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How to keep an “emergency” going forever

The Naked Emperor’s Newsletter | November 19, 2022

Covid rates are dropping but you want to cling on to these new emergency powers – what to do? If Covid isn’t around, citizens won’t allow these powers to be extended will they?

Well Colorado have shown us the answer.

Governor Jared Polis signed a new Executive Order on 11 November which amended the emergency Covid rules to include Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), influenza and other respiratory illnesses.

The Order says that “Colorado has seen a sharp increase in pediatric RSV infections and hospitalizations, in addition to patients with influenza and COVID-19, over the last two months”.

It then goes on to list the number of hospitalisations and the intensive care capacity. Therefore “if cases continue to increase, we may continue to see bed shortages across all hospital beds in Colorado as our state experiences a rise in COVID, influenza and RSV hospitalizations simultaneously”.

Due to staffing shortages facing hospitals related to COVID-19, RSV, influenza, and other respiratory illness hospitalizations and an associated decrease in capacity, including pediatric intensive care unit capacity, and to allow clinical staff to focus on patient care by reducing staff time associated with completing utilization reviews, I direct the Colorado Division of Insurance, pursuant to authority in C.R.S. §§ 10-1-108(7) and -109, to promulgate emergency regulations to reduce the administrative burdens associated with discharging, transferring, and caring for patients by temporarily suspending those utilization review requirements necessary to protect insured patients, including any or all prior authorization and preauthorization requirements.

And that is how you create a perpetual state of emergency. Add all types of respiratory viruses that you are on the lookout for because every winter hospitals will be full of people with some type of respiratory virus.

I wonder why they waited until after the elections to sign this Order? Strange. Let’s see how quickly other states amend their emergency orders as well. Maybe they should add in rain for the spring and sun for the summer (climate change) just to make sure the emergency lasts all year.

November 20, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , | Leave a comment

Congressman Warren Davidson urges Congress to pass the Vaccine Passport Prevention Act

By Ken Macon | Reclaim The Net | November 20, 2022

Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH) is urging Congress to pass a bill he introduced last year that would ban the use of vaccine passports for future use.

The bill is aimed at protecting Americans from the federal government’s overreach under the guise of responding to the pandemic.

We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.

The bill, called the Vaccine Passport Prevention Act, would, with a few exceptions, prevent the federal, state, and local governments, as well as private entities, from forcing Americans to provide proof of vaccination to access goods and services, and to continue working.

If passed, the legislation would allow people to sue their employers and governments for requiring proof of vaccination against the coronavirus.

The bill would only allow exemptions for schools, medical facilities, and enlisted service members. However, schools would be required to allow vaccination exemptions for medical, religious, and conscience reasons. Medical reasons would include naturally acquired immunity.

“The point of this bill is simple,” said Davidson during the bill’s introduction. “I’m committed to defending freedom. Freedom surrendered is rarely reclaimed, so now is the time to act. Americans have a right to keep their medical decisions private.

“Neither businesses nor governments should compel access to confidential information as a condition of restoring our way of life. Discrimination that separates healthy people from other healthy people based on vaccine status is unconstitutional. Throughout the pandemic, we’ve seen states deny Americans a republican form of government in the name of public health. Now that the pandemic is over, they are trying to maintain power. Banning vaccine passports has become sadly necessary to thwart these naked power grabs seeking to enable even more control for big government and big business over the lives of individual Americans.”

Related:

How vaccine passports are crushing freedom, privacy, and civil liberties

November 20, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

Kamala Harris moves to counter China’s territorial claims

RT | November 20, 2022

US Vice President Kamala Harris has traveled to the Philippines for a visit designed to demonstrate Washington’s support for Manila and other Southeast Asian allies in their territorial disputes with China.

Harris arrived on Sunday evening to a red-carpet welcome in Manila after attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Forum in Thailand. She’s scheduled to meet with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Monday for talks on strengthening security and economic ties, then fly on Tuesday to the Palawan island chain, which lies adjacent to disputed waters of the South China Sea.

