Submitted by MrGuttFeeling t3_118j8pk in UpliftingNews
Nothing like war to make serious changes to a nation's infrastructure. Though typically it's because they're rebuilding...
I mean Star trek didn't happen without a borderline society ending global war so I guess par for the course here?
Also took a freaking pandemic to have employers implement smart working, I wonder what will be the next catastrophe that pushes forward a big improvement for humanity?
My money is on water scarcity.
They will finally get on desalination at large scale maybe ?
This might be something that can be done with excess renewable generation capacity.
I’ve always been surprised it isn’t a priority
Or government's finally putting a stop to Nestle
Let's not get crazy right now
Nothing like an alien invasion to cause us to stop warring with each other and unite against a bigger threat.
Just kidding, that's an impossibility. Humans will be greedy and fight over resources til the end of time.
I suspect most Countries would happily offer up other peoples land and resources in exchange for security / trade.
Soil erosion or maybe some kind of super volcano.
Water scarcity is horrible, but it is a slow creeping issue that won't hurt the people in power until the end. I'm thinking something a bit more sudden, meteor or volcano perhaps.
We had a big tsunami some time ago, not sure if it improved the situation in those regions today. We also just had a big earthquake in Türkiye
Oh they rarely do bring about positive change, but they do have a chance to get work done in time.
I don’t know the answer to your question, but on the subject of smart working, why can’t cashiers have chairs? Seems unnecessary to have them always standing by a cash register.
That’s only a US thing. In every other country the unions demanded that on day one. It’s actually hard to fathom why this still exists in the US to be honest, it can’t affect profits surely?
Hell, it’s the law in the uk that if a job can be done sitting down then your employer needs to make reasonable efforts to have a chair available for you if you want or require one.
thanks for pointing that out, I thought I was misremembering cashiers sitting down
They have them at Aldi but that's about it.
I think it's just a bad mindset by employers. An "If you have time to lean you have time to clean" sort of thing.
Anyone in a low-skilled job is expected to suffer. It's a horrible mind-set.
Unfortunately many are working on bringing workers back in the office full time even if they're don't need to be for their role. Amazon is an example of one planning on going back soon, many smaller or lesser known companies I'm sure are doing the same.
It's unfortunate
Global warming, or rather, when there is never winter, and sea levels have gone up 50 meters, and The Netherlands is fully flooded.
Only way for them to realize "oh wait... It was real??? Why did no one tell me!!!"
Dont worry they are trying already hard to remove this progression by forcing ppl bacl to offices.
What took Trump 4 years to seriously weaken NATO, Putin has reinvigorated in 2 weeks!
Getting Europeans off their addiction to cheap Russian gas took Putin less than a year? Putin’s a genuine miracle worker!
It's a very Human thing
War has an odd habit of accelerating change and technology. It took a war to get us from flying as seeing as something inconvenient to intercontinental flight (World War 1). It took another war to get flying from 'convenience ' to 'get us to the moon' (World War 2). It took a war to show us the power of the atom, and harness it for nuclear energy (Again WW2). Hell, the Cold War gave us the internet (and therefore Reddit). A war to change how we view our common man (WW1 ended a lot of monarchies and was a great equalizer in many ways).
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Thanks Putin! 😂😂😂😂😂😂
Why do we keep using the term czar? Des the EU actually use the term czar?
Yeah that's kinda like saying the EU "fuhrer of human rights" or something
It’s just a very old shorthand term in American politics for an official who coordinates policy on a certain issue. This can be seen in how the word is the archaic spelling of tsar instead of the new one.
I find it highly sarcastic and in a way insulting.
I think it's purposefully intended to have an autocratic ring to it. Wikipedia:
> Advantages cited for the creation of czar type posts include the ability to go outside of formal channels and find creative solutions for ad hoc problems, and an ability to involve a lot of government players in big issue decision-making, ultimately enabling a huge bureaucracy to begin moving in a new direction.
