For years, particularly in Western Europe, Green activists and left-leaning politicians successfully frightened voters into accepting rising prices and cumbersome lifestyle changes to battle a so-called climate change “crisis.”
But this seems to have abruptly ended in 2024.
The recent EU elections last month suggest that the Green strangulation of jobs and living standards is finally weakening.
Geert Wilders’ Netherlands conservative and farmers alliance won six seats in the EU Parliament, while the leftist Green and Labour Party alliance fell to eight seats.
The conservative Alternative für Deutschland party gained strength to become the second largest in Germany, while Greens lost 17 of the 71 seats they’d won in 2019.
Overall, the Euro elections gave “centrist” parties a majority in the European Parliament, while conservative parties gained significant strength. This likely means a more conservative EU Parliament will not enact any new “ambitious” climate or energy policies, but it will also mean it cannot easily roll back existing laws either. At least this go-round.
The pushback against radical climate policies is encouraging and has been bubbling up more and more in recent times. It started when French protesters in bright yellow vests (Gilets Jaunes) clogged Paris streets, railing against fuel tax hikes and other injustices back in 2019. It was stalled a bit by the COVID pandemic, but then resumed in full force earlier this year when convoys of German, Irish and Dutch farmers dramatized their outrage over “climate action” plans to restrict nitrogen fertilizers, cull cattle herds and close thousands of farms.
British and German voters seethed mostly in their homes and pubs. Brits were incensed that high energy prices are driving industries and jobs overseas and making it impossible for many families to heat homes properly in wintertime, while forests of wind turbines blight rural and ocean areas.
Germans also blew gaskets as their electricity prices became the highest worldwide, and their schizophrenic government bulldozed an ancient village to mine coal, leveled a forest to erect wind turbines, tore down wind turbines to mine more coal, and imported gas because it has banned fracking.
In addition to the insanity noted above, Euro politicians added to the dismay when they decreed that summer Olympics athletes will have no air conditioning; cars can enter London only if they pay outrageous fees; only electric vehicles can be sold after 2035; and lights to be turned off on public buildings and monuments. In Germany, people were actually being urged to take one 5-minute shower per day, and informed that in wintertime public buildings will be no warmer than 66 degrees F, while only one room should be heated in their private homes.
The obsession with climate change and going “Net Zero” also sent average gasoline prices soaring up to $8.24 a gallon in Europe. While average residential electricity costs have risen to 15¢ per kilowatt-hour in the United States (thanks to our own foolish “Net Zero” efforts) – In Europe they’ve already skyrocketed to 31¢ in Britain and 36¢ in Germany. Many European pensioners and families cannot afford to heat their homes properly, and thousands die every winter from hypothermia and diseases they’d survive if they weren’t so cold.
Such developments no doubt played an important role in the EU election results. However, don’t expect the Greens and their liberal allies in the Old World to roll over and play dead. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and her allies are already scheming to ignore the voters and freeze conservative leaders such as Mme Le Pen and Italian PM Meloni out of important climate, energy, immigration and taxation matters – and may forge alliances with remaining Greens.
Meanwhile, those on the Left have bounced back, somewhat, in the UK. Disillusioned British voters elected progressive Labour politicians and Prime Minister Keir Starmer. They dumped “conservative” Tories who had mismanaged the economy and drifted so far leftward that they were almost indistinguishable from Tories, especially on energy.
However, the Greens can’t be overly exuberant. Brits also elected Nigel Farage and four of his Reform UK allies. They reject climate-obsessed energy policies – and will erect significant obstacles to Mr. Starmer’s far-left policies.
The Euro elections suggest that US politicians who want to restore America’s freedom and prosperity should never offer “less bad” alternatives to the fundamentally destructive policies the Green Left. Conservative politicians should repeatedly emphasize that unreliable energy systems raise energy and food prices, wreak havoc on the environment, send jobs and factories to China, and ensure more blackouts.
In short, they are a road to a hellish Green serfdom -- not to prosperity or a cleaner environment.
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Craig Rucker is president of the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org)
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