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France launches climate change police force

By Keean Bexte | The Counter Signal | August 23, 2022

Much like Canada, France has begun recruitment efforts to launch a new climate change police force to enforce strict climate laws.

As reported by Breitbart, French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin is hiring 3,000 “green police” officers to go after those who violate “green-related criminal issues” to safeguard the country from disasters supposedly caused by human-related climate change.

In an interview with Le Journal du Dimanche, “Faced with this, we must improve the work of judicial investigation,” Darmanin said. “We have therefore decided to massively reinforce the resources of the Central Office for the Fight against Damage to the Environment and to launch 3,000 ‘green police’ posts.”

He continued, saying that the climate change police force “will be a revolution.”

The announcement comes after the EU crisis management tsar Janez Lenarcic called for the rapid creation of a Europe-wide “Civil Protection Force” to enforce climate laws across the EU.

What such a force would mean for the sovereignty of member states hardly needs to be mentioned, and the call for an international police force was heavily criticized.

“Handing these irresponsible and unaccountable bureaucrats even more power would just simply be irresponsible,” said MEP Cristian Terhes.

“What Europe needs is a rebirth of national and sovereign democracy, with creativity and power for local people rather than one size fits all bureaucratic control from the centre of Brussels.”

Of course, Europe isn’t the only place planning to create a police force that specifically handles offences related to climate change. Canada is getting in on the action, too.

As reported by The Counter Signal, it appears that the Ministry of Environment & Climate Change Canada (ECCC) is currently working on a building to house such officers.

And if that wasn’t enough evidence, ECCC has posted an ad on Indeed.com for an “Enforcement Officer – Environmental (pollution) enforcement.”

According to the ad, “Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Enforcement Branch ensures that organizations and individuals respect laws administered by Environment and Climate Change Canada that protect the natural environment, its biodiversity and the health of Canadians.”

Duties include “conducting inspections to ensure compliance with federal environmental laws,” as well as “conducting investigations into alleged violations of federal environmental laws, including taking statements from witnesses or accused persons, preparing and executing search warrants, reviewing and assessing evidence, and preparing court briefs.”

Officers will further be required to wear uniforms and carry safety equipment, including body armour, handcuffs, batons, and even prohibited weapons.

France’s climate change officers will likely be similarly equipped.

August 23, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

Israel must ‘eliminate’ nuclear arsenal: Official

The Cradle | August 23, 2022

On 23 August, Iran’s top UN Envoy Majid Takht Ravanchi decried the lack of progress over efforts to denuclearize West Asia, and called on Israel – the region’s only nuclear armed state – to eliminate its stockpile of weapons.

Tehran’s ambassador made these remarks during the Tenth Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) held at the UN’s headquarters in New York.

Takht-Ravanchi charged the US with exercising double standards, and demanded that Israel’s accession to the NPT “without precondition and further delay” and the placement of all of its nuclear activities and facilities under the comprehensive International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards are essential in “realizing the goal the of establishing of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East.”

The Iranian envoy said delays in 2012, 2013 and 2014 in convening the Conference – which is meant to advance the goal of eliminating weapons of mass destruction from the region – had caused serious setbacks for participating states.

“We are firmly convinced that the Conference was postponed indefinitely because of the US opposition, and this has been the persistent policy of the US to turn a blind eye to the nuclear arsenals of the Israeli regime while not supporting the convening of the Conference,” he declared.

Israel reportedly possesses 200 to 400 nuclear warheads, making it the sole possessor of non-conventional arms in West Asia, yet Tel Aviv as yet to sign the NPT and refuses to allow inspections of its nuclear facilities.

Signatories from 191 countries have signed the NPT, including the US, UK, France, China, and Russia, making it the most highly ratified armaments agreement in history.

Experts suggest that the US and EU support for Israel has emboldened the country to increase its nuclear activities, despite essential oversight by the IAEA.

Over the years, Israelis are believed to have assassinated at least seven Iranian nuclear scientists and conducted a series of sabotage operations against Iran’s IAEA-monitored nuclear facilities.

Last week, Israeli officials called on western nations to “walk away” from the negotiating table with Iran, fearful that the US is on the cusp of returning to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that would freeze Tehran’s enrichment program.

During a phone call with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on 18 August, Israel’s interim Prime Minister Yair Lapid demanded that Europe send a “clear and unequivocal message that there will be no more concessions to Iran,” according to Israeli media.

Lapid also met with the US ambassador to Israel and the chairman of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee’s ‘Middle East’ Subcommittee, telling them: “In the current situation, the time has come to walk away from the table. Anything else sends a message of weakness to Iran.”

This comes after several Israeli assassination and sabotage operations inside Iran, in efforts to set back Iran’s advancements and scuttle JCPOA revival talks.

August 23, 2022 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , , | 2 Comments

Deliberate misrepresentation: Western media bias makes Israeli war on Palestinians possible

By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | August 23, 2022

While US and western mainstream and corporate media remain biased in favour of Israel, they often behave as if they are a third, neutral party. This is simply not the case.

Take the New York Times coverage of the latest Israeli war on Gaza as an example. Its article on 6 August, “Israel-Gaza Fighting Flares for a Second Day” is the typical mainstream western reporting on Israel and Palestine, but with a distinct NYT flavour.

For the uninformed reader, the article succeeds in finding a balanced language between two equal sides. This misleading moral equivalence is one of the biggest intellectual blind spots for western journalists. If they do not outwardly champion Israel’s discourse on ‘security’ and ‘right to defend itself’, they create false parallels between Palestinians and Israelis, as if a military occupier and an occupied nation have comparable rights and responsibilities.

Obviously, this logic does not apply to the Russia-Ukraine war. For NYT and all mainstream western media, there is no question regarding who the good guys and the bad guys are in that bloody fight.

‘Palestinian militants’ and ‘terrorists’ have always been the West’s bad guys. Per the logic of their media coverage, Israel does not launch unprovoked wars on Palestinians, and is not an unrepentant military occupier, or a racist apartheid regime. This language can only be used by marginal ‘radical’ and ‘leftist’ media, never the mainstream.

The brief introduction of the NYT article spoke about the rising death toll, but did not initially mention that the 20 killed Palestinians include children, emphasising, instead, that Israeli attacks have killed a ‘militant leader’.

