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Comment by junofan | Hacker News Reader

Not sure my government can do much about coal plant construction in Africa. Would rather they focus on things in control like inflation, to be honest.

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Your government was likely funding construction of them till a few months ago, and probably is still funding other fossil fuel projects:

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/g7-countries-agree-s...

If europe had built enough renewable energy over the last 10 years to provide its energy production it would have tackled both problems at once. - International energy prices wouldn’t be a major problem.

Yeah, but that wasn't in line with German plans of controlling the EU with Russian gas so had to be rejected on policy grounds.

Controlling the EU with Russian gas? Is that the conspiracy theory de jour, then?

Hardly a conspiracy when the German chancellor openly signs an agreement with Russia and then joins Nord Stream and Gazprom to implement it and bypass other EU countries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schr%C3%B6der#Relation...

I still don't see any evidence for your claim "controlling the EU". The Nord Stream II stuff is well-known, but how does Germany getting gas from Russia let them "control the EU"? They are also far from the only EU country with big bets on energy from Russia (for example, Austria, Hungary - the latter not wanting to change a thing even now).

Dependence of European countries on Russian gas, oil (data until 2020):

Gas: https://www.statista.com/chart/26768/dependence-on-russian-g...

Oil: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1298031/dependence-on-ru...

how does Germany getting gas from Russia let them "control the EU"?

It's not getting gas that's indicative. It's getting gas intentionally bypassing the other EU countries and Ukraine with Nordstream 1&2. Thus enabling Russia and Germany to squeeze eastern EU.

Honest question: do you generally follow world events and not know this? I always wonder what the political and historical consciousness is in the west.

You're still not saying how this lets Germany "control the EU". If anything it sounds like you want Eastern Europe to control the access to gas in order to have an inordinate amount of influence over Germany. So basically what Russia is doing now.

Being independent of Russian energy resources would also "bypass" Poland and Ukraine. Germany should and could have been there ten years ago, hopefully we will be ten years from now.

Russians and Germans built very expensive Nordstream 1&2 to route around nominative German allies. This is basically official Russian doctrine that Germans, including personally their chancellor, joined.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falin-Kvitsinsky_Doctrine

The goal was not to be independent but to become a hub of Russian gas to resell.

Sure they can: via large-scale economic mobilisation (New Deal-like), build renewables to generate enough electricity to avoid the need to import dirty energy from elsewhere. With limited grid storage, ~2-3x what we have today, >90% of Europe's energy could come from renewables.

This outlook of apathy is why we are screwed. Let's focus on inflation because the world falling apart is inevitable? Inflation is going to be the least of your worries when you are too hot, too cold, hungry, etc. The impact of climate change is waaay bigger than inflation.

Impose severe sanctions on any state or business providing funding for fossil fuel electricity generation.

Subsidize carbon free electricity generation in developing countries.

Help women in developing countries access education and family planning => reduces population growth and so energy requirements.

Simple enough, but there is absolutely no will to do it.

lol simple, says xe/xi

do it then

I don't think that's the best way to put it. Just because a solution can be simple doesn't mean the procedures in the way to enact it inherently are. Not that I agree with either side here, just dislike that way of thinking of “do it then.” In most governments, even if someone wants a change, it doesn't mean it's easy to enact even if that change is simple itself. Due to democracy requiring you to get people into agreement, you can't just waltz in and go yeah I want this changed and have it done.

Those are all happening, so it's not all doom and gloom.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-u-s-is-pr...

Are you suggesting that coal plants in Africa ate the main issue driving climate change? Aren't US and China still the biggest emitters, and not doing much about it?

The current burst of inflation is global and is caused by a global pandemic that unleashed global shocks to global supply chains. There isn't much any one government can do, other than continue to push the Covid-19 vaccine out to as many people as possible.

False. The current inflation is the result of over a decade of growth fueled purely by money printing which has been accelerated since the pandemic when they shifted the money printer into afterburner. Like what did you expect would happen when the fed doubles the amount of money in circulation over the span of just two years?

Russia invading Ukraine and China pursuing a zero COVID policy, threw a spanner in this monetary house of cards the west economy was based.

Maybe we in the west should focus more on being more energy independent from hidrocarbures and more manufacturing independent from China instead of just focusing on increasing the price of stonks and housing.

You're being downvoted but you're absolutely right. QE was a policy of very very dubious merit already in 2008, and by the time the pandemic ended it was still going (and after Mar/2020 it went into turbo mode). The economy has NEVER went back to normal after 2008; in many regards we're still in the aftermath of the 2008 catastrophe.

The inflation was perhaps "triggered" by covid and the Ukraine invasion, but it was not "caused" by it. It was caused by monetary policy designed to keep asset prices inflated (and shaft the working class as a side-effect).

Don't forget a war, sanctions, impacts on trade and many important resources (foodstuffs, energy).

Similar to 1973/1982 when the price of crude oil went up 5X.

I don't like the idea that monetary policy is the only determiner of prices.

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