All of this while they already have a viable green solution: Nuclear, which they planned on completely shutting down by 2022.
Northstream 2 was planned under Merkel.
> Merkel decided in a completely irrational overnight move to just phase out nuclear.
No, it was an almost unanimous vote where even the opposition agreed with the government[0]. Nothing irrational about it, they decided to go for renewable instead of nuclear.
- 0: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jun/30/germany-end-nu...
The opposition agreeing - you mean like the Green party who wanted to end nuclear like forever? Merkel had essentially absolute power in Germany and was leading some major changes that are hard to believe now… 1) shut down nuclear, 2) abolish compulsory military service, 3) open the borders for an uncontrolled influx of male refugees, 4) completely ignore Corona at first and then bulldoze over our Basic Law.
No, I mean pretty much everyone: 513 yes to 79 no.
> abolish compulsory military service
hard to believe? I guess we agree to disagree.
A military coup is one of the largest risks to any society. The “best” people to serve the military are the young people that stand to lose their country and have a million things that they get excited about - except going to war and fighting.
A society itself needs to protect itself.
Also you don't need weapons and war to resist. It's much more effective to perform civil disobedience on a mass scale. Paralize the country and refuse to obey. Gandhi docet.
It's also what Ukraine should do instead of sacrificing entire generations of their men and women to protect some hundred square miles of land, destroying any value those lands might have in the process.
They're not protecting their land, they're protecting themselves. If a significant portion gets shot either way it's better to at least be able to shoot back, no?
Wars tend to allow for this kind of tragedy to happen. Much harder to slaughter people during a civilian disobedience act that is globally covered by media. Brutal repression of demonstrations also causes much more outrage, basically backfiring if your intent is to stop them. Any dictator worth a shot knows this very well.
> If a significant portion gets shot either way it's better to at least be able to shoot back, no?
False dychotomy. People who protest the war in Russia are being arrested, not shot in the streets. So why do you think that would happen in this case? Because "Russians are Orcs"?
People who protest the war in Russia get arrested not shot because that's all it takes to suppress them. This is an argument against your point, not for it. Nor does it mean that Russia wouldn't apply harder measures elsewhere, if they thought it necessary.
Russians aren't referred to as orcs, only their soldiers.
> People who protest the war in Russia get arrested not shot because that's all it takes to suppress them
But if as you believe Ukrainians care so much then they would definitely not give up after a few being jailed.
> Nor does it mean that Russia wouldn't apply harder measures elsewhere, if they thought it necessary.
Harder than bombing cities and destroying the infrastructure? Strongly doubt so. Doesnt seem like your way worked well for the Ukrainians so far. Unless all you care about is making Russia weaker, no matter how many Ukrainians it take.
(But keep it hush-hush and lets not talk about this dirty fact on HN - it looks bad you know ?)
Russian gas to Germany is being replaced by gas from USA. And liquefying gas for boat shipping is not a cheap/green process.
https://apnews.com/article/germany-government-olaf-scholz-bu...
"Germany is deploying about 3 gigawatts of coal-fired generation to ensure there are enough electricity supplies to make it through the winter amid curtailed natural gas supplies from Russia."
This was done out of necessity to ensure Germany did not run out of natural gas during the winter months as the gas imports from Russia have more or less dried up. I am not German nor am I up to date on their measures to transitioning their grid to renewable energy, but if anything this war is accelerating the transition for many countries in Europe. Even if this means they have to temporarily re-open fossile fuel power plants.
This could possibly have been avoided had the German government not shut its nuclear power plants down in the previous years, but that's another discussion.