Climate Movement Falters As German Greens/Socialists Take Historic Election Trouncing
Last Sunday voters in Germany’s most populous state, North Rhine Wesphalia (NRW), sent a loud message: voters are much more concerned about problems other than climate protection and green energies. The state’s ruling SPD Socialists/Green Party coalition government led by Hannelore Kraft took an historic beating, getting tossed out as the state swung far – from the left to the right.
Source: Climate Movement Falters As German Greens/Socialists Take Historic Election Trouncing…
German Green Party Collapsing In ‘Existential Crisis’
Germany’s Green Party is collapsing and the party could lose all its seats in the national legislature, according to a Monday article in the magazine Der Spiegel. The Greens are polling very poorly in upcoming national elections scheduled for September, and the party doesn’t seem to have a plan to solve the problem, according to Der Spiegel.
Source: German Green Party Collapsing In ‘Existential Crisis’…
Potsdam PIK Climate Director Says We Will Have To Go Back To Mud Huts By 2040
Germany’s Deutsche Welle (DW) here presents a commentary by Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, the director of German ultra-alarmist Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. Professor Schellnhuber fears that the planet could warm even as much as 12°C if man does not act quickly to totally eliminate greenhouse gases.
Source: Potsdam PIK Climate Director Says We Will Have To Go Back To Mud Huts By 2040…
G20: Angela Merkel Sets A Climate Ambush For Donald Trump
G20: Angela Merkel Sets A Climate Ambush For Donald Trump
http://www.thegwpf.com/merkel-sets-a-climate-ambush-for-trump/
German chancellor Angela Merkel is preparing to spring an ambush on President Trump at this year’s G-20 summit in July. And Trump’s response will determine whether his presidency plays out like George W. Bush’s second term or puts America’s energy exceptionalism at the service of reviving American greatness. Less than two months into his presidency, Bush shocked the world when he announced he was keeping his word: The U.S. would not be implementing the Kyoto Protocol signed by his predecessor. Referring to “the incomplete state of scientific knowledge of the causes of, and solutions to, global climate change and the lack of commercially available technologies for removing and storing carbon dioxide,” Bush declared that he could not sign an agreement that would “harm our economy and hurt our workers.” Instead, America would work with its allies and through international processes to “develop technologies, market-based incentives, and other innovative approaches.” It was a breath of fresh air in a fug of tired thinking on emissions cuts. But then, a strange thing happened. One by one, innovative approaches were discarded and the Bush administration found itself sucked back into U.N. climate-change negotiations. At the 2005 Gleneagles G-8, summit host Tony Blair cornered Bush. “All of us agreed that climate change is happening now, that human activity is contributing to it, and that it could affect every part of the globe,” Blair stated in his chairman’s summary. “We know that, globally, emissions must slow, peak and then decline, moving us towards a low-carbon economy.” This position was reflected in the summit communiqué, putting Bush on the hook for economically damaging policies that he would never escape. His climate-change strategy paved the way for Barack Obama’s. In domestic energy policy too, the final two years of the Bush presidency turned out to be a prelude to President Obama’s eight. They saw the nonsensical call to break America’s addiction to oil. There was the goal of reducing gasoline usage by 20 percent and the alternative-fuel mandates and the aggressive fuel-economy standards embodied in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, a monument to the folly of bipartisan energy policy. The Bush-Obama climate strategy collapsed at the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit, when China and India successfully opposed any multilateral treaty that would threaten to cap their emissions. After Copenhagen, President Obama’s climate envoy, Todd …
German Parliamentarian Calls Climate Science ‘A Very Dangerous Mixture’ Of Belief & Dogma
German Parliamentarian and physicist Dr. Philipp Lengsfeld of Angela Merkel’s (once) conservative CDU party gave a short talk last year at the 10th IKEK international climate and energy conference late last year in Berlin.
Dr. Lengsfeld, the son of human rights, anti-Communism activist Vera Lengsfeld, sees the green movement for what it really is: an oppressive system designed to strip the individual liberties from citizens.
Skeptics, EIKE, doing “a service to science and democracy”
The European Institute fro Climate and Energy, which co-hosted the conference and posted the video, wrote:
He compares the ideals of communism to those of the climate rescue ideology, namely rescuing mankind from itself and leading it collectively to paradise conditions – if only it would surrender its rights and the dignity of individualism. Both of these can be achieved only by dictatorship and Lengsfeld calls them criminal – even with respect to those stated in climate ideology.”