When the six children killed by Israel are revealed in the second paragraph, the article immediately, and without starting a new sentence, clarifies that “Israel said some civilian deaths were the result of militants stashing weapons in residential areas”, and that others were killed by “misfired’ Palestinian rockets.

On 16 August, the Israeli military finally admitted that it was behind the strikes that killed the 5 young Palestinian boys of Jabaliya. Whether the NYT reported on that or not matters little. The damage has been done, and that was Israel’s plan from the start.

The title of the BBC story of 16 August, ‘Gaza’s children are used to the death and bombing’, does not immediately name those responsible for the ‘death and bombing’. Even Israeli military spokesmen, as we will discover later, would agree to such a statement, though they will always lay the blame squarely on the ‘Palestinian terrorists’.

When the story finally reveals that a little girl, Layan, was killed in an Israeli strike, the language was carefully crafted to lessen the blame on her Israeli murderers. The girl, we are told, was on her way to the beach with her family, when their tuk-tuk “passed by a military camp run by the militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad”, which, “at the exact moment, (…) was targeted by Israeli fire”. The author says nothing of how she reached the conclusion that the family was not the target.

One can easily glean from the story that Israel’s intention was not to kill Layan – and logically, none of the 17 other children murdered during the three-day war on Gaza. Besides, Israel has, according to the BBC, tried to save the little girl; alas, “a week of treatment in an Israeli hospital couldn’t save her life”.

Though Israeli politicians have spoken blatantly about killing Palestinian children – and, in the case of former Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, “the Palestinian mothers who give birth to ‘little snakes'” – the BBC report, and other reports on the latest war, have failed to mention this. Instead, it quoted Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who reportedly said that “the death of innocent civilians, especially children is heartbreaking.” Incidentally, Lapid ordered the latest war on Gaza, which killed a total of 49 Palestinians.

Even a human-interest story about a murdered Palestinian child somehow avoided the language that could fault Israel for the gruesome killing of a little girl. Furthermore, the BBC also laboured to present Israel in a positive light, resorting to quote the occupation army’s statement that it was “devastated by (Layan’s) death and that of any civilians.”

The NYT and BBC have been selected here not because they are the worst examples of western media bias, but because they are often cited as ‘liberal’, if not ‘progressive’, media. Their reporting, however, represents an ongoing crisis in western journalism, especially relating to Palestine.

Books have been written about this subject, civil society organisations were formed to hold western media accountable and numerous editorial board meetings were organised to put some pressure on western editors, to no avail.

Desperate by the unchanging pro-Israel narratives in western media, some pro-Palestine human rights advocates often argue that there are greater margins within Israel’s own mainstream media than in the US, for example. This, too, is inaccurate.

The misnomer of the supposedly more balanced Israeli media is a direct outcome of the failure to influence western media coverage on Palestine and Israel. The erroneous notion is often buoyed by the fact that an Israeli newspaper, like Haaretz, gives marginal spaces to critical voices, like those of Israeli journalists Gideon Levy and Amira Hass.

Israeli propaganda, one of the most powerful and sophisticated in the world, however, can hardly be balanced by occasional columns written by a few dissenting journalists.

Additionally, Haaretz is often cited as an example of relatively fair journalism, simply because the alternatives – Times of Israel, the Jerusalem Post and other rightwing Israeli media – are exemplary in their callousness, biased language and misconstruing of facts.

The pro-Israel prejudices in western media often spill over to Palestine sympathetic media throughout the Middle East and the rest of the world, especially those reporting on the news in English and French.

Since many newspapers and online platforms utilise western news agencies, they, often inadvertently, adopt the same language used in western news sources, thus depicting Palestinian resisters or fighters, as ‘militants’, the Israeli occupation army as “Israeli Defence Forces” and Israeli war on Gaza as ‘flare ups’ of violence.

In its totality, this language misinterprets the Palestinian struggle for freedom as random acts of violence within a protracted ‘conflict’ where innocent civilians, like Layan, are ‘caught in the crossfire.’

The deadly Israeli wars on Gaza are made possible, not only by western weapons and political support, but through an endless stream of media misinformation and misrepresentation. Though Israel has killed thousands of Palestinian civilians in recent years, western media remains as committed to defending Israel as if nothing has changed.

August 23, 2022 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , | 1 Comment

Mossad Likely Behind Salman Rushdie Stabbing: Denver Professor

Al-Manar | August 23, 2022

The last week’s stabbing of novelist Salman Rushdie, the author of a sacrilegious anti-Islam book may have been orchestrated by the Mossad, suggested Nader Hashemi, Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Denver.

In a Saturday interview with Negar Mortazavi, host of the Iran Podcast, Hashemi questioned the timing of the attack, highlighting what he believed to be two possible explanations.

Hashemi said that one possibility is that Iran wanted to take vengeance on the United States for the 2020 assassination of IRGC general Qassem Suleimani in a drone strike at Baghdad Airport.

Another possibility, Hashemi said, adding that he believes this is more likely, is that Rushdie’s attacker, Hadi Matar, had been convinced to commit the attack by a Mossad agent masquerading as an IRGC operative or supporter.

“That so-called person online claiming to be affiliated with the Islamic Republic of Iran could’ve been a Mossad operative.”

“The other possibility, which I actually think is much more likely, is that this young man Hadi Matar was in communication with someone online who claimed to be an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps member or supporter and lured him into attacking Salman Rushdie and that so-called person online claiming to be affiliated with the Islamic Republic of Iran could’ve been a Mossad operative.”

Hashemi went on to suggest that the Zionist entity’s motive for carrying out a false flag operation would be to galvanize opposition to the ongoing efforts of world powers to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement.

“Israel has taken a very strong position against reviving the Iran nuclear agreement,” he said. “We were in very sensitive negotiations, like an agreement was imminent, and then the attack on Salman Rushdie takes place. I think that’s one possible interpretation and scenario that could explain the timing of this at this moment during these sensitive political discussions related to Iran’s nuclear program.”