Maybe something like "Special Climate Overseer" would have the same effect with less historical baggage? Idk. I think in the end what's important is that people listen to them so they can fix things that the existing bureaucracy won't.
Why would you find it sarcastic?
German?
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Because it's an English word that means exactly what this guy is - someone govt appointed who has responsibility for a certain policy area. (In addition to the other meaning of Russian nobility)
It's a news headline, so brevity is key. As opposed to saying "Frans Timmermans, Executive Vice President of the European Commission for the European Green Deal and European Commissioner for Climate Action", you can say EU climate czar.
Responsibility but not absolute authority. Climate..
secretary
minister
envoy
delegate
consul
ambassador
plenipotentiary
lieutenant
..would be more appropriate.
From the Oxford dictionary:
Czar : an official whose job is to advise the government on policy in a particular area
It's a perfectly acceptable use of the word, and is very common. It has nothing to do with whether they have absolute authority or not.
Most of those words means specific things in modern politics though, which is significantly more confusing. Commissioner would work since it's actually correct, but shorter headlines are better generally.
But printed media sources would have really enjoyed having the word "czar" more, as this makes for nicer headlines. Easier for typesetting, can do bigger print with the same space on the paper since you have fewer letters, etc. So this seems like a holdover from the days of printed papers.
Well if they were more appropriate, czar would not be the common word for such a position. And for the reasons you take issue with czar, that it has other meanings, also rules out all the words you suggested, moreso given the meanings of those words tend to be rigid; whereas czar is a word that exists because of flexible which we can understand through its etymological history.
It’s origin lies in the word “Caeser,” paying homage to the ancient Roman conquerer
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Also 'Kaiser'
Not what I asked, but alright
Using the word “Czar” essentially gives that person a very important title that has ancient origins. It’s basically tradition
Edit: Okay folks, I get it. I made a mistake in connecting the term with modern-day titles. Put down your pitchforks already :/
The word was not traditionally used in this way at all. For monarchs, sure. For government positions involving expertise in one particular area? That's a very modern thing.
We calls our mogul or baron
The USA has czars as well. Usually if it’s the ruler of Russia it’ll be spelled Tzar and if it’s a government appointment to oversee a specific thing then it’s spelled czar. Typically
America uses this term all the time you probably just don’t realize it because it’s slang in The Hill
For irony.
Eu citizen Along up : no one ever use the term anymore for obvious reasons so I don't know why they thought it Was 1) relevant 2) a good idea.
Unless because it's Russia related they decided to use another Russian word to stay on the thematic. Which would be quite pitiful imo..
It’s AP news, an American paper. Czar refers to an official who coordinates policy on an issue for the government.
Russians have Tsars, just as Germans have Kaisers, just as many European languages have a word derived from Caesar.
Czar is a word used in English. Who are you to tell English speaking people that their word is wrong just because it sounds like another word when you probably have such a word in your language as well that you use to refer to something beyond Russian emperors?
My recollection is they brought it back under Obama but maybe that’s just when I started paying attention
Reagan created the first drug czar in the 80s not Obama. You've been watching too much fox news my friend
I candidly said that was when I started paying attention to politics. Reagan was abit before my time.
Im in my 30s and I first became aware of the term under obama. I thought it was cuz people were trying to make him out to be communist or something
I do find it wonderfully ironic that the things Putin/ Russia feared, such as the loss of the fossil fuel market, the irrelevancy of Russia on the international stage and the 'advance' of NATO, all came to pass FASTER because he foolishly invaded Ukraine.
Now he's got a re-militarising NATO (which now has even more member states), those same nations abandoning Fossil Fuels as fast as they can practically do so and Russia is pretty much a pariah state at this point... AND a staggering loss of war materiel, international prestige and, most tragic of all, something like a few tens of thousands dead Russians.
As thin as it is when it comes to this war, there is some silver linings here. I just hope that, once Ukraine has repulsed Russia, they can join NATO, the EU and get help rebuilding their nation.
Not just any dead Russians.
It's their young healthy men, in a nation that's already undergoing a demographic shortage of them. Plus many have fled the country. It'll impact them for decades to come.
