DAVID BLACKMON
DAVID BLACKMON IS AN ENERGY WRITER AND CONSULTANT BASED IN TEXAS. HE SPENT 40 YEARS IN THE OIL AND GAS BUSINESS, WHERE HE SPECIALIZED IN PUBLIC POLICY AND COMMUNICATIONS.
In a May 15 speech to an EU-sponsored event appropriately titled “The Beyond Growth Conference,” European Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen said out loud what the climate alarm movement has been trying to keep under wraps for a decade: That economic de-growth enforced by authoritarian governments is a fundamental element of its agenda.
Von Der Leyen didn’t blurt it right out, of course: It was all couched in carefully written code words and phrases, but a close reading of her speech leaves no real room for doubt about the message. In her view — and apparently the view of the European Parliament — the time for economic de-growth has come.
“I today want to concentrate on one point, and that is a point that the report got right beyond any doubt: That is the clear message that a growth model centred on fossil fuels is simply obsolete,” Von Der Leyen told her rapt audience, before moving onto a reference to the Club of Rome, and its famous 1972 report titled “Limits to Growth.” That report has served as a basic handbook for the de-growth movement ever since.
“50 years ago,” she continues, “the Club of Rome could not completely envisage, for example, the potential of green hydrogen. It could not envisage that we might drive today’s electric cars. It might not be able to see the future we would have, for example with batteries from which we can recycle 95% of lithium, nickel and cobalt. It is not the daily procedure today, but we are able to do it. But already 50 years ago, the ‘Limits to Growth’ report acknowledged that while fossil-based growth was unbearable for the planet, humanity could devise a different growth model ‘that is sustainable far into the future.’“
Having laid that groundwork, Von Der Leyen then moved into a code-word filled admission that the movement is all about promoting an authoritarian form of socialism, repeatedly referring to what she dubs Europe’s “social market economy,” i.e., an economy that is centrally planned. So intent is she on embedding this terminology into the EU collective’s hive mind that she deploys it five times across roughly 150 words:
“Our compass in this endeavour are the long-standing values – the true values, if you get it right – of the European social market economy. Our social market economy was never exclusively about economic growth. It was always about human development. It never had the sole goal of market efficiency and liberalisation. To the contrary: The social market economy functions in the interest of the worker and the community. It opens opportunities, also to set very clear limits. It rewards performance but also guarantees protection for the big risks in life. Beyond growth, it focuses on public goods such as healthcare, education and skills, workers’ rights, personal security, civic engagement and governance – good governance. Our social market economy, if you get it right, encourages everyone to excel, but it also takes care of our fragility as human beings. The values of the social market economy have driven us since the beginning of this Commission’s mandate.”
But this gets better.
In almost her next breath, she goes onto frankly admit that her government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic was not about public health, but about what the World Economic Forum refers to as “The Great Reset,” an effort to transform economies based in free markets to controlled systems managed by authoritarian governments.
“First, when the pandemic hit us. Our Recovery Plan, NextGenerationEU, has focused not only on restarting our economic activities after the lockdowns but also on transforming our economic model. With a push to decarbonising industries, energy and transport. With an emphasis on digital skills and digital infrastructure. With new investments for schools and hospitals. Beyond growth, NextGenerationEU takes care of the next generation’s future.”
See? It isn’t just about an authoritarian group of government central planners managing every facet of your daily lives, it’s about their desire to “take care” of you.
Though couched in carefully-coded language, this speech is a pretty frank admission that what these western governments have put their populations through since 2020 has been about one thing: control, and forcing all of us to live smaller and less prosperous lives under the yoke of an authoritarian system of government. In 2020, the rationale for all of it was COVID-19; today, the rationale is climate change.
Before Monday, de-growth had been the quiet part of the energy transition movement. After Von Der Leyen’s speech, it seems about to become the centerpiece.
What an extraordinary speech it was.
