ZERO EMISSIONS. NOW?

Last week I was asked when would be the right time to sell Homo sapiens’ favourite toy – the car, powered by either diesel or petrol. Now is the right time, I’d like to whisper to all my readers. Sell it now, but do so quietly, without any fuss – without making a big deal out of it. Furthermore, it’s best to swap your petrol-guzzler for a new electric car made in Europe, not in China, and not in the US. I’ll tell you why right away…

Let’s take all the emotion out of the discussion. Let’s keep a cool head. At this moment, I also recommend that Donald Trump doesn’t let his ground or airborne troops land in Iran, but instead unilaterally ends the war. That will save him many sleepless nights. Send your boys home and leave Iran alone. Simply saying ‘goodbye’ unilaterally and walking away is sometimes the best thing you can do, even if it means you end up being seen as a coward. Let them talk. Just be smarter. There’s another election in the US in November – the midterms – and you still want to have a majority of members in the Senate and the House of Representatives afterwards, don’t you? Don’t you care about that? Didn’t you want to win the Nobel Peace Prize?

My motto is this: don’t waste any energy on pointless things. Don’t grumble, don’t get worked up, and, above all, don’t criticise the oil companies. Now is the perfect time to bid petrol and diesel a fond farewell, for we need ever less oil in our daily lives nowadays. And Iran can go ahead and continue to block, mine and close the Strait of Hormuz. The mullahs are only shooting themselves in the foot. Why?

If Iran can no longer sell oil or natural gas, it is only harming itself. I laugh at the mullahs. The donkeys I have worked with in my life were smarter creatures than the Iranian mullahs with their Revolutionary Guards. Every donkey is smart enough to keep its path clear and make sure it can still graze by the roadside when it wants something to eat. Sooner or later, Iran, with its clerical regime, will become a pariah in the community of nations. If it fails to get food onto the markets, if it no longer earns money from oil and gas, its population will be living in the ruins of war and they will no longer be able to rebuild their country themselves. And sooner or later, we will simply have to watch as Iran goes slowly down the drain. It will not even be able to finance its uranium enrichment programmes any longer. And we should cease all cooperation and do nothing. Just watch on, in boredom.

There’s still plenty of crude oil coming from Norway, Algeria, Venezuela, Angola and so on. But if you sell your petrol car and/or your diesel car now, you’ll be getting a good deal. If you’ve got a bit of cash left over, buy 20 solar panels and two batteries, and you’ll be able (like me) to drive an electric car almost for free. Whenever the sun shines, I charge my electric car using the socket on my solar panel system. I laugh at the oil industry, which is needlessly raising its prices to over two euros a litre at the petrol stations. Greed knows no bounds. As far as I’m concerned, petrol can even cost as much as five euros a litre. I’ll still be laughing, just louder. Because nobody will be buying it anymore. Over the past 15 years, I have gradually phased out fossil fuels. Even my chainsaw runs on electricity now. Free yourself from fossil fuels. Just have a think about where you could start.

BP, Shell, GALP, Repsol and Exxon, etc., can raise or lower their prices. I don’t care anymore, and, in the meantime, millions of intelligent people in Europe are becoming increasingly immune to this disease of foul-smelling petrol and diesel. I sold my petrol car ten years ago – in a few years’ time, you won’t get any money for your petrol car, just laughter, because these fossil-fuel vehicles won’t be allowed on the roads at all by then