Thursday, May 29, 2025

Dear Daily Disaster Diary, May 30 2025


 "We have made a machine that acts as though it had free will, and we are now helpless before it."

Joseph Weizenbaum, German-American computer scientist


Sincerely,

Credits: Der Spiegel

Wednesday, May 28, 2025

Dear Daily Disaster Diary, May 29 2025

 "The microbes have no respect for borders."

William H. McNeill, historian and author of "Plagues and Peoples" (1976)


Sincerely,

Tuesday, May 27, 2025

Dear Daily Disaster Diary, May 28 2025

 

“What happened in Walkerton was a tragedy. The contamination of the water supply should never have happened. It resulted from a failure of the system at multiple levels.”

Justice Dennis O’Connor, Walkerton Inquiry Report, 2002


Monday, May 26, 2025

Dear Daily Disaster Diary, May 27 2025

 






💣 "No More Blood Money: Why Europe Must Go All In to Kill the Kremlin’s War Chest"

📍By Adaptation-Guide OP-ED


 

“You cannot claim to fight tyranny while you still fill its bank account.”


The European Union has spent years talking a good game about punishing Russia for its brutal, illegal war against Ukraine. 

Billions in weapons, humanitarian aid, and fierce speeches at international summits. And yet, beneath the polished surface, EU companies quietly kept the rubles flowing into Moscow's war chest—buying gas, oil, and even uranium like it was just another Tuesday.

In 2024 alone, the EU spent €23 billion on Russian energy. 

That’s 23 billion reasons Putin can keep bombing civilians, raping international law, and turning Ukraine into a war laboratory

Let’s be brutally clear: You can't sanction a war criminal while simultaneously paying him to fuel his tanks.

But maybe—just maybe—that hypocrisy is finally cracking.


The Deadline: No More Russian Gas by 2027


In a landmark shift, the EU Commission announced it will propose a regulation in June to end all short-term contracts for Russian gas by the end of 2025 and phase out long-term contracts by December 31, 2027

Roughly a third of EU-Russia gas trade will be gone overnight once the first phase hits.

 

“We no longer want to contribute to Russia’s war chest,” said EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen.

Let that sink in. After two years of death and devastation in Ukraine, this is finally becoming more than just rhetoric. 

Europe is about to commit the one act of real economic warfare that could matter: cutting the cash flow.


🧨 The Problem: Not All EU States Are On Board


Of course, it wouldn’t be a European initiative without deep division. Hungary is already protesting the proposed regulation. 

Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó called it a “grave mistake,” vowing resistance. No surprise—Hungary has functioned as Russia’s mole in the EU since day one, clinging to cheap gas while Ukraine burns.

Slovakia and a few others, still hooked on Kremlin crude, are likely to grumble too. 

But unlike formal sanctions, this regulation only needs 15 out of 27 member states representing 65% of the EU’s population to pass. Hungary can scream all it wants—it may not be able to stop this.

And if Hungary violates the rules? 

The EU would have legal grounds to intervene. Finally.


⚖️ Legal Loophole: “Force Majeure” and Contract Killers


What about those existing long-term contracts with Russian gas giants like Gazprom? Wouldn’t EU companies be breaching contract?

Not according to Jørgensen. He argues that “force majeure” applies—when a party can’t fulfill obligations due to extraordinary, unforeseen circumstances. 

Translation: Russia’s war, gas blackmail, and deliberate supply disruptions since 2022 give companies a clean legal break.

Let’s not forget: Russia already broke the trust. This isn't business—it’s extortion with pipelines.


🔥 The False Hope of Normalization


Here’s the kicker: Some European business leaders—especially in Germany’s chemical and industrial sectors—are still fantasizing about normalizing trade with Russia. 

They whisper about Trump 2.0 brokering “peace,” and the return of cheap gas. Delusional.

 

“The chapter Russia is closed for us,” said OMV’s CEO Alfred Stern. He gets it. Do they?


Let’s be clear: There is no future in appeasement. 

Russia has committed atrocities that have obliterated any notion of “business as usual.” 

Rape, mass executions, child deportations, and scorched-earth warfare—that’s the Kremlin’s export list today.


🧩 Sanctions Only Work When They’re Total


Sanctions aren’t magic—they’re war by economic means. And they only work if they’re airtight. Partial sanctions are like trying to dam a river with a fishing net.

Here’s the formula for effective economic war:

  1. Cut Off the Cash: That means every cent. No exceptions for oil, gas, or uranium. Pipelines, LNG terminals, tanker fleets—sanction it all.

  2. Kill the Contracts: Long-term agreements are the trojan horses of dependency. Rip them up. Use force majeure. Use the law.

  3. Punish the Enablers: Countries like Hungary and firms that violate sanctions must face consequences—economic penalties, frozen funds, legal action.

  4. Diversify with Caution: Yes, American LNG is replacing Russian gas. But trading one dependency for another is short-sighted. Energy sovereignty means investing in renewables, not just switching suppliers.

  5. Make It Political: Sanctions only bite when they come with shame, isolation, and relentless public pressure. Corporations should be named, shamed, and fined.


📉 Reality Check: Energy Independence Is Security


In 2022, Russian gas prices spiked, weaponized as economic warfare. 

That lesson hit hard. In 2024, the US supplied 17% of Europe’s gas, worth €19 billion

But that barely dents the €198 billion transatlantic trade imbalance Trump whines about.

This isn’t just about energy. It’s about sovereignty. The EU must never again be a hostage to a petrostate dictator.