David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
HT/KM
The wording depends on the audience. They get really agitated when outsiders try to help them out with de-growth as in Biden’s new form of protectionist, ‘inflation reduction’, nay stimulus insults.
Ursula’s fonda lyin’
There’s not much time left for throwing off the yoke of Brussels tyranny, Europe. Your nanny state is becoming your euthanasia nurse.
Just about every government is MAiD in the shade.
So sad but true
For those not getting all the puns:
Medical Aid in Dying = MAiD = euthanasia
Von der Leyen is pronounced fon dare lie en
Jane refers to Hanoi Jane Fonda, the traitor.
Actually it’s pronounced fon dare lay en
So is Jane
Von der Leyden reminds me of my reaction to the Green New Deal, citing Robert Heinlein in Friday —“a fascist socialism designed by retarded schoolboys”
““social market economy,” i.e., an economy that is centrally planned. “
The europeans mean it to be social & market economy . Both together
Its been well known phrase for many many decades now , nothing new .
The US also has been a social & market economy in a similar way. They are all rich countries so it works
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_market_economy
So the fact that the economies have not yet completely collapsed proves that socialism works.
The fact is that there is a negative correlation between socialism and growth. That is, the more government control, the slower the economy grows and the poorer the people are.
Socialism has failed every place it’s been tried, but the socialists aren’t willing to let go of their fatal attraction.
Yeah. That draw to collectivism includes political party patronage and support you know. All political parties are built on collectivist platforms. You can’t have it both ways. If you don’t being controlled don’t vote for parties or their candidates.
Real socialism has never been tried Mark, don’t you know nothin?
Every flaw is due to mistakes made allowing capitalism to creep in. Like a dollop of poo in your milkshake, any amount is too much. Kind of a LNT model.
LOL, yes, the capitalism bits and pieces are what keep socialism from complete collapse.
How did China become an economic powerhouse?! By adding a big ole dollop of that poo, of course!
Is the argument that China is not Socialist?
or that China is not an economic powerhouse?
or that becoming an economic powerhouse? is not a valid metric for success?
For all intents and purposes, China is Fascist.
When China was a pure socialist state, it was an economic basket case.
Under previous leadership, China allowed limited capitalist practices. As a result China began to grow.
Current leadership is reasserting party control over large portions of the economy. Unsurprisingly, the rate of growth has dropped.
Is China a power house, with a billion people, it does have a lot of weight to throw around, however on a per capita basis, China is still a 2nd, perhaps even a third world country.
China is an excellent example for the argument that socialism is a failed system.
India is another example. When they were socialist, they were dirt poor. As they moved away from socialism, their economy started growing. Fortunately for them, they have continued with their capitalistic experiment, and as a result their economic growth has continued.
The central planners are afflicted with “A Fatal Conceit”, described in depth by F.A. Hayek, in his book by that title ,in the last century.
They imagine that they can know enough about what everyone, at every step of the supply chains, needs and at what price it should be sold at.
Hayek’s “The Constitution of Liberty” should be a required course in High School. It’s a tough read but would cure anyone who finished it from Socialist ideology.
Not about what they “need” but for what they will damn well settle.
had to be a comment from you MarkW
That the european and US social -market economies havent collapsed YET.
Thats a rich one.
As someone pointed out the chinese version which has even more social than market features has been a huge success for them over the last 40 years. I suppose you think it hasnt collapsed YET either.
A big factor in the modern world has social-market-global economies It keeps getting reinvented
It really is amazing how socialists will latch onto any argument, no matter how disproven in order to bolster their desperate belief that one of these days socialism will start working.
Don’t look now, but European economies are collapsing. A few like Norway, that has massive amounts of oil to sell, are still managing to hold on.
As I pointed out to the other acolyte, China only started to advance economically by abandoning socialism. Their new leadership is reversing course, and the economy is showing the results of that mistake.
Fascism doesn’t get re-invented, it just invents new names to fool the willfully gullible.
“Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy.” – Mao Tse-Tung
Any one who has been watching this gigantic fraud playing out will come to the conclusion that climate change has been seized as a tool to socialize the world .
Actually the powers that are pulling the strings are communists or at least very strong communist leanings .
Just look at the World Economic Forum and tell me how many pushing their ideas believe in a free market economy ?
We only have to listen to any socialist government minister and they cannot make a speech without telling us that they will save us from climate change .
Here is some example from New Zealand ,Our now departed Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was being interviewed about a late spring frost that severely damaged a lot of Kiwi fruit orchards .
She blamed the frost on climate change!
We then were hit by two devastating tropical cyclones in January and February this year and not a peep from anyone in the news that the Tongan volcanic eruption had thrown 185 million tonnes of sea water into the atmosphere and that it had been predicted that at some stage tropical cyclones could have a severe impact on our country because of this water overload.
I have friends that did their OE traveling to Europe and the Communist block countries and they all tell me of the poverty and despair of the common people under communism.
Even China has loosened up and allowed some free enterprise .
I predict that if these people get their way most countries in the world will slide into poverty.
This is because in 1950 there where 2.5 billion inhabitants on this globe with fossil fuel just starting to ramp up after World War Two.
There are now 8 billion people and as soon as energy is disrupted or rationed many countries will plunge into poverty .
Just to finish China and India are taking little notice of how other countries , as they are ramping up their coal use and they will soon become he worlds power house for manufacturing as other countries in Europe and America knee cap them selves and go broke .
Indeed, the day the American Environmental Protection Agency asked for the power to regulate CO2 emissions, I knew that it was simply a way for the government to gain the authorization to regulate any and all activities any person or organization engages in. It allowed for the government to get their grubby fingers into every aspect of human life. It was for that reason and no other.
That is the ultimate goal but there are many other dirty little secrets to the Green Agenda.
This particular dirty little secret, was never that much of a secret.
Growth is good and how it happens is subjective but growth without guidelines can be bad. Lack of growth is sliding to poverty. Can’t talk around those points.
Who do you propose to set guidelines as to what growth is good and what growth is bad.
I’d rather let the market decide what is good and what is bad.
So, 1984 and Brave New World all wrapped into one. Okay. Good to know.
Brave New World is much less often referenced and much more accurately reflects the present Western world. Nobody took freedom by threat, people enabled it, posted it and tagged it. They’ve enjoyed the ride. Pneumatic?
Very interesting.
“Our social market economy was never exclusively about economic growth. It was always about human development. It never had the sole goal of market efficiency and liberalisation. To the contrary: The social market economy functions in the interest of the worker and the community.”
*************
I was always of the opinion that human and community development was best made possible with the growth of a free market economy. I am not disputing the need for systems that promote human and community well-being and development such as in the areas of health and education. I will suggest however that the money to fund them is best obtained with the wealth created in a free market economy.
I am not entirely sure if Ms. Von Der Leyen’s “social market economy” is just code talk for Marxism. If indeed it is, then she is suggesting that Europe abandon the very economic model that enabled Japan and Germany to rise from the rubble of WWII and become the #3 and #4 economies in the world today (respectfully) according to U.N. GDP rankings. To me, that makes zero sense.
I should note here that many (most?) of the EU members are also in the NATO alliance (save for the U.K. which is no longer in the EU). If Europe feels it is time to dispose of a fossil fueled free market economy and embrace some semblance of the failed ideology of the Soviet Union, they have forgotten what the NATO alliance’s creation and purpose was all about.
Which leaves us in the U.S. with the question (post Ukraine War) of our future in the NATO alliance. It will probably not be a comfortable question to ponder.
