(Think of this as Green Menace Part II.)
Okay, they don’t actually say they want a revolution, but they sure act like they do.
And by “they” I mean the GLOB.
(Not the whole GLOB, only those of its members who’ve been absorbed into the mass psychosis of green hysteria—so, you know, only about ninety-eight percent of them.)
I don’t know how else to interpret this little news item from Berlingske Business (fifth item):
New energy requirements for 120 billion kroner can make homes unsaleable
Up to 800,000 families will have to spend DKK 120 billion (about 16 billion USD) in the coming years to energy-renovate their homes for the benefit of the climate and to get rid of natural gas. It will make thousands of them unsellable.
According to Jyske Bank, this will be a consequence of the EU Commission’s plan for a new building directive, writes Finans, and will cost an average of DKK 150,000 per home. (About 20,000 USD.)
“It is an unbelievably ambitious proposal that will have serious consequences for the Danish housing market. Many properties need to be energy efficient to such an extent that it is hardly realistic. All that remains is to tear them down. It’s drastic,” says department director Mikkel Høegh from Jyske Bank.
The bank predicts that 30 percent of the Danish housing stock must be energy-improved by 2033, following the new labeling from A to G. The approximately 15 percent least energy-efficient homes in category G must be improved to category F by 2030 at the latest, and in 2033 all homes must at least be in category E.
The banks’ industry association, Finans Danmark, also fears that it may become very difficult to sell properties that do not meet the new requirements.
The bolded bits (excluding the headline) are my own emphases. The parenthetical conversions to US dollars are also my own. Otherwise that’s the entire text of the item.
This is more green handiwork: more of the same ideological extremism that’s already driving Europe back to the bronze age.
A phrase like “30 percent of the Danish housing stock” sounds dry and abstract. That’s probably why they didn’t write roughly one in three family homes.
The idea that houses must conform to a particular level of energy efficiency is entirely arbitrary.
Energy inefficient homes already have a lower market value anyway, thanks to higher energy prices, but even with normal energy prices an energy-inefficient home is going to command a lower price on the market. Owners therefore already have all the incentive they need to improve the energy efficiency of their homes, and that process will happen naturally—as it already has been. Houses will always be optimized for value, because in addition to being homes they’re also one of the biggest investments most people make. Natural market forces may take more time than the green zealots like, but they won’t leave tens of thousands of families destitute, stuck with unsellable homes.
But leaving tens of thousands of Danish families stuck in unsellable homes is exactly what this directive will do—don’t take my word for it, just listen to the bankers cited in the news item. People who can afford to upgrade their homes will do so, of course: they probably would have anyway. The people who cannot afford to upgrade their homes will be forced to sell to buyers who have the means to tear them down and rebuild.
In other words, the poorer you are, the harder this will be on you.
And that’s not a prediction, it’s an observation. It’s how it works. And the people who designed that policy know that’s what’s going to happen, because anyone who gives it just a moment’s thought can’t help but see it. Meaning they must want it to happen.
In a similar vein, stating that “importing vast amounts of natural gas from Russia will make us dependent on Russia” was an observation and not a prediction.
I begin to suspect the people who laughed at that observation weren’t laughing because the proposition was absurd, but because that was the whole point. They wanted Europe dependent on Russian natural gas. Obviously!
Two more little news items can also be found in today’s Berlingske: there’s a surge in the number of renters at risk of homelessness in Denmark due to rising rents, and the greens are angry because Danes aren’t eating climate-friendly enough for their liking. Seriously:
“In eight years, we should halve the global climate footprint from our consumption. We cannot leave that to the individual citizen or new technology alone. We must have more sustainable eating habits, modes of transport, housing, etc. The politicians must set a clear goal and make it cheap and attractive for citizens to live more sustainably,’ says Rune Baastrup, director of Deltager Denmark.
Climate professor Jens Hesselbjerg Christensen from the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen says that consumers need to change their consumption patterns and act more climate-friendly, while there must also be a more ambitious climate policy if temperatures are not to rise.
Rune Baastrup says you cannot be allowed to choose what to eat.
He’s also unhappy that you’re allowed to choose where to live and how to get around.
Jen Christensen says you need to change your eating patterns.
And both men seem to be deeply concerned about the possibility that temperatures might rise—in a country whose citizens are afraid they won’t be able to warm themselves and their loved ones through the winter.
These people, these greens, these religious zealots, these maniacs, do not care what you want. They don’t care whether or not you agree with them. They don’t care if you suffer. You will do as they say or you are an enemy of humanity.
Do note: all these news items are from today. From Denmark. Right now. Where sober and sensible people are currently stocking up on firewood, canned goods, candles, flashlights, and generators just to get through the winter.
Denmark’s (leftist) energy minister said over the weekend that a couple of old coal plants could be put back into production to help with our energy needs this winter, but he went out of his way to make it perfectly clear that this was only temporary. A minor and temporary indulgence. Just a little workaround for the current crisis.
Crisis? What crisis? You mean the one your ideological brothers and sisters created?
You mean the crisis of your having sacrificed our energy infrastructure on the altar of your green suicide cult?
That crisis?
Anyone with any sense of shame, or even just self-preservation, would surely know the time had come to begin back-pedaling a bit.
“Well, we need to be more sustainable and renewable and what not, but we do seem to have gotten a bit ahead of ourselves, so let’s just go back to the old ways until we’re really sure we’ve got the resources we need to make a smooth transition.“
Who would object to that? Who wouldn’t be willing to forgive our ruling class if they followed that template and began digging us out of the hole they’ve dug us into?
But they’re going in the opposite direction: more directives. More government fiats. More of their fervent religious insanity.
These people despise us, they despise humanity, and they will never be satisfied.
As Søren noted in a comment on yesterday’s post, even earthworms recoil from pain—and “it is mainly a matter of how much pain will be needed before the inevitable preference cascade the other way starts.”
I share his pessimism with respect to how much pain ordinary citizens appear to be willing to bear for all this stupidity.
What I find most frustrating in all this is that conservatives don’t appear to have learned a single thing from any of this.
Look at the way Liz Truss’s government in the UK boldly announced plans to drop the top tax rate in the UK in an effort to stimulate some badly needed economic growth.
What a statement! Coming out with both guns blazing, as if to announce we’re here, we’re economically literate, get used to it!
The left came at them with perfectly predictable ferocity—even the International Monetary Fund wagged its dirty, dirty fingers at them—but for nine whole days Truss and her ministers stood firm. Resolute! Unflinching! Adamant!
…until they got wobbly and backed down.
“It was the right idea, but it sent the wrong signal,” seems to be the agreed upon talking point of contrition.
And that’s the end of any hope that this “conservative” UK government will be able to get anything conservative done: if the first principle you abandon just happens to be the very first principle on which you staked a claim, it’s over.
I caught a little coverage of the reversal on BBC this evening: the gloating was palpable.
What in bloody hell is the point of electing a conservative government if it’s going to surrender at the first sign of leftist disapproval?
The policies of the green extremists are destroying us. Everyone knows this. It wasn’t conservatives shutting down nuclear plants, banning fossil fuels, elevating “diversity, equity, and inclusion” over food and shelter. It wasn’t conservatives making Europe dependent on Russian gas. Conservatives aren’t insisting on the right to control what people eat, or what they drive, or where they live. Responsibility for this whole hideous mess lies squarely with the green left, or the leftist greens—the greft? the leen?—and they not only don’t deny it: they own it, and they seek to double down on it, and triple down on it, and so on. A green boot stomping on a human face—forever.
They don’t apologize. They don’t back down. They don’t reconsider.
There’s a lot we could learn from them.
If we could learn.