Deaths From Power Outages in Texas Foretaste of Things to Come with Green New Deal

In her weekly dialogue, Helga Zepp LaRouche warned that the totally unnecessary deaths and suffering in Texas and other U.S. states, due to a polar cold front, offer a sign of what will happen if the Great Reset and its Green New Deal are not stopped. These deaths are not the result of a "natural catastrophe", but a warning for the future if the takedown of coal and nuclear power electricity production is not reversed.

The new EIR Report, "The Great Leap Backwards" provides both an analysis of the dangers explicit from adopting a Green Agenda, and an alternative based on the scientific ideas of her late husband, Lyndon LaRouche.

She also discussed how the drive for confrontation with Russia and China exposes humanity to the threat of nuclear war, at a time when cooperation is not just imperative, but also achievable. If NATO insists on sanctions against Russia over the much-hyped Navalny affair, nations such as Germany, France and Italy should leave NATO. Similarly, the failure of the European Union to protect its citizens from the COVID pandemic, by botching the delivery of vaccines, demonstrates again that this kind of supranational institution is incapable of providing for the needs of the citizens -- a failure seen also in the likely devastating effects of its drive for a European Green New Deal, which could lead to a breakdown of the European energy grid.

She contrasted the unfolding tragedies of economic and strategic policies of the trans-Atlantic nations with the optimistic potential of the three concurrent missions to Mars. That the United Arab Emirates initiated its space program only six years ago offers hope that, with international scientific cooperation, nations can move toward the peaceful exploration of our universe, with enormous benefits for all.

TRANSCRIPT

HARLEY SCHLANGER: Hello, I’m Harley Schlanger with our weekly dialogue with Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the founder and chairwoman of the Schiller Institute. It’s February 17, 2021, and Helga, we have an extremely dramatic development, which seems ironically to coincide with the release of our Special Report, and that is the cold front that has hit Texas, leaving between 3 and 4 million people freezing in the dark. This is really quite dramatic, isn’t it?

HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yes, it is actually very horrible, because already 26 people died. Now, this is incredible, and you have the state of Texas, where the wind turbines froze up, the solar panels were covered with snow, so the energy production went down from an average of 25,000 MW to only 12,000 MW, and naturally you have blackouts, not only in Texas, but now there are rolling blackouts in 14 other states in the United States.

Now, this is absolutely unnecessary, and it’s not a natural catastrophe. People should not look at it this way, because if you had normal coal-generated energy and nuclear energy, you would not have this situation, so people should not say this is a “natural” catastrophe. Because I would rather say, if we want to have a good note about it, we should take it was a warning from St. Peter, a warning sign what could happen with the weather if you don’t have the energy required to deal with it.

Since we have this new report out, “The Great Leap Backward—LaRouche Exposes the Green New Deal,” and the Great Reset, there we have warnings in it, that this will lead to blackouts and the blackouts could be even more dramatic. We have the case of the EU, where studies were made by the scientific advisory service to the German Parliament, already nine years ago, that you could have a collapse of the entire European energy grid, and that would have much more devastating consequences that even this. But this is bad enough. I think 4 million people in Texas, in the U.S., and 5 million people in the north of Mexico are without electricity. Now, that means people can die in the cold, they can die of the effects of it in various ways, and I think it’s quite important that the former governor of Texas, Rick Perry, who was also the Energy Secretary in the Trump administration, blasted this in a very powerful way, saying that if you cut out coal, if you cut out nuclear energy, then you are completely dependent on an ideologically based energy policy, and people are dying! And that is what would happen if you have an energy policy defined by such people as AOC [Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] and the like.

So, this is a very serious warning, and I can only advise people to get the Special Report EIR has put out, because the consequences of what the Great Reset would do, the Texas developments give you a meager foretaste of the kind of economic collapse which would result as a consequence of the implementation of this policy. And this could lead to very dramatic developments, social chaos; it would have a devastating effect on the strategic situation, because some parts of the world are not so stupid—Japan, for example, when they had a snowstorm, I think it was last December, the Energy Minister immediately said that Japan must turn back on all of its nuclear plants; and obviously, Russia, China, India, they are all massively investing in the production of fission energy, of the third generation fission energy, and naturally, very much emphasis on fusion power [research]. But the idea that the world can live without coal plants, modern coal plants which are absolutely environmentally friendly, I think this is really an illusion and must be corrected immediately.

SCHLANGER: One of the things I found most interesting, is that Rick Perry, in his discussion also mentioned the advances of nuclear fusion, so that’s a very good sign that there are at least some people thinking.

