Energy scarcity seems to be descending over Europe slowly but surely and while the focus continues to be, for now, on teaching people to consume less energy, reports are emerging with the word “blackout” in the headline. I hate to be trite but winter
Love your descriptive and to the point writing style. Thank you for sharing your real life experiences. We in USA are largely spoiled beyond reason. Forbid our internet has an interruption nevertheless no electricity or no heat. As much as it would be very impactful especially to elderly and disabled persons, part of me wishes that we sample some of these hardships. Perhaps it can unite us in ways no politician or party ever can. And perhaps it will revitalize a spoiled generation that largely, not all, has never experienced adversity. Thank you as always ! Mauricio
Aug 12, 2022·edited Aug 12, 2022Liked by Irina Slav
I’m at the stage where I’m thinking we sadly need some blackouts and cold buckets of water for showers to have some hope of “our” politicians actually starting to live in the real world. And to take some real world decisions (that won’t win them votes). But some may say I’m too optimistic. Great article Irina!
Great article, and I have lived through some of those discomforts, and I fear that the soft younger generation is not prepared for what is approaching. -
Here in Germany at least *some* people in the news business haven't lost their guts or have also a memory which goes beyond of what a millenial can remember (or thinks that it's worth to be remembered).
The weekly "Der Spiegel" (woke and left-leaning and green like all the German mainstream press) ran lastly a story about economy and transition minister Herr Habeck, and compared the planned measures to Ceaucescu!
I found a short review on this english-speaking page:
Great perspective from personal history. I spent one winter in Kiev when the district heating for my apartment went out for a week. Let’s just say it sucked! I recall my wife who is Ukrainian, boiling water and doing the bathtub mixing magic so we could at least bathe. I recall the delight of the warm bath but the terror of knowing that I would have to get out into that freezing apartment. That was one week and I was hating life. Can’t imagine an entire season. The west is not ready. If we see this kind of deprivation expect more governments in Europe to potentially fall.
Now I feel a bit guilty. My home in the Pacific Northwest of the USA is heated by gas under long term contract from Canada and the Rocky Mountain States. Electricity comes mostly from a massive hydro system along with nuclear and a bit of everything else.
These power systems were built by my parent's generation mostly in the 1940's and 1950's. My mother was born on a farm in the State of Alabama and grew up during the world wide Great Depression. She was in school when electricity arrived. Baths involved heating water with coal you bought in sacks in a rural store. When her mom, born in the 19th century died in the 1960's she still had an outhouse. Summer visits to the farm in my childhood were trips into history.
Today people in my generation down to my grandchildren's generation live in inherited luxury and think you can manage the world with "policy". No need for engineers and physicists.
Pakistan, except at the coast, experiences a range of temperatures from over 50C to below 0C, and colder in the north. No a/c for them, or refrigeration of food. Heating in winter--Hah!
The essence of your piece is not the struggles of ordinary people, but the ease of the elite.
The utterly stupid actions they take affect you, not them. The shortage is ONLY for THEE and ME!
History shows that the governments fall and the elite are, then, executed.
Sri Lanka is the most recent example. The elite never learn.
Finally, one can wonder what will happen to all those nuclear weapons in Pakistan?
It seems like our Electricity problems are just the tip of the iceberg. As a boy growing up in the UK in the early seventies in a house without central heating, I do not wish the coming cold on anybody, nor the blackouts due to the 3 Day Week. Some misty eyed folk would look back on it as character building.....bloody freezing is what I’d call it. It is beyond me how we got to this point, unless it is planned that way.
😢 depressingly wonderful again Irina. I'm convinced more than ever that when Govts touch anything they distort the market and make things worse. ALWAYS. I simply can not think of anything they have improved.
ZERO. ZILCH. (Hула?) Our (UK) energy policy pursued over the last 20yrs is finally coming home to roost and physics is going to hurt us. I have no confidence that those responsible from politicians, to media, to celebrities, to fund managers will be held to account. They will lay the blame on us. Your tales of what it's like living with rolling blackouts is a stark warning. That dark room I'm off the lie down in for a while is also going to be very cold. I'm beginning to think I have masochistic tendencies falling you👍
Thank you Irina! It is worth remembering and the advice to all interested is to avoid such disasters.
