4 ms·

Plenty of empty space to do fracking in Europe. This is a case of ideology over strategic thinking for Europe, IMHO, and we've seen, and are seeing, the conseq

Plenty of empty space to do fracking in Europe. This is a case of ideology over strategic thinking for Europe, IMHO, and we've seen, and are seeing, the consequences of relying of foreign imports instead.

wkat4242 3y ago
We just care more about pollution in Europe. Greenhouse emissions aren't the only environmental problems (and those are also worsened by fracking of course as it's still a means of producing fossil fuels) I totally support our stance against fracking. And the dependency on Russia was a bit of an issue for the first winter of the war but prices are back to normal now.
- mytailorisrich 3y ago
  Dependency has not gone away. We still import plenty but now from US and Qatar (I.e US are again winning while we are again losing). It's not even about pollution. To say banalities like "we care more about pollution" means nothing and is not aligned with reality. Again, the issue is ideology. This is failing Europe in many areas, not just this.
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    We do care a hell of a lot more about pollution that most of the world. In the Netherlands half the country is at a standstill because some Nitrogen levels are too high. Building projects are stopped, farmers have to reduce fertilising etc. Even the maximum speed was reduced nationwide, not because of CO2 emissions but because of nitrogen messing with local ecosystems. I support that, but it's very important to realise that this is pretty unique in the world. "Green parties" are a huge thing and often even part of governments, is there even one in the US? :) And yeah we still import but you can't change things from one day to another.
  - bigfudge 3y ago
    You are wrong. Paris literally this week voted to tax SUVs from the city, in part because of pollution. It also speaks to a wider concern here not to allow commerce to dominate other public goods.
    - mytailorisrich 3y ago
      The Paris' mayor has very poor approval ratings and has organised a populist referendum on a dubious proposal to try to prop herself up... not a very good example, IMHO. "Not allow commerce to..." thrown left and right: if that's not a typical ideological stance in Europe, I don't know what is.
      - wkat4242 3y ago
        > "Not allow commerce to..." thrown left and right: if that's not a typical ideological stance in Europe, I don't know what is. Yeah but that's a good thing in my book. The US tends to be very unbalanced in this regard, commerce all the way and not much attention to externalities, both environmental and societal (e.g. welfare and labour rights) Europe is substantially different from an ideological perspective and that provides us with a much better quality of life (much lower violent crime, much better public transport, no crazy healthcare prices, greener cities etc). Of course the US does better economically but economy isn't everything. And it's a self-defeating goal anyway, the more money people have, the more they spend on scarce housing and other goods which means the housing crisis is just as bad in the US as it is here despite the higher salaries there. > The Paris' mayor has very poor approval ratings and has organised a populist referendum on a dubious proposal to try to prop herself up... not a very good example, IMHO. Paris is far from the only city in Europe banning the most polluting vehicles. Almost every major city does this now. And the air quality really did improve due to this. And our cities are just a lot more smaller scale due to the longer history - there's a reason the smart was invented here :)
        mytailorisrich 3y ago
        > Paris is far from the only city in Europe banning the most polluting vehicles Hmm, this is about making parking more expensive for large SUVs of non-residents, not air pollution or polluting vehicles. Note also that only 5% of people showed up to vote in that 'referendum'. This is really all a distraction spun by the media and Paris mayor. But it works!
- mk89 3y ago
  > And the dependency on Russia was a bit of an issue for the first winter of the war but prices are back to normal now. I am all for "let's cut the gas" blabla, but it's a bit unfair to say "prices are back to normal" (which is also not entirely true from the consumer perspective): lots of companies had to shut down, some will, some left to go to other "better" places, some fired thousands of people because of energy prices. I don't see that coming back any time soon, to be honest.
mk89 3y ago
> we've seen, and are seeing, the consequences of relying of foreign imports instead. In my opinion, you're confusing bad political choices (=let's get addicted to Russian gas, then we will see about it in 10 years) with everything else. Germany could have done more in the past 10 years to not get to the point in 2022 to be threatened by a country - they didn't, now they have to brute-force innovation/renovation. I would just like to remind you that US is still buying a quarter of necessary enriched uranium from Russia, and US doesn't seem a country of "ideology" as you claim. If Russia wants to retaliate today, it's really bad news.
- mytailorisrich 3y ago
  Germany's energy policy is the best example in Europe of ideology over pragmatism. The most glaring example is how they decided to exit nuclear with no clean alternative for ideological reasons. Ban of fracking is not pragmatic, either. If gas isn't imported from Russia, it is from the US or Qatar, which is the same in terms of foreign power dependency and balance on foreign payments, when shale gas/fracking provides an alternative.
  - mk89 3y ago
    > The most glaring example is how they decided to exit nuclear with no clean alternative for ideological reasons. I would have said fear rather than ideology, to be honest. It was the times of Chernobyl and later Fukushima gave the last blow. It's a bit unfair to "forget" what happened 40 and 20 years ago - things must be contextualized. > If gas isn't imported from Russia, it is from the US or Qatar, which is the same in terms of foreign power dependency and balance on foreign payments, when shale gas/fracking provides an alternative. It's different in the sense that you don't depend entirely on a single country for your gas (like it was before), so that particular country cannot threaten you like they did. The goal of this governement is to drastically reduce energy consumption and use renewables, while at the same time "buying" gas from wherever else. This was for a political reason, otherwise they would have kept on buying gas from Russia and implemented slowly their green/eco program. The issue is not fracking yes or no, but the fact that in the previous 10-15 years it wasn't done enough to avoid what happened in 2022.