August 23, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, False Flag Terrorism | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel Conquers the World

Fealty to Israeli and Jewish interests is the new normal

BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • AUGUST 23, 2022

I have to confess a certain liking for Russian President Vladimir Putin. No, it’s not over his actions in Ukraine, nor his authoritarian tendencies domestically. It is due to the fact that he sometimes articulates the hypocrisy of foreign countries and leaders in a pithy and take-no-prisoners fashion. He has lately been brave enough to compare and contrast what the Russian military has been accused of in Ukraine with what Israel has been doing to Gaza. He has done so by asking a series of questions that together demonstrate the hypocrisy of Washington and of some Europeans over what constitutes war crimes or crimes against humanity. The questions were “First, are there any sanctions against Israel for the murder and destruction of innocent Palestinian women and children? Second, are there any sanctions against the United States for killing and destroying lives of innocent women and children in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Cuba, Vietnam, and even stealing their diamonds and gold? And third, were there any sanctions against the US and France over the killing of Muammar Gaddafi and the destruction of Libya?”

Russia, of course, has been on the receiving end of sanctions and boycotts and even official theft of the money that it had in US and European banks. It has also had to deal as well with military support provided by NATO to the Volodymyr Zelensky regime in Ukraine. Last month the US Senate unanimously passed a ridiculous nonbinding resolution declaring Russia to be a “state sponsor of terrorism,” which, if endorsed by the White House, would inevitably lead to still more sanctions and increasing aid to Zelensky and his corrupt cronies in an openly declared attempt to weaken Russia and bring down Putin. It would also mean that a future functional diplomatic relationship between Moscow and Washington would become impossible. Implicit in Putin’s questions is the clear accusation that there is a double standard on what constitutes national security. The West supports military resistance by Ukraine against Russia but does not support the right of the Palestinians to defend themselves when attacked by Israel, as took place on August 5th, an unprovoked attack that killed inter alia 17 Palestinian children.

The Russian Foreign Ministry followed-up with a statement first posted on its Egyptian Embassy social media accounts. The statement included a screenshot of a tweet Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid posted April 3rd on the claimed killing of civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha, attributed by Lapid and the western media to Russian forces. Lapid declared “It is impossible to remain indifferent in the face of the horrific images from the city of Bucha near Kiev, from after the Russian army left. Intentionally harming a civilian population is a war crime and I strongly condemn it.” The Russian post observed how one might “Compare Yair Lapid’s lies about [Ukraine] in April and attempts to place blame and responsibility on [Russia] for the deaths of people in Bucha brutally murdered by the Nazis with his calls in August for bombing and strikes on [Palestinian] land in the Gaza Strip. Isn’t that a double standard, complete disregard and contempt for the lives of Palestinians?”

The point about a double standard is particularly relevant as Ukraine, which claims to be enduring a brutal Russian assault replete with war crimes, has openly endorsed Israel’s bombing and shooting of the unarmed Palestinians. Two weeks ago, Ukrainian Ambassador to Israel Yevgen Korniychuk expressed his full support for Tel Aviv, saying “As a Ukrainian whose country is under a very brutal attack by its neighbor, I feel great sympathy towards the Israeli public. Attacks on women and children are reprehensible. Terrorism and malicious attacks against civilians are the daily reality of Israelis and Ukrainians and this appalling threat must be stopped immediately.”

Korniychuk’s odd, and manifestly false, comment takes reality and turns it upside down. But nevertheless, to be sure, Israel’s recent bloody assault on Gaza did not earn it much favor from a global audience that has become tired of the Jewish state’s belligerency and self-serving flood of disinformation. A number of human rights organizations and even some churches responded by declaring Israel to be an “apartheid state.” Some critics of the Israelis have also been pleased to observe that ordinary voters in the US Democratic Party in particular have moved away from knee-jerk support of Israel and have accepted that it is racist and undemocratic. Even a considerable number young Jews, many of whom have protested against the Israeli automatic resort to gunfire and bombs in suppressing the Palestinians, have broken with their parents over the issue of what constitutes the legitimate “right” of Israel to “defend itself.”

Israel is far from defeated, however, and it has struck back in the time-honored fashion, using the Jewish diaspora and its vast wealth to buy up or leverage the media, to corrupt politicians at all levels, and to propagate a narrative that always depicts Jews sympathetically as perpetual victims. That narrative relies on the so-called holocaust and the slogan “never again” to generate the moral authority and outrage that makes the entire otherwise unsustainable imposture work.

What might be plausibly described as an International Jewish Conspiracy directed from the Israeli government’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs and from the think tanks, banks and investment houses on Wall Street and K Street is working hard to make it illegal to criticize Israel and is enjoying considerable success. Israel’s recent and continuing slaughter of Gazans and West Bank villagers has not induced the thoroughly controlled governments and media outlets that the Jewish state dominates that there is anything seriously wrong going on between the Israelis and Palestinians, only business as usual.

Israel appears to be winning its war against the Palestinians (and let’s not forget the Iranians) where it matters most, among the power brokers in both the US and elsewhere. Witness for example the reaction of the US government to the killing of the Gazans. President Joe Biden declared that Israel has a “right to defend itself,” the standard line also parroted by Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi. Thirty-four congressmen meanwhile signed on to a letter calling on the United Nations to disband a UN Commission of Inquiry (COI) into Israel following recent controversial remarks by one of the commission’s members. The COI was set up to investigate possible Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity in the occupied territories and Gaza.

The signatories particularly objected to what the always vigilant Anti-Defamation League has described as anti-Semitic statements by COI member Miloon Kothari, an Indian human rights expert and investigator. In a podcast Kothari observed that Israel routinely “practiced apartheid and settler colonialism against the Palestinians,” before rejecting criticism of his commission as the work of the Jewish lobby that controls the media, saying “We are very disheartened by the social media that is controlled largely by the Jewish lobby or specific NGOs,” adding that “a lot of money is being thrown at trying to discredit the commission’s work.”

Jewish power particularly in the anglophone world was also on display recently in Canada. The painfully politically correct Justin Trudeau regime has succumbed to the example set by Germany and several other European states in enshrining the official Jewish organizations’ perpetual victim narrative in the Canadian Criminal Code, s. 319. Henceforth

(2.1) Everyone who, by communicating statements, other than in private conversation, willfully promotes antisemitism by condoning, denying or downplaying the Holocaust

  • (a) is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years; or
  • (b) is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.

So, from now on in Canada, if you question the claimed facts surrounding the approved so-called holocaust narrative you can be sent to prison for two years. So much for free speech or the right to challenge disinformation.

