I blame Russia. Poland has joined the ranks of European states planning to expand nuclear power (Bulgaria is planning to reopen closed stations, Sweden has just reversed a ban on nuclear, and Britain is committing to new stations in England). This is crazy for reasons that all environmentalists will know. They can’t be brought online in time to solve the energy gap from declining fossil fuels; they create insanely hazardous and difficult to store waste; Uranium is a finite resource; and they are far from being carbon neutral (how are they built, how is fuel transported to them &c.). The problem is, they’re a pre-existing technology, that is seen as “tried and tested”. Why’d anyone want to develop the mix of renewables and energy efficiency when you can just build nuclear?

The problem just now, and the reason I blamed Russia at the start of this post, is that at least two of the recent re-commitments to nuclear aren’t motivated by environmental concern, rather they are motivated by a well founded fear of energy security. In the UK, we might feel as if we’re suffering if energy bills go up as a result of instability in supplies. Try Bulgaria, where gas was cut, in midwinter, by the Russia-Ukraine dispute. Thousands of people simply didn’t have heating.

The temptation to run back to the gleaming nuclear future is just too easy to give into. And I’d venture a guess that more states will envisage that future, so long as Europe is reliant on gas, and thus Russia. In the long term, Azerbaijan can’t meet Europe’s gas demand, so while the Nabucco pipeline will diversify supply, we’re still getting our bulk of gas from Russia. The Nord Stream and South Stream pipelines still leave us beholden to Russia, not to mention the potential for widespread environmental damage from these projects, Nord Stream in particular.

In grasping at nuclear, Bulgaria and Poland have almost got the right answer to energy security, but they miss out environmental concerns completely. Yes, we need to have a more diverse energy supply to avoid reliance on one potentially hostile state, but the only solution which can be sustained in the long term is a renewables mix and reducing our demand.

Ok, so imagine it’s economic “good times”, the credit flows freely, and people can basically afford lots of consumer goods to keep themselves happy. In that scenario people are fairly docile, and not too interested in protesting. Simply, enough people feel satisfied with the state of their lives. Obviously, there are the dedicated protesters, and the single issue campaigns still going, but widespread unrest doesn’t really happen.

Now lets look at where we are today: unofficial strikes in the energy industry across the UK, caused by fear of (or experience of) unemployment. Recent widespread strikes in France over the government’s handling of the economic turmoil, and anti-government protests throughout Russia – something which would have been unthinkable until very recently.

The British strikes are the ones which worry me the most just now. There is an alarming degree of what looks like xenophobia in a lot of the protests. I wouldn’t for one moment accuse all strikers of that, and there are certainly real concerns and issues to be tackled in employment here, but I just can’t help but feel this is partly a symptom of the shift towards the acceptability of the far-right in European politics again. The Netherlands have slowly been moving away from their renowned toleration and liberal attitude; Austria’s far-right is growing stronger; and domestically, the British National Party is collecting increasing numbers of local council seats.

Simultaneously, Russia seems to be having what might be a shift to the left. The protests there seem to be primarily led by the Communist party. I doubt that Putin or Medvedev will be pushed out of office by a little dissent, but the political colour of these demonstrations illustrates another facet of the problem in Europe: things are becoming more extreme. No-one really knows how long the recession will last, but I would venture a guess that if it goes on for long enough, the more extreme elements of the political spectrum (both ends of it) will gain a foothold. People seem more open to the soothing lies of the far-right, and the prospect of the alternative economy of the far-left, when their livelihoods are threatened in the way that they are now.

The problem for the “alternative centre” (that is, those towards the centre of politics, but not tied to the traditional centre parties), and for Greens in these times is to assert positive alternatives to the business as usual approach at the heart of the traditional centre, and get those sensible ideas heard over the emotional arguments shouted out by the extreme movements.

The Green New Deal is a great tool to use in achieving this, but we also need to properly address the issue of free movement of labour throughout the Union. Ordinary people aren’t EU policy experts, and if they see workers brought in en masse from abroad, when there is increasing domestic unemployment, then they will quite naturally be unhappy. I don’t yet know what the answer to this one is. My gut feeling (once described as being a “European nationalist” viewpoint) tells me that the free movement of labour must be preserved, but how can this be achieved without prolonging the unrest, or causing future strikes? Every government in the Union should be looking at this issue. It’s one which could easily harm the EU and Britain’s place in it.

“Flurry” is a good word to describe the process of the election results. Most of last night was spent waiting for projections, then when they eventually came, they came bundled together. Well there have been a flurry of motions in the Scottish Parliament offering congratulations to Obama today, and similar from world leaders and politicians, with Gordon Brown and David Cameron ‘fighting’ over how much they congratulate him.

The President of Kenya has even declared tomorrow a national holiday, and Russia has…

Ok, perhaps Russia is the exception. It’s moved Iskander missiles to Kaliningrad, to ‘counter the threat’ from the US missiles that will be stationed across eastern Europe. It would be interesting to see if Obama carries on with the defence shield.

One of the good things about listening to the World Service news is that it cuts through the nonsense of most domestic news. One story that I mightn’t have otherwise heard is that Russia and Georgia didn’t just fight their summer war with guns.

Both sides apparently employed media relations companies in Brussel to fight their cause with the press. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Twenty-four hour news output on all platforms imaginable makes having some form of control on what goes out there important, and professional PR firms certainly aren’t foreign in other areas where you might not expect them to operate.

Just listening to Analysis on the BBC World Service, the presenter from RIA-Novosti seems to be suggesting that Russia is for Obama. Anyway, just a short post, as I’m off to a long meeting, then to Oxford for a political weekend.

Europe & Russia

Recent events in Georgia have led European media to widely discuss the possibility of a second Cold War. Café Babel has an interview with Georgi Khaidrava, a former minister in the Georgian government. The Euranet radio partnership also covers the similarities of the present situation to Cold War rhetoric. Euractiv also carries an interview with Andrew Stroehlein, of the International Crisis Group.

Regional News

Turkey

Turkish police are reported to have used oppressive tactics against a legal environmental gathering, Ecotopia.

Sweden

The leader of Vänsterpartiet has called for co-operation between his party and the Greens and Socialdemokraterna (Social Democrats) in the run-up to the 2010 election, with the possibility of an alliance.

Germany

Electricity companies, RWE and E.ON are lobbying the government to cancel its planned phase-out of nuclear power.

Baltic Sea Region

Baltic states have been criticised in a report by WWF for failing to protect the marine environment of the Baltic Sea.

Global

United Nations climate talks are underway in Accra, Ghana. Friends of the Earth International has warned of flaws in the carbon trading system, and of the risk of land-rights abuses from the inclusion of forests in carbon markets. The UN has stated that “modest progress” has been made in the talks.

And Finally…

An elderly woman is reported to have placed herself on the luggage belt at Stockholm Airport, believing she was correctly checking in to her flight. It is not reported if she was flying Ryanair, in which case, she may have been right.