Speaking of all that clean, green German energy.
Franke James is a Canadian activist and artist. She has apparently written an entire book about the fact that this country’s national government withdrew funding for an art tour abroad due to her pointedly political message.
That message can be summed up as follows: Canada’s elected leaders “have their heads buried in the tar sands,” are turning this nation into a “Petro-State,” and aren’t doing enough to combat climate change (see here).
A newspaper article characterizes the cancellation of her funding as an attempt to “silence her” – and declares that she has been blacklisted. But there’s something odd about this story. In the news article, James is quoted as follows:
As a Canadian citizen, to know that the government is interfering in private business is really shocking. It’s undemocratic.
If her activities are a “private business” why does she expect the government (aka the rest of us) to financially support her while she conducts that business in other countries? If I ask the government for travel funds and get turned down should I then claim to have been silenced, too?
In an interview published last August in the Toronto Quarterly, James says the government funding that got cancelled “was miniscule.” Why be mysterious? Why doesn’t she just tell us how much money was involved? One has to follow an embedded link to discover that the amount was actually a not-so-miniscule $5,000.
But that’s just the beginning of the silliness. The magazine’s editor, Darryl Salach, earnestly asks James questions such as:
- “How devastating to our current economy would the immediate impact be if we decided to change our ways and become a much more green friendly country?”
- “What do you recommend Canadians do to make Canada a green energy super power?”
Yeah, those are the sorts of matters I’d expect an artist to have important insights into. Economic impacts. The finer points of turning a nation into a “green energy super power.”
For those who missed it, yesterday I compiled a lengthy list of news stories from far and wide. They tell us that green energy is a failure – that billions have been wasted on this fantasy, and that the chickens are coming home to roost in country after country. Those stories use terms like meltdown, crashed and burned, disaster, insanity, and scam.
And yet here’s James blathering on in the magazine about:
- “the clean tech boom”
- “this clean energy shift”
- the need to “invest in green energy now”
- “transitioning Canada to a clean energy future”
According to James, it would be just awful if Canada was “sitting on the sidelines while China, the USA and Germany lead the world in solar power, wind power and electric cars.”
OK, let’s talk about Germany. Here are some of the headlines I highlighted yesterday from the German press:
- Solar Subsidy Sinkhole: Re-Evaluating Germany’s Blind Faith in the Sun
- Germany’s Offshore Fiasco: North Sea Wind Offensive Plagued by Problems
- Twilight of an Industry: Bankruptcies Have German Solar on the Ropes
- German power market paralysed by subsidised renewables
- Germany Hits Brakes on Race to Renewable Energy Future
I am so frakking weary of environmentalists waxing poetic about renewables in Germany. Earth to climate activists: you’re several years behind the times. Green energy hasn’t worked out in Germany. At the moment, that nation is backpeddling furiously. Here’s how a Bloomberg news story began in February:
Germany will this year start up more coal-fired power stations than at any time in the past 20 years.
Because, as every climate activist knows, coal is oh-so-green-and-clean.
