A Place to Stand

  Germany has decided it is going to close down all its nuclear plants by 2022 and Scotland's SNP are saying that proves they also should do so (though the logic of German infalibility is not given). This is from a recent article by a German Social Democrat MP disagreeing with the German government's appointed political advisors who believe the conflict between democracy/freedom and fascism/Luddism in Germany should be won by the latter.

The SNP claim that the majority in Scotland oppose nuclear though the most recent poll showed us 2:1 on favour, but then the SNP are also still claiming nuclear is more expensive than wind so I do noy think anybody need be concerned that there is a liklihood anything they say be treated as truthful.


Germany's green government advisors admit frankly that decarbonization can only be achieved by the limitation of democracy - both nationally and internationally.


When it comes to environmental and climate policy, Germany’s Scientific Advisory Council on Global Environmental Change (WBGU) is an influential advisory committee for the German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The chairman of the council is Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research....

"The reorganization of the world economy has to happen quickly; nuclear energy and coal have to be given up at the same time and very soon..... comparable with the Neolithic Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. These were, however, unplanned, natural historical processes. The "Great Transformation" however, must be consciously planned and controlled. It would be a historical novelty.

All nations would have to relinquish their national interests and find a new form of collective responsibility for the sake of the climate: "The world citizenry agree to innovation policy that is tied to the normative postulate of sustainability and in return surrender spontaneous and persistence desires. Guarantor of this virtual agreement is a formative state [...]."

This strong state provides, therefore, for the "social problematization" of unsustainable lifestyles. It overcomes "stakeholders" and "veto players" who "impede the transition to a sustainable society." ...."In order to anchor future interests institutionally, the Council recommends expanding the parliamentary legislative process with a deliberative ”future chamber”. To avoid interference by interest group and political parties,...
Internationally, the WBGU calls for a "World Security Council" for sustainability. The members of the proposed "future chamber" for Germany would explicitly not be chosen democratically and would limit the powers of Parliament....
The WBGU compares the decarbonization of the global economy to the Neolithic and the Industrial Revolution. It is wrong to claim that such a deliberately planned and radical transformation of economic and social systems is without precedent.
At least partial models of such transformations are the industrialization of the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s, or the "Great Leap Forward” and the “Cultural Revolution” in Mao's China. (note that the author, a German SPD MP has forgotten an attempted German transformation of society after 1933)...
If Germany wants to do without nuclear energy, then the expansion of renewable energy will have be accompanied by both coal and natural gas in the long term. Otherwise, decarbonization will mean nothing else but de-industrialization. Sometimes one gets the impression that this is exactly what many political actors intend to achieve.
Article's author Fritz Vahrenholt is a member of the Social Democratic Party