Occasionally I check what’s going on in Germany, the country where I grew up. During the last few weeks, energy costs have sky-rocketed in Germany. Many poor folks had difficulty paying for the costs of keeping their homes warm
Now some politicians are demanding a total ban of oil, gas and coal from Russia, to sanction Russia for its invasion of the Ukraine.
There is only one problem…. Germany imports 55% of its gas, as well as a significant portion of its oil and coal from Russia. Such a ban would make life for people in Germany even more uncomfortable.
Peter Hauk, Minister of Agriculture and Consumer Protection from the state of Baden-Württemberg, has a simple solution for this problem: Wear warmer sweaters!
No kidding… this is not a joke... this is what he said during a speech in the city of Stuttgart.
There you go! Trust your politicians… they know what’s best for you.
sounds like Peter hauk channeled Jimmy Carter and it made as much sense as it did when Jimmy was President.
I have a different take than you do on this Gunter.
We always keep our thermostat at 64 degrees in the Winter and that's when my wife is home. When she's gone, I turn the heat off and only turn it back on when the temp gets below 50 in the downstairs.
We have a huge house with 3 furnaces.
The 2nd/3rd floor furnace is always off.
Then we have a separate one in our bedroom on the 2nd floor. That one is turned off all day but goes to 62 degrees at night.
At those temps, you bet I not only wear extra clothing but I'll wear my winter jacket and extra pants.
Why do this?
1. To reduce our heating bill by close to 50%.
2. To conserve natural resources and energy. If we had a billion dollars.........I would still do this exactly.
So I am 100% in favor of following the advice of the guy that your're knocking for his wonderful environmental and cost savings, energy savings advice.
In the Summer, I turn the AC off when my wife is not here. Even if it's 100 outside and 90+ inside. No AC, no matter how hot, until night. Then I crank it low in our bedroom so we sleep well. When my wife is here, I have the AC at 76 for her.
Is it uncomfortable?
Yes, in the beginning but then you get used to it and yes, you sweat alot but you get used to it after the first couple of heat waves and honestly it's not a big deal.
I also drive a 21 year old car, still use the first Ipad that came out, use my sons old phone from 5 phones ago for him, wear clothes that were all presents on Xmas, birthdays and Fathers days(I only buy the shoes-$18 from Walmart).
We're not poor.
The rest of the developed world, however, especially the US is spoiled to the point of it being embarrassing.
We constantly need new stuff and throw the perfectly good old stuff away.
Landfills are full of plenty of good stuff that just wasn't new enough for the owners.
I am totally NOT suffering from the loss of any technology.
I have tons of wonderful power tools to use outside........chainsaw, riding/push mower. power/pole pruner, week wacker.
We have lighting fast internet on a computer and laptop/Ipad. A big screen tv with hundreds of channels.
Nobody is suggesting making a sacrifice that makes a difference in the quality of ones life or efficiency or educational/information tools.
People are just messed up spoiled to think that they need to waste enough natural gas/electricity in the middle of Winter so that it feels like Summer in their house.
Al Gore and John Kerry and Barrack Obama are rich and think that entitles them to waste more energy every year than most people use in a decade while being spokespeople for conserving energy.
mcfarm,
I didn't know that Carter made a similar comment
metmike,
this Gerrman politician also said "nobody dies at 15 " when he justified his demand for further sanctions......[ most likely meaning -15 Celsius, the temperature lows at the time of his speech.... -15 C equals 5 F].
Sure, we go skiing all day at temperatures like this and have fun. However, for old folks, with little money to turn on the heat, this comment might sound a bit brutal. They may ask "all this for sanctions that don't work?"
EDIT:
cutting Germany totally off Russian energy supplies, will do a whole lot more than make people wear warmer sweaters. It will cause significant damage to their conomy
Carter had it exactly right over 4 decades ago!
He was way ahead of his time!
Last honest president too!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SFM999m5c0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmlcLNA8Zhc
https://www.c-span.org/video/?153913-1/president-carters-fireside-chat-energy
We still have spoiled Americans and other rich people in the world that are convinced that 8,000,000,000 people can endlessly pilfer planet earth of it's natural resources and they will never run out.
Use critical thinking, man. Much of this stuff is going to run out eventually and the better we conserve it right now, the longer it will last.
"Civilized" humans have only been around for 6,000 years and massively consuming natural resource humans less than 200 years or so.
At our current rate of consumption, many natural resources will be used up in a couple hundred years, especially when the poor countries ramp up their consumption to get their fair share. Natural gas and oil may be gone in less than half that time.
Scoff if you want at people who's message is for humans to conserve. A couple generations from now, many humans in our age of maximum wasting of natural resources will be seen as selfish, spoiled and ignorant.
Even though the climate crisis is a big fat fake, based on scientific DISinformation, at least it recognizes the reality of limited natural resources.
