On Saturday, the Daily Sceptic reported Matt Ridley’s contention that the well-organised campaign against fracking shale gas was part-funded by a Russia concerned about reducing Europe’s dependence on its gas exports. Daniel Hannan wrote in Sunday’s Telegraph that Russia poured £60 million into Western anti-fracking campaigns, “using gullible activists” to spread scare stories about contamination and earthquakes. “Utter tripe,” tweeted the investigative journalist David Rose, stating that there was simply no evidence for the claim, but noting that the activists had all the money they needed from “Sir Christopher Hohm and his buddies”.
Rose is correct in drawing attention to the huge sums of money that pour into the thousands of green activist organisations that have sprung up over the last 20 years. Sir Christopher Hohm is a billionaire hedge fund manager and has given Extinction Rebellion nearly £200,000. But unsurprisingly, none of the gifts, bequests and grants to the countless green operations are labelled, “A present from a grateful Russia.” Of course, any foreign power seeking influence could easily channel money undetected.
Russia’s hand is clearly detectable in the anti-fracking campaigns of the last decade, and by implication in the wider green movement. Unlike most conspiracy theories about Russia meddling in Western politics, Matt Ridley suggests, “this one is out there in plain sight”. He continued in an article written in 2019: “The head of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said the Russians, as part of a sophisticated disinformation operation, ‘engaged actively with so-called non-government organisations – environmental organisations working against shale gas – to maintain Europe’s dependence on imported Russian gas’.”
Ridley also reported that the Centre for European Studies found that the Russian Government had invested $95 million in NGOs campaigning against shale gas. In addition, the TV station Russia Today (RT) ran endless anti-fracking stories, including one that “frackers are the moral equivalent of paedophiles”.
In the United States, a House of Representatives 2018 Science Committee investigated Russia’s attempts to influence domestic energy policy by exploiting social media. It reported that both Republicans and Democrats agreed that the Kremlin was “manipulating environmental groups in an attempt to carry out their agenda”. The Kremlin will use “any and all tools” to preserve Russia’s dominant energy status. The committee found that documents supplied by social media groups “confirmed” that Russian agents were exploiting social media platforms in an effort to “disrupt domestic energy markets, suppress research and development of fossil fuels, and stymie efforts to expand the use of natural gas”.
The committee also quoted a private speech made in 2014 by the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, disclosed first in WikiLeaks. She talked about the struggle of dealing with Russian-backed environmental groups, noting:
We [the State Department and the U.S.] were up against Russia pushing oligarchs and others to buy media. We were even up against phoney environmental groups, and I’m a big environmentalist, but these were funded by the Russians to stand against any effort, ‘Oh that pipeline, that fracking, that whatever will be a problem, for you’, and a lot of the money supporting that message was coming from Russia.
Four recent years of Republican political control put the tin hat on any moves to disrupt fracking in the U.S., with the result that its plentiful natural gas is a quarter of the U.K. price. At the same time, Theresa May pushed the increasingly implausible Net Zero policy into law, while Boris Johnson had a Damascene conversion at the altar of Sir Patrick Vallance and turned into the Government’s Green Activist-in-Chief.
Far from seeking secure and reliable energy security, the U.K. Oil and Gas regulator recently ordered two fracking wells in Lancashire to be sealed with concrete. A two-year moratorium on fracking remains in place in the U.K. The move followed years of campaigning by green activist groups, citing non-existent pollution and earth shakes similar to the effect of someone sitting on a chair. The Government’s own Climate Change Committee says there must be a “presumption against exploration” of oil and gas. Tim Eggar, the Chairman of the Oil and Gas Authority, claims the debate about climate change is over, and warns that the oil and gas industry’s “social licence to operate is under serious threat”.
