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Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
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Mar 3 • 20 tweets • 8 min read
People think Europe depends on Russia for energy because it lacks its own, but 15 years ago Europe exported more natural gas than Russia does today. Now, Russia exports 3x more gas than Europe produces. Why? Because climate activists, partly funded by Russia, blocked fracking.
In 2014, NATO's secretary general revealed Russia was funding climate activists, saying, “Russia... engaged actively with so-called nongovernmental organizations working against shale gas to maintain dependence on imported Russian gas"

Nobody listened.

wsj.com/articles/a-les…
Climate activists weren't the only ones to blame

"BP acquired a 19.75% stake in Rosneft in 2013... Shell and Exxon Mobil developed joint ventures with Gazprom and Rosneft"

But the big Western oil & gas companies only did so because climate activists blocked fracking in Europe
Climate activists pressured governments to block oil & gas development

"Even as Gazprom slowed deliveries to Europe last fall, a British regulator nixed Shell’s plans to develop an enormous gas field in the North Sea."
Last fall, I was one of the first journalists to document how climate activists had effectively reduced private and public investment in oil and gas production, through a propaganda effort called "ESG," directly contributing to the global energy crisis.

michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/how-climate-…
The numbers speak for themselves

"Europe produces 3.6M bls of oil a day & uses 15M. Europe produces 230B cubic meters of gas/year & uses 560B. Russia produces 11M barrels of oil/day & uses 3.4M. Russia produces 700B cubic meters of gas/year & uses 400B

bariweiss.substack.com/p/the-wests-gr…
Greens opposed oil & gas fracking because, they said, climate change threatened civilization

But natural disasters, deaths from disasters, and the cost of natural disasters are all declining

Deaths from natural disasters were lower last year than any other year on record
Despite the suppression of natural gas production, it was still produced, just not as much as could have been.

Cheaper gas replaced coal and reduced carbon emissions

As a result, carbon emissions in the US & globally declined over the last decade
Russia's invasion of Ukraine could have been deterred had Putin feared that Europe would stop buying his oil, gas & coal

But Putin knew that Europe and the US couldn't stop buying Russia's fuel without suffering severe shortages & triggering recession

Should we be surprised that the people who falsely claimed that Western civilization was "unsustainable" are making it so?

Anti-fracking "climate activists" are, in reality, pro-scarcity Malthusians who hate modern life & Western civilization

Proof here

amazon.com/Apocalypse-Nev…
Why do the people who claim to care so much about climate change violently oppose nuclear energy, which is the *only* way to reduce carbon emissions from energy to near-zero?

Because nuclear energy creates abundance, wealth, and prosperity

michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/why-environm…
"Europe had... enough natural gas to supply the EU for some 60 years. Much of this is located in Eastern Europe, including Ukraine, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria, but France, U.K., the Netherlands and Germany are also sitting on shale deposits"

wsj.com/articles/a-les…
"A decade ago, Chevron, Exxon, & Shell were exploring Europe’s gas deposits with ambitions to repeat the U.S. shale boom. Then protests against fracking erupted, and one by one European governments surrendered to Russian energy dominance"

wsj.com/articles/a-les…
The European Commission confirms all of this on its web site:

"Unconventional hydrocarbons can contribute to the EU's security of supply and competitiveness. There are however public concerns over their extraction..."

energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/oil-gas…
The U.S. government's Energy Information Administration in 2013 published data showing that Europe had significant shale gas potential

eia.gov/analysis/studi…
"Britain has one of the richest and thickest seams of shale: the Bowland shale across Lancashire and Yorkshire contains many decades of supply....But the Russian government invested $95 million in NGOs campaigning against shale gas." @mattwridley

thecritic.co.uk/issues/decembe…
Shale potential: Europe vs US
NATO official 2014: "Russia has been using... a campaign of disinformation on many issues, including energy.... Russia could try to obstruct possible projects on shale gas exploration in Europe in order to maintain Europe’s reliance on Russian gas."

theguardian.com/environment/20…
"Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton complained in a speech to a private audience in 2016, 'We were even up against phony environmental groups, and I’m a big environmentalist, but these were funded by the Russians ...'"

thehill.com/opinion/energy…
"Even as demand for fossil fuels continues to rise, investments by major Western companies in oil and gas production have lagged in recent years owing to the pandemic... and PRESSURE BY [CLIMATE ACTIVIST] INVESTORS TO DIVEST FROM FOSSIL FUELS..."

