releases:
Just like any cross-section of society, their knowledge of climate change varied across the group, and Dr Giraudet said these lectures had an immediate impact on the group. “These were a big shock for many of the participants. Some claim that they came as climate sceptics and after these lectures, they completely changed their mind.”
Everywhere else in the real world the conversions all go the other way from believer to skeptic, and usually just as they retire.
The Selected Permitted Amateurs did such a good job they came up with ideas so outlandish they could make Macron look like a sensible man of the centre as he vetoed them or wound them back. They wanted to reduce speed limits, tax big corporations, and stop everyone flying anywhere that wasn’t at least four hours away. Instead it’s just become a ban on trips under two-and-a-half hours.
Lucky French citizens will now get health warnings on their car adverts. What like, Driving Renaults Melts Glaciers?
Ecocide is a magic wand that stops all environmental crime
They also wanted to introduce the crime of Ecocide. Imagine if you could just make a law over highly complex international scientific issues with error bars larger than Antarctica and six dimensions of moving parts? What could possibly go wrong, apart from turning it into a supra-national unelected government body with corrupt scientists, corrupt judges, and working like the WHO does in the service of President Xi?
France would have been the first country in the world to make ecocide a crime. Instead, Macron promised to make ecocide a less-serious “offence”.
As wikipedia says: “Ecocideis human impact on the environment causing mass destruction to that environment.” Making it about as amorphous, unmeasureable, infinite and endless as any container-ship of unemployed lawyers and scientists could want.
France, no doubt, already has specific laws about measurable pollution. But that isn’t enough to be able to sue political targets for sins against our grandchildren that can’t be measured yet, except with computer models.
There were problems everywhere but the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) got the first mention on the “Six Takeaways” list of government corruption. Who would have thought that a public body holding the purse-strings to the rest of the economy, with vague ill-defined, unmeasurable long term goals would become so corrupt. More to the point, who would have thought they wouldn’t?
With so many public officials making out like bandits the point of carbon credits is not to change the weather, it’s a Bureaucrat Investment Tool. With the power to ban or gift exemptions to favoured firms, bureaucrats can insider trade their way to retirement.
Numerous federal officials owned shares of companies lobbying their agencies:
More than 200 senior officials at the Environmental Protection Agency, or nearly one in three, reported that they or their family members held investments in companies that were lobbying the agency. EPA employees and their family members collectively owned between $400,000 and nearly $2 million in shares of oil and gas companies on average each year between 2016 and 2021.
An EPA official reported purchases of oil and gas stocks. The Food and Drug Administration improperly let an official own dozens of food and drug stocks on its no-buy list. A Defense Department official bought stock in a defense company five times before it won new business from the Pentagon.
Cocky, What? This is really blatant:
Some officials traded ahead of regulatory actions:
More than five dozen officials at five agencies reported trading stocks of companies shortly before their departments announced enforcement actions against those companies, such as charges or settlements.
Not only did a lot of people have snouts in the trough, but there must have also been a lot of blind eyes to avoid seeing all that insider trading. And some numbers were surprisingly large for people earning an hourly wage. In some cases the individual trades were between “$5 million and $25 million”.
People say that the Tech Giants are private, but in some sense Big Gov privately owns Big Tech.
Federal officials are big technology investors:
While the government was ramping up scrutiny of large technology companies, more than 1,800 federal officials reported owning or trading at least one of four major tech stocks: Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook, Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.
There are around 1,800 people employed by the government who have less than no interest in launching an anti-trust suit.
On the plus side, at least we know there is still a news agency left which has some journalists. And that’s a big deal.
As for the cause of the wave of self serving cheatery, we could do cultural psychoanalysis, but as I keep saying, it starts with fake money. Inflating the currency works like cancer on the delicate network of incentives. First people feel happy, more confident, and more willing to take risks. Things work out, especially for those at the head of the rocket. But pretty soon, things escalate — and before you know it, crazy-land is here, all traffic lights are stuck on Green, and one guy has a plan to hold back the sea and a ten trillion dollar fund to do it.