Few green groups in the last three years have been more extreme and high profile than Extinction Rebellion (XR), an organisation that has collected millions of pounds in donations to fund its disruptive and provocative public protests. As David Rose notes, it has succeeded in raising large sums from wealthy donors. But before its first lengthy blockade of London’s bridges and roads in April 2019, its co-founder Roger Hallam was known mostly to viewers of RT. In a lengthy ‘why-are-you-so-very-wonderful’ interview, Hallam suggested that street blockages were the “pathway to the revolution”. His view was that the optimum point for such protest was two or three steps above “decent civil disobedience”. In his view, disruption and property damage is “good stuff”. Hallam has also said that “sacrifice is losing liberty and ultimately dying for the cause and that brings more people out into the street”.
XR sprang into life in the U.K. in late 2018, but it is interesting to note that similar operations suddenly appeared in many other countries. An early investigative article on the group in the Finnish limastotiede blog casts an interesting light on these early formations. “Similar campaigns seem to have appeared almost simultaneously in other countries too. Is it only imitation, or is there some international coordination in play?” it asked.
It is possible that XR had a part to play in the wave of school strikes that brought Greta Thunberg to international prominence. In an early Facebook post, Thunberg admitted that she had been contacted around the middle of 2018 by Bo Thoren “whose group wanted to do something about the climate crisis”. It was Thoren, later a leading member of XR Sweden, who suggested a school strike to the impressionable Thunberg. When the school strikes briefly hit the U.K., Roger Hallam said they were “cool”, while the Government Energy Secretary at the time, Claire Perry, said that if she was younger she would have joined them herself.
XR is engaged in a constant and ongoing campaign to irritate and inconvenience law-abiding members of the public, but it is usually careful to claim that it is non-violent. Occasionally, the “peace and love” shtick slips a bit. Last November, the Canadian activist David Suzuki, who runs a green foundation that receives millions of dollars a year from wealthy donors, warned about the risk of XR’s activism morphing into eco-terrorism if Western governments didn’t do more to advance the green agenda. In a subsequent media interview, he said: “We are in deep, deep doo-doo. This is what we’re coming to. The next stage after this, there are going to be pipelines blown up if our leaders don’t pay attention to what’s going on.”
Suzuki later explained that his remarks were “spoken out of extreme frustration”, but Zain Haq, XR Canada’s National Action and Strategy Coordinator added: “Not only will pipelines be blown up, but we can be certain that world leaders will be put on trial for treason or worse – be killed.”
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic‘s Environment Editor.
Stop Press: In an earlier version of this piece, Sir Christopher Hohm was described as “Sir Christopher Holm”. This has now been corrected. Thanks to Ben Pile for pointing out that mistake. Ben also thinks the evidence that the Russians helped to fund anti-fracking movements and protests is very flimsy. For more on this, see here.
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Something about the normalisation of these AI-generated images makes me nervous. We don’t need them as headline banners on Daily Sceptic. Let’s focus on the real, please.
Putin killed Navalny eventually then. Very sad to hear this.
P.S I like the picture above. Better than policemen in rainbow unitards. It’s eerie, atmospheric and has scary movie vibes about it.
”Russian Opposition leader Alexei Navalny has DIED in prison.
The 47 year old, who was reportedly subjected to torture whilst being imprisoned, 40 miles north of the Arctic Circle, was arguably Putin’s biggest critic.
In a video appearance last month he appeared gaunt and frail, with his head shaved.
The Russian prison where he died has claimed he “felt unwell after a walk and almost immediately lost consciousness”.
Several media outlets have been speculating that his death could well be an ‘assassination’ and a move by Putin to silence his main opposition once and for all.
In 2020, Nalavny fell into a coma with suspected novichok poisoning- carried out by Russias FSB.
His death comes as Putin is running his re-election campaign in a month to remain President.”
https://twitter.com/OliLondonTV/status/1758478532823461932
This is terrible news for the Russian people. Tall, blond, courageous, Ethnic Russian Nalavny, with his wonderful sense of humour and his tall, blond Russian wife and family, represented everything that Tiny Tatar Putin hates.
