Oh well. What an easy and completely pointless polemic to talk about what should have been done 35 years ago, when there was no feasible alternative available for electric mobility and photovoltaic and wind power were still miles away from the technological maturity they are now. As a matter of fact the oil crises did have a lot of beneficial consequences. The Netherlands for example reversed course almost 180° and instead of turning their country into a fully US style car only hell hole, they initiated the transformation that put them in a position where they have their mobility needs in many baskets. Also Austria was getting serious about hydropower back then etc. But of course much more could and should have been done also in the 90s for example.

I am talking about recent times and the future. You are calling me an idiot simply for pointing out that we need to cover fossil fuel demands during the transition as we’d otherwise face an economic crash and harsh consequences for common people too (energy limitations, maybe outages etc). Yet you are not even denying that those resources are needed also in a transition that is happening as rapidly as possible.

I am not sure in which alternative reality you are living in which there is no meaningful transition happening in Europe. Photovoltaic and wind power, especially also the much more reliable off-shore wind power output has been expanded rapidly in recent years, substantially changing the energy mix in the EU. EV adoption is more of a mixed bag while there has been counterproductive lobbying by some future Nokia companies we are moving ahead, unlike the US for example. Even if slightly trailing China.

You are ignoring the part that was about the motivations that push for the transition, which isn’t about price. Those motivations are not going away, they are only getting more urgent. The rapid transition is a thing of recent years and has not been dragging on for decades.

You are also evading the question before. The only alternative to securing transition supplies is a harsh and sudden lack of supplies with lack in alternative capacities with severe impact on economy and might even necessitate emergency shutdowns. If you oppose the one thing you are necessarily in favour of the latter or evading reality.

Not necessarily. There is a risk for that but given how the push forces for the transition are primarily not market price driven that is not necessarily happening. I assume you are not making the crazy claim that one could stop using gas over night without massive negative economic if not systemic repercussions. Are you? If you are not, you need to secure supplies for the transition time, otherwise you have that very stop overnight.

It is the logical thing to do, prices are currently high and delivering oil is indeed a matter of energy security right now. For a time, as the EU is transitioning rapidly to renewable energies.

The EU is a slow moving train, at least when the roof isn’t already burning (in which case it can move a lot faster, even if still slower than nation states). The incredible complexity of the topic and centuries of fragmented history in the business don’t help either. But we should not confuse glacial speed with nothing happening. The EU is working on harmonising railways in a lot of different ways and some have already made a meaningful difference. Interoperatibility has generally improved. New projects are constructed generally according to pan-European standards etc. The booking issue is a tough nut to crack but from the recent news I take it that even the Commission is loosing patience and ready to unpack harsher instruments towards railway operators. On one side that helps them “motivate” to find proper solutions on their own, and if not, then doing it the hard way.

It is very different from now, but it will take more time to become reality I guess. The compensation is just the nice to have. The core is that operators will be forced to open up their booking systems make them accessible so that unified booking platforms are made possible, if necessary by force. That would be a game changer. After all the booking systems exist, but rail companies are guarding them, hence the lack of interoperability.

Price and reliability do matter but don’t underestimate the role that booking and finding stuff makes. If you have to call somewhere, or worse, even go to an office somewhere to book a train trip, this is turning off a lot of people from even considering that option. Of course, things have become a lot better, gradually, over the years and on many trips one can book nowadays online but the offer is very splintered and very incomplete.

The thing is that everything you mention here is related to each other is a consequence of each other. Car oriented urban planning leads to an explosion of distances which leads to an explosion of infrastructure and mobility costs and makes public transit unattractive or even unfeasible. All of that was kept together by dirt cheap fuel.

One can change that of course. The US was bulldozed for the car before and it can be transfirmed back to be transit oriented again. However even with the political will and the money, this will take decaded. Fuel prices can explode in weeks, for good.

That is a hole the US is in that it has dug itself. There is no easy way out.

The crazy part of the article is really how it is legal that an employee of a hotel chain has to pay for entirely work related car trips with his private money, at least in substantial parts.

The legislative proposal if passed remotely like that, would be a pretty big deal and not asking nicely at all. It would force railways to open their booking systems to others. The Eu commision apparently is finally loosing its patience after decades…

Yeah, the name is a bit weird and presence is still vastly dependent on your member state. Many offers might be also branded differently but it is still using the same backbone.

From my understanding the ECB forced the bank’s hand with the digital Euro. If they want to stay in the game they need a souvereign sovereign alternative to the US payment providers. So we’ll see a public and a private system in the EU in the near future, that the US cannot simply shutdown at a whim.

The purpose is neither of those two things.

They can collect that data from EU customers already now. That is not the issue. With public data it is even clearer, it is already their data.

This is primarily a strategically driven decision, to reduce dependency on an increasingly hostile US and that is a good thing.

The authoritarian right continues it work on destroying Polish democracy even in opposition. This council lacks any legitimacy but I am sure it will come up with the changes PiS wants to see to put a final nail into the coffin.

No, the sanctions that this report is talking about.

Hasn’t the German foreign minister already agreed to it.

Obviously a typo. “both”, not “bith”.

Are the US allowing Chinese companies to host sensitive domestic data on Chinese servers? It is telling that US media us making a fuss about this story.

Yes.

Helsinki was designed very car oriented, at least outside the old centre. In the centre there have been also a number of planning sins. However the city has a lot of projects to dilute the dominance of the car and undo sone of the damage. There are also a lot of dense new urban central neighbourhoods under development.

How about no?

But NATO is not impossible? Quite some double think.