Somewhere along the way, desk clerks get an investment portfolio, and investment sharks get a job at the EPA. At some point half the population knows someone who’s on the take and getting away with it, and the next day nearly everyone is.
A report by Mark Mills called the The “Energy Transition” Delusion came out in August with some killer statistics. Despite the rampant glorious uptake of sparkling renewables, wind and solar provide less than 5% of the total global energy demand while the hated hydrocarbons still provide 84%. And that energy demand is growing relentlessly and with no end in sight.
Global economies are facing a potential energy shock—the third such shock of the past half century. Energy costs and security have returned to center stage, as has the realization that the world remains deeply dependent on reliable supplies of petroleum, natural gas, and coal.
It’s a hi-tech energy blackhole
As James Freeman at the Wall Street Journal, noted, some of the most game-changing statistics in the report are about mobile phones. Our need for gadgets, phones and the internet means we need more energy than ever:
Historically, the energy costs of manufacturing a product roughly tracked the weight of the thing produced. A refrigerator weighs about 200 times more than a hair dryer and takes nearly 100 times more energy to fabricate. But it takes nearly as much energy to make one smartphone as it does one refrigerator, even though the latter weighs 1,000 times more. The world produces nearly 10 times more smartphones a year than refrigerators. Thus, the global fabrication of smartphones now uses 15% as much energy as does the entire automotive industry, even though a car weighs 10,000 times more than a smartphone. The global Cloud, society’s newest and biggest infrastructure, uses twice as much electricity as the entire nation of Japan.
Most of the world doesn’t own a car (yet)
Advocates of a carbon-free world underestimate not only how much energy the world already uses, but how much more energy the world will yet demand. There are more people, more wealth, and more kinds of technologies and services than existed when President John F. Kennedy faced the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, and 60 years later, global energy consumption has risen more than 300%. In the future, there will be yet more innovations and more people, many of whom will be more prosperous and want what others already have, from better medical care to cars and vacations. In America, there are nearly as many vehicles as people, while in most of the world, fewer than 1 in 20 people have a car. More than 80% of the world population has yet to take a single flight.[25] Drug manufacturing is far more energy-intensive than fabricating cars or aircraft, and hospitals use 250% more energy per square foot than commercial buildings.
No matter the will to get pink-batts in the roof, the global numbers are colossal, and only at the start of the exponential curve.
In March, Florida Health advised against giving any child a Covid vaccine. Now the Florida Surgeon General says adult men under 40 should not get mRNA vaccines against Covid because it nearly doubles their risk of a fatal heart attack in the following month. Not many men in their 20s and 30s die of a heart attack, but it’s a very big deal when they do, and this means nearly half of the deaths in that 28 day period post vaccination are a tragedy that could have been prevented.
The risk in young women was a hefty 59% higher too.
With such a strong signal, and in just a 28 day period post vaccination, we have to ask, why did it take so long to pick this up? Surely someone should have put the brakes on after the first few months? As the DailyMail reports there were 20 fatalities in men and ten in women in the first month alone. The study continued on for six months, but that first month ended mid January last year and here we are 21 months and millions of injections later… That early data would have been highly uncertain, but at some point during the study, people could have been warned.
Where are all our Chief Health Officers now — they must have 18 months of data on this, and if they don’t, that’s its own scandal.
Obviously, talk to your doctor, but if you took this Florida Health report or their guidance in to your GP, you might get different advice.
The cost-benefit ratio for vaccination at age 60+ is different but heart attacks are not the only potential drawback in the equation either. And given the lack of care, public data or even interest in reporting real risks, how can anyone calculate anything?
Dr Twitter decided that this was misinformation
Her is the dangerous tweet that Twitter said “violated the Twitter rules”.
As ZeroHedge reported Twitter deleted the tweet, but a day later they republished it — perhaps realizing that the launch-loop of their counter-attack was coming right back at them.