Finally, in Britain, the two contenders for the position of Prime Minister replacing the disgraced Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, and Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, were boasting of their pro-Israel credentials over the very weekend when Israel was killing more than fifty Palestinians, including 17 children, while wounding scores more. Truss and Sunak played the Israel/Jewish card big time, with Truss asserting that “The UK should stand side by side with Israel, now and well into the future. As Prime Minister, I would be at the forefront of this mission.” Truss has also hinted that she would follow the Zionist stooge Donald Trump’s lead in moving the British Embassy to Jerusalem and she has supported a Free Trade Agreement between the UK and Israel, which would primarily benefit the Israelis. She has also declared that any criticism of Israel is rooted in anti-Semitism, a popular line that is also being extensively promoted in the United States.

The two dominant parties in the UK’s parliamentary system are the Conservatives (Tories) and Labour. Both parties have organized “Friends of Israel” groups that have as members a majority of parliamentarians, including more than four out of every five Tories, who currently form the government. Recently, the Labour Party ousted leader Jeremy Corbyn because he dared to express sympathy for the Palestinians and replaced him with Keir Starmer, who is as close to Israel and the powerful British Jewish community as, well… choose your metaphor. For what it’s worth, Truss, Sunak and Starmer all support a hard line against Russia in Ukraine and also advocate putting extreme pressure on Iran, Israel’s declared regional enemy. They also all support using the British veto in the United Nations to protect the Jewish state against critics.

In 2001, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon angrily admonished his colleague Shimon Peres, who was arguing that Israel should heed US calls for a cease fire, saying “I want to tell you something very clear, don’t worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it.” It now appears that the US, Canada, and Great Britain, joined by other anglophone states like Australia and New Zealand, are riding on the same horse when it comes to sacrificing actual national interests to pander to a foreign nation which can rightly be regarded as both a habitual war criminal and manifestly racist. The British and Canadian politicians on both sides of the aisle have now become like their American counterparts in allowing themselves to be corrupted by money and media influence, making an uncritical and near total commitment to Israel the defining issue in any political campaign for high office.

Modern Jewish power as a global phenomenon is a cancer that was in a certain sense made in America and has spread worldwide. But, fortunately, the smearing of critics as anti-Semites is beginning to wear thin. As Chris Hedges observed in March 2019 “The Israel Lobby’s buying off of nearly every senior politician in the United States, facilitated by our system of legalized bribery, is not an anti-Semitic trope. It is a fact. The lobby’s campaign of vicious character assassination, smearing and blacklisting against those who defend Palestinian rights… is not an anti-Semitic trope. It is a fact. Twenty-four state governments’ passage of Israel Lobby-backed legislation requiring their workers and contractors, under threat of dismissal, to sign a pro-Israel oath and promise not to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement is not an anti-Semitic trope. It is a fact.”

It should also be a fact that Americans are beginning to rally against their government being manipulated by the unregistered insidious agents of a foreign government, but that will have to wait presumably. For the moment, Israel and its fifth column have key elements in both government and in the public space in their iron grip. It might require something like a revolution to loosen that.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

August 23, 2022 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , | 2 Comments

Europe’s Population Could Halve As Birth Rates Plummet: HSBC Economist

Sputnik – 23.08.2022

Soaring home prices in Europe have led to people putting off marriage and starting a family to a later period in their life than used to be the case as couples are forced to save for longer to buy a family home.

Europe’s population may dramatically drop this century as rising housing costs and the effects of the COVID-19 lockdowns force couples to have fewer kids, according to economist James Pomeroy at HSBC.

Pomeroy predicts that by the end of this century, Europe’s population could fall by 40 percent and the workforce could fall by 20 million by 2030 because of plummeting birth rates.

“Though economic development typically lowers fertility rates, in developed markets there is some evidence that fertility rates are being held back by elevated house prices as couples postpone their first child, partly as people tend to get married later, but also because they have to save for longer to buy a family home,” Pomeroy said.

According to him, Italy already has 40 percent fewer schoolchildren than it had in 1980, and figures are expected to drop by another quarter by 2040.

“In 2000, the bulk of the population was aged 15 to 45; by 2020, it was 30 to 60. And across southern Europe – including Italy and Greece – there will be twice as many people in their sixties than in their teens,” the economist said.

In Germany, Netherlands, Canada and New Zealand, house prices are more than 30 percent higher than they were seven years ago relative to incomes, he added.

By the end of the 21st century, the population in Europe may drop to fewer than 350 million people from more than 700 million today.

August 23, 2022 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Inside the mind of one of my very smart pro-vax friends

If you ask them for data to back up their claims, they stop responding.

By Steve Kirsch | August 22, 2022

I recently talked to a friend of mine at a recent social event. We’ll call him Bob. He’s super smart about most things. But when it comes to the vaccine, he’s blind to the truth.

He was bragging about how he has been vaxxed 6 times with the COVID vax and he’s perfectly healthy. He can’t wait for SB 866 in California to pass so when his kids turn 12, they can decide to get the vaccine over their mother’s objections.

Bob thinks I’m a nut case, cherry picking data. He says I used to be respected, but after turning anti-vax, people have lost all respect for me. He said I have a religious belief about the vaccine and I’m not driven by data.

What he isn’t telling anyone is that he’s been losing his vision ever since he got his first COVID vaccine. He used to have 20/20 vision, but now he wears glasses and can’t drive at night. When I brought up the data showing the connection between the shots and vision loss, he changed the topic.

I showed him two papers showing the more you vaccinate, the sicker you get (see the two papers here). I asked, “Where are the papers that show the opposite?” He ignored my request.

He gets his belief system from the mainstream media. Full stop. He reasons that if I was correct, surely Bill Gates would agree with me and admit they goofed. It’s 100% deference to authority.

Bob will not look at the data himself and he doesn’t want to discuss it. He will not engage. He thinks that if I was right, there would be more than a handful of people speaking out. So he tallies the size of the support base on each side of an issue instead of looking at the data.

I hope this is useful in helping you understand the pro-vaxxers and how they think.

The important thing is you cannot turn these people around. Arguing with them is fruitless because they don’t want to see the data. They will only come around when the people they trust change their position.

This is why we need to focus on protecting doctors who speak out.