The whole Russian-Ukrainian Fake War was set up by Tiny Tatar Putin & his secret ally Tiny Zionist Zelensky with one objective: to kill off as many Ethnic Russians and Ethnic Ukrainian men as possible. Putin could easily have crushed Ukraine at once, but that was never the purpose of the little genocidal ruse cooked up between the two leaders, whose aim is to drag it out as long as possible, and kill as many Ethnic European men as possible. Now Tiny Tatar Putin is conscripting even 70-year-old Russians to be sent to their deaths, so the state doesn’t have to pay their pensions.
As others have said, Nalavny should have directed opposition from abroad, instead of going back to Russia and certain imprisonment by the Fiend Putin, who reportedly enjoyed watching videos of Nalavny being beaten, starved and tortured in prison. I hope Brazilian Patriot Jair Bolsonaro, the true President of Brazil, will not suffer a similar fate, after Evil Communist Lula’s previous attempts to assassinate him.
“Tiny Tatar”
I certainly agree regarding Bolsonaro.
I wonder where Daily Sceptic found 15 people to tick in defence of almost certain murder of the principal opposition leader.
Anybody who thinks the Nalvany affair is about a simple principled opposition leader doesn’t belong on DS. Nothing is that simple when you see daily to what lengths the West is willing to go to weaken Putin and Russia.
WHAT?????
Anyone who disagrees with you “doesn’t belong on DS”?????
Ever heard of FREEDOM OF SPEECH and the
FREE SPEECH UNION? Who the blazes do you think you are?
I would say that with an attitude like yours it’s you who doesn’t belong on DS. Normal, rational people have the ability to tolerate others with a different viewpoint without inferring they should sling their hook. Apparently that description doesn’t apply to you!
I am sorry you took my comment personally, it was meant figuratively. DS is normally a site where people are skeptical of the official narrative. That is all. I welcome all comments and opinions and do not wish to bar anybody.
Are MP’s living standards affected or will they continue to award themselves pay increases and use expenses to try and maintain their lifestyle, changing legislation if needs be to be benefit themselves?
Then there’s helping out their friends to make sure they also do well and perhaps provide some work if being an MP doesn’t work out.
I can’t imagine Rishi Sunak is too concerned about living standards except as a negative headline.
Standard of living is directly tied to price and availability of energy. NET ZERO puts up the price and makes energy less available. ——Net Zero is therefore the opposite of prosperity and it lowers standard of living. —–It has been obvious for a very long time that our own politicians pander to the Marxist ideology of the UN and WEF. who freely admit that the lifestyles of the affluent middle classes in western society are “unsustainable”. —-They will never tell you that their plan is to remove prosperity because let’s face it, who is ever going to vote for that, so they give you weasel words instead, like “fairness, climate justice, living wage for all (even those who choose not to work), gender and racial equality, and every other Marxist goal all packed as “Sustainable Development”
Yes but I definitely think that a white man masquerading as a woman whilst trying to look official talking about how climate change is racist will likely change your mind;
https://twitter.com/OliLondonTV/status/1758487108073685344
Whilst buying my last two houses I always sort the advice a trans admiral to avoid the old poverty/climate trap! Who doesn’t?
Makes me think of Aristotle’s claim that democracy would be a futile way of government because the multitude would sooner or later always fall for a demagogue.
And wasn’t it Plato who said true democracy only works in a small, ethnically homogenous society?
Exactly.
Unfortunately Noah Carl appears to still believe in our electoral system when the reality is that it is a complete sham. Fishy was moved in to place in order to bring about precisely the collapse in living standards that are discussed in this article. It does not require the brightest brains to explain that massive hikes in fuel prices are going to impoverish the country. This means of course that even foppish Fishy knows what he is doing and therefore the conclusion must be that he is acting deliberately. In fact he is simply carrying out orders. So when Noah warns that matters will get worse under Labour he is absolutely correct but for the wrong reasons because Kneel has all but admitted he is a WEF stooge.
