Hans Erdbrink

[Rutger Bregman @rcbregman]

Here's the mustread if you want to understand this insanity, by investigative journalist Jesse Frederik (in Dutch): https://t.co/0NMK18zfQ2.

Short summary:

1. Drilling for gas caused (by international standards) minor earthquakes. The damage to some houses in the epicentre area was real. And the state and the gas company handled it badly. Corporate lawyers, denial, etc.

2. Things became super political. The need to establish cause was removed. You can now claim mining damage anywhere the ground has ever moved more than 0.55 mm per second. That's a basketball bouncing on a floor. (For most of the province it was a single tremor back in 2012).

3. Then the investigating stopped too. 'Victims' first got €5,000. Then €10,000. Then up to €60,000 of repairs with no investigation into what caused them.

4. Claims exploded. 2024 was the mildest seismic year in two decades, but there were 42,790 damage claims. Over 70% of claims now come from zip codes where the strongest ground motion was about what a truck going over a speed bump produces.

5. Total compensation: €3.9 billion. 56% of all addresses in the 'earthquake zone' have been compensated at least once (including a rich town where the strongest tremor expected was equivalent to a passing train), and where an engineer puts the odds of a quake-caused crack in an undamaged brick wall at 1 in 20,000. The town has collected €65 million, plus another €14.5 million in green-energy subsidies for earthquake 'victims'.

6. Meanwhile the gas company spent €200 MILLION on research - Groningen became the global centre of seismological research (even though people in - for example - Italy would find it funny that we call these tremors 'earthquakes'). The whole provinces was wired with sensors.

7. All the research was ignored though. The political debate was dominated by a form of science denial, but this time mainly coming from the left. One international expert called the parliamentary inquiry's account of the physics 'misinformation on a very serious scale'.

8. The gas field is now being filled with cement. Around 550 billion cubic metres is still down there (roughly 18 years of Dutch consumption), but the Netherlands now imports most of what it burns. Experts asked to keep some wells intact as an emergency reserve. Parliament said no.

9. End result: we spent insane amounts of money, are much more dependent on foreign autocrats for our energy (with higher greenhouse gas emissions), misinformation is everywhere, and citizens in Groningen are still angry.

[Kevin McKernan @Kevin_McKernan]

Never Forget.
@DrPaulOffit and @PeterHotez were invited to the ACIP meeting and they declined.

Every tweet where they complain about this outcome, post this reminder of their cowardice.
Thank you @RWMaloneMD for driving this point home.

[Dorien Rookmaker @RookmakerDorien]

Als je in Iran voor democratie demonstreert, kun je ter dood veroordeeld worden. Het overkwam Mohammad Javad Vafei Sani.
Waar blijven de protesten? @D66 @CDA @gl_pvda

[Jay Bhattacharya @DrJBhattacharya]

It's the height of irony that the European Commission fined @elonmusk's @x for not being transparent. The old Twitter handed out blue checks to cronies with no transparency whatsoever. The purpose of the old Twitter blue check system was to suppress dissidents and censor speech.

[Hans Erdbrink @Herdbrink]

@elonmusk @PvanHouwelingen This doesn’t feel proportionate at all.

[Hans Erdbrink @Herdbrink]

Moratorium on GOF

[Richard H. Ebright @R_H_Ebright]

Two lab leaks causing mass infections have been reported in just two months: a lab leak causing African swine fever virus infections in Spain this month, and a lab leak causing Newcastle disease virus infections in China last month.

Virology labs leak like sieves.

[Allison Pearson @AllisonPearson]

There will never be another Labour government after this one.
Labour abandoned ordinary decent working people when it championed purple-haired ideologues and men in women’s boxing contests.
The defeat in the May Senedd election will mark the beginning of the end.

[Hans Erdbrink @Herdbrink]

@JoostNiemoller Beetje apart inderdaad

[Hans Erdbrink @Herdbrink]

@arnowellens @BNRdewereld @diederiksamsom @ajboekestijn @robdewijk Blind vertrouwen in de eigen “wijsheid”

[Hans Erdbrink @Herdbrink]

@JoostJansen6 @UN @WMO 🤡

[Hans Erdbrink @Herdbrink]

@dirktheuns Een echte “expert”

[Hans Erdbrink @Herdbrink]

@BartMaes16 It is scary

[Ruud Koopmans @Ruud_Koop_mans]

Except a genocide and some ethnic cleansing here and there that have somehow resulted in a country where Christians not that long ago were almost half the population - and further back nearly 100% - now being over 99% Muslim. A true place of tolerance indeed.

[Hans Erdbrink @Herdbrink]

@arnowellens Zo voelt t inderdaad

[Hans Erdbrink @Herdbrink]

@TrumpsHurricane Weapons of mass destruction

[Hans Erdbrink @Herdbrink]

@OliLondonTV I wonder how her opinion about Biden was.

[Hans Erdbrink @Herdbrink]

@eurofounder I live in The Netherlands, but i have never seen this happen. I don’t believe the story of filling in a circumvented tax form for 0,5E , this seems nonsense or they just made fun of the tourist.

[Hans Erdbrink @Herdbrink]

@carlbildt Bit late isn’t it?

[Ben Norton @BenjaminNorton]

Obama bombed 7 countries, dropping 26,171 bombs in his last year as US president.

He waged non-stop war, and destroyed the government of Libya, the most prosperous country in Africa, making it a failed state with slave markets.

He also supported violent coups in Latin America.

[Hans Erdbrink @Herdbrink]

@MarieTidball @jacindaardern “Beacon of hope” “global leadership”, i might be wrong but i have perceived this as being 180 degrees different.