wkat4242 3y ago

We just care more about pollution in Europe. Greenhouse emissions aren't the only environmental problems (and those are also worsened by fracking of course as it's still a means of producing fossil fuels) I totally support our stance against fracking. And the dependency on Russia was a bit of an issue for the first winter of the war but prices are back to normal now.

mytailorisrich 3y ago
Dependency has not gone away. We still import plenty but now from US and Qatar (I.e US are again winning while we are again losing). It's not even about pollution. To say banalities like "we care more about pollution" means nothing and is not aligned with reality. Again, the issue is ideology. This is failing Europe in many areas, not just this.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  We do care a hell of a lot more about pollution that most of the world. In the Netherlands half the country is at a standstill because some Nitrogen levels are too high. Building projects are stopped, farmers have to reduce fertilising etc. Even the maximum speed was reduced nationwide, not because of CO2 emissions but because of nitrogen messing with local ecosystems. I support that, but it's very important to realise that this is pretty unique in the world. "Green parties" are a huge thing and often even part of governments, is there even one in the US? :) And yeah we still import but you can't change things from one day to another.
- bigfudge 3y ago
  You are wrong. Paris literally this week voted to tax SUVs from the city, in part because of pollution. It also speaks to a wider concern here not to allow commerce to dominate other public goods.
  - mytailorisrich 3y ago
    The Paris' mayor has very poor approval ratings and has organised a populist referendum on a dubious proposal to try to prop herself up... not a very good example, IMHO. "Not allow commerce to..." thrown left and right: if that's not a typical ideological stance in Europe, I don't know what is.
    - wkat4242 3y ago
      > "Not allow commerce to..." thrown left and right: if that's not a typical ideological stance in Europe, I don't know what is. Yeah but that's a good thing in my book. The US tends to be very unbalanced in this regard, commerce all the way and not much attention to externalities, both environmental and societal (e.g. welfare and labour rights) Europe is substantially different from an ideological perspective and that provides us with a much better quality of life (much lower violent crime, much better public transport, no crazy healthcare prices, greener cities etc). Of course the US does better economically but economy isn't everything. And it's a self-defeating goal anyway, the more money people have, the more they spend on scarce housing and other goods which means the housing crisis is just as bad in the US as it is here despite the higher salaries there. > The Paris' mayor has very poor approval ratings and has organised a populist referendum on a dubious proposal to try to prop herself up... not a very good example, IMHO. Paris is far from the only city in Europe banning the most polluting vehicles. Almost every major city does this now. And the air quality really did improve due to this. And our cities are just a lot more smaller scale due to the longer history - there's a reason the smart was invented here :)
      - mytailorisrich 3y ago
        > Paris is far from the only city in Europe banning the most polluting vehicles Hmm, this is about making parking more expensive for large SUVs of non-residents, not air pollution or polluting vehicles. Note also that only 5% of people showed up to vote in that 'referendum'. This is really all a distraction spun by the media and Paris mayor. But it works!
mk89 3y ago
> And the dependency on Russia was a bit of an issue for the first winter of the war but prices are back to normal now. I am all for "let's cut the gas" blabla, but it's a bit unfair to say "prices are back to normal" (which is also not entirely true from the consumer perspective): lots of companies had to shut down, some will, some left to go to other "better" places, some fired thousands of people because of energy prices. I don't see that coming back any time soon, to be honest.

mk89 3y ago

> we've seen, and are seeing, the consequences of relying of foreign imports instead. In my opinion, you're confusing bad political choices (=let's get addicted to Russian gas, then we will see about it in 10 years) with everything else. Germany could have done more in the past 10 years to not get to the point in 2022 to be threatened by a country - they didn't, now they have to brute-force innovation/renovation. I would just like to remind you that US is still buying a quarter of necessary enriched uranium from Russia, and US doesn't seem a country of "ideology" as you claim. If Russia wants to retaliate today, it's really bad news.

mytailorisrich 3y ago
Germany's energy policy is the best example in Europe of ideology over pragmatism. The most glaring example is how they decided to exit nuclear with no clean alternative for ideological reasons. Ban of fracking is not pragmatic, either. If gas isn't imported from Russia, it is from the US or Qatar, which is the same in terms of foreign power dependency and balance on foreign payments, when shale gas/fracking provides an alternative.
- mk89 3y ago
  > The most glaring example is how they decided to exit nuclear with no clean alternative for ideological reasons. I would have said fear rather than ideology, to be honest. It was the times of Chernobyl and later Fukushima gave the last blow. It's a bit unfair to "forget" what happened 40 and 20 years ago - things must be contextualized. > If gas isn't imported from Russia, it is from the US or Qatar, which is the same in terms of foreign power dependency and balance on foreign payments, when shale gas/fracking provides an alternative. It's different in the sense that you don't depend entirely on a single country for your gas (like it was before), so that particular country cannot threaten you like they did. The goal of this governement is to drastically reduce energy consumption and use renewables, while at the same time "buying" gas from wherever else. This was for a political reason, otherwise they would have kept on buying gas from Russia and implemented slowly their green/eco program. The issue is not fracking yes or no, but the fact that in the previous 10-15 years it wasn't done enough to avoid what happened in 2022.