Expert forecaster sees Putin’s moves with energy as a power play in anticipation of global cooling 20-30 years out.
By Jeff Poor
Business & Media Institute
1/6/2009 8:23:25 PM
It’s not often that meteorology intersects with geopolitics – but Europe could be in store for another Cold War, literally.
Accuweather.com’s chief long-range and hurricane forecaster Joe Bastardi observed that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s recent cut of gas flows to Europe via Ukraine may have been done so in anticipation of a global cooling cycle on the Jan. 6 “Glenn Beck Show” radio program. Bastardi has a solid reputation among Wall Street traders for understanding weather’s impact on energy commodities.
“The thing I want to bring up here – very interesting – most of the solar cycle studies that we know about and that guys like me read have come out of the Russian scientists,” Bastardi said. “But when Glasnost developed, the Russian scientists, a lot of their ideas on the coming cool period that a lot of us believe is going to occur – ice, rather than fire is the big problem down the road here 2030, 2040, and the reversing cyclical cycles of the ocean – it came out of the East.”
According to Bastardi – Putin is relying on the data from the Russian scientists and wants to bring some European nations to their knees by exploiting their reliance on natural gas when the weather is at its coldest.
“Now my theory – something that I put out and it’s something that’s not something that people want to hear is that Putin knows what is going to happen – or he believes the same way I do about the overall climate pattern. So, if you control the pipeline into Europe, you literally can control Europe without firing a shot – if you control the energy.”
Bastardi cited former President Ronald Reagan’s 1982 Cold War-era staunch resistance to a then-$10 billion pipeline that was proposed to deliver natural gas 3,500 miles from Siberia to the heart of Western Europe, as a July 12, 1982 Time magazine article pointed out. Reagan’s stance was criticized by Western Europe Cold War allies and was said to be “riding roughshod over Western Europe’s economies,” by Time.
Bastardi also noted Russia’s invasion of Georgia in August 2008 was evidence of Putin’s willingness to use energy as a strategic tactic, since the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, located in Georgia, transports about a million barrels of oil a day from the Caspian Sea through Georgia to ports in Turkey – and then throughout Europe.
“That is why Reagan was so dead set against the Europeans looking east for their energy,” Bastardi said. “And now we’re seeing it. I believe the invasion of Georgia was nothing more than saying, ‘Hey I can take that pipeline whenever I want’ and he shut the gas off to the Ukraine when it got brutally cold.”
In a follow-up interview with the Business & Media Institute, Bastardi explained that a lot of Putin’s personality traits are at play here – that he is using intelligence, going back to his days as at the KGB.
“The weather’s most certainly involved in this,” Bastardi said. “If look at what those Russian scientists, where a lot of these studies on it getting cold come from – you can see that, what makes you think that Putin doesn’t have some knowledge of that? Here’s the head of the KGB – and forever what you want to say, I’m sure he’s privy to the same kind of information the head of the CIA is privy to here about studies and what people are thinking on a scientific nature.”
And according to Bastardi, Putin’s use of the flow of energy into Europe is just one of the weapons in his arsenal of tactics that he, as the head of Russia, has perfected using – comparing him to a wrestler with a perfected move.
“He’s definitely a type-A alpha male and we can both agree on that,” Bastardi said. “I mean look at him and he is more likely to use weapons – and I use weapons in terms of for instance a wrestler – a single-leg take down is a weapon. If you perfect it, you can use it the entire match. He’s more likely in the art of war to use what he knows how to use, even if it’s only two or three things than try to go use something he doesn’t know how to use or try to create something – that’s a waste of time to use it.”
It’s not a personality fault Bastardi contended on Beck’s program – but just what he considers proper for his country.
“And so, there are a couple of things that line up here that indicate the guy is trying act on behalf of his country and what he believes his country should be,” Bastardi said. “And I believe that he wants to use nature, rather than change nature and that may be what’s going on over here.”
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
If one were to go a bit out on a speculative limb and surmise that the old Soviet machine is still at work through its western surrogates, what better way to regain world power than to get the West to spend untold trillions on ineffective power alternatives such as wind and solar, instead of investing now in the needed nuclear, coal, oil shale, new oil and gas drilling and hydroelectric facilities. Wind turbines are especially useless in very cold weather as icing of the blades can be a hazard. Maybe too paranoid?
It would also be in Russia’s interest to advance the “global warming” and anti-nuclear agendas in Europe as it would cause politicians that fall for it to shift energy generation from coal and nuclear (as has been done in Germany) to “cleaner” gas.