💥 Final Thought: This Is What Economic War Looks Like


Every euro spent on Russian gas fuels another airstrike on Kharkiv, another grave in Bucha, another child stolen from their family. 

Economic ties with Russia aren’t just morally bankrupt—they’re strategically suicidal.

 

Sanctions without sacrifice are just symbolism. And symbolism doesn’t stop tanks.


It’s time to burn the bridge, not build it back. The only way to bankrupt Putin’s war machine is to make sure no one is buying what he's selling.


📌 Share This Post


🛠️ Action Guide: How to Pressure Your Government to Enforce Energy Sanctions [COMING SOON]

📢 Want to support Ukraine with more than flags and hashtags? Start by cutting the gas.

Sincerely,

Adaptation-Guide

Sunday, May 25, 2025

Dear Daily Disaster Diary, May 26 2025


 “We are not at the beginning of the end. We are at the end of the beginning.”

Winston Churchill, 1942


Saturday, May 24, 2025

Dear Daily Disaster Diary, May 25 2025


 “The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.”

Robert M. Hutchins, educator and philosopher


Friday, May 23, 2025

Dear Daily Disaster Diary, May 24 2025

 

“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.”

Friedrich August von Hayek, 1945


 
 What Hayek Can Teach Us About the Green Economy – And Why Governments Shouldn’t Pick the Winners

By Adaptation-Guide/ Opinion 


As Europe scrambles to reinvent its economies for a climate-neutral future, one big question looms: How do we modernize without making a massive, expensive mess of it? 

Everyone agrees we need cleaner industries and better technology. But how we get there – that’s where things get messy.

Should governments lead the charge, steering money into "green" sectors they think will succeed? 

Or should they simply set the rules – like putting a price on carbon – and let the market figure it out?

This debate isn’t new. In fact, it’s exactly the kind of question the Nobel Prize-winning economist Friedrich August von Hayek (1899–1992) spent his life answering. 

And his ideas are more relevant now than ever.


The Core of Hayek’s Wisdom: No One Knows Everything – But Together, We Know a Lot


Hayek didn’t argue that politicians are dumb. Quite the opposite – his main point was that knowledge is scattered across millions of people. 

It’s not just in textbooks or expert reports. It’s in the day-to-day decisions, experiences, and even gut feelings of workers, entrepreneurs, and consumers.

Most of that knowledge? 

It’s never written down. It can’t be. It's what a factory foreman knows about switching suppliers, or what a startup founder sees in customer feedback that no algorithm could catch. 

It’s local, it’s situational, and it’s hard to explain – but it's real.

So Hayek asked a bold question: If nobody has all the knowledge, how can we make the best economic decisions?

His answer: markets.


Why Markets Work – Especially in Times of Transition


Hayek believed markets are like a massive, decentralized supercomputer. They let us tap into millions of individual insights without needing a central plan.

How? Through prices.

Let’s say the cost of emitting CO₂ goes up because of a new carbon tax. 

Suddenly, coal becomes expensive – and solar looks more attractive. 

That price change tells everyone, from engineers to investors to everyday shoppers: “Hey, pollution costs money now. Time to change course.”

No speeches needed. No government memo. The market adjusts organically, fast, and based on millions of decisions happening in real-time.

This is why Hayek saw the price system as a communication tool – one far more powerful than any government report. 

It shows where resources are scarce, what people actually want, and which solutions are worth pursuing.


But Markets Don’t Just Use Knowledge – They Create It


Here’s where Hayek gets even more interesting: he didn’t just say markets respond to existing knowledge. He said they generate new knowledge through competition.

Think about it: Who knows what the next breakthrough battery will be? 

Or the cleanest way to make steel? 

No one does – yet.

But when companies compete, they start experimenting. One tries algae biofuel. Another builds wind-powered factories. A third invents a new recycling tech. 

Some fail. Some succeed. And we learn from all of it.

Hayek called this the “discovery process”. Competition forces businesses to act like scouts, constantly searching for opportunities others haven’t seen yet. 

Without that dynamic, we’d never know what works best – because no one would bother to try.


So What Does This Mean for Climate Policy?


It means that top-down planning isn’t just risky – it’s blind.

Sure, it sounds efficient to have governments invest directly in green tech. Germany, for example, recently offered massive subsidies to companies like Intel and Northvolt to build factories. Sounds smart, right?

But Hayek would warn: 

Who says those are the right bets? 

Politicians and bureaucrats, no matter how smart, can’t possibly know which products or technologies will win in the long run. Not even AI can predict that.

And if they guess wrong? We waste billions, lock in bad ideas, and potentially slow down real innovation.

Instead, Hayek would argue: 

Set the rules of the game, then let the players innovate. 

Want fewer emissions? 

Put a real price on carbon. 

Want more clean tech? 

Remove red tape and reward results, not plans. Then step back and let the swarm of knowledge – from startups, engineers, researchers, even consumers – do its magic.


The Bottom Line


The green transformation is too urgent, too complex, and too unpredictable for central planning. 

We don’t need a master plan. We need a framework that unleashes creativity.

Hayek’s message is clear: 

Trust the process. 

Trust the market. 

Trust the millions of people out there who see things no government ever could.

Let prices guide behavior. 

Let competition uncover the best ideas. And above all, resist the temptation to pick winners before the race even starts.

Because if we want a sustainable future, we have to build it the smart way – not the planned way.


Further Reading:


Dear Daily Disaster Diary, May 30 2025

  "We have made a machine that acts as though it had free will, and we are now helpless before it." — Joseph Weizenbaum, German-A...