Perhaps a state ballot initiative in California providing that doctors cannot be retaliated against when they tell the truth (including having social media accounts taken down, having their license to practice medicine revoked, etc). That would prevent things like this from ever happening again.

August 23, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | | 1 Comment

Climate Claims Dictated by Personal Beliefs, Political Agendas Rather Than Science, Warn Researchers

By Igor Kuvnetsov – Samizdat – 23.08.2022

According to more than 1,000 researchers and scientists, who teamed up under the World Climate Declaration, there is no reason for panic and alarm, as the Earth’s climate has varied throughout its entire existence. Instead, they called for climate research that is “less political” and a climate policy that is “more scientific” than today.

More than 1,100 scientists and researchers led by Norwegian Nobel Prize laureate in Physics Ivar Giæver have signed a declaration warning that climate research as a field has “degenerated into a discussion based on beliefs” and become politicized, instead of relying on “sound self-critical science”.

In the declaration, called ‘There is no climate emergency,’ the signatories stressed that the Earth’s climate has varied “as long as the planet has existed, with natural cold and warm phases”, such as the Little Ice Age that ended as recently as 1850.

The signatories furthermore stressed that the actual warming is occurring “far slower than predicted” by climate models they called “inadequate” and full of “shortcomings”. “The gap between the real world and the modeled world tells us that we are far from understanding climate change,” they stressed.

The declaration blasted yet another talking point of the climate change discourse, emphasizing that carbon dioxide is “not a pollutant”, but “essential to all life on Earth”, “favorable for nature in greening the planet” and “profitable for agriculture, increasing the yields of crops worldwide”.

The signatories go on to claim that global warming “has not increased natural disasters”. “There is no statistical evidence that global warming is intensifying hurricanes, floods, droughts and such-like natural disasters, or making them more frequent. However, there is ample evidence that CO2-mitigation measures are as damaging as they are costly,” the declaration said.

In conclusion, they reiterated the title idea that “there is no climate emergency”. “Therefore, there is no cause for panic and alarm,” they summarize, strongly opposing the “harmful and unrealistic” net-zero carbon dioxide policy proposed for 2050. Instead, the declaration calls for climate research that is “less political” and a climate policy that is “more scientific” than today.

The declaration was organized by Climate Intelligence, an independent political group founded in 2019 by Dutch professor emeritus of geophysics Guus Berkhout and Dutch science journalist Marcel Crok. The list of signatories includes scientific heavyweights such as Ingemar Nordin, professor of theory of science and philosophy of technology at Linköping University; Antonino Zichichi, professor at the University of Bologna; Jan-Erik Solheim, professor emeritus in Astrophysics at the University of Tromsø; and atmospheric physicist Richard Lindzen.

In recent years, climate change has become one of the focal points of established media and the powers that be, who have combined to convey a sense of alarm and impending doom to the public. The climate change discourse has shifted dramatically, with the dominant narrative underscoring a sense of urgency and describing the situation as “catastrophic”, “irreversible” and “worse than ever”. This change is particularly visible in academia, government, industry, and among some non-governmental organizations and has already sparked a plethora of “green” projects and gigantic allocations of tax funds in a bid to stop or mitigate the consequences of climate change.

August 23, 2022 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | 3 Comments

Trump Files Suit Against FBI Over Mar-a-Lago Search, Requests ‘Special Master’ to Review Seized Docs

By Kirill Kurevlev – Samizdat – 22.08.2022

The FBI raided Mar-a-Lago earlier this month using a search warrant that stated possible Espionage Act offenses concerning the improper handling of secret data as the rationale for the probe. The release of specific portions of the affidavit that supported the search warrant is currently being decided by a federal judge.

Donald Trump, a former US president, filed a lawsuit on Monday in response to the search of his Mar-a-Lago property two weeks ago.

In the request filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Trump’s team claims the files were acquired under a “overbroad warrant” and asks the judge to appoint a special master to examine them. A note that Trump had his attorney deliver to a senior Justice Department attorney on August 11, just days after the search, is also included in the lawsuit.

“President Trump wants the Attorney General to know that he has been hearing from people all over the county about the raid. If there was one word to describe their mood, it is ‘angry.’ The heat is building up. The pressure is building up. Whatever I can do to take the heat down, to bring the pressure down, just let us know,” the message stated, per the lawsuit.

Additionally, the filing asks for a court order mandating the return of any object taken beyond the parameters of the government’s search warrant.

“President Trump, like all citizens, is protected by the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution,” the filings said. “Property seized in violation of his constitutional rights must be returned forthwith.”

The records taken from Mar-a-Lago – according to court documents – are “presumptively privileged” as presidential materials, and must be examined by a disinterested Special Master reviewer.

Trump’s attorneys were initially notified by the government that it intended to evaluate the confiscated materials using a so-called “filter team.” Trump’s lawyers stated in the filings that, given the leader of the filter team is a subordinate of the case’s chief prosecutor, their protocols do not guarantee that members of the prosecution team won’t learn about privileged information.

Moreover, the document contains three questions that Trump addressed to the government and investigators “that any American citizen would ask under the circumstances.”

“Why raid my home with a platoon of federal agents when I have voluntarily cooperated with your every request?” Trump asked. “What are you trying to hide from the public – given that you requested that l turn off all home security cameras, and even refused to allow my attorneys to observe what your agents were doing? Why have you refused to tell me what you took from my home?”

According to the filing, leaks from the government to favored media outlets have given rise to inconsistent and incorrect “justifications” for the political behavior of the FBI and Department of Justice.

“These unsupported ‘justifications’ by anonymous sources hint at a breakdown in communications between President Trump’s representatives and the Government, or that there developed a need to obtain a search warrant,” it said.

Earlier, in addition to claiming declassified sensitive materials had been properly stored at Mar-a-Lago, Trump denounced the raid as an attempt to use the US court system as a weapon against him.

On Saturday, he again criticized the government’s action against him as “atrocities” and “unthinkable violations of freedom and the law.” Trump pointed out that these events are not new and have been going on for years since he announced his intention to run for president in 2016.

“The law enforcement of our Country has become that of a Third World Nation, and I do not believe the people will stand for it — between Fraudulent Elections, Open Borders, Inflation, giving our Military to the Enemy, and so much more — how much are we all expected to take?” Trump wondered.

August 23, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties | | Leave a comment

What Really Happened to Dugin’s Daughter?