Harris will become the highest-ranking US official to ever visit Palawan. Her trip marks the latest effort by President Joe Biden’s administration to push back against Beijing’s territorial claims in the Spratly region, where China has dredged the seafloor to create artificial islands featuring airstrips and missile launchers.

Parts of the Spratlys are claimed by the Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei. Washington has also sought to enforce freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, which is home to an estimated $5 trillion worth of annual shipping traffic, as well as rich oil and natural gas deposits.

“This visit demonstrates the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to stand with our Philippine ally in upholding the rules-based international maritime order in the South China Sea, supporting maritime livelihoods, and countering illegal, unregulated, and unreported fishing,” a senior White House official told reporters in previewing the VP’s trip last week. “The message is that you can count on the United States. We are, we are a friend and a partner.”

Asked what message the administration intended to send to Beijing, the unidentified official said, “China can take the message it wants. The message to the region is that the United States is a member of the Indo-Pacific, we are engaged, we’re committed to the security of our allies in the region.”

Philippine Ambassador to Washington Jose Manuel Romualdez agreed, telling the Associated Press : “The message they’re trying to impart to the Chinese is that ‘we support our allies like the Philippines on these disputed islands.’ This visit is a significant step in showing how serious the United States views this situation now.”

Beijing has claimed sovereignty over the Spratly Islands and surrounding waters as falling within its “nine-dash line.” During a visit to Southeast Asia last year, Harris accused China of “coercion” and “intimidation.”

November 20, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

The US and the ROK will now consider deterring North Korea’s use of nuclear weapons

By Konstantin Asmolov – New Eastern Outlook – 20.11.2022

From reading the previous article, one could get the impression that, against the background of North Korea’s unprecedented missile activity and the likelihood of a seventh nuclear test by Pyongyang, there are growing calls in the US for an end to Pyongyang through sanctions, a pre-emptive strike or the deployment of nuclear weapons on the peninsula.  However, the author points to a different trend: voices calling for recognition of the DPRK’s nuclear power status and a review of the policy of denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. Here are some examples.

On October 26, 2022, ROK Minister of Defense Lee Jong-sup said the focus of efforts to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue should shift from deterring their development to deterring the use of nuclear weapons. “We have put our focus on trying to prevent North Korea from conducting additional nuclear tests and advancing its nuclear capabilities, but it’s time to change our strategy.” Now “the priority should be on deterring the use of nuclear weapons,” giving the North Koreans an understanding that if the DPRK attempts to use nuclear weapons, it will result in the termination of the North Korean regime.

In a similar vein, ruling party chief Chung Jin-suk said, “We have entered a completely new phase in North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats. We need to reexamine our entire response system to the North’s nuclear threats… We should also have an overpowering defense system so local provocations do not evolve into a full scale war.” Conservative MP Han Ki-ho, who heads the DPRK Threat Response Committee, also noted that “denuclearization policies we have pushed for until now have failed.”

Although South Korean conservatives speak not of negotiation but of a forceful response to force, such deterrence is also a form of control. But far more important is the opinion of US officials. At the 2022 Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference in Washington, US Deputy Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Bonnie Jenkins said that if Pyongyang is willing to return to engagement, an arms control treaty could eventually be worked on. Jenkins added that the US and North Korea may have different interpretations of “arms control” and “nuclear disarmament,” which have complicated related discussions and proved to be serious obstacles during the Trump era engagement, but “building a foundation by defining a goal” would be the starting point of any potential negotiations, which she said would take time.

It should be noted that this is not the last US government official to speak out, but the basic official position is still the same. In response to a question about Jenkins’ remarks on October 31, US Department of State Spokesman Ned Price said that “there has been no change to US policy. Our DPRK policy remains the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” The United States does not and will not recognize North Korea as a nuclear state: “That is not our policy. I do not foresee that ever becoming a policy”.