But Helga we have another problem that this comes up against, which is the absolute dysfunction of the political parties in the United States, with a feud going on in the Republican Party which broke out this week; with the Democrats somewhat chaotic and stuck with nothing but the Green New Deal. How does this look to you?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: It looks very worrisome, because also the fact that Kamala Harris is now conducting foreign policy with President Biden resting in Camp David. This has caused the raising of quite some eyebrows, because normally a Vice President participates maybe, in overseas phone calls, but here, Kamala Harris is conducting foreign policy all by herself. So the question is, in what condition is President Biden? Naturally, the situation in the Republican Party is one of utmost chaos.

And I think the only way how this can be addressed, is that we have to organize with The LaRouche Organization and the Schiller Institute to really promote, absolutely, the solutions of my late husband Lyndon LaRouche, and hopefully large segments of the population will understand that a change of the paradigm is absolutely necessary. At this point, the only voice of reason is really coming from The LaRouche Organization and the policies promoted by my late husband. But it needs a broad mobilization of the population to change the course of these developments.

SCHLANGER: One of the things that The LaRouche Organization is doing is conducting a series of dialogues, such as the one from last Saturday on U.S. Russia policy. It is clear that the war machine that was never removed under President Trump is now back on all gears, targetting Russia and China. Where do you see this headed?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: It is extremely dangerous. We had the Atlantic Council Paper, “The Longer Telegram,” so-called, basically referring to the “long telegram” paper by George Kennan from 1946, now referring to the need to have regime change against China, especially targetting Xi Jinping to be toppled. Now, if you put yourself in the shoes of such a government as China, and you hear that coming from the largest nuclear power, and probably still the largest economy in the world, it has consequences. It leads to a hardening of positions. And in a certain sense, this is going on against Russia, with the Navalny campaign. So I think it’s quite interesting that Prof. Lyle Goldstein, who is from the Naval War College, he made a couple of warnings, both in the radio and also in the Washington Times, basically saying that this is leading to a situation where there is practically a warlike situation between the United States and Russia, and that the people who are pushing the Navalny campaign should be aware of the fact, is it really in the interest of the West to have a very sizable nuclear power like Russia to have chaos, or is it not in the interest of the Western countries, that the nuclear weapons of Russia should be under the control of a stable, unified force—I mean, just imagine, you have a civil war in Russia and then these nuclear weapons would get into the hands of some strange, terrorist kind of forces!

I think that there is actually the need to really be aware of that, and come to the conclusion that this whole policy of sanctions against Russia is not functioning; this was, for example, just made as a statement by the head of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Mr. Gabriel Felbermayr, who said that the whole idea of sanctions against Russia does not function, because you don’t get countries like China, or India, or other partners of Russia to cooperate, so therefore, the only forces which are hurt by the sanctions, is, in this case, emphatically Germany. So, this whole policy of geopolitical confrontation can only lead to a complete catastrophe, if it is pursued.

SCHLANGER: There’s also a very sharp warning coming from Sergey Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, about the policies of the EU, which are definitely part of this anti-Russian grouping.

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yes. He said that if this is stopped, if these sanctions are not stopped, that Russia is prepared to break off all relations to the EU. Now, there was a rather stupid article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, basically pooh-poohing it, saying this is just meant to cause people to now say, “Oh, we should do something now that this doesn’t happen.” But these liberals, and the FAZ is full of them, they don’t understand the connection between cause and effect, but these policies, as I said, they lead to dramatic changes.

I mean, if you put yourself in the shoes of Russia and China, what is the natural consequence of these policies coming from the U.S., from the EU, from Great Britain? Already in October 2020, at the annual Valdai conference, Putin raised the possibility—this is not the first time it was raised, but he raised it publicly at this Valdai conference—the possibility of a Russian-Chinese military alliance. And this was brought up again on Feb. 4, this year, in a meeting between Wang Yi, the Chinese Foreign Minister, and Sergey Lavrov, discussing this option. Now, Putin in some context, also said it’s not necessary, but obviously, it would be a major change in the strategic situation. What it would do is, it would protect China, if China would sort of come under the nuclear umbrella of the Russian nuclear forces, which are sizable, they’re extremely modernized; Putin had introduced these new weapons systems, the hypersonic missiles, the nuclear-powered submarines—all weapons systems which sort of make the previous plans for a global missile defense system by the U.S. and by NATO obsolete; obviously, all these countries are working high-speed in their own hypersonic missiles, so it’s a dangerous arms race.

But, it would mean, if China would come under the nuclear umbrella of Russia, it would completely change the situation for good; it would basically make a limited nuclear attack on China impossible, unless you want to have World War III all the way. It would basically allow China a greater flexibility in dealing with the problems in the South China Sea, in respect to Taiwan. It would definitely have an incredible signal effect on all the countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative. It would basically give them assurance that there can be a peaceful win-win cooperation.

