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Strangely enough, it makes no ecological difference whether we import clean and cheap gas through a pipeline from Russia or transport it from America with large overseas tankers. Whether hundreds of cruise ships and thousands of holiday flights harm the climate more than individual traffic. Or whether coal ships now haul coal from Australia instead of by trains from Russia.
If the whole business model of the West consists of cheap products from Asia and the transportation effort is higher than anything else. Do apples really need to be in Edeka from New Zealand at the beginning of September while they rot on the tree here?
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Gas from Russia may be cheap, but it is definitely not clean. One shouldn't believe that Russia pays attention to environmental protection in its Siberian gas fields. The stuff is extracted from the earth as cheaply as possible; nobody cares if anything grows there again afterward. The same goes for oil... in 2012 it was estimated that 17-20 million tons of oil are lost in Russia due to pipeline leaks. That was back then 4% of the entire Russian production... as said... cheap? Yes. Clean? Definitely not.
Transport and CO2 emissions from large container ships per ton are much lower than most people think. The climate balance of German apples, which lie in special climate chambers until May of the next year to remain durable, is often even worse than that of the apples delivered to us from New Zealand in May.
Whether there really are many apples from overseas on the shelves in September, I would have to check...
PS:
Russia also holds the record for the most radioactive place on earth. The Karachay Lake near Chelyabinsk was filled with highly radioactive waste until they had to pour a concrete cover over it. Staying on the shore is fatal for unprotected people after one hour due to radiation exposure of up to 6 Gray/h. Go Russia?