Media dubiously claims “false flag”

Paul Joseph Watson | August 22, 2022

August 23, 2022 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Video | 1 Comment

Untested Bivalent COVID Jab Being Rolled Out

Video Link

By Dr. Joseph Mercola | August 22, 2022

August 15, 2022, the U.K. became the first country to approve Moderna’s new bivalent COVID booster, which contains both the original concoction and mRNA to target Omicron variants. The booster has also been submitted for approval with authorities in Australia, Canada and the EU, and there’s every reason to suspect it’ll be submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as well. As reported by Sky News:1

“The booster dose, known as ‘Spikevax bivalent Original/Omicron,’ contains 25 micrograms of Omicron vaccine and 25 micrograms of original coronavirus vaccine …

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI) has said the vaccine will be available to those aged 18 and over as part of the UK’s autumn booster program. Health Secretary Steve Barclay said those eligible will be contacted from early September.”

More Than 100 Million Doses Have Been Trashed

The approval of the new booster comes right on the heels of widespread complaints about lack of demand for the shots. Moderna recently had to throw away 30 million doses of its original COVID jab, as there was no demand for them.2

“We have a big demand problem,” Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said in May 2022 during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum’s meeting in Davos, Switzerland.3 Similarly, in the U.S., pharmacies, states and federal agencies have tossed 82.1 million COVID jab doses in the trash, and for the same reason.4

Bivalent Booster Is Already Out of Date

Moderna’s bivalent booster is said to “provide a strong immune response against the Omicron BA.1 variant as well as the original 2020 Wuhan strain,” which, for the record, is extinct and no longer in circulation anywhere in the world. BA.1 is now rarely ever found, either.

The graph5,6 below, from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, shows the infection ratios of common variants. As you can see, in the U.S., infections are now caused by the BA.4, BA.5 and BA.2.12.1 variants of Omicron.7 So, this booster contains two strains that aren’t even relevant anymore.

The situation is exactly the same in Europe, where Omicron BA.2, BA.4 and BA.5 are the current “variants of concern.” BA.1 isn’t even a “variant of interest,” which is the next-lower categorization. It’s on the list of “de-escalated variants,” which is based on a variant meeting one or more of the following criteria:8

“(1) the variant is no longer circulating, (2) the variant has been circulating for a long time without any impact on the overall epidemiological situation, (3) scientific evidence demonstrates that the variant is not associated with any concerning properties.”

In short, BA.1 is of no concern in Europe either, as it’s not in circulation and/or because it doesn’t cause severe illness. The same goes for the original Wuhan strain, which has long since mutated out of existence.

Vaccinating Against Rapidly Mutating Viruses Is a Bad Idea

Coronaviruses mutate very rapidly in general, and the mRNA jabs are based on a surface protein (the spike protein), which is the most rapidly mutating portion of the entire virus. What happens when you vaccinate against a rapidly mutating virus? You encourage it to mutate even faster, and to develop immune-evading properties.

This is what we’ve been witnessing since the beginning of the COVID jab campaign, and at this point, there’s no hope of ever catching up with the virus. What’s worse, while variants have so far evolved into milder strains, they are in fact gaining the ability to evade antibodies, and could theoretically switch course to become more pathogenic.9

This is particularly true when a vaccine is “leaky,” meaning it doesn’t fully prevent infection (which none of the COVID shots do). Just like when you overuse an antibiotic that fails to eradicate the bacteria, which allows antibiotic-resistant bacteria to flourish, overuse of a leaky vaccine can pressure a virus to become more lethal.10,11

BA.4 and BA.5 are the most resistant to date, with BA.5 circumventing the immune systems even of those with natural immunity.12 Fortunately, it doesn’t appear to cause severe illness in most people.

The take-home here is that had natural immunity been allowed to take place without these jabs, the pandemic would be over and reinfections near-nonexistent. Instead, we’re now in a pandemic of the vaccinated, with the vast majority of serious COVID infections occurring among those who have been jabbed.13,14

We know that Pfizer was aware of this possibility, as “vaccine-associated enhanced disease (VAED)” is listed as an “Important Potential Risk” in Table 5 on page 11 of a document called “5.3.6 Cumulative Analysis of Post-Authorization Adverse Event Reports.”15 This document was part of the FOIA required and court-ordered batch released by the FDA April 1, 2022.

How Long Will the Bivalent Booster Protect You?

According to Moderna, the bivalent Spikevax “demonstrates potent neutralizing antibody response against Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5.”16 They made the same claim for the original COVID jab, back in January 2021,17 and by August 2021, they admitted the neutralizing antibodies generated lasted only six months after the second dose.18

How long will the bivalent jab “be effective” (and I use that term loosely)? Who knows, but the way things are trending, six months would probably be the max. In Germany, citizens must now get a booster every three months to qualify as “fully vaccinated,”19 as rapidly waning immunity has become accepted fact, and that’s probably where we’re all headed.

Germans who haven’t received all of their boosters will be subject to mask mandates and other COVID restrictions this fall. This, despite deep criticism from businesses tasked with confirming their customers’ status. As reported by the Rise Align Ignite Reclaim (RAIR) foundation:20

“Businesses have voiced great concern about further regulatory chaos in the struggling economy. ‘The plans are simply not feasible,’ said the general manager of the German Hotel and Restaurant Association (Dehoga), Ingrid Hartges, the Handelsblatt. ‘We cannot constantly check whether our guests are vaccinated, recovered, or tested.’

These people are exempted from the obligation to wear masks in restaurants or events under certain circumstances — if the vaccination, for example, is within the last three months. ‘But you can’t tell from the guest in the restaurant what status they have,’ says Hartges. ‘Like when he goes to the bathroom — should the staff always ask if he’s vaccinated?’ she said. ‘That’s nonsense.'”

Bivalent Jab Will Not Undergo Additional Testing

It’s important to realize that these “next-gen” boosters will not undergo any additional safety testing.21,22 They’re being rolled out under a new fast-track standard where ingredients can be swapped out without additional testing.

This is the standard protocol for seasonal flu vaccines. However, we’re now using an entirely new type and essentially untested technology. There’s no telling whether variations in the spike mRNA being injected might produce vastly differing side effects. They could potentially have differing toxicities, but that’s not being investigated.