France seems to be the only European country following their own interests and continuing to develop nuclear power. Germany would be well-served to get their nuclear program back up and running, too. Same with the UK.
If temperatures continue to fall, keep an eye on Russian activity with regards to Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan would be Russia’s next natural power grab if weather starts to turn really bad for a long period in Russia.
I would think any country that has a budget shortfall and in need of infrastructure investment would look at its exports as an additional money source. There are also countries run by palace living folks that want to stay in their palaces even though their families are getting bigger all the time, that see their exports as a money source. I don’t see Putin getting rich, but his country could sure use the money. If you are set up to export gas, then the gas goes to the highest bidder. I don’t see camel riders getting rich but their kings and princes could sure use the money. I see middle East kings and extended family princes (because the women keep having sons and then those sons have sons, etc) needing more and more money to fund their lavish life style while their fellow countrymen and women tent dwellers burn camel dung to keep warm.
The world is not full of fairness and justice. It’s full of countries, and kings and princes needing money!
“Maybe too paranoid?”
I don’t think so. It is the kind of game Russia excels at playing historically. We sort of did the same to them some years back. We deployed cruise missiles in Europe forcing the old Soviet union to spend billions in “look down” radars. We developed enhanced radiation warheads that could take out mass formations of armored vehicles without laying waste to the countryside for decades. The Russians played a propaganda angle that we developed warheads that could nuke cities killing the population but leave the industry intact when killing civilians is not a military objective. Russia was successful in their agitation through protest groups in Europe to keep us from deploying those weapons until they invaded Afghanistan. When we developed stealth technology we forced them into another research project costing billions and that was apparently the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Russia would absolutely love for Western governments to take the “global warming” fantasy hook, line, and sinker. It would ensure they have greater leverage. It would not surprise me a bit to find Russian money or money from Russian influenced people and organizations flowing into the coffers of “global warming” and other “environmental” groups. When the “reds” lost power, many of them simply donned a “green” shirt and kept on doing what they have always done.
Groups like “Greenpeace” no longer have any basis in science in any of their positions and are simply doing whatever they can to hamstring economic growth and energy development through the run up if legal fees through endless litigation, and “community activism” that misinforms and misleads the average people into making decisions that pile inefficiency upon inefficiency in getting anything done.
Not paranoid. It is pretty much business as usual for Russia in a historical context.
He he.
Gerhard Schröder as Prime Minister fought hard to build the new Russian gas pipeline to Germany (i.e., increasing dependency on Russia), gave it a €1 billion guarantee and then five weeks later took the job of Chairman of the Board of … the pipeline.
Any German consumers shut out of gas this winter may wish to consider why their nuclear power plants are being shut down at the same time that pipelines to Russia are being added.
Pamela Gray (21:50:38) :
You have assumed that the kings value their economic interests more than their strategic interests, a common mistake in the west where capitalism has made life easier and made the amassing of money the primary interest. For when war comes, money becomes secondary to security.
“…it is not gold, as is claimed by common opinion, that constitutes the sinews of war, but good soldiers; for gold does not find good soldiers, but good soldiers are quite capable of finding gold.” – Machiavelli
Crosspatch,
I seriously doubt Putin and his intelligence agencies need to fund and run a vast international network of fellow travellers like the old Cold War or pre-war Commintern days.
Seems like for the last forty years the western, industrialised liberal democracies have happily picked up the bill to educate and employ in key roles significant numbers of socialists and marxists utterly devoted to the overthrow of the same political/economic systems that have nurtured them.
In the Anglo-sphere, the universities, media, public-sector unions and most particularly the educational unions and bureaucracies are bastions of foment against the current order.
Putin probably can hardly believe his luck that huge amounts of donations from the Useful Idiots and their governments flow into the coffers of so many organisations which, in Europe for instance, are working to open a strategic advantage he will doubtless grab for Russia if he can.
See this one from the guys over at Climate Resistance
http://www.climate-resistance.org/2008/05/well-funded-world-wide-fund-for-fear.html
If anything, Putin is probably trying to figure out how to get the Green Mega NGOs to tip some cash his way.
Still, Russian autocrats have never shown a great tolerance for outspoken intelligensia.
The day Russia has Europe by the natural gas pipeline throat lock, they’ll probably be working out a second rail lift of Useful Idiots to the new Gulag after the initial resistance is picked up and carted off.
And when Al Gore and Hansen et al, migrating to the USSR, sorry my bad,
R
Sorry, hit too early,
so saying Russia, and asking for asylum. Then the AGW hypnosis is end.