At the 1:50 mark he thanks EIKE and reminds the audience that “science and democracy thrive from the same basis: freedom, creativity and competition”…
Autocracy, on the other hand, lives from conformity, solidarity and brutal selfishness when it comes to asserting their own interests. Therefore it is totally clear to me that you are performing a service to science and to democracy.” And for that my deepest thanks.”
– See more at: http://notrickszone.com/2017/02/04/german-cdu-parliamentarian-calls-climate-science-a-very-dangerous-mixture-of-belief-and-dogma/#sthash.GVeqUiat.r3naZcme.dpuf…
Ministry of Truth: ‘Climate Deniers’ targeted as German Politicians Aim To ‘Ban Lies’
Die Welt published an opinion piece by one of the rare remaining fighters for liberty in Germany, Henryk Broder.
Leading German politician Volker Kauder of the CDU party aims “to ban lies from the Internet” thus suggesting the establishment of a Ministry of Truth. Image cropped from volker-kauder.de/index.html, CDU.
With the stunning anti-establishment results coming from Brexit and the US presidential election, and the surging populist right wing parties across Europe, it is not an overstatement to say that the old continent’s established political class is in a state of sheer panic. And they are now reacting with disturbing proposals: policing the Internet for lies.
“Climate deniers” on trial?
Broder is now asking at Die Welt: “Are we getting a Ministry of Truth? Will ‘climate deniers’ be soon put on trial?”
The basis for the proposed Internet intervention is, of course, the claim that Internet users are too stupid to recognize “true” information and thus they unwittingly accept Russian “propaganda”, for example, as facts. Responsible for the distribution of false information are especially the large social media platforms such as Facebook, Youtube and Twitter – and so a clamp-down is necessary and overdue.
Leading politician Volker Kauder of Angela Merkel’s CDU party recently wrote in an opinion piece in Welt am Sonntag: “If the Internet continues to lie, then it’s over with freedom.”
Readers are free to interpret that sentence as they wish. I certainly would not take it lightly, however.
Government as keepers of the truth? “Wishful thinking”
First Broder calls Kauder’s belief that traditional news sources such as “governments, parties and associations” are neutral and doing a good job of informing the public as “wishful thinking” and he reminds readers that these elements too are also driven by their own self interests and commit the sins of “defaming critics, spreading untruths and distorting reality”.
A major target of Internet control are “climate deniers“. Broder writes:
The use of the term “climate denier’ is a nice example for this type of demagogic self-appraisal. It sounds similar to ‘Holocaust denier’ and suggests the affirmation of a crime against humanity; when in fact no one denies there is climate and that it changes – as it has for millions
Trump’s Election Means A Chance For ‘A Return To Reason In Climate Policy’, German Expert Writes
Physicist Dr. Peter Heller wrote at the German language Science Skeptical here that the election of Donald Trump could mean “the return to reason in climate policy” and that there may be a course change: “one away from trying to do what’s good for the climate, to one that does what is good for man.”
/D405077E1FCC4540C1257B7900479C63/$File/FO_Heller.jpg "FO_Heller.jpg")
Physicist Dr. Peter Heller. Photo: FDP
He writes:
This is neither dangerous nor unscientific – rather it is optimistic. It holds the promise for a better future that offers more than just the energy savings variant of the present.”
Heller views both opposite extreme positions taken by the radical elements on either side of the debate as irreconcilable and are in fact “nonsense that have more to to do with belief than with science.”
Heller then adds that if the climate alarmists had their way, they “would not only destroy our current prosperity, but also rob mankind of all options to further prosper in the future.”
Today Heller sees hope for a return to reason in climate policy given the “current developments“. One reason for hope is the recently watered down Climate Plan 2050 submitted by the German government at the recent Climate Conference in Morocco. Ultimately Germany was not ready to deindustrialize after all. Heller believes:
Thirty years of climate diplomacy where tens of thousands of taxpayer-funded politicians, bureaucrats and scientists jetted to large conferences and congresses at attractive touristic locations were useless. […] After the election Donald Trump to President of the United States, the gate for better policy has finally opened endlessly wide.”
