Greens take note: Putin IS a carbon tax
Will Vladimir Putin end up having a greater impact on our energy usage than Greta Thunberg?!
His invasion of Ukraine has imposed the biggest carbon tax yet devised by doubling – and maybe even soon trebling – energy costs (see main story above).
These savage increases have done more to make us careful with how we use energy than decades of talk about climate change.
‘Hell hath no fury’ like that unleashed upon anyone leaving the lights or emersion on these days – in our house anyway!
So instead of rigidly sticking to ideological positions, I wish the Green lobby, which I wholeheartedly support, would be a bit more flexible in adapting to utterly changed circumstances.
Why doesn’t it unite with Ukrainian supporters to present a joint message – that fossil fuels are toxic in every way, politically and environmentally?
Why do we need such a high carbon tax right now when energy costs are so high? Putin is a carbon tax!
Why do we clamp down on a few turf cutters when people all over Europe are rebooting coal stations, snapping up electric heaters and getting ready to burn everything as the ‘big freeze’ of gas-free winter looms?
Why not revisit the nuclear option? I supported the antinuclear movement as a young fella in the 1980s Ireland
But I now see the movement, like social media today, was infiltrated with Russian influence aimed at making Western Europe nuclear-free – leaving it at the mercy of Russia.
Just like Ukraine, which was
persuaded to give up its nuclear arsenal (to Russia) in return for a ‘guarantee’ of sovereignty in the 1994 Budapest agreement. Look where that got Ukraine – and what treaties with Russia are worth!
The biggest foot-draggers in Europe on nuclear power and helping Ukraine militarily are two German chancellors – current and former.
Former chancellor Gerhard Schröder is or was a paid Gazprom lobbyist. And the current one Olaf Scholz was feted as a VIP on many visits behind the iron curtain as a young communist politician who defended a brutal East
German regime.
The founder of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, which I supported, was former British Labour leader Michael Foot. Foregoing nuclear power led to a Europe with no energy security, threatened by over 6,000 nuclear warheads and 38 ramshackle Russian nuclear power stations that are almost as much of a danger to us.
Meanwhile, one of the largest offshore oil and gas fields in Europe – Barryroe, off the Cork coast – lies undeveloped as the continent gasps for energy and may even be on the brink of caving into a tyrant who could change the face of Europe forever.