Over the last few weeks I have been making the point on Twitter and to television audiences that Europe empowered Putin to invade Ukraine by becoming dependent on him for energy. You can watch one segment here: Many people were surprised to learn that Europe produced more natural gas than Russia 15 years ago. Then, two things happened. First, Russia built nuclear plants so it could export its natural gas abroad, rather than use it at home to produce natural gas. Second, Europe reduced its natural gas production, including from fracking, under pressure from climate activists. It now turns out that some of those anti-fracking activists were funded by Putin.
You remind me of the one eyed man in the land of the blind, Michael.
I bought five copies of your book "Apocalypse Never" and gave four to some of my very well educated friends.
Seems even well educated people can become blind to reality.
Only one of my friends read your book from front to back and agreed with me that your book contains information that should be shouted from the roof tops of modern college and university campuses.
Back in the 70s I worked for a mid-sized newspaper in Maine and wrote more than a score of articles about the hot topic of the day . . . our energy "crisis."
My managing editor was a fellow who exchanged the top position at Philadelphia's major daily for the more measured pace at the Bangor Daily News. He became a powerful force in terms of promoting in depth reporting in Maine.
Thus, he had convinced our publisher to let me take two months off from my normal duties to cover the latest crisis du jour.
I learned back then much of the information you are reporting today.
Like you, I started off as a young man worried about how polluted were the once pristine rivers and crystal clear skies in Maine.
I am now an old man who worries about the foibles that have overtaken our nation.
But I am glad to see a revival of voices in the wilderness. I pray that such voices will grow more powerful, Michael.
The whole thing sickens me and has for years. to watch society become imprisoned in a box by conspiracy minded environmental activists was and is sickening to watch. Worse now are corporations are fully on board with destroying our society by making energy costly and non-abundant. The US has lost 3M barrels of oil per day since Biden took office. How did these energy idiots ever get control? We must not only sweep any energy idiots out of power, they can never hold power again. At the pinnacle is Greta. Anyone that worships at the alter of Greta should be put on a list and publicly shamed. Greta herself is but a pawn. All the puppet masters that used her should be called out.
Donated. Thank you for all you do to promote common sense solutions based in reality. I love the woods and have donated to ecological conservation and rehabilitation since I got my first job at 15. I’ve followed you for 2 decades since I was an outdoor adventure guide in undergrad and found myself going through a similar evolution on climate change. For the past 15 years at least I’ve found the “climate” activist to be destructive to both the natural environment and humanity. Keep up the good work!!! I wish more people would listen and actually care about pursuing solutions that work rather than narrative and policies that destroy.
Recently I determined that wind and solar electrical generation are nothing more than bridge technology to the solution for emission-less power. The shutdown of nuclear plants, such as in New York State, are criminally stupid moves. The French model of manufacturing two or three different models of nuclear power plants and then assembling them on-site is more of a solution that building wind farms......................
But it reads like a bit of a campaign promo for Hillary Clinton - and none too soon as the two Grifters-in-Chief just announced the resurrection of the "Clinton Global Initiative". Expect her to pursue the 2024 Dem nomination - through machinations inside the DNC (Joey will "bow out", Kamala will find something else to do, and Hillary will be annointed).
The Intercept or at least Fang is no friend of fracking if you read Fang's piece. Here is the truth about Hillary re fracking, per Fang: on the 2016 Campaign trail, she said nary a word favorable to fracking, indeed she seemed to align with the enviros against it. Prior to the 2016 campaign, when she did speak about it it was in private, highly compensated speeches (did I mention she is a grifter?) about European fracking, etc., she was the just-former US Secretary of State, not Secretary of State of Germany, of France, of the UK. Just another American telling folks in other countries how to run their countries. And she did so in secret, to well heeled audiences, not to the people of those European countries.
I am not sure how much Hillary should be "credited" with foreshadowing the need for Western European sources of gas (many, many folks slammed Germany for shutting its nukes and crash course in shutting coal energy) or for identifying Russia as a funding source for anti-fracking groups (soo prize, soo prize, soo prize as Gomer Pyle used to say). Of course, if a duplicitous, lying pol is what we need in a President, she's your man!
Michael - you write great stuff and I admire your willingness to stand against the tide. But there was no need to mention Clinton to bolster this piece. Unless ...
I would like to have Greta Thumperberg, AOC, Al Gore and the 97% of the Climate Change Scientists of the Barack Hussein Obama fame explain to me like I am a four year old why all the Climate Change Predictions over the past 50 years never took place. Right now the score is Climate Change Hysteria 0 and Climate Change Prediction Failure 50.