The US and South Korean experts and retirees are more outspoken. As former Minister of Unification under the Moon Jae-in administration Jong Se-hyun told The Korea Times, “after the midterm elections, the US will have no options but to start arms control talks with North Korea based on the North’s commitment to the non-proliferation of its nuclear weapons”.

As former US special envoy for talks with North Korea Joseph DeTrani points out, North Korea has no intention of getting rid of its nuclear weapons in exchange for economic incentives or normalization of diplomatic relations, so offering Pyongyang such “carrots” in exchange for disarmament will not work.  According to DeTrani, North Korea wants to be accepted as a nuclear state like Pakistan, while stressing that its nuclear program is for deterrence and will not be used for offensive purposes. The US, on the other hand, has openly said that it does not accept the DPRK as a nuclear state, as this would lead to a nuclear arms race in the region and create opportunities for nuclear proliferation, fissile material falling into the hands of a rogue state or terrorist groups.

Robert Kelly, a professor of political science at Pusan National University, also believes that persuading North Korea to abandon its nuclear program will not be easy, while Seoul has no options. The only thing that can be achieved is arms control: “we might get some constraints, maybe we’ll get some inspectors to get the North Koreans to cap it at like 200 strategic missiles and warheads or something like that, but they’re never going to go to zero.”

Soo Kim, a policy analyst at the RAND Corporation, thinks the US, like South Korea, is running out of options “because there just aren’t that many creative ideas to bring North Korea back to the negotiating table, and to actually convince Kim Jong-un to give up some aspect of his nuclear program.”

Kim Jong-dae, a former South Korean defense official and visiting professor at Yonsei University, also thinks that complete denuclearization of the North is something that cannot be achieved at all and developing discussions with North Korea in terms of arms control is a very realistic idea.

A recent Bloomberg article states that the policy of denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, pursued in recent decades, has failed. The US and its allies must accept the DPRK’s status as a nuclear power and learn to operate in the new environment. Criticism has also been levelled at anti-North Korean sanctions, which have had no effect other than to create food shortages for millions of North Koreans.

Earlier, Jeffrey Lewis, an expert in nuclear non-proliferation at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, spoke of the need to recognize North Korea’s nuclear status in the interest of easing tensions on the Korean peninsula.

Journalist Donald Kirk, who specializes in East Asia, also wrote that hopes of talks with Kim Jong-un on the nuclear issue were a fantasy. He called for a focus on strengthening defense capabilities, describing the North’s adoption of a nuclear doctrine at the legislative level as a real threat.

Statements of this kind are based not only on an assessment of the DPRK’s military capabilities, but also on public opinion: the proportion of those who consider the DPRK’s threat serious is declining in the US, while the number of supporters of a constructive solution is rising.

In August-September 2022, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs conducted an opinion poll on how important certain foreign policy issues seem to the average American. It was found that only 52% of Americans believe that North Korea’s nuclear program poses a “serious threat” to the United States (compared to 75% in 2017 and 59% in 2021). There is a split on “what should be done to get North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons,” with 46% of respondents believing that the US should establish formal diplomatic relations with the DPRK, while 31% are of the opinion that the US should use military force under favorable conditions.

Commenting on the poll results, experts from the Chicago Council noted that the DPRK issue is currently overshadowed in American consciousness by events in Ukraine, as well as economic problems. As a result, North Korean issues have been put on the backburner in Biden’s policy.

On September 22, the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies at Seoul National University released the results of a poll showing that 92.5% of respondents are convinced that North Korea will not give up its nuclear weapons, which is the highest score ever.  55.5% were in favor of Seoul possessing its own nuclear weapons, the highest score on record as well. Compared to last year, there was a 10% increase.

It should be noted that the “arms control treaty” is what Pyongyang has demanded in past years. However, negotiating arms control is not an easy process for the US, as it would mean recognizing the North as a nuclear state and thus fundamentally changing US policy towards the DPRK, because Washington has always maintained that North Korea’s nuclear program is illegal and subject to United Nations sanctions.