– See more at: http://notrickszone.com/2016/12/04/trump-election-means-a-good-chance-for-a-return-to-reason-in-climate-policy-german-expert-writes/#sthash.VR7okSum.dpuf…
Reuters: ‘Merkel’s climate-change zeal is running out of steam’
(Reuters Breakingviews) – If Angela Merkel is cooling on climate change, the world is in trouble. The German chancellor has been a formidable force in the fight against man-made global warming. In 2015 she pushed the leaders of the G7, a rich-country club, into a historic pledge to stop using fossil fuels by the end of this century. Later that year, she helped to broker the Paris agreement to limit the global temperature rise to below two degrees.
Yet at home, Merkel’s climate-change zeal is running out of steam. Despite months of acrimonious strife, Merkel’s centre-left coalition has not agreed on how to meet the Paris goals. A first draft of an ambitious Climate Change Action plan, proposed by Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks six months ago, has been watered down. For example, a hard deadline for phasing out coal plants, and an aim of making most new cars battery-powered by 2030, have both been dropped.
Europe’s largest economy by GDP was already behind schedule. It runs the risk of missing a goal of lowering emissions in 2020 by 40 percent relative to 1990. Emissions would have had to come down by almost a fifth within the next three years. Yet despite heavy subsidies for green power, they have barely moved over the last five years. In 2015 they even rose slightly.…
Flagship Daily ‘Die Welt’ Calls Germany’s Ban Of Internal Combustion Engines By 2030 A “Fairy Tale”
Flagship Daily ‘Die Welt’ Calls Germany’s Ban Of Internal Combustion Engines By 2030 A “Fairy Tale”
There have been a number of reports that Germany will ban the internal combustion engine (ICE) by the year 2030, i.e. in just 14 years. This has been already voted on by Germany’s Federal Council (Bundesrat). Although 14 years can be plenty of time to usher in a technical revolution (e.g. think of how much technology changed from 1976 to 1990), it will not be anywhere enough time for Germany to overcome the huge technical and financial obstacles it faces in achieving the lofty target. Already today leading German media outlets are dumping cold water on the news. For example online flagship national daily Die Welt comments here that the aim is nothing but a “fairy tale”, writing: The discussed ban of cars with internal combustion engines by 2030 will not come. CSU politicians Seehofer and Dolbrindt are going to see to that.” Even Germany’s leading Green Party politician Winfried Kretschmann, Minister of the state of Baden Württemberg, home to auto giant Daimler Benz, is opposed to a specific deadline. Die Welt writes that a number of leading politicians are not in favor of any deadline for abolishing ICEs, meaning there is no consensus to drive the ambitious project. Another obstacle is the EU government in Brussels, which is responsible for regulating automobiles in Europe, thus making a go-it-alone by a single country impossible. A further obstacle is the total lack of infrastructure for electric cars. According to Stefan Bratzel, Chief of the Center of Automotive Management (CAM): We first need the necessary infrastructure, the charging stations, and enough power plants to supply clean electricity before cars with internal combustion engines can be replaced. That is not possible by 2030.” Moreover, these “clean energy power plants” have been facing increasingly fierce opposition lately, as Germany’s landscapes have been spoiled by wind parks and consumers are angered by skyrocketing electricity prices, and industry concerned about an unstable power grid and the prospects of blackouts. It’s a fact that the installation of new wind energy capacity in Germany fell by almost 20% in 2015, from the high set in 2014. In the ICE ban scheme, the state would not allow the registration of automobiles with internal combustion engines by 2030. The Bundesrat insists that the 2030 deadline is necessary if the country ever hopes to meet the target …
German Lawmakers Vote to Ban the Internal Combustion Engine
The modern internal combustion engine first came from Germany and now Germany wants to put a nail in its coffin. The Bundesrat has passed a resolution to ban the ICE beginning in 2030.
Germany’s Spiegel Magazin reported this morning that the country’s top legislative body was able to reach a bi-partisan agreement that hopes to allow only zero-emission vehicles on EU roads in 14 years. For the resolution to be instituted across Europe, it will have to be approved by the EU. But according to Forbes, “German regulations traditionally have shaped EU and UNECE regulations.”
Greens party lawmaker Oliver Krischer told Spiegel, “If the Paris agreement to curb climate-warming emissions is to be taken seriously, no new combustion engine cars should be allowed on roads after 2030.”…