The Davos Deviants are wholly committed to the destruction of this country and they have people in place to ensure this happens – Fishy and Chunt, Kneel guided by Bliar and Davey who is so away with the faeries he can be safely left alone as a vaguely supporting actor and anyway he is so far away from power that hell really will freeze over before he gets sight of any keys to Downing St.
The degree of naivety displayed by some DS writers is at times awe inspiring.
Yep you got it in one. ——-I like the DS because we can all say what we are thinking pretty much unlike eg on Mailonline and other places, but I am mystified how you received 3 red thumbs down ——–I don’t expect everyone to agree with me but I get a lot of people doing a red thumbs down but they never seem to say why they disagree. They just do the thumbs down and vanish. —-What are they so scared of? ——-Hey you guys c’mon no one is going to bite your head off …Speak Freely.
varmint, I reckon I have about three regular trolls who always down vote. I couldn’t care less.
Yep. —–Often on the comments I make on climate there will be thumbs up and maybe one thumbs down. ——-I have no problem with any amount of thumbs down, but those people should say why they do the thumbs down. Or is it that they have no confidence in their argument?
It’s deliberate, they blew coal fired power stations and replaced with windmills. Who thought that would improve living standards?
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GGdprwXXMAAkYDm?format=jpg&name=small
In a very short few decades we went from Thatcher being crucified for wanting to shut down mines to the entire political class wanting to do so and being praised from the rooftops for it.
Noah Carl’s article on the lowering of British living standards reminds me that this lowering has been going on since 1952, according to two eye-opening articles.
“From a historical point of view the idea that ‘diversity built Britain’, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, is bizarre. Until 1952 Britain was the richest country in Europe, after which we massively fell behind our continental rivals – so if diversity did ‘build’ the country, it didn’t do a great job.”
—from “The Windrush Myth” by Ed West
The Windrush myth | The Spectator
“1952 was the start of Elizabeth II’s reign. The Windrush Illegal Human Trafficking Operation was in 1948. The Commonwealth was created in 1949. From the original 8 members, it now has 56, mostly Third World countries receiving foreign aid from UK taxpayers.” [Bizarrely, former French African colonies Gabon & Togo were allowed to join the Commonwealth in 2022, and more Francophone African countries are expected to join later, all then demanding cash from UK Taxpayers]
—See “Elizabeth II’s Devotion to the Commonwealth” by Robert Hardman here:
Elizabeth II’s devotion to the Commonwealth | The Spectator
I think he’s placing that seriously too late. Until the first world war, Britain was the foremost money lender on the planet and everybody else was indebted to it, especially the mostly rural backwater country called USA. Then came Lloyd George’s mad rush to destroy Germany and Austria-Hungary (and Russia and Turkey in the process) at any cost which turned the USA, where plenty of workers were available as the country wasn’t actively participating in the war before 1917/18, into a huge ammunitions factory to enable Britain and France to buy the absolutely insane numbers of artillery shells spent during the futile mass slaughter & destruction happenings on the western front. And this, they did with money borrowed from American bankers, leading to a reverse of the original situation.
“British Living Standards Are Going Down”
Britain is going down! fast
It is not the Conservatives who should blame themselves. It is the British people who should blame the political class.
So who do I vote for?
My political leaning is slightly right of centre, and I am a firm believer of personal freedom and self determination.
The Conservative Party has been appalling, and Labour will likely be worse (if that is possible).
Unless there is some unison of disgruntled voters like me, Labour will be in power.
Is it possible to unite for change?
After the last 14 years, and particularly the last 4, you’d think the Not-a-Conservative-Party had deliberately set out to self-destruct.
Labour will take up the baton and run with it. ——–If there were an Impoverishment Olympics the UK would be well featured on the winners podium