One of these days I will do a deep dive into the “degrowth” movement, but that day is not today. I really want to wrap my head around it before I begin spouting off in my trademark manner.
But I feel confident enough to say that Germany provides a great example of the basic principle: impoverish people and call it a victory for Gaia.
The MSM is crowing about how Germany has cut its CO2 emissions, showing that it can be done.
Germany emissions hit a 70-year low last year as Europe’s largest economy reduced its reliance on coal. #Germany emitted 673m tonnes of greenhouse gases in 2023, 73m tonnes fewer than in 2022. https://t.co/gwEtMjYVRz
— Dr Paul Dorfman (@dorfman_p) January 5, 2024
You can find stories all across the MSM about how Germany has reduced its reliance on coal, leading to lower emissions and eventually a greener planet.
Yay!
What these stories are leaving out is the practical reason why Germany’s emissions are declining: the country is in the process of deindustrializing, hollowing out its economy in the name of preserving nature.
It’s not that green energy has supplanted dirty coal; it’s that the German economy is moving backward. Just as emissions went down when the economy shut down during COVID–Klaus Schwab’s wet dream, leading him to write his now-famous book The Great Reset–Germany’s emissions are going down because they are shutting down the economy.
De-growth achieved
German emissions fall by a fifth amid stagnant industrial output https://t.co/QS2xNC1zBT
— Barbarian Capital (@BarbarianCap) January 5, 2024
“Stagnant industrial output” is the real headline, not green energy. It’s pretty easy to cut your CO2 emissions when you decide not to produce anything.
Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions dropped by about a fifth last year to their lowest level since the 1950s, although the reduction mostly came from stagnant industrial output in Europe’s largest economy rather than improved energy efficiency.
The country emitted 673mn tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2023 — or 21 per cent less than the previous year, according to Berlin-based think-tank Agora Energiewende’s annual review of Germany’s energy transition.
Roughly half of this drop, which Agora said reflected a “sharp” decline in coal-fired power generation, could be attributed to a slowdown in German industrial activity. Only 15 per cent stemmed from technology improvements such as greater use of renewable energy.
German industry, which makes up a fifth of the country’s overall output, almost double that of the US, France and the UK, was badly hit by the outbreak of war in Ukraine, which stymied flows of cheap Russian gas.
Actually, much of that reduced flow of natural gas came from Ukraine blowing up the Nordstream pipeline, just to be clear, releasing a ton of methane into the air. But details…
“Degrowth” means just what you think it means: reducing greenhouse gas production by reducing all production. If we go back to living as they did in the 14th century, then the Earth will be saved, at the minor cost of massive poverty and eventually the death of billions who could never survive in a deindustrialized economy.
If you think I am exaggerating, consider this: European countries aren’t just deindustrializing; they are also closing down farms. The Netherlands is the most productive agricultural producer in the world by acre, and the government is forcing farms to shut down to meet greenhouse gas targets.
No industry. No food. Throw in some medical murder, and you are on the path to depopulation, which has been a goal of the Left since the 1960s.
Read the MSM, though, and you get a bright and shiny story about the success of green energy and how Mother Earth is getting saved.
The propaganda is everywhere. Here is CNBC telling us not to have kids:
It’s sick, twisted, demented, and demonic.
If Germany wants to be both industrialized and green, they have a solution in hand: reopen their nuclear power plants. In 2011, nuclear provided 25% of the country’s power; just a couple of years ago, nuclear provided 13%; today, it provides none of it, because every plant has been shut down.
They are strangling our economies in the name of degrowth. The end goal is depopulating the earth to under a billion people.