Comservatives pointed out the disastrous impact of European energy policy and sanctions after an Irish café owner posted her exorbitant electricity bill on social media.
Geraldine Dolan, the owner of the Poppy Fields Café in the town of Athlone, County Westmeath, shared a photo of her electricity bill on Twitter Monday. The bill, dated between June 8 and August 19, totaled nearly 10,000 euros.
“I got this electricity bill today, how in the name of God is this possible, we’re a small coffee shop in [W]estmeath,” Dolan wrote from her Twitter account Monday.
Dolan told the Irish Independent that her annual power bill was about 12,700 euros for the whole of 2021. She estimated that it would cost over 45,000 euros to keep her restaurant lights on for the rest of the year, excluding value added tax. “I don’t know how I am going to cope,” she said. “A cost like that is just bananas.”
Conservatives on Twitter reacted to the photo, pointing out that Dolan’s crushing power bill was a consequence of the European Union’s energy crisis, which was caused by Russia cutting off natural gas supplies to the continent, and the EU’s aggressive push for green energy failing to make up the difference and meet Europeans’ electricity needs.
Conservatives also warned that the Democratic Party’s war on fossil fuels could bring the crisis to American shores as well.
“This is coming to America as a direct consequence of a radical Democrat agenda to dismantle abundant reliable energy,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) tweeted. “No, really. So – let’s stop it.”
“People with Ukraine flag bios are scratching their heads over soaring energy prices,” National Pulse editor-in-chief Raheem Kassam wrote. “Perhaps don’t elect governments that provoke wars, fail to plan w/ nuclear power, and implement climate change ‘net zero’ policies that all raise prices? This is the grave you have dug.”
“Small UK coffee shop gets a two-month $10,000 electricity bill,” junkscience.com founder Steven Milloy replied. “Climate idiocy is pointlessly expensive and needlessly disastrous.”
“Don’t worry. Just your part in saving the climate,” former Navy SEAL Rob O’Neill added.
“This is what happens when you give up energy independence and another solution doesn’t exist at scale. Small biz, working class and poor bear the brunt of this anti-human movement,” commentator Carol Roth tweeted.
“In just 18 months the US has spent $500B embracing the European energy model which is now proving both prohibitively expensive and wholly unreliable,” the U.S. Oil and Gas Association trade association wrote. “In 5 years we will look back and realize the only thing that saved us from our own meltdown was abundant US natural gas.”
“Small businesses in Europe are toast,” Wall Street Silver said. “Can’t survive selling coffee and pastries with monthly bills like this. Even major chains will shut down quickly.”
Other users were more sympathetic.
“This sweet old lady is being mocked for not understanding the direct and obvious relationship between Russia sanctions and soaring energy prices but she shouldn’t have to understand it, she’s a sweet old lady who runs a coffee shop!” one Twitter user said.