Dr Joseph Ladapo
The Streisand effect would bring even more attention to the Florida Health announcement. Even Politico has written about the censorship. And since the message came from a “state health official” and from a guy with an MD and a PhD from Harvard no less, by deleting the tweet Twitter presumably violated its own rules too. “Authoritative sources” don’t get much more authoritative than this. Worst of all, Twitter was telling the world that what matters to Twitter is not truth, or even “the official truth” but just whether the tweet supports Big Pharma.
Excuse me, your slip is showing…
Now that the illusion of free speech is back (momentarily) there is an active debate on the twitter thread about the merits and failures of the study.
#1. “Diagnosis codes for cardiac-related deaths are imperfect.” Yes! But that is true for every subgroup we examined. Only in young men was the risk extremely high, and it was also increased in older men.
#2. “COVID test information was only available on death certificates.” No! We used all of our data resources-test results, vaccine records, death records-to exclude individuals who had documented COVID-19 infection, as we write in the Methods section.
#3. “The sample size is too small.” 3a. Elevated cardiac risk was also found in older men, and there were thousands of deaths in this group. 3b. The total cardiac deaths meeting inclusion criteria among young men was 77, not 20, as has been going around the web.
This study may not have shown an overall increase in excess mortality, but we know other larger datasets in the US, Germany, UK and Australia do.
hat tips to Eric Worrall, MM from Canada, Old Ozzie, another Ian, Wendy B, David Maddison.
Ironies don’t get better than this: Thanks to the renewable energy transition, Europe can’t afford to make renewable energy.
When will the message get through that renewable energy is not sustainable?
European photovoltaic plants and battery cell factors are temporarily closing or quitting altogether because of obscenely high electricity prices. When the plants were built they expected to pay €50/MWh, but now they are €300 – 400/MWh. And the situation may last another couple of years, so it’s hard to see how these manufacturers can avoid leaving permanently.
So much for all the solar jobs. Europeans are being reduced to being installers while the production of panels shifts to coal fired China because electricity is so much cheaper. Most of the wind turbine industry has already moved to China.
European solar PV manufacturing at risk from soaring power prices – Rystad
Around 35GW of PV manufacturing projects in Europe are at risk of being mothballed as elevated power prices damage the continent’s efforts to build a solar supply chain, research from Rystad Energy suggests.
The consultancy noted that the energy-intensive nature of both solar PV and battery cell manufacturing processes is leading some operators to temporarily close or abandon production facilities as the cost of doing business escalates.
It’s not the only thing in jeopardy:
“Building a reliable domestic low-carbon supply chain is essential if the continent is going to stick to its goals, including the REPowerEU plan, but as things stand, that is in serious jeopardy,” [said Audun Martinsen, Rystad Energy’s head of energy service research].
Tell us what “affordable means:
The consultancy revealed that while power prices in Europe have retreated significantly since record highs in August, rates remain in the €300 – 400/MWh (US$297 – 396/MWh) range, many multiples above pre-energy crisis norms.
While Europeans have benefitted from reliable and affordable electricity, the research suggested that low-carbon manufacturers have based their build-up of production capacity on stable power prices of around €50/MWh.
And the country with the most fossil fuels wins:
The high costs of European PV manufacturing were revealed in a recent report from the International Energy Agency (IEA), which found China is the most cost-competitive location to manufacture all components of the solar PV supply chain, with costs in the country 35% lower than in Europe.
Photo: August 24, 2017 – Submodule Packout (Ohio) (Photo by Dennis Schroeder / NREL) U.S. Department of Energy
Apparently only 0.3% of cars in Florida are currently EV’s, which is lucky, because after the Hurricane Ian a few of them are catching fire. Imagine what happens when all the cars are EV’s and firefighters need to pour on 100,000 liters of water and stick around for hours to baby sit what’s left:
At least one other twitter account North Collier Fire Rescue reports that “I’m in Naples there have been multiple fires like this in areas impacted by Ian.”