Nevertheless, Russian experts, such as Aleksandr Zhebin, have repeatedly stressed that the West should accept reality and move on from talks on denuclearization to talks on arms control, given that the DPRK positions itself as a responsible state that adheres to the doctrine of nuclear non-proliferation. All attempts to find evidence of nuclear smuggling and/or technology (which was actively sought for the sake of the new stranglehold) were unsuccessful.

Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, is a leading research fellow at the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of China and Modern Asia, the Russian Academy of Sciences.

November 20, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Portland: Anti-Defamation League Covertly Worked To Get White Good Samaritan Falsely Indicted For Murder

By Eric Striker | The Main Street Tribune | November 19, 2022

Portland Prosecutors, the Anti-Defamation League and the Anarchist Violent Extremist organization Rose City Antifa colluded to indict an innocent white man of murder, recently leaked grand jury documents show.

On July 29th, a white man named Jascha Manny was working as a doorman at Mary’s Club, a strip club in Portland’s Old Town neighborhood.

During his shift, he witnessed a group of black men threatening a couple of homeless people. The aggressors were also shining a high-powered strobe light into the eyes of the random indigent citizens.

As the encounter escalated, Manny rushed to confront the bullies in hopes that they would leave the people alone.

It was then that 19-year-old Lauren Teyshawn Abbott Jr pulled out a firearm and began shooting at Manny. The bouncer responded by returning fire, killing Abott and injuring his associate, 23-year-old Kolby Ross.

The entire incident was caught on video from multiple angles and witnesses supported Manny’s testimony, but thanks in part to the ADL’s intervention, left-wing District Attorney Mike Schmidt called a grand jury in August in an attempt to indict him for murder and assault.

During the proceedings, prosecutors centered their argument for criminal charges on prejudicial information secretly provided to them by the ADL’s “Center on Extremism,” which asserted that Manny had pro-white political beliefs.

The Jewish group, which works closely with local law enforcement and the FBI, had laundered this specious information from Rose City Antifa, a domestic extremist group that openly avows violence and was actively involved in organizing Portland’s brutal 2020 riots.

There was never any evidence that Manny was motivated by race when he decided to return fire against the blacks shooting at him. The goal of the ADL’s intervention in this case appears to have been to offend the assumed political sensibilities of jurors into indicting an innocent man.

According to local news reports, the grand jury was shown images and writings demonstrating Manny’s alleged political ideology, but after seeing mounds of exculpatory evidence, they declined to indict.

This vindication did not change the minds of left-wing activists. In response to DA Schmidt’s statement that his hands are tied, various anarchist, Jewish and liberal groups have joined forces to organize a pressure campaign to have Manny charged with hate crimes, not for his actions, but for his beliefs.

November 20, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , | Leave a comment

Ukrainian Troops Shell Zaporozhye NPP, Damaging Strategic Facilities: Official

Samizdat – 20.11.2022

Ukrainian troops subjected the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant (NPP) to massive artillery shelling, damaging strategic facilities, an adviser to the head of Rosenergoatom, a subsidiary of Russian state nuclear energy corporation Rosatom, told Sputnik on Sunday.

“The Ukrainian military launched a massive strike directly at the station. Twelve rockets were fired. It is known that six of them hit the cooling system of reactors, two — hit the dry cask storage [of radioactive waste]. The consequences of the shelling cannot be determined yet since the risk of repeated attacks remains,” Renat Karchaa said.
None of the Zaporozhye NPP personnel were injured, according to Karchaa.

Located on the left bank of the Dnieper River, the Zaporozhye NPP is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe by number of units and output. During the military operation in Ukraine, launched by Russia on February 24, the nuclear plant and surrounding area went under the control of Russian forces and have since been shelled many times. Russia and Ukraine blame each other for the attacks.

