Questions for our German Friends

[Brecht]

Originally Posted by xyzde69

How your medias treat the consequences of a risk of shortage of fossil fuel energy supply in a recent future?

In Germany or Austria, is this question seriously taken into account by the political power?

Do you think that German people are well informed about these questions?

I can tell you that in France and in Switzerland, neither politicians nor the media do their job. They have no idea about this and if we speak about these problems, they clearly avoid to face the problems.

The recent war in and against Syria and the huge wave of anti-Russian hysteria is closely tied to your question. Our politicians "handle" the situation by pushing us to the brink of WWIII. It's all about access to fossil fuels, pipelines and markets. Instead of working together with Russia, a neighboring country, the US wants Europe to buy its liquid gas which is just overly expensive and risky. Europe's best course of action would be the rejection of this US-instigated warmongering and meddling in other countries' business in favor of a reasonable and peacemaking relationship with Russia.

[Nobody1]

Originally Posted by Brecht

Europe's best course of action would be the rejection of this US-instigated warmongering and meddling in other countries' business in favor of a reasonable and peacemaking relationship with Russia.

Truth is in actions, not words. Nord Stream 2 is a done deal.

[Brecht]

Originally Posted by Nobody1

Truth is in actions, not words. Nord Stream 2 is a done deal.

Exactly. Germany's economy is too attached to Russia to consider a serious conflict. But a number of European countries have opposing interests. It's understandable that some Eastern European countries are protesting against Nord Stream 2 as they'll be deprived of the juicy transit charges. But the fact that the Nord Stream pipeline is built around them is also their fault.

[palo5]

Originally Posted by Brecht

But the fact that the Nord Stream pipeline is built around them is also their fault.

I'd say it's entirely their fault

[Roubignol]

Originally Posted by Brecht

The recent war in and against Syria and the huge wave of anti-Russian hysteria is closely tied to your question. Our politicians "handle" the situation by pushing us to the brink of WWIII. It's all about access to fossil fuels, pipelines and markets. Instead of working together with Russia, a neighboring country, the US wants Europe to buy its liquid gas which is just overly expensive and risky. Europe's best course of action would be the rejection of this US-instigated warmongering and meddling in other countries' business in favor of a reasonable and peacemaking relationship with Russia.

But Germany (as Switzerland) has decided to stop Nuclear electricity and decided to use more electricity based on fossil fuel.

Buying Russian fuel or coal will not resolve the problem for the next generations.
In several efficient EIER (Energy invested to get energy in return) oil fields, we already went through the top of the production since 15 to 10 years.
Now if you look at the new oil fields, they often are far less efficient in terms of EIER.
The oil that we used until now was extremely efficient in terms of EIER. It was about from 1% to 10%.
If you remember the cartoon Lucky Luke, a land owner in 19th century was peaking in his garden and the oil was coming out. link to cartoon here

In comparison today Canadian oil shale get a very poor EIER (Tar sand picture here). That's about 1 liter spent to get 2 to 3 liters available.
The Russian and North American reserves of shale oils are huge image here, but they are environmentally speaking highly damaging and they will be sucked dry quite quickly with the way we have to abuse of fossile energy.

So still (ab)using Russian oil will not resolve the problem, that the next generation will have to face shortage.

Another thing that is not spoken, it's that today and surely for the 50 next years, an industry based on renewable energy still will be highly dependant of fossil energy. We can't build a solar or a wind engine only with a solar or a wind energy.

Are German or Austrian politicians speaking about "decreasing" economy or do they think to let this problem to the next generations?

Listening to Swiss or French politicians, I can tell you that they only get the word "economic growth" in their mouth. But that's bullshit, when we look at their growth, it's 90% based on using fossile energy and even more since they have decided not using nuclear plant.
Since 2007 there are no economic growth and the problem is highly related with energy supply.
We get tensions of supply with emerging countries. They want their piece of the cake and that's quite logical.

[otokonomidori]

Originally Posted by Brecht

Exactly. Germany's economy is too attached to Russia to consider a serious conflict. .

They said that before WW1.

[tsunamiSD]

I had never heard of 'Winnetou' or Karl May until I read a fantasy book entitled 'From A High Tower', by Mercedes Lackey (part of her Elemental Masters series.) 'Misty' as Mercedes is called, actually included a 2-page forward because she so heavily references him during the book, which takes place in an alternate Germany, where a Buffalo Bill Cody Wild West Show is touring. There are some consequences for the Show because of differences between the real West that Cody and the personnel of the Show know and what the German audiences expect from the May books.



Anyway, that led me to do an internet search that came up with a lot of books by May, some about Winnetou and Shatterhand. I had hoped to find at least one eBook available for free in English, but haven't so far. There are also quite a few movies, including three that were done in 1963/4/5 that star Pierre Brice (a Frenchmen) as Winnetou and Lex Barker as Shatterhand. I wanted to know what our German members think of the books and movies.

[Brecht]

I can't comment on the books but the films were very popular in both Germany and Austria. You could watch them every Sunday on Austrian television and I hated them. Karl May wrote entertaining adventure novels and remains one of the most frequently translated German authors to this day. This being said, I'm surprised you're having a hard time grabbing a free example in English on the internet.

[Puhbear69]

Originally Posted by tsunamiSD

I had never heard of 'Winnetou' or Karl May until I read a fantasy book entitled 'From A High Tower', by Mercedes Lackey (part of her Elemental Masters series.) 'Misty' as Mercedes is called, actually included a 2-page forward because she so heavily references him during the book, which takes place in an alternate Germany, where a Buffalo Bill Cody Wild West Show is touring. There are some consequences for the Show because of differences between the real West that Cody and the personnel of the Show know and what the German audiences expect from the May books.


Anyway, that led me to do an internet search that came up with a lot of books by May, some about Winnetou and Shatterhand. I had hoped to find at least one eBook available for free in English, but haven't so far. There are also quite a few movies, including three that were done in 1963/4/5 that star Pierre Brice (a Frenchmen) as Winnetou and Lex Barker as Shatterhand. I wanted to know what our German members think of the books and movies.

[Pictures of the Karl May Booklets]

As a kid I liked the (fictive !!) novels of Karl May with his Wild West & Kurdish-Middle East circles at the age of 8 ... 12 years. But I was fascinated as well of the novels Homer (the Greek Homer ), Sokrates and Platon as well. More or less edited by other authors of course, because the original is to hard to understand nowadays, especially in this age.

One has to know, Karl May has never been in the US; but he travelled through the Middle East. He read a lot of travel stories of other writers of course, but he has never been at those places.
You must read and see those Karl May novels as entertainment/tales and not some kind of reality or any historical reference (Homer writing those novel had never made own experiences of Troja as well).

I liked in this age the movies of Karl May too very much in TV, but it's right what 'Brecht' said, the steady iterations by our broadcasts were annoying. The movies were btw. shoot in former Yugoslavia.

Meanwhile I enjoy it some times, because as a remembering of that time.

I being surprised to (as 'Brecht' is) that you are having a hard time to find the Books in English for free. But here (German Karl May books) the books, if you don't look for hard-covers do cost very little.
Have a look at EBAY ?