It is the West’s wacko environmentalists who handed Russian President Vladimir Putin the leverage and money to invade Crimea in 2014 and Ukraine this week.

Without these wackos, Putin would be just another gangster in charge of a crumbling country, and maybe one on the verge of a revolution to depose him.

But the facts are the facts are the facts, and the facts are these… Thanks to the West’s environmentalists, those smug greenies who are more concerned with carbon output than world peace, this gangster controls much of the energy going to the European Union (E.U.). Per Statista, here are the countries most dependent on Russia for natural gas. The percentages tell us just how dependent:

• North Macedonia (100 percent)
• Finland (94 percent)
• Bulgaria (74 percent)
• Slovakia (70 percent)
• Germany (49 percent)
• Italy (46 percent)
• Poland (40 percent)
• France (24 percent).

It gets worse.

As of 2019, a full 27 percent of the European Union’s crude oil, 41 percent of its natural gas, and 47 percent of its solid fuel (mostly coal) come from Russia.

Why?

Well, it’s very simple. Russia is not stupid. Putin is not stupid. He drills and digs and fracks while Western countries pat themselves on the back for closing coal mines, refusing oil leases, and shuttering nuclear power plants. And in doing so, even at the expense of giving the gangster Putin leverage over them, these Western countries pat themselves on the back for decreasing their carbon footprints and going green…

Russian President Vladimir Putin (Vyacheslav Prokofyev, TASS News Agency Pool Photo via AP)

Meanwhile, Putin is given control over the very thing that allows Western Civilization to remain Western Civilization: energy.

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Unfortunately for the United States, one of its political parties has become the home of magical thinking about energy. Here’s a hint: It’s not the Republicans.

Despite the Biden administration’s hopes to create a world in which solar panels and wind turbines power an all-electric automobile fleet, just last week, President Biden announced that the administration is considering a 20-year delay of new mining operations in northern Minnesota. These new mines eventually will produce copper, nickel and cobalt, all of which are essential minerals in manufacturing electric vehicles, batteries and transmission lines.

Apparently, no one told Mr. Biden that the administration’s entire energy policy is built on copper, nickel and cobalt.  By delaying the mines, Team Biden is making communist China richer and Americans poorer. They are trading our energy independence for reliance on China for minerals, a dependence that may be far greater than any we ever had on the Middle East for oil.

At its worst, we imported less than a quarter of our oil from the Middle East.  Right now, China owns or controls about 80% of the rare earth minerals on the planet.

Republican Rep. Pete Stauber from Minnesota was clear. “Rather than promoting the dignity of work, they’re comfortable seeing Minnesota’s union members and skilled workers sidelined. Instead of empowering Minnesotans to develop the minerals necessary for almost every sector of our economy under the strongest labor and environmental standards in the world, they are willing to rely on hostile nations that utilize child slave labor and terrible environmental practices.” He’s right.

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