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I have long believed that a silver lining to the very ominous cloud of global overheating is that, hopefully, the nations of the world would unite to turn things around and, in doing so, lay the basis for grassroots and governmental global cooperation on many other urgent issues leading to the kind of system change needed. To some extent this has begun to happen through the annual United Nations climate conferences and the adoption of agreements that are too weak, but are of some value, to jointly take action to shift away from fossil fuels.
This world political process has been one factor in the growth worldwide of wind and solar energy. However, because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the disastrous war since, these political and economic processes are definitely in jeopardy. One huge example is the vote taken by the European Parliament a week ago labeling methane gas and nuclear as “renewable energy” because Russian oil and gas is now verboten. European countries are now turning to the US and other countries to urge them to ramp up their oil and gas production and export it to Europe to replace what they’ve been getting for years from Russia.
Putin’s invasion and attempted military overthrow of the elected Ukrainian government is the primary reason for this war, but the rhetoric and pronouncements of Biden and others in his administration has not been helpful to ending it — just the opposite. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin saying, several months ago, that this war would go on for years was particularly…