If a future quasi-Marxist EU is to be powered by wind turbines, solar panels, EV’s and hydrogen that fossil fuel infrastructures were not designed for, I will not place any bets on the success of the EU dreamland of which Ms. Von Der Leyen speaks. And if the climate alarmist narrative’s true purpose has finally been revealed by Ms. Von Der Leyen’s remarks, it becomes patently obvious why the scientific problems with the narrative don’t seem to be gaining any traction at the U.N. (especially at the IPCC) or with the governments of the developed world.
I think Mark W’s comment about Ms. Von Der Leyen’s remarks being unsurprising are worth thinking about.
He said:
“This particular dirty little secret, was never that much of a secret.”
My version:
Anyone that didn’t know probably didn’t care.
I do agree with your point that (it looks like) the first places to abandon hydrocarbon energy would lose whatever future conflict might happen. The EU chief should be smarter than I am, or at least know more than I know. I would guess she’s betting on the Western world winning not losing. In that case she’d have to believe that the path without hydrocarbons offers superior technology. I don’t see it, but the EU chief _should_ have better insight than anyone you read here. Its unpleasant but has to be considered,
So the argument is that these corrupt bastards were devious enough to get into a position of power therefore what they say is sincere and must be correct?
How about they’re lying from top to bottom and they don’t give a rat’s tail who dies or gets hurt just long as they get theirs?
You are assuming that politicians get ahead by being smart.
I can find no evidence to support such a belief.
So the continent that gave us Fascism, now pushes the “Great Reset” that is promoted by the World Economic Forum, supported by Communist China. This new form of dictatorship I call “CommuFascism” and when the western powers are crushed by this insanity Communist China will walk in to pick up the pieces. Perhaps that is why President Xi Jinping paid the Biden’s millions to undermine their own country.
Most of the elite in this country were fans of fascism, at least until Hitler declared war on us.
“On 11 December 1941 … Nazi Germany declared war against the United States,”
82 years ago. They’re dead now.
Their heirs are still around, and they still worship government power.
How can degrowrh finance pension funds?
The Canadians have developed the solution to the financing of pension funds. It is the final solution spelt MAID.
Yeah costs about $400 to get yourself offed I understand?
Here’s how–print money
Biden announces $36 billion bailout for union pension plan | Fox News
SImples, peons get to work till they drop.
Retirement is only for the elite.
Unconceived children replaced by robots.
Ursula’s address gets quite lyrical quoting André Gide and conjuring up visions of the far-off and blurred post-fossil shores of Eden but her facts are somewhat dubious, half-truths at best:
“for the first time in history, in 2022, we generated more electricity from sun and wind than from gas and oil. While the CO2 emissions globally rose by 1%, in the European Union during the year 2022 we managed to cut emissions by 2,5%”.
Gas and oil generated around 21% while wind and solar generated around 22% (Statista).
But Ursula has ignored the fact that nuclear gas coal and hydro together are by far the major sources of electricity generation and that electricity accounts for only part of total primary energy consumption where coal oil and gas dominate at 70% while wind and solar produce around 13% (later data hard to find).
Reduced emissions would be due to increasing energy poverty.
In a way, this (attached) describes Climate Science and all the fixes it demands….
Basically here (and there) – they’re suggesting that:
….that these things, trivia, irrelevance (apart from the bugs) and added complication are going to improve our Quality of Life
Have you ever.….. what planet are these people on to be making such claims, assumptions, presumptions, imaginings
How many people ## are recognising that the development of The Computer is seriously instrumental in the creation of the current train wreck
Bill Gates – you are headed for A Very Cold Place.
Yes it is cold there = just one more little thing they lied about
## Silly question: Ans.= one million per year, in the UK, switching off their internet
iow: Doing what the Plebeians of Ancient Rome did in the face of a Rampant and OutOfControl Bureaucracy, impossible taxation demands and legions of insatiable Cronies…
just picking themselves up and walking away
Windows? How quaint. I didn’t realise people still used that.
