Where does the UK get its natural gas? If it's like most of Europe, it's now dependant on Russia for that. And pipeline politics is a huge driver of the situation in Syria and the refugee crisis. And if reports are to believed, Russia's meddling is behind Brexit, Trump and the wave of xenophobic populism that's sweeping the world at the moment.

I'm not saying that coal is better or even a necessary evil, but we shouldn't pretend that natural gas is some kumbaya solution to pollution and climate change. Even without the controversy over fracking, natural gas has consequences that may be even worse than the effects of coal.

UK is not dependent on Russian gas. There's some, but not dominant.

https://www.britishgas.co.uk/the-source/our-world-of-energy/...

- 45 % is from UK production

- 17 % is from LNG tankers (much of that is from Middle East)

- 38 % is from European pipelines, of which 35 % is from Russia.

In other words, Russian supply is about 13 %.

The NY Times article manages to ignore one significant source of electric power, though: about 20 % of British electricity is nuclear. That is not mentioned at all, it just speaks of wind and solar. This is a typical narrative by journalists and in my view it diminishes the credibility of media.

But the UK isn't like most of Europe, as it has control of a fairly productive sector of the North Sea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_oil

This was one of the drivers behind a switch to gas for electricity generation in the first place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash_for_Gas

The North Sea has seen better days but modern production levels are still measurable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_natural_g...

It looks like only about 13% of the UK's gas comes from Russia: https://www.britishgas.co.uk/the-source/our-world-of-energy/...

> And if reports are to believed, Russia's meddling is behind Brexit...

D'oh. There was me thinking I made the decision on my own, I even researched loads of topics by buying books and stuff, only to find out on HN that those meddling Ruskies did it all along. I will agree with you on pipelines though.

Heh, I find it rather amusing when citizens of UK and the US are shocked, utterly shocked when a foreign actor interferes in their local politics when their respective govt. have been doing the same for centuries. Karma is a bitch, as someone likes to say.

He was being sarcastic... He wasn't shocked; he was mocking the idea that Russia caused Brexit. They didn't. The UK citizens themselves voted for Brexit because they're fed up with all the shit the EU brings with it.

Except that's a terrible argument (I wasn't swayed by Russian interference, therefore no-one was). Yes, the citizens of the UK voted (just) for Brexit - because it was a referendum - that's how they work (assuming no ballot stuffing etc). Would everyone have voted the same way without the (alleged) interference? Possibly not.

There was no talk about russian involvement in brexit until after Trump was elected then suddenly it was jumped upon as another reason why brexit was obviously "unjust".

That is blatantly false. The weaponising of refugees was talked about before brexit:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=russian+bombing+syria+caus...

You were probably swayed by Russian influence. Let me explain how:

Russia unhappy with the EU, decided to join the Syrian war (after years). They bomb the crap out of civilians and trigger the largest refuge migration Europe has ever seen.

The numbers are so big that nobody is prepared, Germany decides to take the high ground and allow them in.

This triggered a fear in the UK that our borders are unchecked and other EU countries have control over them.

The fact is that Russia, the UK and the USA have been playing proxy wars like this for decades.

There was no Russian interference though. Show us a microgram of evidence? Even Infowars-style speculative evidence would be permissable at this point?

While agree with you to some extent, do you think propagandists have somewhat recently realized how to exploit current communications tech to deploy their message(s)? If the financials of FB and GOOG tell us anything, it's that advertising on the internet is very effective, and advertising is just corporate propaganda. Most people just don't have the time/interest/energy to fact check, and many are just out to confirm their preconceived ideas/ whatever helps assuage their sense of guilt.

It goes both ways though. The EU funds all sorts of groups, in particular NGOs. Those groups then do publicity stunts and pay for advertising during important events. There's so many players on the scene that there's little point blaming one single entity - doing so means you are just playing into the hands of the other guys. If the media start hyping something en mass then treat it with suspicion.

>If the media start hyping something en mass then treat it with suspicion.

We completely agree on that. I like to dig into sources and refine my opinions all the time. I'm glad to be /around/ other people that just have different conclusions and/or perspectives given the same set of facts.

The EU also proposed (and implemented?) its own online propaganda army long before Brexit, so the Russians might not be the only ones to interfere in public opinion.

"In order to reverse the perception that 'Europe is the problem', we need to communicate that the answer to existing challenges... is 'more Europe' not 'less Europe'."[1]

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/9845442/...

lol, username checks out.

The EU uses propaganda so routinely people don't even notice it anymore. Like how federalists always refer to the EU as "Europe" even though Europe is a continent with several non-EU countries in it, and the EU is a political arrangement. It's a subtle word trick but it plants the feeling of permanence in people's minds.

Also, the way it charges countries huge sums of money to trade with it tariff free and then dishes out the money to projects ... but only on the condition that they erect giant signs with the EU flag and saying the EU paid for it. The EU of course, produces nothing itself, it's the countries that paid for it, but putting the actual flags of the nations that paid might lead to people feeling loyalty to actual European countries instead of the EU institutions.

And then there is the actual propaganda. Including, ironically, propaganda targeted at Russia:

http://collections.internetmemory.org/haeu/content/201603131...

http://collections.internetmemory.org/haeu/content/201603131...

I don't know ehere you live but in here when a project is being built it's fairly normal to have a big sign with details like,

* what is being done

* starting date and expected end date

* maybe a map to show are being worked on

* company doing the work

* How much it costs

* A series of logos with every entity that funded the work, with a decreasinz size depending how much they funded)

I'd not really call that propaganda.

This isn't whilst a project is being built. It's after it's been built, in perpetuity, to constantly remind people that the thing in question was "paid for by the EU". The logos of the actual entities that paid for it, the countries, are not shown of course.

Russia is behind Brexit? You are breaking new ground here, care to provide a reference? Also, it is good to know that Russia is behind Orban, Erdogan too.

If you Google 'Russia Brexit' you'll get a ton of hits. Here's one: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/russian-interf...

"'highly probable' Russia interfered with Brexit"

"the huge flows of migrants into Europe had been deliberately encouraged by Russia to destabilise the EU"

sigh... Put it another way - is there any hardship in this world that was not induced by Russia? This is not even funny anymore, this is sad. Brexit is work of Russkies. Are you guys are completely impotent and incapable of making your own decisions?

"May be worse"

You make it sound like the negative effects are all political, and you can't really quantify them. As far as air-quality, isn't natural gas much better than coal?

It's poorly designed because there is no incentive in the policy to continue reducing global warming. The problem isn't solved yet.

It's also poorly designed, for the UK, in that UK power generation just bought the unused credits from other EU nations and really didn't reduce their coal usage.

I read that as the GP suggesting that the ETS was the 'poorly designed policy'.