An analyst on youtube pointed out a lot of data on how screwed Russia is now. Many people who have skills and resources have left Russia.
This leaves the country with the people who could not leave. There has been a brain-drain of skilled workers and engineers.
Many of the high-tech weapons in the Russian military were made in Ukraine, back when it was a part of Russia. After the missile-cruiser "Moskva" was sunk, how will Russia build a new one?
They had one aircraft carrier and its non-functional. Why didn't Russia have air superiority over Ukraine at any time? They absolutely cannot afford to lose one more functional jet, or one more experienced pilot.
Shoulder-launched missiles and drones have decimated the Russ tanks, and draftees have been surrendering or defecting.
Many high ranking officers have been killed, and the officer Corp is unable to promote enough experienced officers to fill command gap.
Civilian contractors have been deeply corrupt for the last decade, especially after the annexation of Crimea and Georgia were so easy.
Russia has been exposed as a paper bear, and every month they continue, they get weaker.
The damage of the ruble means an entire population has seen their meager savings flushed down the toilet. If Russia even had enough money to buy more weapons, the factories have lost their best workers.
Who will run the machines? Illiterate farm boys?
And that's yet another thing Russia has lost: Their future. You've laid out perfectly how they've royally fucked themselves and I'd like to add another factor to the problem. The Russians who were tricked into fighting were the demographic that was meant to provide the next generation. There'll be a MASSIVE gap in their demographics to the point it could tank their already failing system. It's tragic that so many people are going to suffer because of one mans egocentric and maniac need to rebuild the USSR before he's either killed, dies or is removed from power.
As I said in my comment, there's silver linings in this war but this metaphorical dark cloud is tragically massive.
Over a hundred thousands dead Russians*
There's that many casualties, but not that many dead. A lot of those are injuries as well. The deaths are somewhere around 60k depending on source, which is still tragic and staggering.
Ukraine's numbers might be high (145 k dead russians) but I don't think they are that far off. The battlefield is filled with dead russians and they are being sent in wave after wave wothout protection and proper equipment.
Remember when Russian bots were convinced most of Europe would freeze to death in the winter without them? Looks like Europe is doing pretty well for themselves, and I say good for them!
That was Putin's rationale too - he expected that Europe won't deny itself access to Russia's gas, and also renewable energy was growing anyway, so that leverage would disappear eventually
I can see that. Sort of a "now or never" thing for Russia.
For Putin, not Russia, Russia is in the worst condition since probably Civil War after World War I
And somehow, it will still get worse.
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>Looks like Europe is doing pretty well for themselves, and I say good for them!
Europe is not doing well, the massive spike in energy prices severely damaged European competitiveness. Many companies that were going to move back to Europe from China in 2022, halted their plans solely because of the huge energy price advantage that was created. Many factories in Europe racked up debt or were forced to shut entirely.
Yea, people didn't freeze and starve to death, but the competitiveness! Won't anyone think of the corporations!
Which is gonna bankrupt Russia down the road. Hang on to your hats people things are about to get very very weird.
I thought all the imposed sanctions would ruin Russia but... It's still kicking? What gives? What's going on inside the country? Is life more unaffordable or what was the result of them?
Sanctions take time to bite. A lot of their infrastructure and industry uses western technology. They can no longet get that technology like spare parts, the people to operate on it etc (I think their oil drilling and pumling is based on western designs) When things break (and they will break, everything eventually does) they can't fix/replace it without overhauling the entire system, which will either force them to take IOU's to China, or just go without. The average consumer in Russia has also lost a lot of opportunity and products on the shelf. Russia also no longer trades, their currency looks great on the outside but the second they reopen to trade, that would drop quicker than concrete in the ocean.
Interesting. Thank you!
It's a slow burn. Sanctions are only part of the equation. Politics in Russia, collapsing population, a run away kleptocracy, really it boils down to Putin trying to roll back the clock to the "Good old days" of the USSR. Their country's future died when that bastard took power because he's the worst combinations of a despot and a criminal enterprise.
