The German elections are less than 2 weeks away and the only real question is what Angela Merkel’s win will look like. Whatever the result she will not find it necessary to pay too much attention to the Greens. The German Green party peaked in support a few weeks after the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima nuclear plant accident. They reached the height of 28% support for a few days in April 2011 and entertained hopes of becoming Germany’s 3rd party. But the euro zone financial crises have ccontinued since then. The German Energiewende is turning out to be an expensive catastrophe. More coal is being burnt today than before. Heavily subsidised solar and wind energy are destabilising the grid and not pulling their weight. German electricity prices are driving industries – and jobs – out of the country. Profligate Green policies adopted under Green pressure are being seen to be the reason. They are a problem rather than a solution to any existing problem.The Greens are currently polling at about 10% support. A long drop from the heady days of 2011.
As Der Spiegel puts it:
German consumers already pay the highest electricity prices in Europe. But because the government is failing to get the costs of its new energy policy under control, rising prices are already on the horizon. Electricity is becoming a luxury good in Germany …
…. The political world is wedged between the green-energy lobby, masquerading as saviors of the world, and the established electric utilities, with their dire warnings of chaotic supply problems and job losses.
Even well-informed citizens can no longer keep track of all the additional costs being imposed on them. According to government sources, the surcharge to finance the power grids will increase by 0.2 to 0.4 cents per kilowatt hour next year. On top of that, consumers pay a host of taxes, surcharges and fees that would make any consumer’s head spin.
It is beginning to sink in with the German electorate that “feel good” politics of the Greens which achieves little and costs the earth is not sustainable. The electorate is beginning to resent being told what to do, how to live, what to eat and how to drive. To attack meat-eating and the driving of cars as the Greens have done seems particularly inept.
Reuters:
Greens dream of power fading as German election nears
….. Like other Germans once attracted to the world’s most successful pro-environment party, Suska is now turned off by the Greens — and his defection helps explain a sudden drop in support before Germany’s September 22 election.
“The Greens have this ‘ecological dictatorship’ feeling about them now,” says Suska, 45. “I used to always vote Greens. But not anymore. No one likes to be told what to do. It feels like the Greens are going to make everything more expensive.”
Support for the Greens, which traces its roots to the peace movement of the 1970s, hit a high of 23 percent in 2011 after the Fukushima disaster in Japan boosted the appeal of its anti-nuclear message. Within weeks of the tragedy, the Greens stunned Chancellor Angela Merkel by winning control of the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, long a conservative stronghold.
As recently as July, the party was polling a robust 15 percent, well above its 2009 result of 10.7 percent.
But over the past two months, the Greens have seen their support crumble to 10 percent, a four-year low. The collapse, in the most crucial phase of the campaign, appears to have doomed what faint hopes the party had of returning to power with the Social Democrats (SPD), with whom it ruled from 1998 to 2005.
… Much of the party’s fall in popularity can be traced to a series of self-inflicted wounds.
One big problem is the lin… gering suspicion the Greens want to tell people what to do: drive more slowly, take the bus, turn off lights, turn down the heat, ban large livestock farming.
Their light-hearted idea for a “Veggie Day”, where Germans would skip meat once a week, has been mocked in the media and by other parties. The rival Free Democrats (FDP) went so far as to organize a barbecue to annoy the Greens.
Proposals to cut city speed limits and put an upper limit on motorways have also alienated some supporters.
“Germans don’t have a sense of humor when it comes to cars and meat,” said Yvonne Seiler, a secretary and Greens backer.
Gero Neugebauer, a political scientist at Berlin’s Free University, said: “The Greens scare away a lot of voters and their ideas just don’t excite people anymore. People don’t understand their message.”
Der Spiegel again:
…. with the vote two-and-a-half weeks away, the picture is not nearly as rosy. A poll released Thursday found that just 10 percent of Germans intend to vote for the Greens on Sept. 22. It is the lowest survey result for the once popular party since way back in 2009.
…… One of the party’s central proposals in the current campaign, for example, has been that of raising taxes on high earners and introducing a 1.5 percent tax on assets of over €1 million as a way of increasing social justice. To be sure, many of the party’s core voters support such a proposal, despite being in the upper tax brackets themselves. But it seems poorly designed should the Greens be interested in getting their new supporters to actually cast a ballot for the party on Sept. 22. Other proposals have likewise fared poorly.
Specifically, the Greens have proposed the introduction of one vegetarian day each week in workplace cafeterias across the country. “A veggie day would be a great opportunity to see how we can nourish ourselves without meat and sausage,” senior Green politician Renate Künast told the tabloid Bild on Monday.
Richard Feynman is one of my heroes.
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