How now green cow?

About a week ago, an individual described as a “climate economist” warned the European Union it had to pass as much transition action into law as possible and as fast as possible.

It was a grim warning and it was issued in anticipation of the June elections for the European Parliament.

“We cannot afford to lean back now,” Ottmar Edenhofer, chairman of the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change told the FT. The EU “needs to provide long-term policy signals based on long-term plans for the net zero transition”, he concluded.

A grim warning indeed, made grimmer by the FT’s note that, and please do be so kind as to refrain from laughing, “The continent [Europe] has warmed twice as fast as the global average for the past 30 years.” Grim as it is, the warning begs a question and that question is what necessitated it?

You’d be happy to know that the answer comes to us from the European Council on Foreign Relations that reported this week the upcoming elections could see what it called “a sharp right turn”.

“The 2024 European Parliament elections will see a major shift to the right in many countries, with populist radical right parties gaining votes and seats across the EU, and centre-left and green parties losing votes and seats,” the Council warned — warnings everywhere — and continued to say that “anti-European populists” were likely to win the vote in nine member states and come in second or third in another nine.

Now, first of all, it warms the heart to see the hateful labelling alive and well not just in mainstream corporate media. Everyone who’s not part of the transition and dares question it, is “radical” and “populist”. Because legacy parties are in the business of politics for the greater good, out of sheer altruism.

Leaving the many wonderful aspects of language and its use as a weapon, I, as a European Parliament voter, cannot help but ask some more questions. But these can all be bundled up in a single question because I like simple things. That question is: Why?

Why are “Anti-European” parties gaining so much popularity they threaten to upset the status quo in the European Parliament, this massive, 705-strong, transition engine?

The answer to this question is quite obvious to everyone who has been paying cursory attention to energy policies in their respective EU member states or watching from abroad. It would also be obvious to anyone who pays their own electricity bills.

The energy transition is certainly not the EU’s only huge problem but it is huge nevertheless. And people, contrary to politicians’ expectations, have started to notice that something is not quite right with that transition.

For starters, we were promised cheaper electricity because wind and solar are the cheapest sources of it. Instead, we got more expensive electricity and the explanation that “It will only be expensive for a little while until we get wind and solar going, and then it will be cheaper.”

People in Europe were also told that tiny little inflation problem member states were having was temporary and it would soon be solved. Only it wasn’t, despite the dozen rate hikes by the ECB. Inflation continues to rage across the EU. Official figures pegged the rate for December at 3.4% for the whole EU and 2.9% for the eurozone. It doesn’t sound like much. But it is.

But besides the promises unkept and unkeepable, people in Europe were told other things as well. We were told we should stop eating meat, cheese, and eggs, and become vegan. To save the planet.

We were told we should start eating insects to replace the protein from meat, cheese, and eggs. We were told this protein is bad for us anyway, so we should get healthier by giving it up. And save the planet as a bonus.

We were told to stop driving cars or at least drive electric ones, to save the planet. We were told travelling was a bad idea and we should stop travelling. To save the planet. We were told floods, droughts, rain and snow, and summer heat are all extreme weather now. And it’s our fault.

For three years now, people in Europe have been subjected to a constant, incessant flood of scares, warnings, and unveiled threats aimed at one single thing — guilting us into swapping the relatively comfortable lifestyles most of us have for the bare essentials. To save the planet. Because this would be the only way their energy transition could work: if energy demand takes a nosedive and stays down.

All this happened while those same politicians and their full-time media and “research” partners were assuring everyone that the transition will not result in any changes to those same relatively comfortable lifestyles. On the contrary, it would enhance said lifestyles, the politicians told us. Repeatedly.

Well, it turned out you can only fool hundreds of millions of people for so long. As the cost of living crisis bit in, people started to wake up from the propaganda slumber. And they started asking questions. Opposition and fringe parties were only too happy to answer them. With, as it happens, the truth.

The energy transition, as envisioned by the EU’s current leadership, is going to cost enormous amounts of money. It is going to cost massive compromises with quality of life for most of the bloc’s population. And the poorest will suffer the most.

There are many poor people in the EU and their numbers are growing, courtesy of that same leadership, which has nothing to offer against the truth — except more scares.

Fears are running high in Brussels, prompting the calls to speed up setting transition plans in stone by passing new laws. Not that they will really be set in stone. That’s the beauty of whatever remains of democracy in the EU as embodied by the European Parliament. Laws can be repealed. They can be changed.

The current EU leadership — and its media and NGO partners whose name is legion — have staked all on the transition. For many, it is a matter of literal survival. If an anti-transition wave sweeps the continent, it will wash away the legion’s feeder and all its contents with it.

“A sharp right turn” at the EP elections would signal the rise of this wave that could only too easily become tidal unless the transition crusaders change their rhetoric. Which they won’t, as I’ve argued before, because they are too far gone and the point of no return is nothing but a shadow in the distance far behind. The crusaders made the fatal mistake of believing their own propaganda and this will be their downfall.

Until that happens, however, we may reasonably expect even more reports of extreme weather, including, probably, spring warming as extreme weather, spring rains as named storms, and the onset of summer as the start of a continental inferno of above-20 degree temperatures that have never been seen or experienced before.

Studies “proving” that maintaining a healthy, diverse diet is actually bad for you will multiply as will studies “proving” that crickets and mealworms can cure cancer and prevent strokes and heart attacks. The noise will become even louder.

The good news? All this is only going to annoy more people and win those “populist radical right” parties even more voters. Because if there is one thing that the current EU leadership truly excels at, it is harming itself in the genuine belief it is harming its enemies.

This June will be one hell of an interesting month in Europe.