Mick.
It’s not paranoid… Not after Russia’s interference in Ukraine’s affairs, not after Georgia…. Putin wants Russia to be a great power…. He wants to be known for making that happen.
It’s not paranoid to understand, that the hand with the most energy cards wins, in any climate… warm or cold….
During the final years of the Cold War, the CIA slipped software bugs to Russia as they built their gas pipeline from the Urengoi gas field. The result was a very, very large explosion.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4394002
Vladimir Putin has already previously stated that he needs the oil price at $ 80.00 a bbl to sustain Russia’s economic prosperity.
Ukraine has some history of double dealing with the gas flow through the pipelines transiting their country.
Those countries relying on this pipeline were always going to need to tread a cautious line. Note that the most immediately vulnerable are old iron curtain states – e.g Czech Republic etc.
Putin is playing his game of supply and demand. He will win it in the short term. He needs the $$$$.
Meanwhile, IMHO, coming ice age conspirators are in the same bag as AGW alarmists.
The USSR historically financed western dissent. Just playing tit for tat.
As the old saying goes, even paranoids have enemies.
This link [click] is an interview with a former senior KGB [now FSB] agent who defected to the West, Yuri Bezmenov.
When the Korean War ended, the KGB realized that America and the West could never be defeated militarily, and that Communism could not be imposed by military force. But as Stalin said, “Two steps forward, one step back.”
Being the ultimate realists, the KGB changed tack, and instituted a plan to use the West’s freedom of information against it, beginning in colleges and universities, and ultimately moving on to newspapers and the broadcast media. The results are plain to see.
Today, anyone mentioning the word ‘conspiracy’ is derided. But keep in mind that Vladimir Putin was a top KGB/FSB officer. Russia has massive influence on the world stage.
At every turn, the West is now being hobbled by demands to remove dams and hydro electricity, to stop drilling for oil, to stop using nuclear power, to greatly reduce military spending, to corrupt NASA with useful fools in positions of power, to replace extremely cost-effective petroleum with silly wind power schemes, to tax driving and commerce, to end space exploration, to make the UN the arbiter of world government, to end the free flow of information through the internet, to promote the belief that CO2 is causing catastrophic climate change, to promote the argument that taxpayers in industrialized countries must pay exorbitant penalties for “carbon” use, while giving a free pass to all others, to demonizing oil, coal, natural gas, and hydroelectric power, etc., etc.
When the facts fit the hypothesis, the hypothesis is worth discussing. If Mr. Bezmenov [and others] had not defected and informed us of what was being implemented, the facts above would still cause rational people to wonder how the current situation came about. People don’t want to live in mud huts, and our current standard of living is due entirely to our advanced technology and our utilization of petroleum products. The motivation of those who demand that we must stop using what made us successful, safe, and prosperous must be questioned.
As the Romans said, “Cui bono?”
Here’s a title consistent with this subject:
Unrestricted Warfare: China’s Master Plan to Destroy America
by Qiao Liang (Author), Wang Xiangsui (Author)
Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Unrestricted-Warfare-Chinas-Destroy-America/dp/0971680728/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231313534&sr=8-3
First release was 1999 in China.
If you can’t defeat your enemy with tanks, then alternate methods must be used. Think cyberwarfare, financial markets, energy…
The authors, Chinese Colonels, discuss these and more.
This makes absolute sense, more from the economic view than than otherwise in the short term. Russia needs vast amounts of money to sustain and develop its economy. If anything, I think Russia has learned that it is very difficult to maintain control over a large number of vassal states over any real length of time. I doubt that Russia would want to destroy European economies, merely take them for as much as possible while the going is good.
For what it’s worth I wholeheartedly agree that the evidence suggests we are heading into a prolonged colder period.
I also hope to live long enough to see Hansen, Gore and others of that ilk discredited by the truth, before they – and I – are dead.
Just as we’re not going to be turned into toast by next Tuesday – –
Neither are we going to be turned into a frosty by next Friday.
Interesting – when pipelines that go through Ukraine (which BTW refuses/has no money to pay long-due bills to Russia) stop delivering gas to rest of Europe, it’s automatically Putin who’s behind it – geopolitically morivated, of course.