Now, obviously, the efforts by the U.S. is to counter that, and that was going on already with the Trump administration, Pompeo and Esper, to build the Quad, that is, the Indo-Pacific alliance, trying to pull India into an alliance with the United States against Russia and China. But that is the kind of geopolitical games which really is what led to World War I and World War II, and I think it is really something we have to overcome: Because if this kind of geopolitical maneuvering is going on, the Damocles Sword of nuclear extinction hangs over the world. And people should really wake up.

The only consequence for European nations is to stop the sanctions campaign against Russia, to stop supporting Navalny, who is—it’s a typical Western intelligence-promoted operation for regime change in Russia. I think his support in Russia is very little. He has maybe a few hundreds of supporters—that looks big when they go on the street—but in reality it’s a very tiny fraction of the Russian population, and as we discussed previously, Ahurkov, one of the campaign managers of Navalny had begged the British second in command in the Moscow Embassy for money so they could do these operations. This is really something which should not happen! Regime change policy is a complete interference into the sovereignty of a country, and it is what Obama and Tony Blair were doing, the so-called “humanitarian interventions,” “spreading democracy”; democracy has gotten a very bad name as a result. And what should happen instead, is that the European nations, like Germany, France, Italy and others should leave NATO and rethink what is their security interest. I think we need to discuss a new security architecture, and that must represent the security interests of every single country on the planet, if we want to overcome the danger of nuclear war.

So, I think the consequence of this is to really leave the kind of NATO alliance, which has become obsolete in any case, after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, and right now, the idea to expand NATO as a global force, is really—it will lead to World War III if it’s not stopped.

SCHLANGER: You mentioned China possibly going into an alliance with Russia: The Chinese made a threat that they may withhold rare earth materials that are necessary for aircraft construction and other kinds of defense contracting. How serious is that threat?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, I think it’s being seriously looked at. I think the Chinese government has started an investigation, exactly of what the effect would be, as you say, on the military sector, on the production of fighter jets, and if this escalation increases, one could actually see that happening. That would be a sort of nuclear bomb, but it would be one of these signs of a prewar situation if it happens.

SCHLANGER: And speaking of pre-war, we’re seeing a number of developments in Southwest Asia around Yemen, also around Syria with the Israeli strikes on Syria, threats to Iran. How does this situation look from your standpoint?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: The situation in Yemen is a complete tragedy, and also I can only say the world community which allows this to happen—I mean, the Yemen population is the worst humanitarian catastrophe in years; it’s escalating; everybody knows it, nobody does anything decisive about it. Right now you have 2 million Yemeni children under the age of 5 who are in acute malnutrition; 400,000 of those are in acute severe malnutrition, which is acute danger of starvation. Now how easy would it be to tell the Saudis, “you open the ports, you allow the entrance of food aid,” and if the EU and the United States and some other countries would really put their foot down, it could be remedied, practically in a week! The fact that this is not happening, I really think that the EU policies on the question of refugees, what they have done with Frontex [EU’s border guard] backing and participating in the pushback operations against refugees, all of these policies are completely inhuman, and I think any nation in Europe that wants to have a decent policy should leave the EU! The EU and NATO, right now, are really alliances which are completely against the interests of the member states, and there is no need to have a bureaucracy in Brussels.

Look what they did in terms of getting vaccines: Ursula von der Leyen is a complete failure; this woman was a problem when she German Defense Minister. Now her record as the so-called President of EU Commission is a disaster. Why does she not resign? She should resign! And I think the European nations should leave the EU and form an alliance as republics of “fatherlands” as de Gaulle was calling for it, and you can have a multinational cooperation for the development of Africa, for the reconstruction of Southwest Asia, and you don’t need a supranational bureaucracy.

These things have to be remedied, and these policies are clearly not in the interests of the European nations. And in the case of Yemen, I really appeal to all of your viewers—that is, you—to help to change the policy in respect to this genocide which is going on before our very eyes.

