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