In the twitter thread people warn that that they shouldn’t be using water to put out a lithium battery fire, but there is so little that anyone can do to stop these fires, that pouring hundreds of gallons of water a minute continuously is the official Tesla policy.
International Associat6ion of Fire and Rescue Services
A US fire service recently needed to use 24 000 gallons – almost 90 000 liters – of water to put out a battery fire in a Tesla in a parking lot car fire. Studies suggest even more water may be necessary to put out fires in EVs.
According to an article onTheHill.com on August 17, 2021 it is considered normal procedure that firefighters will need to use up to 40 times more water to put out a fire in an EV, compared to a standard gasoline car.
The article also claims authorities have said a Tesla Model X poses a serious threat of starting a fire for hours after a crash.
“Normally a car fire you can put out with 500 to 1,000 gallons of water,” Austin Fire Department Division Chief Thayer Smith said, according The Independent.
In the Netherlands the fire brigade just lifted a smoking hybrid car and dropped it into a container full of water. Apparently it slows the fire down and only takes 24 to 48 hours. When 100% of all cars are EV’s we see the Fire Department towing cranes and truck-sized-baths to manage them…
Of course, most EV car fires don’t give this much lead time.
To make things more exciting, last week, after the underwater bombs went off, Joe Biden said he’d help European allies with gas, but this week, he’s thinking about banning US exports of gas and oil. Well, the US midterm elections are coming.
Households could experience a series of three-hour power cuts this winter if Vladimir Putin shuts off gas supplies from Russia and Britain experiences a cold snap, National Grid has warned.
Such an event would mean consumers in different parts of the country being notified a day in advance of three-hour blocks of time during which their power would be cut off, in an effort to reduce total consumption by 5%.
Apparently the King has to approve these “rota disconnections” and the privy council would advise him. Which takes British monarchical symbolism to its peak really. I mean what would happen if he said “No”?
Even though the UK didn’t get much gas from Russia, the market prices “flowed” right through:
Meanwhile the EU experiment is tearing at the edges
There is a bun fight developing over who gets the scarce energy, and at what price. Some nations are paying 7 Euros per Megawatt hour tomorrow, some will pay 270.
Day ahead prices for spot electricity tomorrow in the EU. | Energy Live
The Germans and the Greens want the collectivist solution. But nations willing to use their own fossil fuels have cheap electricity and are getting rich.
The nations caught in the middle resent having to pay for the German Energiewende grand experiment, but they also resent paying the Norwegians.
EU fumes as US, Norway energy profits put solidarity to the test
Euroactiv
As the USA and Norway reap unprecedented profits from surging energy prices, EU countries are complaining more loudly and are preparing to send the European Commission forward to negotiate a better deal, voluntarily or not.
The European energy crisis has caused energy prices to spike. While Russia, the cause of the crisis, was one of the largest beneficiaries, EU allies, primarily the USA and Norway, are reaping extreme windfall profits as they fill the gap Russia left behind.
“In an energy crisis of such magnitude, the solutions are to be found together in the spirit of solidarity,” commented Renew Europe MEP Nicolae Ștefănuță.
Those who have fossil fuels have too many profits:
Norway, now the EU’s largest supplier of fossil fuels, is profiting immensely from Russia’s actions and subsequent energy price spike. Norwegian officials say they have a difficult time with such windfall profits.
“There are times when it is not fun to make money, and this is one of them,” said Norwegian petroleum and energy minister Terje Aasland in March.
The Norwegian Greens say that the governments excuse that these profits are good for the pension fund “is lame”:
“We cannot go on being war profiteers, which is becoming more shameful by the day,” he added. Norway, a small European country, “is as dependent on peace, stability and prosperity on the continent as any other country,” Johansen noted.
..the Greens want the extra fossil fuel profits to go into a solidarity fund to be used to aid Ukraine and Europe’s energy poor.
The Norwegian Greens call their own government “War Profiteers” for looking after their senior citizens. They say they want peace, but don’t realize that energy insecurity is a weapon of war.
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