History may well judge Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine to be a great gift to Western civilization.  That is not to say that Russia's invasion of that sovereign country was not unwarranted and a crime against humanity.  Clearly, it has been both of those things.  But how is it that the West, and the rest of the world by extension, will benefit from Mr. Putin's heinous acts?  It is related to the law of unintended consequences, which I will simply define as the following: "for every act intended to produce a specific outcome, there is a set of one or more unintended consequences that result."  

Mr. Putin invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022.  On March 8, 2022, the U.S. placed an embargo on all Russian oil, gas, and coal imports into the U.S.  In June 2022, the E.U. imposed economic sanctions on Russia, which included a partial embargo on seaborne Russian oil sales to the E.U. effective December 2022, with a full embargo on seaborne petroleum products to the E.U. in February 2023.  Pipeline exports were exempted.  The economic sanctions imposed by the E.U. on Russian oil were intended to punish Mr. Putin for the invasion of Ukraine.  But they had a set of unintended consequences.

First, Mr. Putin responded by reducing and then eliminating the supply of natural gas to the E.U. through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which supplied the E.U. with 35%+ of its natural gas demand.  That act roiled E.U. financial markets and the price of energy, especially natural gas, which powers most of the E.U. countries' power grid.  It threatened the financial stability of the banks and other institutions that financed energy futures, a key component in the operation of the E.U. energy sector.  Electricity prices in virtually all the E.U. countries quickly doubled.  Manufacturers throughout the E.U. announced layoffs or the closing of their factories.  Governments in the E.U. quickly announced plans to subsidize retail consumer's cost of electric power in the coming year, bringing into question how the E.U. countries could pay for such subsidies.  It promised to be a cold, dark winter for many in the E.U.

Second, when its energy exports to the U.S. and E.U. were banned, it pressured Russia to turn to China to buy its oil and gas, further pushing the Russians into the Chinese sphere of influence.  Despite the comments by climate envoy John Kerry that "China has a plan" to reduce carbon emissions, China quickly agreed to buy the Russian fossil fuels.  The one and only thing that Mr. Kerry has been right about on the global warming issue is that China has a plan.  In 2021, China built three times the number of coal- fired electric power plants than the rest of the world combined.  Does anyone with walking-around sense think that China is going to stop burning coal?  Does anyone think that President Xi Jinping will pay Mr. Putin the world market price for Russian oil and gas?  Does anyone think that China will not sell or burn those fuels in the most cost-effective manner possible, further enhancing its economic advantage over the West?  Does anyone not understand that the Chinese atmosphere is connected to the E.U. and the rest of the world?

Third, when Russia cut off its gas supply to the E.U., it caused many E.U. leaders to realize that dependence on an adversary for energy supplies is unwise, to say the least.  Further, it caused the leaders of many countries in the E.U. to question the wisdom of abandoning coal in powering their electric grid, despite the pressure of their Green Parties and eco-terrorists to do so. In 2021, the EU production of hard coal was 57 million tons, 79% less than the 277 million tons of 1990.  The E.U. has 79 billion tons of proven coal reserves, which, if mined, could create jobs, improve the balance of trade, and provide a reliable source of domestic energy to power their electric grids for 285 years at the 1990 levels of consumption. 

Virtually all the E.U. nations have announced that they intend to re-start coal-fired electric power plants that have been idled in the last 30 years.  Unfortunately, the decision to pivot to coal as an energy source for powering electric plants will not be easy to execute for some countries in the E.U.

A coal-fired generating plant (public domain).

Coal will need to be purchased on the open market as domestic mining operations ramp up.  Germany closed its last coal mine in 2018.  Second, many E.U. countries like Germany have significantly reduced coal-fired power generation in the last 30 years.  It will take decades to rebuild coal fired electric plant capacity.  In the meantime, most E.U. countries will be dependent on oil and gas purchases on the world market, further placing their domestic economies at an economic disadvantage.  Finally, it should be expected that Green Parties and eco-terrorists throughout the E.U. will protest a move back to electricity produced from coal-fired power plants.  Such a move would indicate that the E.U., and probably the rest of the West, have discounted the urgency with which the proponents of the fraudulent global warming hypothesis have promoted their cause.

In my book titled Global Warming: The Great Deception — The Triumph of Dollars and Politics over Science and Why You Should Care, I cite published, peer-reviewed scientific research, employing the first principles of the relevant scientific fields of thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, atmospheric physics, and spectroscopy to prove that CO2 does not cause global warming.  I use publicly available data from the world's temperature databases to prove that there has been no significant global warming of the Earth's atmosphere, oceans, or land mass. 

Do the scientific facts matter at all?  Will people in the E.U., the U.S., and the rest of the world "get woke" when it comes to the fraudulent man-made global warming hypothesis and its consequences? 

 Guy K. Mitchell, Jr. is the author of a new book titled Global Warming: The Great Deception — The Triumph of Dollars and Politics over Science and Why You Should Care.  It was published on January 4, 2022.  www.globalwarmingdeception.com

Photo credit: Arbyreed.