How many people complaining about the weaksauce sanctions proposed against Russia would be prepared to deal with the effects of more stringent measures?
I'm thinking especially of people in Europe castigating politicians for not wanting to clamp down hard on the Russian energy sector. The way I see it, the europols are in a no-win situation. If they go easy on Russia and keep the gas and oil flowing, they look like weak and waffling appeasers, which yes, they are. If they cut off the Russian gas supply, will the people posting Ukrainian flags on Twitter remember or care about the noble root causes when faced with unprecedented energy prices?
I.e. the politicians know their people better than they know themselves, and they're well aware that showing support on social media is one thing, but being asked to make drastic sacrifices is quite another. These politicians will not survive if they do what their voters are clamoring for them to do.
Of course, they probably wouldn't be in this position if they hadn't taken energy strategy advice from Greta Thunberg, but that's neither here nor there.
>Of course, they probably wouldn't be in this position if they hadn't taken energy strategy advice from Greta Thunberg, but that's neither here nor there.
How does this make sense? If anything getting rid of the dependence on fossil fuels would have helped immensely now.
My superficial understanding is that Germany divested on Nuclear and other tech and focused on Solar + Wind + Natural Gas. They’re now over -relying on Russian gas to cover energy needs. There are no gas lines from southern to central Europe due to several political interests / disagreements (Spain imports Gas from Northern Africa)
Don’t claim deep knowledge and happy to be educated.
> My superficial understanding is that Germany divested on Nuclear and other tech and focused on Solar + Wind + Natural Gas. They’re now over -relying on Russian gas to cover energy needs.
And if that's the case, they might have capacity they can bring back online:
> BERLIN -- Germany on Friday shut down half of the six nuclear plants it still has in operation, a year before the country draws the final curtain on its decades-long use of atomic power.
That's only two months ago. Hopefully the plants are simply shut down and they haven't started dismantling them.
Sorry, I take comment above as non-literal. Greta is not the direct cause but energy strategy driven by climate policies (where there’s push back against nuclear in some circles) might caused Germany land in a tough spot over-reliant on Russian gas supply.
This is my current understanding and an interesting topic I would love to learn more.
> I'm thinking especially of people in Europe castigating politicians for not wanting to clamp down hard on the Russian energy sector. The way I see it, the europols are in a no-win situation. If they go easy on Russia and keep the gas and oil flowing, they look like weak and waffling appeasers, which yes, they are. If they cut off the Russian gas supply, will the people posting Ukrainian flags on Twitter remember or care about the noble root causes when faced with unprecedented energy prices?
That seems like it's a false choice. Couldn't they cut off the gas supply while simultaneously implementing other policies to keep "unprecedented energy prices" from falling to hard on everyday people? Maybe even rally people around making some collective sacrifices?
I'm thinking especially of people in Europe castigating politicians for not wanting to clamp down hard on the Russian energy sector. The way I see it, the europols are in a no-win situation. If they go easy on Russia and keep the gas and oil flowing, they look like weak and waffling appeasers, which yes, they are. If they cut off the Russian gas supply, will the people posting Ukrainian flags on Twitter remember or care about the noble root causes when faced with unprecedented energy prices?
I.e. the politicians know their people better than they know themselves, and they're well aware that showing support on social media is one thing, but being asked to make drastic sacrifices is quite another. These politicians will not survive if they do what their voters are clamoring for them to do.
Of course, they probably wouldn't be in this position if they hadn't taken energy strategy advice from Greta Thunberg, but that's neither here nor there.