For a month now, Ukraine has defied the odds and prevented Russia from taking over the country. An invasion that was supposed to be quick and severe has transformed into much less of a sure thing for Vladimir Putin.
The Ukrainian people have shown remarkable resolve, so imagine how upset they’ll be when they find out that their president, Volodymyr Zelenksyy, has stumbled upon one weird trick that can end the fighting in the blink of an eye.
What has Zelenskyy discovered? “Green energy,” of course.
No, seriously.
Zelensky's proposal to stop war: Green energy.
I wish I was kidding.🔻 pic.twitter.com/zFYYveS0Zn
— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) March 30, 2022
“Long before this war, it was clear that humanity should reduce the use of fossil fuels,” Zelenskyy said. “The era of coal and oil has caused huge damage to the environment, to our planet as a whole. Green technologies and green energy have become a logical and just answer to this challenge.”
So far, so good in terms of spouting the boilerplate leftist “green” talking points, right? He went on.
“European policy is already aimed at reducing the consumption of environmentally hazardous resources,” explained Zelenskyy. “But Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and against everything that life in Europe is built on is an argument to accelerate green transformation on the continent.”
It’s so simple, isn’t it?
“Europe must give up Russian oil, give up as soon as possible!” Zelenskyy asserted. “Because it is the crazy income from energy resources that allows the Russian leadership to be bold, violate generally accepted rules, promote hatred against other nations, against us, and destroy the lives of neighboring countries.”
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“This superficially may seem like a valid point,” Kyle Becker wrote in a Twitter thread. “Europe should get off Russian oil and gas. That is, until you realize Europe has been ‘greening’ their economies for two decades now with absurdly ineffective results.”
“Nuclear energy? Fine. Energy diversification? Fine,” Becker continued. “But ‘green energy’? This message has the globalist usual suspects’ fingerprints all over it. Zelensky is acting like the Justin Trudeau of Eastern Europe. It’s not helping his image.”
He’s right. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that Zelenskyy’s words came from the mouth of a Democrat party operative.
Sure, it’s great to think that we could bring Russia to its knees by ending Europe’s dependence on Russian oil. But Europe and the rest of the world can’t just flip a switch and rely on “green energy” in an instant.
America’s left falls for the same kind of silly oversimplification of “green energy.” Whether it’s Pete Buttigieg suggesting that the solution to high gas prices is for everyone to go out and buy an expensive electric vehicle or Bloomberg’s Teresa Ghilarducci suggesting that Americans sell their cars (in what she admits is a bad car market) and rely on public transportation, our leftist elites are so out of touch with the realities of everyday life.
While Zelenskyy isn’t as flippant as Buttigieg or Ghilarducci, he’s as much like Don Quixote as they are, tilting at windmills (and solar panels) to promote a “green energy” future that’s further away than any of them would ever dream of admitting.
It would be nice for the United States and Europe to make a move toward renewable energy sources — one day. That well may happen in the future, but until then, we need to face the reality that we need fossil fuels.
However, Russians don’t have to be the ones to provide those fossil fuels. Zelenskyy has a point there.
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