that Russia flaring off gas is a sick joke

[LargeDeviation]

It really sticks in the throat seeing Putin burn off gas just to avoid delivering it to Europe. Not only is it a massive waste, the soot from the flares will fall on the Arctic and exacerbate the polar ice cap melting.

Yes, Michael Fallon was totally inept closing down even the small gas storage facility we have, and generally governments going back decades should have built more strategic storage facilities for oil and gas which can be filled up when the price is low.

But I think too many people are forgetting that the real cause of the huge rise in gas prices is Putin's pathetic war, and he is deliberately using his position in the European gas market to try to dampen support for Ukraine. If his tactics work and we lose the political will for supplying Ukraine with weapons and aid, this game will be played not just this year but again and again and again.

Russia controls something like 14% of the global gas resource. If the market/system has been allowed to get to the stage where a 14% reduction in supply cannot be replaced relatively quickly, either by increasing supply from other gas producing nations or by reducing demand, then the system was unsustainable and broken.

Russian withdrawing access to their natural resources was always on the cards from the moment Europe decided to try and encourage the democratically elected pro Russian government to severe ties with Putin and then supported their opposition in otherthrowing them when that didn't work.

It can't have come as a surprise that Russia would limit access to their resources and we've had a minimum of 8 years to plan how to limit the impact of losing Russian gas, I mean one of our first moves after the invasion was to enforce sanctions on them in the hope of fucking their economy, did we honestly think Russia wouldn’t do the same? I can't believe not one a single person in any European government thought to ask the question what happens when Russia shuts off the gas? The fact that this apparently wasn't considered speaks volumes about the ineptitude of our leaders.

On a more general point about the war I don't agree with those saying we have to continue to support Ukraine.

We don't support other regions such as Tibet or Hong Kong in their fight against occupation because we don't want to upset China. We don't appear to be actively trying to destabilise and dipose of other pro russian / Russian leaning governments such as Belarus or Kazakhstan because it's not worth the effort. And we actively support the illegal invasion and occupation of other countries when it suits our needs, no moral rights or wrongs to consider when we do the invading apparently.

All of the above are political choices and supporting Ukraine as we have is a political choice we've made that isn't working. We need to either drop support and remove sanctions against Russia or fully commit to war against them and accept the consequences of doing so.

A prolonged seige via proxy war against Russia will only result in extended misery and suffering for millions and millions of people in Europe and I don't believe Western European populations have the capacity or fortitude to outlast the Russian population when it comes to dealing with the impact of sanctions against each other. Russia is just too resource rich and it's population too used to hardship for that to work. When it comes to a game of chicken we in the West will 100% blink first so why extend the wait?

Europe don't want to buy it though.

@Thebestwaytoscareatory

A well thought through and written post (better than mine).

The options as I see are :

A) a protracted proxy war with support for Ukraine in which further economic misery and lives are lost in both Ukraine and Europe.

B) a negotiated peace deal

My point was really that the planet is on course for total devastation as a direct result of how many human beings are living. The behaviour is an additional and avoidable part of the problem, sure. But in terms of time, how much faster is this accelerating the devastation by? A day? A week?

Humanity is, or arguably has already, set course to destroy everything. In a matter of a few generations. Look at biodiversity, insect populations. It hideous. It's happening. We can moan about it and we can take direct action but ultimately unless there is a bigger profit in not harming the planet, nothing will change.

Our childrens future is already ruined. I cant even imagine our grandchildren lives. Putin alone didnt cause that.

Agree with @RealBecca the future is bleak.

Humans are like cockroaches.