Dear Editor,
I read Fiona Harvey's report on Antonio Guterres' warnings about global warming and war in Ukraine (The Guardian, 21st March 2022, link below) and strongly support his message.
As it was, I had to do a double-take because, at first, I thought that the picture of "belching power-stations" (which accompanied the article) was a scene of bombing in the Ukraine.
Here, around Cologne, we know those scenes of smoke, vapour and destruction all too well because, just to the west (en route to Brussels), are the Rhineland's lignite mines with their enormous open-cast excavations and multiple banks of power-stations. In fact, if Mr Guterres has ever shuttled between the UN Climate HQ in Bonn and the EU Capital in Brussels (which he probably has), he will have passed these (link below).
Currently the massive irony is that Germany's Business Minister, Robert Habeck, a key figure in the Green Party, is doing the rounds of (autocratic!) Arabian states looking for new sources of oil and gas. How weird is that?
On top of this, the conversation seems to be exclusively about sources of energy. While that is not bad, it is surreal that hardly anyone talks about simply "not using so much" (i.e. living more modestly). This is especially the case here in Germany where car-sizes (and numbers) keep on growing: We seem to think that, by putting electric motors into those monsters, we will solve the problem.
And we should also be asking ourselves whether "desire for oil" is not a significant factor in the war in Ukraine: It was George W Bush's wish (expressed at the NATO conference in Bucharest in April 2008) that both Ukraine and Georgia should become members of NATO. If that were to be the case then it would only take a relatively short sea-pipeline through the Black Sea (bypassing Russia) to have direct pumping-access to oil from the Caspian region. Bingo!
No wonder the Russians are up-tight!
Regards
