Germany’s conservative environment minister kiboshes fracking

By Philip Bump

I do not understand German politics. Are they always the complete opposite of America? Is that how it works?

In Germany, for example, a conservative politician, the country’s environment minister, suggested that he opposed fracking. From The Guardian:

Pending rules for the drilling techniques would likely be tightened, said Peter Altmaier, a conservative politician in chancellor Angela Merkel’s government.

“The message is we want to limit fracking, we don’t want to facilitate it,” he told Deutschlandfunk radio. “And anyway I don’t see in the foreseeable future that fracking will be employed anywhere within Germany.” …

Altmaier said he would recommend that interested parties refrain from applying for exploration licences.

Those “interested parties” include BASF and ExxonMobil.

Brew127

This is somewhere in Germany, for what it’s worth.

Bizarroland, right? It gets weirder.

Claudia Roth, the chair of the country’s Green Party, is under criticism for high-fiving the Iranian ambassador. Seriously.

The Telegraph suggests that Roth “greeted Iran’s ambassador to Germany euphorically.” The ambassador, Reza Sheikh Attar, is accused of having murdered Kurds while governing Iranian states in the 1980s. Yes, Germans should not raise their hands in a gesture of respect to those who commit genocide.

We are exploring reports that in Germany, rain falls up.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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Germany’s conservative environment minister kiboshes fracking