An article in Business Insider: "A Russian-Linked Company In Bermuda Is Funneling Millions To US Anti-Fracking Groups". One being Food & Water Watch. Also vehemently anti-nuclear. So Putin ain't just funding anti-fracking & anti-nuclear in Europe. Also Arab countries directly funded the anti-fracking movie Promised Land.
Thank you very much, Michael, for the Milton Friedman quote, and *especially* for the coupled concept of "our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable.”
With no political science background, it was very much a slap-to-the-forehead moment for me . . . but of course!
Sad that it takes a war to get these ESG nutters sidelined. Happy that you’re correcting misconceptions about nuclear energy and promote the need for abundant, cheap, and reliable energy.
I appreciate the topics you focus on. The Russian/Ukraine disaster is at least opening some people's eyes to how much the world still needs fossil fuels for our daily lives... and we will for a long time to come. I support nuclear power. Australian John Anderson has an interesting talk with Prof Robin Batterham on the sizeable cost and infrastructure (using fossil fuels) involved in building the infrastructure needed to get to net zero.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oIkKb7FDNg&t=14s
Michael, your writing has blown up some of my pre-existing biases. As more and more "vindications" of all the bad-thinkers come to light, the reactions of the MSM and their followers will be interesting to see. I write about the human side of the nuts and bolts that you put a rachet to. I would be honored for a stop-by to see what falls out of my brain!
A ;very clear-eyed view of the problem, Mr. Shellenberger. Biden embarrassed himself today with yet another stupid sound byte, to wit that the leases are out there and not being used. They are not being used because the Green Monster, i.e., mindless environmentalism, is making the procuring of permits nearly impossible. To Greens, American lives don't matter.
It's sad that people are so against nuclear. I had my concerns when I was younger but have been much more open to it since then. One of the major reasons is you and your work.
And yet stupid short-sighted decision making re US energy continue. Our state (WA) currently in process of legislating to phase out all natural gas (the phase out starts in new commercial construction but will spread to other areas such as residential). We've already shut down dams and whatnot so might as well go over a cliff here. Absolutely no learning of the hard lessons now being experienced firsthand in Europe and now in US with virtue-signaling/middle-class-killing Bidenomic energy policies.
You remind me of the one eyed man in the land of the blind, Michael.
I bought five copies of your book "Apocalypse Never" and gave four to some of my very well educated friends.
Seems even well educated people can become blind to reality.
Only one of my friends read your book from front to back and agreed with me that your book contains information that should be shouted from the roof tops of modern college and university campuses.
Back in the 70s I worked for a mid-sized newspaper in Maine and wrote more than a score of articles about the hot topic of the day . . . our energy "crisis."
My managing editor was a fellow who exchanged the top position at Philadelphia's major daily for the more measured pace at the Bangor Daily News. He became a powerful force in terms of promoting in depth reporting in Maine.
Thus, he had convinced our publisher to let me take two months off from my normal duties to cover the latest crisis du jour.
I learned back then much of the information you are reporting today.
Like you, I started off as a young man worried about how polluted were the once pristine rivers and crystal clear skies in Maine.
I am now an old man who worries about the foibles that have overtaken our nation.
But I am glad to see a revival of voices in the wilderness. I pray that such voices will grow more powerful, Michael.
The whole thing sickens me and has for years. to watch society become imprisoned in a box by conspiracy minded environmental activists was and is sickening to watch. Worse now are corporations are fully on board with destroying our society by making energy costly and non-abundant. The US has lost 3M barrels of oil per day since Biden took office. How did these energy idiots ever get control? We must not only sweep any energy idiots out of power, they can never hold power again. At the pinnacle is Greta. Anyone that worships at the alter of Greta should be put on a list and publicly shamed. Greta herself is but a pawn. All the puppet masters that used her should be called out.
Donated. Thank you for all you do to promote common sense solutions based in reality. I love the woods and have donated to ecological conservation and rehabilitation since I got my first job at 15. I’ve followed you for 2 decades since I was an outdoor adventure guide in undergrad and found myself going through a similar evolution on climate change. For the past 15 years at least I’ve found the “climate” activist to be destructive to both the natural environment and humanity. Keep up the good work!!! I wish more people would listen and actually care about pursuing solutions that work rather than narrative and policies that destroy.
Thank you thank you thank you
I worked at Turkey point nuclear plant in the 1980s for a couple of years.