An international mission led by IAEA chief Rafael Grossi visited the plant from August 31 to September 5. IAEA observers have since been staying at the plant on a rotational basis. Following the visit by the mission, the IAEA published a report in which it confirmed the shelling of the ZNPP.

November 20, 2022 Posted by | Environmentalism, Nuclear Power, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Tucker Carlson: Investors didn’t notice this red flag in FTX scandal

Fox News host Tucker Carlson reacts to the FTX meltdown on Tucker Carlson Tonight, November 18, 2022

The FTX Disaster is Deeper Than you Think

ColdFusion | November 16, 2022

In this episode we take a deep dive into Sam Bankman-fried (SBF) and the FTX / Alameda situation.

Theranos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Cccf…

Enron: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5qC1…

Onecoin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64xcg…

Worldcom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_rfI…

Luna: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KZY4…

Closing Track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYOlF…

– About ColdFusion –

ColdFusion is an Australian based online media company independently run by Dagogo Altraide since 2009.

Topics cover anything in science, technology, history and business in a calm and relaxed environment.

November 20, 2022 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Video | | Leave a comment

NBC: Body Cam Footage Shows Paul Pelosi Opened Door For Police Before Alleged Attack

By Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | November 19, 2022

The official narrative on the Paul Pelosi attack purported by Democrats and the mainstream media makes zero sense. You don’t have to be a “conspiracy theorist” to recognize there were multiple contradictory accounts from the Department of Justice vs. local police and even some reports from journalists.

In fact, NBC suspended one of its own correspondents, Miguel Almaguer, after he reported that on the night of the supposed attack at the Pelosi home in San Francisco that Paul Pelosi actually opened the door when police knocked, seemingly in normal health, and then walked away from the officers to talk to the alleged assailant David Depape, when Depape attacked him. This report led many to suggest that Pelosi and Depape somehow knew each other.

A media firestorm ensued along with denials from the DOJ, which detailed a completely different version of events in which the police officers opened the door themselves and found Pelosi struggling with Depape who had injured him with a hammer. NBC dropped Almaguer after many called his report “bizarre.”

As it turns out, Miguel Almaguer was right. NBC now reports that police body cam footage has been made available to some media outlets and the footage clearly shows Paul Pelosi opening the door for police in seemingly perfect health. This contradicts the DOJ report on the attack and suggests a potential cover-up.

NBC is forced to retract their earlier assertions that the Paul Pelosi open door event was unfounded. Why? Because they have to. Eventually the police body cam footage will make it out into the public sphere for everyone to see, and NBC is front-running their own false reports. However, they do suggest that “it doesn’t really matter” who opened the door to the Pelosi home, and that Paul Pelosi’s actions don’t support the “conspiracy theories” surrounding the attack.

If that is the case, then why would the DOJ lie? Surely, they have seen the same body cam footage. If there is no conspiracy, then why is there an attempted coverup?

NBC has never had a problem editorializing news stories in the past and presenting biased opinions as evidence, yet suddenly now they pretend as if they have journalistic integrity? It is incumbent upon journalists to present what they think are the facts to the general public, but they are also required to investigate potential false accounts and false information in order to separate truth from lies. In the case of the attack on Paul Pelosi, NBC and other outlets clearly do not want to dig deeper.

Now that the midterm elections are over it would appear that the “MAGA attacker” story no longer serves any purpose. The Democrats conjured their own conspiracy theory first – The claim that right-wing “extremists” are a threat to “democracy” and that the Pelosi attack proves it. There is no evidence to support this claim. There is, though, evidence to support the theory that Pelosi was familiar with Depape and his behavior indicates familiarity.

No person under threat of being beaten with a hammer by a home intruder is going to move closer to the violent stranger instead of running towards the police. This does not happen, it’s nonsense.