Also, remember that the “efficacy” they’re referring to is only based on measurements of antibody titers, which tells us nothing, really, about its ability to prevent infection, severity of illness or death. Why?

Because antibodies form only a part of your immune response, and they’re not even the most important. It is far more likely that your innate immune system — your first line of defense — will destroy a virus before your adaptive immune system even has a chance to respond and create antibodies.23

It is important to understand that no vaccine improves your innate immune response. All vaccines are ever able to do is address your adaptive humoral immune system and create antibodies. Your innate immune system has T cells that can directly kill viruses. If you happen to have a vigorous T cell response, you’ll be protected even if your antibodies are low. So, antibodies are not a necessary measure of immunity.

Antibody titer levels are what’s called a “surrogate outcome.” It’s a substitute for actual clinical outcome. But it’s in no way equivalent, no matter how much the powers in control want it to be. Antibody titers may be high, but in the real world, more people may end up in the hospital and die — either from the infection or from the shot. In short, high antibody titer is not a guarantee of effectiveness — and it tells us absolutely nothing about safety.

CIA-Backed Upstart to Produce Moderna’s Bivalent mRNA

The complete absence of testing moving forward is all the more concerning when you consider who’s manufacturing the RNA for Moderna’s now-bivalent booster. In a recent Unlimited Hangout article,24 investigative journalist Whitney Webb reveals the genetic material for the reformulated booster is being exclusively manufactured by National Resilience, a relative newcomer with significant ties to U.S. intelligence agencies.

Its board of directors include In-Q-Tel CEO Chris Darby, who is also on the board of directors of the CIA Officers Memorial Foundation, and former FDA commissioner and Pfizer board member Dr. Scott Gottlieb. Not surprisingly, National Resilience promises to successfully lead its customers through the government regulatory process. As reported by Webb:25

“National Resilience was founded … in November 2020, and … plans to ‘reinvent biomanufacturing’ and democratize access to medicines,’ namely gene therapies, experimental vaccines and other ‘medicines of tomorrow’ …

In April 2021, National Resilience acquired Ology Bioservices Inc., which had received a $37 million contract from the US military the previous November to develop an advanced anti-COVID-19 monoclonal antibody treatment. This acquisition also provided National Resilience with its first Biosafety Level 3 (BSL-3) laboratory and the ability to manufacture cell and gene therapies, live viral vaccines and vectors and oncolytic viruses.

Despite being in the earliest stages of developing its ‘revolutionary’ manufacturing capabilities, National Resilience entered into a partnership with the Government of Canada in July of last year. Per that agreement, the Canadian government plans to invest CAD 199.2 million (about $154.9 million) into National Resilience’s Ontario-based subsidiary, Resilience Biotechnologies Inc.

Most of those funds are destined for use in expanding the Ontario facility that Resilience acquired last March and which is now manufacturing the mRNA for Moderna’s COVID-19 products … More recently, in 2022, the company has announced a few new clients – Takeda, Opus Genetics and the US Department of Defense …

Considering Moderna’s history and Resilience’s connections, there may be more to this partnership that meets the eye and concerned members of the public would do well to keep a very close eye on Resilience, its partnerships, and the products it is manufacturing.

Given that we now live in a world where government regulatory decisions on the approval of medicines are increasingly influenced by corporate press releases and normal regulatory procedures have fallen by the wayside for being too ‘slow,’ there is likely to be little scrutiny of the genetic material that Resilience produces for the ‘medicines of tomorrow.’

This seems to be already true for Moderna’s recently retooled COVID-19 vaccine, as there has been no independent examination of the new genetic sequence of mRNA used in the Omicron-specific vaccine candidate or its effects on the human body in the short, medium or long term.

For those who are skeptical of the outsized role that intelligence-linked companies are playing in the attempted technological ‘revolution’ in the medical field, it is best to consider Resilience’s role in the upcoming fall vaccination campaign and in future pandemic and public health scenarios before trying its ‘futuristic’ products.”

Was COVID Jab Intentionally Flawed?

Video Link

In a June 2022 interview with British radio presenter Maajid Nawaz, Michael Yeadon, Ph.D., a former vice-president and chief scientific adviser for Pfizer and founder/CEO of the biotech company Ziarco (now owned by Novartis), explained why he believes the COVID jabs were intentionally made to be harmful and to prolong the pandemic.

For starters, it’s been known for more than 10 years that spike protein causes adverse effects in humans,26 so this could not be a design error. It must have been intentional.

As Yeadon explained, when making a vaccine, you have to be very careful about which part of the virus you use, as certain parts are more toxic and some provoke better immune responses than others. “What you would do is ask, ‘What’s the toxicity of the bit I’m going to give a person?'” he said.

Seeing how scientists have known for at least a decade that spike protein from related viruses causes blood clots through at least two different mechanism, the choice to use mRNA that programs your cells to make spike protein raised a warning flag from the start.

Nothing About the COVID Jabs Makes Sense

In addition to that, 90% of the immune response you get from natural COVID infection is in response to other parts of the virus, not the spike protein. Put another way, exposure to spike protein mounts an inferior immune response. If you’re looking to make an effective vaccine, wouldn’t you choose a part of the virus that mounts the best and most robust immune response?

By choosing the spike protein on which to base COVID-19 shots, scientists picked a protein that a) was known to be toxic to humans and b) produced an inferior immune response (compared to other parts of the virus).

On top of that, spike protein mutates rapidly, which destroys any protection the shot provides shortly after it’s given. As noted by Yeadon,27 “What you should do is pick the bits of the virus that’s genetically most stable,” but they didn’t do that. Why not? The end result is a seemingly never-ending series of boosters, and according to Yeadon, that may have been the plan from the start.

As if all of that weren’t enough, the spike protein is also similar to a variety of human proteins, which can trigger your body to mount an inappropriate immune response against your own proteins. In other words, it can cause autoimmune disease. Yet, scientists chose the spike protein anyway — even though it violated all of the accepted rules for creating a safe and effective product.

Collusion to Cause Harm

Yeadon believes the decision to use spike protein was not a mistake at all. He believes it was intentionally chosen because it has all of those ill effects. He told Nawaz:

“Again, you deselect things that are toxic in their own right, you pick things that are genetically stable, and you pick things that are most different from humans …

But guess what? Moderna picks spike protein and so does Pfizer, and AstraZeneca, and Johnson & Johnson. So, I put it to you, colleagues, any scientists out there or just logical people. How the hell would they pick [the spike protein]?

