He dances, he sings, he pilots planes and submarines, but even hardened cynics don’t know what to make of Vladimir Putin’s recent performance as an environmental conservationist.  In addition to hobnobbing with Leonardo DiCaprio to save tigers, the Russian Prime Minister has also recently joined the debate on alternative energy, or rather, the campaign against wind energy.

“Windmills, which are so widespread in many European countries seem to be an environmentally friendly kind (of energy), but in fact they kill birds,” Putin said before a United Russia conference, quoted by Reuters.  Instead of these dangerous bird killing machines, whose vibrations “shake worms out of the ground” and create “a real environmental problem,” Putin is a big backer of geothermal energy, praising a cooperation project with Iceland to generate energy from geysers on the Kamchatka peninsula.  Of course others are worried that a geothermal energy development would ravage the pristine beauty of Kamchatka, much like the Khimki forest highway which was just shoved through for approval despite vociferous protests and at least two severely beaten journalists.

Putin seems to enjoy wearing the environmentalist hat though despite his contrary record, sporting the memes of the vanguard iconoclast, fighting against the man, big corporate, and Uncle Sam.  But at the end of the day, he’s a petro populist with a strong interest in the world’s continuing use of fossil fuels, and especially Europe’s reliance on natural gas to power their combine cycle generation needs.