It’s the official “peer-reviewed” (by MSM) conspiracy theory, I guess – and Ukraine – a wannabe-nato & EU-puppet – couldn’t have anything to do with it – let alone EU, which OTOH is a wannabe Empire – and which has been admitted too, BTW:
“Barroso: EU is Empire”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2Ralocq9uE
Now, Finland gets its gas – though we don’t use it very much – through a separate/direct line and there has been no problems there – but I guess, soon there will be – for Putin must be “evil” and the EU’s just a bunch of scoutboys and girls…
Well, here are two articles on Ukraine worth reading:
“IMF Sponsored “Democracy” in The Ukraine”
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO411D.html
“Financial Fraud: Corruption scandal over Ukraine’s emission money”
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11451
Also – The article states that “Russia invaded Georgia” – and as if Russia started the whole show there. But even Sakashvili himself has admitted in public that it was Georgia that started it – see:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11211
Also “Sakashvili eats his tie” (on BBC) – and though a bit OT – looks to me Sakashvili could be a bit nut and a manchurian-candidate type of a personality as well:
It’s also known that the US as well as Israel trained Georgians months prior to the war and have been selling a lot of weaponry there too:
“Israel’s Military on Display in Georgia”
http://www.forward.com/articles/14193/
And on “Russia doing what it always has” – well, Russian helped the Americans to fight the British during the American Revolution, but I know – even the Americans themselves don’t seem to remember that – and the British aren’t too exited to remind Americans on such boring little details either, now are they?
Secondly – it was a bunch of bankers and industrialists from the West – Wall Street, London and Berlin – that funded the Russian Revolution. Pretty much the same oligarchy also funded Hitler’s as well as Mussolini’s rise to power – for guess what – without money you can’t have revolutions nor dictators + it’s “good” business, too:
http://www.antonysutton.com/
And on “Russia trying to promote global warming, so that it could sell more gas to Europe” – now, where the hell did that come from? Russia is investing a lot into nuclear power – and they try to sell plants where ever there is interest for it.
The end of global warming may herald a new age of Russian prosperity.
Putin is sitting on a double whammy here in a new game of Russian Roulette with two bullets in the chamber.
First he will make a killing on the carbon credit market with brokers that will make the Lehman Brothers look like the office Christmas fund.
Then he will hike up the price of gas whilst Europe is freezing and bleeding from paying out coal miners their un-employment benefits whilst irate bird watchers and frustrated councils are tearing down windmills along the coast of Scotland.
Good one Vladimir, I am sure that you are hoping you will be sitting next to Barack in Copenhagen this year and it is a warm week.
The UK has unwisely used up it’s natural gas reserves. The pipeline from Norway is now delivering, but the lower prices promised to consumers never materialised. Just the opposite. Despite being told for years that gas prices were rising because the price of gas was “linked to the price of oil”, prices have risen again recently depite the oil price dropping through the floor.
Personally, I’ve decided to reduce my dependence on natural gas by getting out and about with my chainsaw more often. I’va also acquired a generator which runs on bottled propane for use in the event of the electricity grid running into problems. Obviously, bottled propane will rise in price, so I have a stock in my outbuilding.
Strategically, we are in deep do-do. We’ve sold our nuclear energy business to the french, who will hopefully get around to building some new nuclear power stations sometime in the next decade… Our politicians have their heads up the hole when it comes to energy policy. We should be building small scale generators which burn waste to supply local areas and provide resilience to the grid. Ten years ago I visited a prototype rig which was generating a megawatt from 40 car tyres an hour. It used a pyrolysis technique which kept it’s emmissions within E.U. guidelines for small scale plant. Even then, it was running into problems with ever tightening co2 emmission regs though, and the project has been shelved since 2005. The same company is running a 27 megawatt plant which seasonally burns barley straw in scotland.
We missed a huge opportunity for better relations with Russia when Mikhail Gorbachev instituted Perestroika and Glasnost. Instead of crowing over the collapse of soviet Russia, the west should have been helping them restructure and nurturing strong partnerships. Instead, we got Ronnie Reagan twirling his six-guns, and his moll, Maggie Thatcher riding around in a Cheiftain tank for the cameras.
Kevin and Smokey, both good points.
What we need are combined cycle nuclear plants. These would basically be two conventional power plants and one fast neutron plant along with a fuel re-processing facility all at the same location. Scientific American published an article titled Smarter Use of Nuclear Waste back in December of 2005 that describes how we can reprocess spent fuel rather than bury it, eliminate the need to enrich uranium, and reduce the danger of proliferation of weapons grade material by using isotopes that are useful for fuel but not useful for weaponry.
