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Russia was feeding Green anti-Frack campaigns so it can get rich selling gas to snowflake nations

Fracking Cartoon by Josh.

The Western media was apoplectic about Russia!Trump!Hillary! but apparently missed the real game. Behind the scenes, the Russians were feeding the eco-gullibles “Frack-hate” campaigns in the UK and elsewhere in the hope of curbing the threat Fracking posed to Russian gas exports. It’s paying off — British people are buying Russian gas.

Did the Russians capture Victoria and South Australia? Who knows. The ABC won’t ask, and environmentalists won’t tell. Possibly Putin didn’t need to bother — we’re pretty good at destroying our export industries ourselves.

Before we’d even had a debate here in Australia, everyone “knew” fracking was bad.

h/t to GWPF which has a whole string of stories.

Green Russian Anti-Fraking Campaign paying off: Britain becomes more dependent on Putin’s Gas

David Sheppard, Financial Times, 14/03/18

Half of Britain’s imports of liquefied natural gas so far this year have come from Russia, illustrating how UK households have started sending more money to Moscow after Vladimir Putin made boosting exports of the super-cooled fuel a priority.

The background —Russia’s War on Fracking

Tom Rogan, National Review Online, Feb 2015

Today, Russia is waging another active-measures campaign. But this time Russia’s target is fracking. The facts are clear. Fracking, which is revolutionizing energy politics, offers a cheap, new source of global power. But that’s not all. In offering Europe independence from Russian energy exports, fracking poses a direct challenge to Russia. Because Putin depends for revenue on his oil and natural gas-exports, fracking’s cheaper alternative presents him with a big problem. Indeed, lower oil prices are already driving Russia’s economy into recession.

Facing this threat, Russian intelligence has implemented a three-pronged strategy.

First, Russia has ramped up covert payments to environmental groups in the West. By supporting well-intentioned environmentalists with hard cash (often without their knowledge), Russian intelligence gains Western mouthpieces to petition Western audiences in its favor. Based on Russia’s prior record, we can also assume that Putin has funneled money through intermediaries to sympathetic Western politicians.

Second, the Russian SVR (CIA equivalent) has directed its spies to gather intelligence on the American energy industry….

Finally, Russian intelligence’s biggest cover operation — its RT “news” outlet — is undertaking a massive propaganda campaign against fracking….

Even earlier — apparently Russia tested out the idea in Romania in 2014

Protesters appeared out of nowhere

Romanian officials including the prime minister say that the struggle over fracking in Europe does feature a Goliath, but it is the Russian company Gazprom, not the American Chevron.

Vlasa Mircia, the mayor of this destitute village in eastern Romania, thought he had struck it rich when the American energy giant Chevron showed up here last year and leased a plot of land he owned for exploratory shale gas drilling.

But the encounter between big business and rural Romania quickly turned into a nightmare. The village became a magnet for activists from across the country opposed to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Violent clashes broke out between the police and protesters. The mayor, one of the few locals who sided openly with Chevron, was run out of town, reviled as a corrupt sellout in what activists presented as a David versus Goliath struggle between impoverished farmers and corporate America.

“I was really shocked,” recalled the mayor, … “We never had protesters here and suddenly they were everywhere.”

Before Romania, it was Bulgaria

Austin Yack, National Review, July 2017

In 2012, Bulgaria issued a shale-gas license to Chevron. Immediately, activists pounced, peddling hyperbolic warnings that fracking pollutes drinking water. (In reality, the practice carries a minimal risk of groundwater pollution when done properly.) Protests erupted, and the Bulgarian government caved, banning fracking entirely. Gazprom, Russia’s state-run energy company, proceeded to give the Bulgarian government a 20 percent discount for signing a ten-year contract for the provision of natural gas.

Members of the Sierra Club were clueless about where the money came from:

According to the reports, entities connected to the Russian government are using a shell company registered in Bermuda, Klein Ltd. (Klein), to funnel tens of millions of dollars to a U.S.-based 501(c)(3) private foundation, the Sea Change Foundation (Sea Change). This money appears to move in the form of anonymous donations. Sea Change then passes the money originating in Russia to various U.S. 501(c)(3) organizations such as the Sierra Club, League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, and others. These funds are dispersed as grants that will be used to execute a political agenda driven by Russian entities. The purpose of this circuitous exchange of foreign funds is to shield the source of the money.

—  Rep. Lamar Smith and Randy Weber

And were the environmentalists concerned that they were being used as useful idiots by the Russians. Are we kidding? They’re in so deep the greens think they are using the Russians.;-)

And the ABC/BBC/etc will enlighten them any day…

Ruairi

March 15, 2018 at 7:40 am · Reply · Edit

In the West, when it comes to end fracking,
Certain groups will not be found lacking,
If it means the destruction,
Of cheap fuel production,
The Left and the Greens give it backing.

–Ruairi

h/t Pat

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