By BombThrowers —— Bio and Archives July 29, 2017
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I don’t understand how you will heat your houses. You don’t want the gas. You don’t develop nuclear energy. Are you going to heat with firewood? You also have to go to Siberia if you need firewood.As CRC’s Dr. Steven J. Allen has pointed out, in European countries where there were no home-grown environmentalist groups and where grassroots organizing of the Western, leftist variety has never existed, Russia infiltrated the native populations with vocal opponents of fracking. These individuals and groups spread fear and misinformation among the nationals who then protested and blocked drilling efforts which would have significantly reduced those nations’ dependence on Gazprom and provided much-needed economic growth.
In Romania, leftist protesters with ties to Moldova’s security apparatus, which is deeply tied to the Russians, joined with orthodox priests to protest fracking, with Russian TV providing blanket coverage suggesting that the villagers, their crops and livestock were all in danger from the practice.One Moldovan separatist and Putin admirer wrote that fracking would cause “headaches, skin diseases, nasal bleeding, the explosive appearance of specific nervous system diseases, skin diseases, cancer, [and] earthquakes." The narrative quickly became that of poor, brave oppressed villagers standing up to the exploitative American outsiders willing to poison Romanian children in their pursuit of filthy lucre. Nevertheless, the success of fracking in the U.S. is causing more Europeans to want a piece of the petroleum pie – if not with domestic drilling, then through U.S. imports. In 2016, the twelve member states of the Three Seas Initiative – encompassing the Baltic, Adriatic and Black Seas region – imported 75 percent of their gas from Russia. In June 2017, Poland received its first shipment of liquefied natural gas from the U.S., and Polish President Andrzej Duda expressed hope that the U.S. could create a lasting “north-south energy corridor,” linking the Baltic and Adriatic Seas.
We were up against Russia pushing oligarchs and others to buy media. We were even up against phony environmental groups, and I’m a big environmentalist, but these were funded by the Russians to stand against any effort, ‘Oh that pipeline, that fracking, that whatever will be a problem for you,’ and a lot of the money supporting that message was coming from Russia.While investigating Russian “meddling” in the 2016 election, the U.S. intelligence community discovered that Russia is heavily invested in seeing that fracking fails because of the challenges it would pose to Gazprom if more countries take up the practice. In 2015 alone Russia Today (RT), the country's state-run media arm, produced 60 anti-fracking stories. In July 2017 Republican congressmen Lamar Smith and Randy Weber wrote a letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin demanding that he investigate the company Klein Ltd. As CRC's Green Watch has reported, Klein is funneling millions of dollars through anonymous donations to the Sea Change Foundation – a left-wing 501(c)(3) "pass-through" organization – money that is then passed along to anti-fracking campaigns by active organizations on the far Left, like the Sierra Club. According to Smith, “This scheme may violate federal law and certainly distorts the U.S. energy market.” That's just the way Russia wants it.
Bombthrowers is a blog about politics and the war for the hearts and minds of Americans from a conservative viewpoint.
In line with our name, we do not hold back. We have a take-no-prisoners attitude when it comes to fighting for conservative principles. The Left doesn’t play nice, and that’s why they’ve been winning. It’s time for conservatives to rise up and turn the tide.
We’re not afraid to take on anyone, especially the Washington Establishment—Republican or Democrat.
Bombthrowers is a project supported by the Capital Research Center. Its editor-in-chief is Matthew Vadum.