Despite some little overflow from the spent fuel pit, it’s really a relatively safe form of energy.
Recently I determined that wind and solar electrical generation are nothing more than bridge technology to the solution for emission-less power. The shutdown of nuclear plants, such as in New York State, are criminally stupid moves. The French model of manufacturing two or three different models of nuclear power plants and then assembling them on-site is more of a solution that building wind farms......................
Michael,
Good stuff for certain.
But it reads like a bit of a campaign promo for Hillary Clinton - and none too soon as the two Grifters-in-Chief just announced the resurrection of the "Clinton Global Initiative". Expect her to pursue the 2024 Dem nomination - through machinations inside the DNC (Joey will "bow out", Kamala will find something else to do, and Hillary will be annointed).
The Intercept or at least Fang is no friend of fracking if you read Fang's piece. Here is the truth about Hillary re fracking, per Fang: on the 2016 Campaign trail, she said nary a word favorable to fracking, indeed she seemed to align with the enviros against it. Prior to the 2016 campaign, when she did speak about it it was in private, highly compensated speeches (did I mention she is a grifter?) about European fracking, etc., she was the just-former US Secretary of State, not Secretary of State of Germany, of France, of the UK. Just another American telling folks in other countries how to run their countries. And she did so in secret, to well heeled audiences, not to the people of those European countries.
I am not sure how much Hillary should be "credited" with foreshadowing the need for Western European sources of gas (many, many folks slammed Germany for shutting its nukes and crash course in shutting coal energy) or for identifying Russia as a funding source for anti-fracking groups (soo prize, soo prize, soo prize as Gomer Pyle used to say). Of course, if a duplicitous, lying pol is what we need in a President, she's your man!
Michael - you write great stuff and I admire your willingness to stand against the tide. But there was no need to mention Clinton to bolster this piece. Unless ...
I would like to have Greta Thumperberg, AOC, Al Gore and the 97% of the Climate Change Scientists of the Barack Hussein Obama fame explain to me like I am a four year old why all the Climate Change Predictions over the past 50 years never took place. Right now the score is Climate Change Hysteria 0 and Climate Change Prediction Failure 50.
An article in Business Insider: "A Russian-Linked Company In Bermuda Is Funneling Millions To US Anti-Fracking Groups". One being Food & Water Watch. Also vehemently anti-nuclear. So Putin ain't just funding anti-fracking & anti-nuclear in Europe. Also Arab countries directly funded the anti-fracking movie Promised Land.
Thank you very much, Michael, for the Milton Friedman quote, and *especially* for the coupled concept of "our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable.”
With no political science background, it was very much a slap-to-the-forehead moment for me . . . but of course!
Sad that it takes a war to get these ESG nutters sidelined. Happy that you’re correcting misconceptions about nuclear energy and promote the need for abundant, cheap, and reliable energy.
I appreciate the topics you focus on. The Russian/Ukraine disaster is at least opening some people's eyes to how much the world still needs fossil fuels for our daily lives... and we will for a long time to come. I support nuclear power. Australian John Anderson has an interesting talk with Prof Robin Batterham on the sizeable cost and infrastructure (using fossil fuels) involved in building the infrastructure needed to get to net zero.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oIkKb7FDNg&t=14s
Michael, your writing has blown up some of my pre-existing biases. As more and more "vindications" of all the bad-thinkers come to light, the reactions of the MSM and their followers will be interesting to see. I write about the human side of the nuts and bolts that you put a rachet to. I would be honored for a stop-by to see what falls out of my brain!
thanks
Ric
A ;very clear-eyed view of the problem, Mr. Shellenberger. Biden embarrassed himself today with yet another stupid sound byte, to wit that the leases are out there and not being used. They are not being used because the Green Monster, i.e., mindless environmentalism, is making the procuring of permits nearly impossible. To Greens, American lives don't matter.
It's sad that people are so against nuclear. I had my concerns when I was younger but have been much more open to it since then. One of the major reasons is you and your work.
And yet stupid short-sighted decision making re US energy continue. Our state (WA) currently in process of legislating to phase out all natural gas (the phase out starts in new commercial construction but will spread to other areas such as residential). We've already shut down dams and whatnot so might as well go over a cliff here. Absolutely no learning of the hard lessons now being experienced firsthand in Europe and now in US with virtue-signaling/middle-class-killing Bidenomic energy policies.
You could argue that the second-most responsible person for the war in the Ukraine, after Putin, is Greta Thunberg (poor thing).