No team I was ever part of would ever have picked bloody spike protein for this vaccine. And you know what? If we did, and we have competing groups, we would not, all four of us, make the same mistake. Not possible. It’s collusion and malfeasance. The did it on purpose, knowing it would hurt you.”

Resources for Those Injured by the COVID Jabs

If you got one or more jabs and suffered an injury, first and foremost, never ever take another COVID booster, another mRNA gene therapy shot or regular vaccine. You need to end the assault on your system. The same goes for anyone who has taken one or more COVID jabs and had the good fortune of not experiencing debilitating side effects.

Your health may still be impacted long-term, so don’t take any more shots. When it comes to treatment, there are still more questions than answers, and most doctors are clueless about what to do — in part because they never bothered to give early treatment for COVID and therefore don’t understand how different medicines and supplements impact the spike protein.

So far, it seems like many of the treatments that worked against severe COVID-19 infection also help ameliorate adverse effects from the jab. This makes sense, as the toxic, most damaging part of the virus is the spike protein, and that’s what your whole body is producing if you got the jab.

Two doctors who have started tackling the treatment of COVID jab injuries in earnest include Dr. Michelle Perro (DrMichellePerro.com), whom I’ve interviewed on this topic, and Dr. Pierre Kory (DrPierreKory.com).

Both agree that eliminating the spike protein your body is now continuously producing is a primary task. Perro’s preferred remedy for this is hydroxychloroquine, while Kory typically uses ivermectin. Both of these drugs bind and thereby facilitate the removal of spike protein.

Kory also believes there may be ways to boost the immune system to allow it to degrade and eventually remove the spike from your cells naturally, over time. One of the strategies he recommends for this is TRE (time restricted eating), which stimulates autophagy, a natural cleaning process that eliminates damaged, misfolded and toxic proteins. Another strategy that can do the same thing would be sauna therapy.

As a member of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), Kory helped develop the FLCCC’s post-vaccine treatment protocol called I-RECOVER. Since the protocol is continuously updated as more data become available, your best bet is to download the latest version straight from the FLCCC website at covid19criticalcare.com28 (hyperlink to the correct page provided above).

Sources and References

August 23, 2022 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | | Leave a comment

Southeast Asia at Energy-Climate Crossroads

By Vijay Jayaraj | RealClear Energy | August 10, 2022

Southeast Asia is at the crossroads of choosing between a climate agenda hostile to fossil fuels and the energy security its population desperately needs.

Central to the question is the use of coal. The fuel is especially critical in the production of electricity for the 700 million people of the 10 countries making up the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN): Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Electricity demand in Southeast Asia grew by 22 percent between 2015 and 2021, greater than the global average. The International Energy Agency predicts that “energy demand in the region is set to grow by around 3 percent a year to 2030, with three-quarters of the increase being met by fossil fuels…The net oil import bill, which stood at $50 billion in 2020, is set to multiply in size rapidly.”

Contributing to the energy bill is the global phenomenon of inflation. In June, the highest rates of inflation in ASEAN were in Thailand (7.7 percent), Vietnam (3.4 percent), Philippines (6.1 percent) and Indonesia (4.3 percent), mainly due to rising energy and food prices.

Adding to the pressures of higher demand for electricity and more expensive fuel is  growing pressure from international political bodies to reduce fossil fuel consumption. Propositions such as the Paris agreement and the net zero agenda have captured the imaginations of the political elite with ASEAN countries within the grasp of the climate-crazy octopus.

Disregarding fossil fuels’ contribution to its economic growth in the last decade, Vietnam has espoused the net zero pledge. In its new National Power Development Plan, the country indicated its desire to reduce “coal-fired plants to less than 10 percent of the total capacity by 2045,” in addition to halting construction of new coal plants. With nearly 70 percent of all electricity coming from fossil fuels, Vietnam has absurdly declared war on coal.

Vietnam is ranked at a dismal 134th in global ranking for per capita energy consumption. Its “peak demand during 2022 – 2025 will rise by 2,830 megawatts (MW) annually on average while power generation will increase by only 1,565 MW per annum.” The decision to reduce coal consumption at this juncture is suicidal, running counter to the country’s objective of economic growth.

However, not all ASEAN countries have been as irresponsible as Vietnam. Because of the post-pandemic increase in energy demand, many ASEAN members are reversing decisions to reduce fossil fuel consumption.

Among them is Indonesia, one of the biggest producers of coal in Asia and a major exporter to other countries. Indonesia is reporting a 4 percent increase in coal mining during the 2nd quarter of 2022 following a ban on Russian coal. A further increase is expected to be prompted by a broader ban to be instituted by the EU in August. Indonesia’s largest energy infrastructure company has now acquired a Thai state-owned energy firm, expanding its coal mining business to Thailand and ensuring continuous coal production there.

Some in ASEAN are installing innovative fuel-saving artificial intelligence systems in their coal plants to make them more efficient, thus indicating that their reliance on coal power is here to stay.

Perhaps, the ASEAN countries will model neighboring India and China, which continue to increase fossil fuel consumption to meet energy demand. China, for example, approved a coal mine project worth $458 million in the Inner Mongolia region as recently as July.

The worst mistake would be to decommission ASEAN coal-fired power plants. Even the economic powerhouses of Europe like Austria, Germany and the UK have reopened coal plants to ensure energy security.

If common sense prevails, most ASEAN countries will adopt clean-coal technology, which provides remarkably low pollutant emissions and less dust. In fact, its safety and efficiency are so recognized that Japan is exporting its technology to other countries. India, which is the second largest consumer of coal, has opened a National Centre for Clean Coal Research and Development.

A 2020 report by the CO2 Coalition, found that clean-coal technology “virtually eliminates health hazards from sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter,” thus reducing the outdoor pollution problem that is so common in low-income and mid-income economies like those in ASEAN.

Still in the grip of energy poverty, ASEAN countries that deprive themselves of affordable fossil fuels risk becoming the next Sri Lanka.

Vijay Jayaraj is a Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Va., and holds a master’s degree in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia, England. He resides in Bengaluru, India.

August 22, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , , | Leave a comment

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