Really the Petrochemical business is the only thing keeping them remotely solvent and Europe just opted out. They can sell it else where, but their market is going to be vastly reduced and the people who are left like India and China are taking advantage of the situation to force them to sell to them at prices more favorable to them and not Putin.
But what's really killing them is population collapse. Anyone who isn't dirt poor in Russia is leaving for pretty much anywhere else, particularly their skilled trades and educated work force. This is actually one of the reasons Putin is desperate to annex neighboring states. Russia needs bodies and they know it.
The people they *did* have who might have replaced the cohort that's aging out atm have either fled, or got chewed up in Putin's insistence on using Zap Brannigan's big book of war as his play book. It's a meat grinder that's killing their future.
Eventually Putin is basically going to turn the country into North Korea, or try to because they can't lose anymore bodies. They will put an insane amount of effort into policing their borders so nobody gets out or leaves. And that's not going to help either, men are dropping dead at 40 from alcoholism.
They are on the fast track to becoming a failed state and straight up TEOTWAWKI. There may not *be* a Russia by the middle of the 21st, and that's generous.
there is great comedy in the image of anyone attempting to police a border that long. even if they were a functioning country with quadruple the wealth they still wouldn't come close.
It’s less Funny when you think about them Implementing Chinese spy tech to do it. Full On thought police, seeing that cancer spread out from China would not be a good sign.
The collapse of Russia will be very dangerous. Lots of internal beefs to be settled. I expect Yugoslavia but on a larger scale.
Yeah the Balkans are my read as well, massive fracturing into a bunch of bandit kingdoms and their local warlord Oligarchs. Humanitarian crisises, etc.
And then there's China, who I can see trying to take advantage of the situation. I get the feeling the "Roaring WTFs" decade hasn't hit its stride yet.
This was his plan all along!
That and expanding NATO. Genius!
Sadly for the planet though Europe dramatically increased imports of American LNG to replace the Russian gas, and American LNG is one of the dirtiest sources of gas available. It has far higher emissions on extraction (uses fracking) than the Russian gas. So it will take a huge renewable energy push to make this a net gain for the planet. Let's hope it really does lead to a vastly accelerated roll out of renewable energy.
Personal and very localized perspective, but the war has caused a massive spike in interest in renewables. We started planning for a heat pump and PV modules on our roof right before the war and all companies involved told us they were getting swamped in the months following the invasion.
Wait til you find how many coal plants Germany has fired up since the war began.
Yes I somehow suspect these optimistic stories that the war has been good for renewables is deliberately designed to disguise the truth that the war has completely derailed the entire climate change efforts. No one is even talking about emission reduction targets now, just how quickly we can ramp up fossil fuel alternatives to Russian gas. Huge win for the fossil fuel industry as the majority of the European public is quiet on the issue.
The Germans are typically very smart people.
But the decision to close down nukes in favor of fucking coal plants was one of the dumbest decisions a country has ever made (visible to the world stage) and its economic and environmental cost continues to this very day.
In the long term, it’s the right decision. Nuclear was the right option to get off coal/LNG/oil 20-30 years ago. But now the right option is renewables. They are cheaper than nuclear and can come online far faster. Ironically, the oil and gas industry is pushing for nuclear over renewables because it will buy them more time to extract profits.
Sorry but we'll just have to disagree here.
And no, the oil and gas industry is not pushing for nuclear. They have astroturfed/bankrolled the largest anti nuclear "environmental" groups for decades in an attempt to kill off nuclear (like the dipshits in Germany) and force the necessity of more fossil fuel base load plants (again, like the dipshits in Germany).
The bottom line is there is no form of energy on earth with the combination of desirable traits (clean/virtual zero emissions, energy capacity and energy density, capacity factor, and safety) that can compare to nuclear. Literally only solar is safer, and not by much per TWh.