It is remarkable just how devoted the EU is to the decarbonization scheme. She praises green hydrogen utterly unaware that the physical properties and thermodynamics of the gas make it impractical if not impossible to use as an energy transfer medium. She cannot see that the alleged consequences of slowly increasing temperature such as increased fires and floods have not occurred as a normal person can easily see by observing the recent record of such events. Her “Social Market Economy” is nothing more than communism renamed, the very same communism that has been tried countless times before failing every time. Her critical thinking skills are gone. She is dangerous to the life and welfare of everyone alive and yet to be alive.
You get who you vote for…..oooh wait a minute, nobody voted for European Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen or any of the other 6 EU presidents….yes 6. It’s why the UK voted for Brexit, Our challenge now is to get some proper elected politicians into the UK government who are skilled in more that just taking EU directives.
“get … politicians … skilled in more that just taking … directives”
Just politicians? Those people are needed everywhere. Unfortunately they’re busy golfing and drinking.
“Our social market economy, if you get it right, encourages everyone to excel….”
That’s the problem- getting it right- besides, just who is the “you”? It’s burreacrats- just ordinary people with soft, overpaid jobs- what’s going to make them get it right, more than enterprises and individuals that invest their own money?
She forgets the old Soviet joke — “they pretend to pay us, so we pretend to work.” Under Socialism, no one advances except the apparachiks. Ergo, never any progress.
It’s important that there be a free market and relatively unfettered development somewhere, so that the central planner types can have a goal for the lifestyle of their subjects…cuz the dream of Marx, essentially high pay and days off for factory and farm workers, no longer buys enough votes for the party elites to live in the style to which they are accustomed.
Yes, shows the age of the source:
“high pay and days off for factory and farm workers”
Not many Westerners do those things today. Not many earthlings will do them tomorrow. 3D printer marketing slides do not allow for Marxism as Marx saw it because Marx was constrained by his time and place. Imagine – Mars colonized by private enterprise? By volunteers? For fun or tourism? None of that would sound plausible before 2020. It could be clickbait tomorrow and people would say “Mars, yeah whatever, did I get a Tinder hit?”
The question not being asked: what do you do with 10 billion humans who need a why while the robots do all their work?
As productivity goes up, prices go down.
Productivity enabled work weeks to go from 100+ hours a week down to 40 hours a week.
Why do you assume that continued productivity increases won’t do what previous increases did?
Those robots will enable people to have an even higher lifestyle while working even less.
You don’t have to get “capitalism” right in order for it to encourage everyone to excel.
Under capitalism, those who excel get paid more, either through a salary, or by more people buying your products.
survival of the fittest:
You learn to survive without winter heating or you freeze to death.
You learn to survive eating bugs and weeds or you die of malnutrition or starvation.
Get the picture now?
In Phoenix, that version of the fittest wakes up on a sidewalk and hold cardboard signs at highway exits.
… economic de-growth enforced by authoritarian governments is a fundamental element of its agenda.
Translation: Your job will go away long before you retire so start saving and figure out how you will move in with your kids. And don’t get sick.
Retirement worked great from 1965 to about 1995.
the Club of Rome could not completely envisage, for example, the potential of green hydrogen. It could not envisage that we might drive today’s electric cars. It might not be able to see the future we would have….
…so naturally more than half of you deplorables can’t even own an EV or hydrogen car if we’re to care for you and the planet-
Private vehicle usage must be halved to cut emissions, Climate Council says (msn.com)
Aside from their adherence to the ends justifying any means, what is truly astounding about these elitist snobs is how they are completely oblivious to how it leads to a Mad Max future. And that they will somehow still be able to keep their place on the top of the pile.
Yertle The Turtle comes to mind.
Here’s a basic question: What if the policy reach is the crisis?
Living in a Pathocracy
“The social market economy functions in the interest of the worker and the community.”
A bold faced lie. It functions for the self interest of UN-elected lords micromanaging to increase their power and protecting corporate monopolies through restraint of trade.