SCHLANGER: Now, speaking of the EU, we have the man from the British royal yacht Britannia, who is now moving into power in Italy, Mario Draghi, former head of the European Central Bank: This is just another disaster, and he’s committing himself to the entire policy of so-called “monetary integration.” Is this going to go over in Italy?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: We have to see. Right now, you have the Lega being in the government, and they have one minister post; I think one big test case will be what happens to the Messina Bridge and also the Taranto steel plant, which Draghi basically wants to shut down, and the EU wants to shut down: This steel plant is the production facility which could actually produce the amount of steel needed for the Messina Bridge [to Sicily], which obviously would completely change the dynamic in terms of the Mezzogiorno, bringing real development to Southern Italy and Sicily. And the Lega basically wants to convince Draghi to go ahead with this bridge. Let’s see how this plays out: Draghi made his first speech in the Senate which was unfortunately, everything one could expect. He made the absurd statement saying that the more there is European integration, the more Italian, the Italians become. He also called for Schumpeter-like “creative destruction,” saying that some industries are not worth saving. So this is exactly what one could expect from somebody who has been in the ECB for many years, and demanding all kinds of “reforms” which created the problems in which Italy right now finds itself. So this does not look good.

SCHLANGER: To conclude, we want to go back to this question of Lyndon LaRouche’s solutions, and you’ve been speaking very enthusiastically about the development of the space program in the United Arab Emirates. We now have a Chinese mission on Mars, and as of tomorrow, there will be U.S. rover landing on Mars. How significant is this? This really does represent—when you talk about the Texas situation being the foretaste of the bad things that could come from the Great Reset, doesn’t this project around Mars give us a foretaste of the good things that could come out of international scientific cooperation?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Obviously. Look, for the Mars missions—I’m still most impressed by this U.A.E. operation, because this was a Mars mission which was only started, I think six years ago; so, in an incredible speed, they caught up, at least with Japanese help, but nevertheless, and they have now an spacecraft in Mars orbit. This shows you that any developing nation—after all the Gulf States only discovered oil less than 30 years ago—and turned from total desert states into, in some cases, states which are really doing quite remarkable things, in terms of for example, the Emirates have an island which they irrigated and turned into beautiful gardens and forests. And when my husband and I were in Abu Dhabi in 2002, he made a speech there on the future of oil; this was organized by the Zayed Center. And he basically said, look, forget oil as a fossil fuel, it’s too precious and should be used for chemical production, for pharmaceutical production, and use the revenue to invest in the production of water, that will green the deserts.

And he advised basically to go for innovation and leapfrog—and this is exactly what the Emirates have done, and other Gulf States are going in a similar direction. They are cooperating with China on the Belt and Road Initiative, and now you have this Mars mission.

Now, if you think what incredible technologies are opened up with space research and space travel, we have seen it many years ago with the Apollo Project, where it’s often cited that every cent investment brought back fourteen cents in terms of value as computers, as all kinds of spinoff products. But we are now on the verge of getting fusion power as a propulsion, which is the only way how human beings could safely get to Mars. There is discussion about studying the weather patterns, the underground water, the traces of life. And obviously, not only manned Mars missions are what is being looked at, but also a village on the Moon, a city on Mars, creating the conditions for longer term existence of man on these planets, as a stepping stone for future interstellar travel. Now, that means that the character of humanity will completely be transformed, because it’s very clear that once you undertake such endeavors, you cannot have a geopolitical war on Mars, or else you will not live, and you will not exist.

And the kind of international cooperation among astronauts which we have seen on the International Space Station (ISS), that is the model for the future cooperation among nations, like the United States, Russia, China, India, Europe—the best policy of Europe is their work on ESA, the European Space Agency, where its head, Mr. Jan Wörner, is enthusiastically speaking about the village on the Moon all the time; and ESA has just put out a request for young people to be trained as astronauts. That program should be enlarged. Europe should have a much, much larger space program, and if a small country like the Emirates can have a Mars mission, why cannot Germany have a Mars mission on its own? You know, Germany right now is in place 27, in terms of the number of people being vaccinated; the Emirates are in place 6 or 7.

So there’s something right which the Emirates are doing, and something fundamentally wrong what Germany is doing and the EU is doing. However, this is the future, and if mankind is supposed to live as an immortal species—and that was a notion which was coined by my late husband—because we are different from other species, because we have creative reason. We can solve any problem through scientific and technological breakthroughs, by discovering new laws of the universe. And since our mind is the most advanced part of that universe, there is all the reason for optimism that once we attune our own existence and our own practice with the laws of the universe, our chances to become the immortal species is absolutely there. But it does require space travel as a precondition, and I think this idea of nations working together to discover the beautiful secrets of the universe, that gives you a taste of what the future of man can look like, when we decide to become adults.

SCHLANGER: Well, Helga, it’s always good to end with a healthy dose of optimism, as you just did. For our viewers, let me remind you: You can get the new report “A Great Leap Backward—LaRouche Exposes the Green New Deal” on why we have to defeat the Great Reset and the Green New Deal, go to https://schillerinstitute.com and get an invoice for it.

And Helga, I guess that’s what we have now, so we’ll see you next week.

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: And join the Schiller Institute!