Germany’s Spiegel has an excellent article today concerning that country’s green fetish and how eco zealotry is causing adverse consequences for the population. The introduction sets the tone and what follows is a realtively brief, but eminently sensible examination of just some of the effects of the authoritarian brainwashing, to which history shows Germans seem incredibly susceptible:
The energy-saving light bulb ends up as hazardous waste, too much insulation promotes mold and household drains are emitting a putrid odor because everyone is saving water. Many of Germany’s efforts to protect the environment are a chronic failure, but that’s unlikely to change.
Perhaps it is worth highlighting that having been coerced into the costly adoption of ‘sustainable’ behaviour, the detrimental effects on the population require even more costly solutions for which the population will be forced to foot the bill. Problems that industrialisation and the development of technology helped us to resolve and avoid are now coming for the fore as the sustainability bandwagon reverses progress made that brought real benefit to ordinary people.
Many corporations are getting very rich from their transit on the sustainability money train, aided and abetted by politicians who seek to out-do each other in the virtue stakes. Yet too many people still believe all this manipulation of the markets, astronomic public spending and erosion of personal freedoms is being done to fight climate change – thus wilfully ignoring the stated aims and real objectives of unelected and unaccountable transnational bodies who are awarding themselves ever more power to control us and our lives.
If that sounds far fetched, see how the evidence is casually drip-fed into the public discourse by journalists who far from being impartial reporters of the facts are committed activists using blatant propaganda and bias by omission to push the party line.
Britain has not yet ventured as far down the greenwash path as the Germans. It’s just as well because the Spiegel article, while only touching on some of the results of this eco fetishism, gives us a glimpse into what the future holds for us if the coalition’s climate change agenda is carried out. This green extremism will plunge us into a nightmare.
The greens and the opportunist, self interested, authoritarian politicians and corporate officers all say what we are being forced to do is progressive. After reading the Spiegel piece only the most deluded person would argue the realisation of the green agenda is anything other than regressive. These watermelons are not just killing the planet, their insanity is killing people too.
Autonomous Mind 
Succinct, well argued and spot on.
Germany is demonstrating that it is quite possible to be perfectionistically stupid.
Perhaps an email campaign to Frau Merkel would help, noting that “Please look in Der Spiegel. Germany’s fetid odor is spreading across Europe. Flush more often!”
(der Spiegel is German for “mirror”.)
Well said.
– Be interesting to see how he was answered back in the German language edition .. “Denier, Denier, Denier” I expect (actually the article doesn’t show up in a German language search)
– In the Germany this year the librarian was very friendly, but then when as I am an electrical engineer I expressed negative views on “the magic of solar” she reacted with aggression for spoiling her rosy view.
With typical Teutonic analysis, they have found there is insufficient water in the sewers to wash away the faeces, food waste and fats, causing accumulations of heavy metals and sulphuric acid, which is destroying the sewers. The answer must be simple. The Germans must save their turds in large buckets (therefore also satisfying the teutonic habit of closely inspecting their turds on the WC inspection shelf before flushing, known as sheisseprufungprozess ) and wait for a shower of heavy rain before emptying the buckets in the streets. Feral pigs rootling in the mess would also be Green and Sustainable and all so wonderfully mediaeval. The return of typhoid, cholera and diptheria would also be both green and organic, and would over time lower the demand on the carrying capacity of the city waste systems.
In Finland, I was underusing the upstairs loo and the host was a bit p***ed off by it, making a big deal of coming upstairs with a bucket and tipping water into the bath and down the loo.
I got the message.
In economics, there’s a concept called the Paradox of Thrift, which says that if everyone saved their pennies and paid off their debts instead of continuing to buy on credit, the economy would come to a screeching halt. Essentially, we want people not to be so fastidious and punctilious that it brings un[?]intended consequences. So while saving is a good thing for most people most of the time, it’s not a Categorical Imperative, as we would not want everyone to do it all at the same time. There seems to be an environmental analogue; we cannot afford, either financially or environmentally, for everyone to be an econazi, for to “solve” one problem creates more problems in its wake.
Or is all this environmentalism just some sort of Full Employment Scheme for all these “experts”? “Do as we tell you, people; when it doesn’t work, we’ll try to convince you it’s YOUR fault, and tell you what to do next” ad infinitum. It is not an ad hominem attack to pose the question, Who Pays For Your Research?, when someone argues against AGW, and by the same token, it’s sauce for the gander as well to argue with environmentalists, Who pays for theirs?, and whether they would stand to gain financially by any solution they would propose.
Or should we chalk it up to Heinlein’s Razor: Never attribute to malice that which stupidity adequately explains? Stupid or malicious, it’s spinach, I say, and to hell with it!
I do agree with your post, with the exception of . . .
” . . . Britain has not yet ventured as far down the greenwash path as the Germans . . . ”
The UK Climate Change Act (aka Contraction & Convergence Act) places a legal obligation on the government of this country to reduce our emissions/economy/future wellbeing by 80%. This is in excess of anything on the German statute (or anywhere else for that matter)
sorry I got my name wrong (easily done, of course)
You obviously weren’t thin ing properly!
The German autobahn’s have no speed limit, check in BMW optimum fuel efficiency, is a maze, some quotes from 25mph to 60 mph, as fuel optimum, whatever, the fact remains German energy use has no limits, so far as concern for speed, omitting fuel efficiency on autobahn’s.
Considering Germany has considerable quantity’s of water surplus over and above domestic and industrial use, therefore one may take into account the mind set, is one of a neurotic stance.
In Australia we are familiar with bacterial excreta consumption. this possibility in relieving the householder being connected to the grid, virtually it is mandatory to be connected and pay the Metropolitan Water board, money which is excess of what most of the public feel is reasonable, this is bureaucracy at work, impinging upon the individuals right to choice.
Of note I mention Mozart’s orchestration of movements, such as “Marriage of Figaro” in the township of Trenbrietzen, played as a sonic vibration to microorganisms in the sewerage department, stimulating energy in the work they are destined to do.
Whilst on this subject, it has often occurred to me that the main exit of the excreta expelled for a voyage from the mainland, is unfortunate it encourages algae and many a visitors who are unwary of this phenomena, wear the overcoat of a unwelcome visitation of becoming galvanized in a substance, not advertised on holiday brochures.
To my mind the flow should be exactly the opposite way, that is some appreciation and merit given to, what so often we forget is this lonesome outsider having fallen by the wayside, left to dry out in the corridors of darkness, forlorn, and bereft, this is not giving any honor, or respect to the fallen, we require a monument of appreciation for what it is, and owing to the nutrients that behove this expelled waterbourding of a devalued commodity, this surely requires some revaluation, this lonely outcome is something we should not turn our back on, to some extent we have a duty to reevaluate this currency that for so long has been shown total neglect and little respect, the voyage requires a new map, in particular the flow now needs to turn in the opposite direction, that is inland to fertilize land that is nutrient starved.
[Just curious; has/does anyone read more than a line or two of dw’s maunderings?]
GuyFogs;
Excellent post. I was going to say something pithier, like mandated extrapolated niche solutions are general disasters. But you lay out much more of the gory detail.
Fire in the hole!