nytimes.com/2022/02/25/bus…

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More from @ShellenbergerMD

Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Mar 4
People are claiming a nuclear reactor in Ukraine is on fire, that radiation levels around the plant are elevated, and that it could be worse than Chernobyl, BUT NONE OF THOSE THINGS ARE TRUE & SHOULD BE CONSIDERED MISINFO

Listen to below Space

Here's what we know & don't know
First, we know that the reactor WAS NOT AND IS NOT on fire

There was a fire at an employee training building and was nowhere near the reactors or any other safety-related system

Second, we know that RADIATION LEVELS ARE NOT ELEVATED

The great thing about radiation is that it is so easy to detect

The plant, like all nuclear plants, is INDEPENDENTLY MONITORED and tracked in real time

Read 22 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Mar 3
Calif. Gov. @GavinNewsom says he’s proposing a new system to help with mentally ill homeless people, but he’s not: all he’s proposing to do is throw more money at the same broken system

If he gets his way, Gavin will make the problem worse — as he has done for over 20 years
Over the last year, my colleagues & I have made the case for a new, statewide system, Cal-Psych, to take over psych/addiction care from the counties

Newsom is co-opting the language of Cal-Psych but rejecting the state takeover of care from the counties

californiapeacecoalition.org
I am, on the one hand, happy that our work has forced Gavin to act. It is a sign that our proposal has strong public support.

But he is proposing to do the same thing he has done FOR 20 YEARS, which is to throw more money at the same broken system.

michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/why-californ…
Read 22 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Mar 2
President Biden tonight claimed his legislation would lower energy costs by subsidizing renewables, but that’s obviously wrong: renewables make electricity expensive everywhere

Worse, Biden is proposing to double down on the same policies that empowered Putin to invade Ukraine
Renewables make electricity expensive bc they are inherently unreliable & require 100% back-up power

Renewables made California electricity prices rise 7x more than the rest of the US

And renewables made Germany’s electricity the most expensive, and Russia-dependent, in Europe
Biden said his legislation would “cut energy costs for families an ave. of $500/year by combating climate change” w/ “tax credits to weatherize your home & business to be energy-efficient. Double America's clean energy production in solar, wind… Lower price of electric vehicles”
Read 21 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Mar 1
Why did the West fail to deter Russia from invading Ukraine?

Because we were lost in soft, renewable energy delusions while Putin was grounded in the hard physical reality of nuclear, oil, & natural gas

Ukrainians are paying for our wishful thinking

bariweiss.substack.com/p/the-wests-gr…
How has Vladimir Putin—a man ruling a country with an economy smaller than that of Texas, with an average life expectancy 10 years lower than that of France—managed to launch an unprovoked full-scale assault on Ukraine?
There is a deep psychological, political and almost civilizational answer to that question: He wants Ukraine to be part of Russia more than the West wants it to be free. He is willing to risk tremendous loss of life and treasure to get it.
Read 58 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Feb 28
It's official!

"Germany is weighing whether to extend the life-span of its nuclear plants as a way to secure the country's energy supply in the face of uncertainty over Russian gas supplies, the country's economy minister said."

Atomkraft? Ja bitte!

reuters.com/world/europe/g…
Sources to @energybants were correct

This is clearly a trial balloon: "It is part of my ministry's tasks to answer this question," said Germany's energy minister. "I would not reject it on ideological grounds. But the preliminary examination has shown that it does not help us"
That's obviously ridiculous.

*Of course* keeping Germany's nuclear plants on-line would help Germany.

Keeping Germany's nuclear plants operating would directly reduce how much Russian natural gas it needs. Everybody knows this.

The caveat is to signal reasonableness.
Read 10 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Feb 27
San Francisco Mayor @LondonBreed said the solution to open drug use was a "supervised drug consumption site" in a new "Linkage Center" downtown.

But when I visited on Friday, I discovered hundreds of addicts & dealers partying & using drugs next to it
And it wasn't just during the night. I also visited during the afternoon. The sidewalk between the "supervised drug consumption site" and the elevator for disabled people to get to BART was so thick with addicts smoking fentanyl and meth, I could barely walk by
"Supervised drug consumption sites" around the world attract addicts. Many don't bother going inside, and just use their drugs outside of it. The dealers follow

The only change I noticed this visit were the new green signs preventing people from taking photos of the drug use 😏
Read 8 tweets

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