I, for one, am old enough to remember the days when Angela Merkel, “the indispensable European,” was praised for her calm, strategic vision. She was the scientist, the rationalist. It’s true that Merkel, famous, we were told, for her intellectual integrity, ultimately ended up endorsing the re-acceleration of the closedown of Germany’s nuclear power plants purely for reasons of political expediency. But no matter, Germany was pouring billions into renewables, and those, along with a reliable source of gas from Russia, would ensure that all would be well.

What could go wrong?

The New York Times:

Officials in Germany are urging residents and businesses to start conserving energy, as the country faced a third day of reduced flows of natural gas from Russia, a critical energy supplier for Europe’s largest economy.
“The time to do this has arrived,” Robert Habeck, Germany’s economy minister, said in an urgent public appeal posted to Instagram late Wednesday. “Every kilowatt-hour helps in this situation.”
Mr. Habeck said the situation was serious, but insisted that supplies to Europe’s largest economy were assured. But the head of the country’s federal agency for monitoring gas and power networks warned that if Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned energy giant, continued to curtail gas flows, the situation could become more dangerous once temperatures drop…

Oh.