Love your descriptive and to the point writing style. Thank you for sharing your real life experiences. We in USA are largely spoiled beyond reason. Forbid our internet has an interruption nevertheless no electricity or no heat. As much as it would be very impactful especially to elderly and disabled persons, part of me wishes that we sample some of these hardships. Perhaps it can unite us in ways no politician or party ever can. And perhaps it will revitalize a spoiled generation that largely, not all, has never experienced adversity. Thank you as always ! Mauricio
I’m at the stage where I’m thinking we sadly need some blackouts and cold buckets of water for showers to have some hope of “our” politicians actually starting to live in the real world. And to take some real world decisions (that won’t win them votes). But some may say I’m too optimistic. Great article Irina!
Agree!
Informative as usual.
Thank you Irina.
Great article, and I have lived through some of those discomforts, and I fear that the soft younger generation is not prepared for what is approaching. -
Here in Germany at least *some* people in the news business haven't lost their guts or have also a memory which goes beyond of what a millenial can remember (or thinks that it's worth to be remembered).
The weekly "Der Spiegel" (woke and left-leaning and green like all the German mainstream press) ran lastly a story about economy and transition minister Herr Habeck, and compared the planned measures to Ceaucescu!
I found a short review on this english-speaking page:
https://oopstop.com/cold-apartments-rationed-electricity-spiegel-compares-habeck-with-ceausescu/
Have fun!
I feel like we are in a very bad episode of The Twilight Zone tv show.
Great perspective from personal history. I spent one winter in Kiev when the district heating for my apartment went out for a week. Let’s just say it sucked! I recall my wife who is Ukrainian, boiling water and doing the bathtub mixing magic so we could at least bathe. I recall the delight of the warm bath but the terror of knowing that I would have to get out into that freezing apartment. That was one week and I was hating life. Can’t imagine an entire season. The west is not ready. If we see this kind of deprivation expect more governments in Europe to potentially fall.
Now I feel a bit guilty. My home in the Pacific Northwest of the USA is heated by gas under long term contract from Canada and the Rocky Mountain States. Electricity comes mostly from a massive hydro system along with nuclear and a bit of everything else.
These power systems were built by my parent's generation mostly in the 1940's and 1950's. My mother was born on a farm in the State of Alabama and grew up during the world wide Great Depression. She was in school when electricity arrived. Baths involved heating water with coal you bought in sacks in a rural store. When her mom, born in the 19th century died in the 1960's she still had an outhouse. Summer visits to the farm in my childhood were trips into history.
Today people in my generation down to my grandchildren's generation live in inherited luxury and think you can manage the world with "policy". No need for engineers and physicists.
Ira, Well written as always.
Pakistan, except at the coast, experiences a range of temperatures from over 50C to below 0C, and colder in the north. No a/c for them, or refrigeration of food. Heating in winter--Hah!
The essence of your piece is not the struggles of ordinary people, but the ease of the elite.
The utterly stupid actions they take affect you, not them. The shortage is ONLY for THEE and ME!
History shows that the governments fall and the elite are, then, executed.
Sri Lanka is the most recent example. The elite never learn.
Finally, one can wonder what will happen to all those nuclear weapons in Pakistan?
Keep up the good work hopefully the politicians are reading your reports.
It seems like our Electricity problems are just the tip of the iceberg. As a boy growing up in the UK in the early seventies in a house without central heating, I do not wish the coming cold on anybody, nor the blackouts due to the 3 Day Week. Some misty eyed folk would look back on it as character building.....bloody freezing is what I’d call it. It is beyond me how we got to this point, unless it is planned that way.
😢 depressingly wonderful again Irina. I'm convinced more than ever that when Govts touch anything they distort the market and make things worse. ALWAYS. I simply can not think of anything they have improved.
ZERO. ZILCH. (Hула?) Our (UK) energy policy pursued over the last 20yrs is finally coming home to roost and physics is going to hurt us. I have no confidence that those responsible from politicians, to media, to celebrities, to fund managers will be held to account. They will lay the blame on us. Your tales of what it's like living with rolling blackouts is a stark warning. That dark room I'm off the lie down in for a while is also going to be very cold. I'm beginning to think I have masochistic tendencies falling you👍