The real environmental crisis's/insects dying-dead zones-aquifers drying up-plastics in the ocean-landfills/trash-over consumption of natural resources(metmike is a PRACTICING environmentalist): April 2019
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/27498/
Folks may be confused that an environmentalist is also screaming about the fake climate crisis. Wind turbines are the worst energy source possible because they destroy the environment, use up natural resources that in 25 years end up in a landfill and kill millions of birds. For diffuse, not dependable energy.
We have 100+ years of high energy coal left and much less of the other fossil fuels. We should be utilizing this to help keep our economy and lives running well(while developing new sources, like hydrogen, THAT MAKE SENSE) BUT NOT WASTING huge amounts of it for excessive comfort, that is not needed and would take something as simple as wearing a warm sweater in the Winter to make a difference.
Killing Coal
14 responses |
Started by metmike - Nov. 21, 2021, 10:57 p.m.
One of the more retarded things about the fake climate crisis, is that we hear about how continuing to use fossil fuels until the year 2100 will do all sorts of catastrophic damage (manufactured by using bs mathematical equations that represent a greatly exaggerated greenhouse gas affect in models).
But most predictions by geologists and the fossil fuel industry experts predict that we will be running out of fossil fuels long before then.
In other words, doing nothing will result in fossil fuels running out.
Doing very little to cut CO2 emissions for the past 30 years, has resulted in.............the planet greening up.
https://chariotenergy.com/chariot-university/when-will-fossil-fuels-run-out/
Hi metmike
I admire your efforts to delay the depletion of this planet’s natural resources, by turning down your thermostats. I am also a strict “recycler”… but I admit, I do prefer to take the car, when going places, rather than a skateboard. (just kidding)
However, my original post has nothing to do with the environment….it has to do with “sanctions” and the Ukraine war. The quoted German politician asked his people to wear warmer sweaters, to compensate for the negative fall-out of the sanctions.
If I am not mistaken, Pres Biden himself has stated that these sanctions don’t work, right before he issued more of them. We (meaning the US) as well as Europe and quite a few other countries, are going overboard with sanctioning Russia. We are shooting ourselves in the foot, so to speak
These sanctions are a futile attempt to stick it to Putin. They don’t work! After the invasion started, the Russian Ruble crashed. Today, it has fully recovered and is even higher than before the invasion. Russia has plenty of friends to do business with and sell its goods to.... while poorer folks here in the US (or in Europe) cannot afford heating their homes anymore.
The plea to “wear warmer sweaters” was made a few days ago. Now, some German experts are predicting the worst economic collapse since WW2.... all because of the sanctions
Over here in the US, Pres Biden has already stated that we will have to tighten our belts. IMHO, there will be lot more than “tightening our belts”. Cutting Russia off the SWIFT system, will bring China and Russia closer together. Moves are already underway to bypass the West’s financial system. Both countries are already now doing business with other countries, using the Yuan or the Ruble, rather than the US Dollar.
I believe, the role of the US Dollar, as the world’s reserve currency, is coming to an end… with disastrous economic consequences for us.
Thanks Gunter!
So what do you think the US should do?
I am not trained in military science or political science
However, it is obvious now that sanctions are not working. They have only hurt us, the People, and not Putin. Slapping more sanctions on Russia seems to be insane to me.... unless you are trying to escalate the war.
All this is not worth a nuclear WW3
Maybe, there comes a moment like in Afghanistan in the 1980s… a moment when Russia decided to call it quits on their own. At that time, we didn’t quite openly support the invaded country. All help given to the “Mujahedeen” was done covertly by the CIA .
When Putin invaded the Ukraine, he already stated his rather limited goals. It shouldn’t take a few years of occupation, as it did in Afghanistan. It should be easy for Putin to “save face” and withdraw with a “mission accomplished” statement, very quickly. He has indeed destroyed much of the military infrastructure of the Ukraine.
All it would take is a minor compromise made by the Ukraine… like promising not to join NATO
However, there is one big problem, and that problem is Zelensky. He could stop all the killing very quickly, if he was just willing to compromise.But he wants to keep this war going and escalate it. That was made clear when he stated that he wants the Crimea, or no peace. This point alone is a non-starter for a peace agreement. Since the 19th century, Russia has based its Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol. (I have no idea why Khrushchev gave it to the Ukraine, in the 1950s). And in 2014, 96% of its population voted in favor of being part of Russia.
Quite obviously, Zelensky wants to keep this war going. He has the media of many countries do his bidding. They are quite eager to show the ugly scenes of war in the Ukraine, while they totally failed to show what the Ukrainian army did to the Donbass region during the last few years.
According to Wikipedia, 17% of the Ukraine population are ethnic Russians. Zelensky has recently confiscated all possessions and properties of Russian-Ukrainians. And, as we already know, the political party opposing Zelensky has been silenced. He is now acting as Ukraine’s dictator.
In conclusion... no more new sanctions! Strive for settling this war peacefully. If Zelensky does not want peace, let him fight his own war. We have done enough. No WW3 !!!!!!