How Government and media colluded to preserve Big Pharma’s monopoly on treatment during COVID is a prime example of what they are instituting. Millions died needlessly due to the suppression of early effective treatments. Millions more will die from the side effects of the “vaccines”.
I would suggest Yirgach that we are dealing not so much with psychopaths here, but with some semblance of megalomaniacs. They fancy themselves God’s gift to planet Earth who are saving the planet from us all.
Oops, this comment was meant for Yirgach above. Replied to the wrong comment.
I’ve lost track of the number of socialists who have told me that government is nothing more than people acting collectively. Ergo, government is always the perfect expression of the will of the people and therefor must never be questioned.
government is always the perfect expression of the will of the people and therefor must never be questioned.
Of course, that only applies when government is doing what they want it to do.
Many of these same socialists assured me that the election of Trump proved that democracy was broken and it had to be fixed in a hurry.
The hopelessly naive are incapable of understanding that bureaucrats can be corrupted by power and self interest like all other humans. Centralized power can be more easily controlled by the powerful. People who desire control over others always gravitate to positions of power.
And that is why the elite have always pushed socialism.
There is a positive relationship between the size of government and the amount of economic stratification.
Socialism always benefits those who run government at the expense of the masses.
As i believe H.L. Mencken said. “I’d rather be ruled by a robber baron than a do-gooder. The robber baron may be eventually sated, he probably will not Strangle the golden goose. But, a do-gooder is never satisfied, his virtue drives him to force people to bend to his virtue always. “
The problem with robber barons, is that they never were robber barons.
They got rich by selling people products that the people wanted to buy.
CS Lewis I believe.
Well, as my dad use to say:”Just consider the source.” When you consider that the average IQ is around 100 and people seem to fit into two categories, i.e. left brained & right brained, you can’t necessarily expect Ursula Von Der Leyen to understand what she is talking about over half the time. Maybe only 1/4 of the time :<)
Well that about says it all now, doesn’t it?
Bravo.
“The EU Chief Just Let Slip … Von Der Leyen didn’t blurt it right out, of course: It was all couched in carefully written code words and phrases,”
We must have different definitions for the phrase “Let Slip”.
“… and forcing all of us to live smaller and less prosperous lives under the yoke of an authoritarian system of government.”
There’s a catch-22 in the theory. High tech is required to manage 8bn humans, and the same tech does not allow less prosperous lives. I could write a computer program that would read everything I’ve read, then read everything I’ve written, then match my response outputs to my reading inputs. It would take ages for me to make it just so. If I’m able to do that as a human using a rational process, then…
Thesis: Human civilization can’t go backward in prosperity without going backward in technology, and too many people know how technology works to stop computers and robots from making us more prosperous ,
(The philosophical flaw I see in Terminator and Matrix is that the machine wanted humans to be efficient and rational. I think a thinking machine would need something else from humans.)
The EU chief might have expressed a believed thought but it seems to be a self-extinguishing thought.
People don’t need managing, that’s a socialists way of looking at people.
“The Fascist State is not a night watchman, solicitous only of the personal safety of the citizens; not is it organized exclusively for the purpose of guarantying a certain degree of material prosperity and relatively peaceful conditions of life, a board of directors would do as much. Neither is it exclusively political, divorced from practical realities and holding itself aloof from the multifarious activities of the citizens and the nation. The State, as conceived and realized by Fascism, is a spiritual and ethical entity for securing the political, juridical, and economic organization of the nation….” – Benito Mussolini
Good story!
I usually ready these with my technical hat on, and enjoy the news and discussion.
But today this story made me question what Biden said about 6 months ago about ‘ the USA needs to lead in this WEF stuff’… so follow him (Biden) and we will be good.
I wonder, if we US citizens don’t comply and fight for the Constitutional Republic we are, will the US politicans/military AND the world politicans/militaries come after us?
Does anyone have any thoughts on that?
The Democrats have already started using the FBI to intimidate anyone who openly opposes them.