What is likely to take place as this case develops? A media blackout on the story, much like we have witnessed with multiple cases in the past few years that make the political left look bad (the Waukesha massacre by BLM suppporter Darrell Brooks comes to mind). Details will probably emerge which further contradict the official narrative but they will be buried and ignored. The leftists will continue to label any suspicions as “conspiracy” as they hope and pray the general public completely forgets and moves on to other distractions.

November 19, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

Ban on Choral Singing During Lockdowns Based on Flawed Evidence

BY TOBY YOUNG | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | NOVEMBER 19, 2022

Readers will recall the ban on singing of all kinds during the lockdowns and even after they were lifted because singing was supposedly a ‘transmission risk’. Turns out, this typical piece of Covid hysteria was based on a flawed study. The Church Times has more.

The ban arose out of reports in the United States in March 2020 that 52 of 61 singers who attended a rehearsal of the Skagit Valley Chorale, in Mount Vernon, Washington, had subsequently contracted Covid. The source was judged to have been a chorister at the practice who later tested positive for the virus, and was considered the super-spreader.

The Los Angeles Times carried the headline: “A choir decided to go ahead with rehearsal. Now dozens of members have COVID-19 and two are dead.” An investigation by the county’s public-health officials was referred to in other scientific papers and widely disseminated, and, with a growing consensus that airborne droplets were spreading the virus, all indoor singing was banned.

It dealt a serious blow to many choirs, both professional and amateur. Scientific study accelerated. Two lay vicars from Salisbury Cathedral took part in rigorous trials at Porton Down, the MOD’s Science and Technology laboratory, to test how far airborne droplets could travel. These, and other studies commissioned by the Department for Digital, Media, Culture and Sport, were reported eventually to have given the Government confidence to reconsider appropriate mitigations.

Now a review of the Skagit case by scientists at Nottingham Trent University (NTU), Brunel University, and Brighton and Sussex Medical School, has concluded that many of the choristers’ symptoms had started too early to have been caused by the rehearsal.

In a paper entitled “The Skagit County Choir COVID-19 Outbreak: Have we got it wrong?” they review and analyse the original outbreak data in relation to published data on incubation. They conclude that it was “vanishingly unlikely that this was a single point source outbreak as has been widely claimed and on which modelling has been based”.

An unexamined assumption led to “erroneous policy conclusions about the risks of singing, and indoor spaces more generally, and the benefits of increased levels of ventilation”, the paper says.

“Although never publicly identified, one individual bears a moral burden of knowing what health outcomes have been attributed to their actions. We call for these claims to be re-examined and for greater ethical responsibility in the assumption of a point source in outbreak investigations.”

One of the co-authors, Professor Robert Dingwall, of NTU, said on Wednesday that the speed with which the choristers were being infected and displaying symptoms was implausible, and did not fit the epidemic curve.

“All the ‘mights’ got turned into definite findings by the people who quoted [the original study],” he said. “We looked at it and saw the distribution of days on which the symptoms appeared, and realised they just couldn’t all have been affected at that rehearsal – the symptoms were just appearing too quickly.”

Worth reading in full.

November 19, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Every Place On Earth Warming Faster Than Every Other Place On Earth

BY WILLIAM M. BRIGGS • NOVEMBER 16, 2022 

The other day we saw a UN report which claimed that “billions live in regions that have already experienced warming greater than the global average.”

They didn’t say where those regions were, a strange lacuna for such a large number of souls. I thought this an interesting question, so I looked it up, searching with terms like “warming faster than rest of the world” and the like. I used the Regime-approved search engine Google.

Here are the regions of the world which Regime-approved government and media sources—I would never quote from conspiracy-believing denier sites!—think are warming faster than the rest of the world. I believe all of these links are from the last year or two. I did not cheat and use anything from the 2000s or earlier.

Have I left anywhere out? I grew bored with the task after thirty minutes, especially when I started to do each individual state. I invite to try your own search and fill in those geographic areas (if any) that I missed.