If there is going to be a realistic net zero future, you're going to need nuclear base load plants supplemented by renewables and their overcapacity as replacement for peaker plants. Renewables as a total replacement for base load via overcapacity and batteries is totally infeasible, given the space requirements one would need for overcapacity is so great that energy storage is no longer an issue.
It's also worth noting that radioactive waste, all of which produced to this point couldn't even fill a single football field at two casks high, is able to be processed and reused, with 96% reclamation rate, with the half life being reduced from 10k years to a few hundred. This tech has existed since the late 80s, along with melt-down-proof reactors, but was cancelled due to ignorance and politics. Luckily, the climate crisis is causing people to dig it up and develop new tech inspired by it, like the new liquid sodium SMRs that are being proposed.
This is absolutely right. The fossil fuel industry has done an amazing job at holding back the development of nuclear. In countries like Australia, which have some of the largest per Capita carbon emissions, and who coincidentally have the world's third largest coal reserves, have a moratorium on nuclear energy. It's never been properly explained why. And now fossil fuel is back with a vengeance - all because of the Ukraine war. After decades of being on the back foot, it's now being embraced again. And no one in Europe is talking about emission targets. Oil and gas company profits are at an all time high. Security and war is the only thing that matters. If I was a powerful fossil fuel executive I would probably think it's a good investment to align myself with the military industrial complex to push for a prolonged war in Ukraine.
It's interesting, if you look at the Western oil companies that were operating in Russia (Chevron, BP, Exxon, Equinor etc) and profiting from the corrupt Russian State, you might think they financially suffered due to the war and sanctions. The exact opposite. Profits have never been higher because they took out their main competition.
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Also coal plants have been used extensively and they pollute more than gas.
Yeah and some of the other gas we imported came from China...who got it from...Russia.
Or importing oil and gas from India....who got it from ...Russia.
Getting Europe dependent on LNG was part of the plan. One reason the US blew up Nord Stream, to accelerate the process. Europe didn't turn into a green energy paradise, their energy prices soared because they don't have clean energy to keep up with demand.
Sod off Vlad.
Congratulations, Vlad, you played yourself.
The ultimate Karmic result would be his legacy being most remembered for this lolol
So basically, what the EU are saying is they always could have accelerated the transition, but chose not to do so.
Wait till those renewables fall off a balcony.
He didn't really think this war through. Once the EU is running on mostly renewable energy (may take a few years), Russia will basically lose the last reason anybody even considered them as a player on global scale. Even before the war Russia was laughable from an economic view. Without anybody wanting their natural resources they will be insignificant. Well done Putin.
Putin was facing a west-friendly Ukraine controlling their southern pipeline and bringing their own LNG production online. The longer he waited the worse it would get for Russia. Trump being the first incumbent to lose in a long time really hurt his plans. In the end he decided the damage done to western solidarity was more permanent than it turned out to be.
The lesson is - don’t fuck with the US’s geopolitical and economic interests.
Unfortunately, war often breeds innovation. Glad to know there is some silver lining to the war. But still wish it never happened.
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See? We can save the planet, as long as it is made the better choice for the economy. And ironically, saving the environment is the better choice for everyone in the long term.
A carbon tax would work!
War, uh, what is it good for?
I'm not sure this is actually true... (yes, EU guy said it, but doesn't mean the facts back it) but good news if it is!
If his plans fail (which are), i would not be surprised if he ended up stating some bullshit that this was his plan all along and that the west should thank him
Early on I said maybe he wants to be the hero and he's doing it by being the anti-hero and driving the rest of the world in the right direction by doing so. I don't believe it but I did say it early on!
So not only is he NATO's best recruiter, he's also a Green? Wow!
Russia took like the one thing people wanted from them and flushed it down the toilet. Now what do they have?
India
What is considered green? I remember some fuckery with natural gas considered "green".
War! Huh! Yeah! What is it good for? Accelerating EU's transition to renewable energy, say it again, y'all
Climate czar? Didn't know we had one! I thought we were an autonomous collective
Another good motivator is less reliance on countries like Saudi Arabia.