Using modern plants such as the Westinghouse AP series that greatly reduce the complexity and parts count and have passive safety features that do not require a human to operate in case of an accident. These reactors would burn conventional fuel which would then be reprocessed using the reprocessing facility and the on-site fast neutron reactor and then returned to the conventional plant for further use. What waste there is created decays much faster to background levels of radiation in hundreds of years rather than thousands making storage safeguards much easier.
We have the technology. Carter decided not to recycle fuel. Reagan decided to build a test combined-cycle plant but Clinton killed it. Japan, India, France and Russia recycle fuel. India has this past year decided to build several fast-neutron reactors. Doing all of this on-site greatly reduces the amount of nuclear fuel that needs to move around the country in trucks and trains.
We have the technology right now to power this country for centuries in a much safer and cleaner fashion with less waste. We do not need to pour billions into development of something that might or might not produce cost effective production.
As I watch the goings on in the press and in the coffee shops I am constantly reminded that 50% of the population is below the median intelligence level and it only takes 50% + 1 to win an election.
“As the Romans said, “Cui bono?””
Indeed – “follow the money”, they say and, naturally, the Russian have a lot of it, right?
Wrong – besides, a lot of the richest Russians are living in the UK nowdays – with their fellow oligarchs – or in Switzerland. Though after the looting in the 1990’s, it’s no wonder they wish to do so – and for the time being – meanwhile they’re trying to get ridd of Putin et el – so that they could continue at the looting again one day.
And please note – I’m not saying Putin is an angel – I’m just trying to remind you that you should be a bit more critical to the MSM of the west as well – for they and the news they produce are owned by someone as well – and usually for a reason.
For example – here’s who owns the media in the US:
http://www.thenation.com/special/bigten.html
Another interesting website on media onwership:
http://www.londonfreelance.org/rates/owners/index.html
Oh, well – so much information – so little time…
I was just trying to think like a European for a sec.
I mean, suppose this guy is right, and next winter is colder than this one. So you’re Hanz Franz sitting in his Berlin brownstone, and all of a sudden the heat goes off. It stays off for days. Do you still care about the plight of the polar bears, or does all that non-Russian coal you’re country is sitting on start to look good.
Do you still look up from your morning paper after reading about those plucky Greenpeacers vandalizing coal smokestacks in the UK, and think “Ja iz gut”, or do you hope maybe somebody blows them off of there with a bazooka.
This fantasy works for New York too. No Russians necessary. Methinks interesting times are coming.
We deployed cruise missiles in Europe forcing the old Soviet union to spend billions in “look down” radars.
Urg. Must resist. (I cut my teeth on the delicate and subtle art of nuclear strategy. I wrote the introduction for the new edition of Kahn’s On Thermonuclear War) I will confine myself to saying there was more to it than that.
During 1989-1991, I was lucky enough to see the unraveling of the Soviet empire first hand as grad student in Poland. This was a great time to be a historian, since the state archives were summarily opened without restrictions. Trust me, even the Hoover Institution or the Eisenhower Library had more restrictions than Polish state archives did c. 1989-1991.
What I am saying here is that I have seen evidence with my own eyes of Russian machinations which would make no sense at all to a Westerner but perfect sense to them. I am intellectually ready to entertain the notion that it is possible that a Russian leader might enter into almost any conceivable clandestine scheme.
However, in this case, Occam’s razor suggests that Putin’s current plans have nothing whatsoever to do with climate change. The Russians have a perceived interest in blocking Ukraine’s entry into NATO. They also want to make more money from their product. From their perspective, demonstrating that they can cut off natural gas to Europe in the dead of winter helps them to accomplish both of those goals. It’s cold outside right now. That fact alone explains the timing.
UK and nuclear:
Apparently a German energy company has been acquiring land next to the nuclear power station at Wylfa, Anglesey, hence there may be a second generation of nuclear coming along in the UK.
Gordon Brown is starting to get tougher on our gas suppliers, we’ll see how that plays out. Prices have, however, dropped in terms of petrol at the pump.
There’s nothing wrong with different countries exploring different energy generation mechanisms.
UK: hydro is obvious – lots of mountains and rain. Wave is obvious if we know how to harness it. Solar is stupid – not enough sun and not hot enough.
Key to me is technology to store energy reliably to smooth out generation hiccups.
But at the end of the day, we have to understand that US, Russia, Saudi and everyone else will stop at nothing to further their interests. Dead humans? Tough. Starving people? Tough.
Don’t imply a humanity in politicians when the evidence is that they will murder, starve and destroy with impunity………..