We all live in Lake Woeonus, where it’s always worse than we thought, there are always five years left to SAVE THE PLANET!, and all the temperatures are rising faster than average.

I’ll save the larger, and more important, conclusion that models, and those that create them, cannot be trusted for another day.

I was scooped on this by at least three years. Here’s a guy who found that same “twice as high” goofiness three years ago.

November 19, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

As Green Policies Cause Energy Prices To Explode, Deforestation In Europe Accelerates

Skyrocketing fossil fuel energy prices are are driving the deforestation of Europe as citizens try to keep warm

By P Gosselin | No Tricks Zone | November 18, 2022

It’s easy to argue that the “green” movement is causing much more environmental harm than good. High energy costs are leading to poverty, which in turn leads to less investment in environmental protection and nature conservation.

Biodiversity-rich forests are being cleared away to make room for wind parks and people are increasingly burning wood to stay warm as an alternative to natural gas and heating oil.

Blackout News reports on how forests in Romania have been falling victim to illegal logging as the energy crisis has propelled the demand for firewood and pellets to rocket speed. “In Romania, entire nature reserves are disappearing as a result.”

“The sharp increase in demand for firewood, wood chips and pellets has also caused prices for these fuels to rise sharply, making them extremely lucrative for the illegal trade,” writes Blackout News. A lack of transparency and traceability are making the problem impossible to manage.

Blackout News cites a 2021 European Commission study showing Europe’s wood industry lacks transparency and that the demand for wood for heating has more than doubled in the past twenty years. Austria alone is reported to have imported approximately 120,000 tons of pellets from Romania last year. Europe’s CO2 reductions through the burning of biomass are costing its biotope dearly. Few are talking about this. What good will reaching zero CO2 emissions be if Europe’s forests end up being sacrificed and barren?

Greenpeace Romania says illegal logging is particularly bad in Romania and that more than half of the wood processed into pellets there comes from illegal logging in Natura 2000 areas. While authorities record an annual logging volume of 18 million cubic meters, “experts assume that another 20 million cubic meters of wood are illegally felled there each year and disappear without any evidence.”

One problem hindering the crackdown on illegal logging in Romania is rampant corruption in control bodies and government agencies. Penalties for the import of illegally logged timber “are also shockingly low”.

As long as Europe continues its efforts to eliminate fossil fuels and create energy shortages, prices will skyrocket and keep boosting the demand for wood as a source of energy.

November 19, 2022 Posted by | Environmentalism, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | Leave a comment

German producers warn of meat shortages

RT | November 19, 2022

Germany may face a meat shortage and a subsequent surge in prices within the next four to six months, Die Welt reported this week, citing the German Meat Industry Association (VDF).

“In four, five, six months we will have gaps on the shelves,” Hubert Kelliger, the head of group sales at meat marketer Westfleisch and a VDF board member, told the news outlet.

According to Kelliger, the worst shortages are expected in the supply of pork. He says Berlin insists on reducing the number of livestock by half in order to protect the climate. However, experts say this would lead to mass shutdowns of meat-producing companies, which in turn would result in a 40% increase in the price of meat.

Cutting livestock numbers could also lead to a decrease in the supply of natural fertilizer, resulting in a drop in vegetable yields or a surge in the cost of production due to the high prices of artificial fertilizers. Either situation would worsen the food crisis in Germany.

While meat industry representatives note that vegetarianism and veganism have become increasingly popular in the country over the last few years, they say that over 90% of the people still buy and eat meat.

Germany has been relying more and more on meat imports rather than domestic production. The share of beef and pork products from abroad has risen in recent months, and the country is currently the biggest meat importer in Europe, according to VDF.

VDF experts say Berlin is making the same mistake in turning to meat imports as it did with energy – increasing dependence on imports could lead to the risk of a food crisis along with the energy crisis. Kelliger says the only way to avoid this is to be self-sufficient in meat production.

November 19, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | Leave a comment