NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Author Michael Schellenberger has criticized European and other Western climate policies, saying they “authorized” Russian President Vladimir Putin to take aggressive action against Ukraine last week while maintaining control of the continent’s energy market.
In a Saturday post by Substack entitled “Western Green Misconceptions Give Putin Power”, Schellenberger said Putin understood the economy better than his Western counterparts, citing the latter’s inability to understand the realities of energy production, and questioned how countries like Germany have allowed themselves to become so dependent on an authoritarian state.
“How did Vladimir Putin manage to launch an unprovoked full-scale attack on Ukraine?” Schellenberger wrote. “There is a deep psychological, political and almost civilizational answer to this question: he wants Ukraine to be part of Russia more than the West wants to be free.
View of the central square after the shelling of the city hall building in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 1, 2022 (AP Photo / Pavel Dorogoy)
(AP Photo / Pavel Dorogoy)
RUSSIA INVASES UKRAINE: LIVE UPDATES
“However, this explanation lacks a history of material reality and the basic economy – two things that Putin seems to understand much better than his counterparts in the free world and especially in Europe,” he added.
Schellenberger pointed to differences in energy production and consumption between other European countries and Russia, noting that Europe consumes more energy than it produces, while Russia produces more than it consumes.
“The reason Europe did not have a muscular deterrent to prevent Russian aggression – and in fact prevented the United States from making the Allies do more – is that it needs Putin’s oil and gas,” he wrote.
Schellenberger claims that the focus on “green ideology” makes European countries “incapable of understanding the harsh realities of energy production” and that their move away from natural gas and nuclear energy gives Putin command over Europe’s energy supplies.
“As the West falls into a hypnotic trance over healing its connection to nature, preventing a climate apocalypse and adoring a teenager named Greta, Vladimir Putin has taken his steps,” he wrote, referring teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg and that Putin is expanding nuclear energy. and oil production in Russia, while Western countries are obsessed with “carbon footprints”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg
BIDEN ADMINISTRATES ACCUSES US DISTURBED AS ENERGY AGENDA EXPOSED FROM RUSSIAN FOUNDATION
Schellenberger specifically uses Germany to cut off nuclear power production as an example, citing figures that show that 47% of the natural gas consumed by the European Union in 2021 is exported from Russia.
“The result is the world’s worst energy crisis since 1973, with rising world electricity and petrol prices. It is a crisis of essentially inadequate supply. But the shortage has been fully met,” he wrote.
“Europeans – led by figures like Greta Thunberg and the leaders of the European Green Party and backed by Americans like John Kerry – believed that a healthy relationship with the Earth required a reduction in energy,” he added. “In the service of the green ideology, they have made the perfect enemy of the good – and of Ukraine.
The controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany was shut down after Russia invaded Ukraine last week, something the Biden administration avoids insisting on at Germany’s request, although it halted construction of the planned Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to the United States as soon as it joined. in office.
Pipes for the Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea pipeline are stored at the premises of the port of Mukran near Sassnitz, Germany, on 4 December 2020 (Stefan Sauer / dpa via AP, File)
(Stefan Sauer / dpa via AP, file)
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APPLICATION
To counter Russia’s continued dominance of energy markets, Schellenberger called on Biden to force Germany to suspend any future shutdowns of nuclear reactors and reintroduce those previously closed, and called on Canada and the United States to expand production. energy to increase exports to Europe and argues that the United States should expand the construction of nuclear power plants instead of closing them.
“Putin’s relentless focus on energy reality has left him in a stronger position than he should have been allowed to find himself. “It is not too late for the rest of the West to save the world from tyrannical regimes that have been empowered by our own superstitious energy,” he wrote.