The lights have literally begun to go out in Europe, even in little Denmark.
Several municipalities are considering saving electricity by dimming street lights
Ritzau, Berlingske.dk, Sept 6
Energy prices have skyrocketed, and this has caused several municipalities in the capital area to discuss whether street lighting should be dimmed or switched off during the night in order to reduce the electricity bill.
That’s from a survey performed by a regional television channel, which reports that six of the eleven municipalities they surveyed said they’re thinking about dimming their street lights at night.
The particular municipalities—that’s GoogleTranslate’s interpretation of kommuner, which I’ve usually called boroughs or simply left untranslated—aren’t important, nor are the particular measures each of them is considering.
I just wanted to add that data point to the growing mountain of indicators pointing where we’re headed.
According to TV 2 Lorry, both Germany, Austria, Italy, France and Spain have switched off street lights as a result of the energy crisis.
In Spain, during the winter, all shops must have their lights off at night to save electricity, and in Austria, only half of the street lamps are switched on at night.
All of this because we’re so super serious about punishing Russia.
Also, same newspaper, same date:
Europe sends billions to Putin’s war machine:
This is how much money we have paid for Russian energy
Daniel Tidemann & Kasper Schøler Fixed, Berlingske.dk, Sept 6
The EU must be independent of Russian energy.
This has been repeatedly stated as the ultimate goal when European heads of state have met since Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine.
Yet EU countries send hundreds of billions directly into Russia’s coffers in return for gas, oil, and coal. A new report makes that clear.
It shows that Russia’s total earnings from exporting fossil fuels far exceed the costs it has incurred by waging war against Ukraine.
The European countries have even been the main importer when it comes to the purchase of Russian fossil fuels and have accounted for over half of the total export earnings since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
That’s how very super serious we are.
So on the one hand, according to the article, we’ve sent 632 billion euros to Russia for energy since February 24—which certainly takes the sting out of the roughly 750 billion euros Russia has spent on the war so far.
At the same time, the EU and its member countries are sending aid to Ukraine that appears to be well under 10 billion euros in all.
Super duper serious, you guys!
Denmark’s foreign minister, Social Democrat Jeppe Kofod, assesses the seriousness this way:
It has been Denmark’s position from day one that we must make ourselves independent of fossil fuels, and we must accelerate the green transition of Europe. We have not just pointed that out, but we have also done a lot of active work ourselves.
Berlingske then asks the minister when he’d like to see the EU independent of Russian energy:
The sooner the better. As soon as possible. I think that is very specific. We must both improve energy efficiency and implement savings. On all fronts, we must speed up the green transition.
Note that his emphasis has nothing to do with finding new ways to meet our existing energy needs or reducing consumer energy prices: it’s all about accelerating the green transition, speeding up the green transition.
The lights are literally going out in our streets, and our foreign minister believes the most important thing is that we speed up the “transition” that’s darkening them.
That is some super duper extra deluxe seriousness.
The floggings will continue until morale improves.