If Americans genuinely want to get even against them on their role for 9/11, this is one approach considering how the government doesn't have any plans to seek accountability.
EU victory, Russian (actually Roman) political title.
THIS is not uplifting AT ALL. The damage to the climate has already been done. what a horrible thing to share to this subreddit
Does green transition mean return of the coal ?
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"Czar", really?
Well atleast Putin did something right.
offset the pollution and destruction of war?
Thanks Ovladimir.
It’s an ill wind that blows no one good, or something something wind farms
Good news, but I think it's worth remembering the flip side of this: the EU's (and America's) foot dragging on the green transition over the past two decades is what gave Vladimir Putin his power. If we want more uplifting news, we should do what's right before it's the last resort.
After ignoring decades of scientists warning about the environmental and geopolitical risk, but better late than never, I suppose.
Who would have guessed Putin had a secret agenda all along
Good guy putin, did it for the world.
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Pls tell me climate czar is the official title?
Yeah, nordstream blew itself up to help mother earth heal.....
Climate czar? Don't like that name. Seeing czar is another word for emperor
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Americans: "See, war works! Hold muh beer!"
Damn! There goes my conspiracy theory that Russia maintains a war footing in order to force the American military into constant production which speeds up global warming in order to unfreeze Siberia, revealing enormous swaths of arable farmland.
And the odd ancient flesh-eating virus
So, they COULD do it, they just didn't want to, until they were forced to and turned out it was feasible.
I refuse to celebrate this horrible war. This is not the way to get net carbon neutral, wars should not be seen as a solution to climate change.
Good Guy Putin
Excellent news, the title of CLIMATE CZAR just makes me imagine some sort of weather wizard.
Green transition lol
And to think the west was led to believe Putin was some 4-D KGB spy master.
Step 1) invade neighbor
Step 2) wonder why people chose to group together for protection.
Step 3) ....
Step 4) Profit?
An absolute drooling idiot if he could not foresee this future. How the Russian people put up with Putin the Pathetic is beyond me.
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Putin, the king of renewable energy and the best NATO salesman.
Putin really is a master strategist.
It’s like Killface accidentally solving global warming. Giant world ending rockets can be used for good!
Highest energy prices in the history of the world. We'll be back to fossil fuels in no time.
The EU's what??? very apt.
This will be much larger economic impact than any reparation's they'll be responsible for. In one stroke Putin took down Russia's perceived military capability and crippled it's economy for decades.
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Strange. They are importing huge amounts of coal from south Africa. Maybe it's green coal. Lol
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Who the fuck is climate czar?
Frans Timmermans, first of his name, protector of the penguins, breaker of big oil, the unburner.
Ironic use of czar
Didn't Germany move from Russian gas and oil to coal?
The irony of the title “climate czar”.
Great news and development, but when will the media drop russian titles on their news headlines?
In other words, the european union has been sandbagging heavily on its transition to green energy and never would have done it if Russia hadn't given them a kick in the pants.
Not a big shock, but let's phrase things correctly.
Opening new lignite mines is so green, I feel optimistic about the future...
I think it was blowing up the pipeline.
I doubt it
Uplifting western news
Big fat lie, but needed nevertheless
Wow what a spin. Doesn't matter if you increase that use when large parts of Europe, like Germany, is turning coal plants back on to make up for the loss of Russian energy. This is setting climate policy backwards, not forward.
Has this moron seen my gas bill?
Horseshit, but whatever.
This comes a year after Joe Biden’s war on fossil fuels increased Russian oil sales
Biden also helped by destroying the nordstream pipeline
Such an idiotic move.
Tbh, Vladimir Putin did more helping transition the world away from fossil fuels within 1 year rather that yapper Greta Thunberg will ever do. Unfortunately it comes with the price of millions of people and property in Ukraine and Russia.
“Green” transition lol. There’s nothing remotely “green” about this transition, it’s just more exploitation of natural resources.
dcdttu t1_j9icjf4 wrote
Took a freaking war to do what should have been done a long time ago, but good nonetheless I suppose.