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.
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.
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.
Untested Bivalent COVID Jab Being Rolled Out
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?
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
- 1 Sky News August 15, 2022
- 2, 3 Washington Examiner May 26, 2022
- 4 NBC News June 6, 2022
- 5 CDC COVID Data Tracker
- 6, 7 Nebraskamed.com August 9, 2022
- 8 ECDC.Europa
- 9 geertvandenbossche.org Letter to the WHO March 6, 2021 (PDF)
- 10 PLOS Biology July 2015; 13(7): e1002198
- 11 Quanta Magazine May 10, 2018
- 12 Axios June 1, 2022
- 13 Israel National News February 3, 2022
- 14 Daily Expose April 3, 2022
- 15 5.3.6 Cumulative Analysis of Post-Authorization Adverse Event Reports, Page 11, Table 5
- 16 Moderna June 22, 2022
- 17 BioRxiv January 25, 2021; 2021.01.25.427948
- 18 Time January 26, 2022
- 19, 20 RAIR August 13, 2022
- 21 Evening Standard March 4, 2021
- 22 Evening Standard March 4, 2021 (Archived)
- 23 NCSCU.edu May 12, 2020
- 24, 25 Unlimited Hangout August 2022
- 26 Odysee, Radical w/Maajid Nawaz June 12, 2022, 1:05
- 27 Odysee, Radical w/Maajid Nawaz June 12, 2022, 1:09
- 28 Covid19criticalcare.com
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.
The Completely Fraudulent “Levelized Cost Of Electricity”
By Francis Menton | Manhattan Contrarian | August 18, 2022
My last post on Tuesday reported on the Soho Forum climate change debate that had taken place the previous day. Debater Andrew Dessler, arguing in favor of rapid reductions in human greenhouse gas emissions by the method of vastly increasing electricity production from wind and solar generators, had heavily relied on the assertion that wind and solar are now the cheapest ways to generate electricity. An important slide in his presentation showed comparative costs of generation from various sources, with wind and solar clearly shown as least expensive. At the bottom of the slide, the acronym “LCOE” was legible.
LCOE stands for Levelized Cost of Electricity. I first encountered this term a couple of years ago, and thought that I should get on top of it to understand its significance. It took me about a half hour to figure out that this metric was completely inapplicable and invalid for purposes of comparing the costs of using dispatchable versus non-dispatchable generators as the predominant sources to power an electrical grid that works. The reasons are not complicated, but do take some minutes of thought if the matter has not previously been explained to you. In Tuesday’s post, I asked as to Dessler’s reliance on this LCOE metric:
[I]s he aware of this [inapplicability of LCOE] and therefore intentionally trying to deceive the audience? Or, alternatively, is he innumerate, and does not understand how this works quantitatively?
Some commenters on the post were quite harsh in their judgments of Dessler. They argued for the inference of intentional deception, on the basis that no one claiming expertise in this field could really be so obtuse as to think LCOE was a valid metric for the purpose for which Dessler was using it.
So today I thought to look at how others go about comparing the costs of generation of electricity from wind and solar versus dispatchable sources like fossil fuels or nuclear. I can’t say that I was surprised to learn that LCOE is everywhere as the metric of choice for the comparison. Moreover, it is almost impossible to find any discussion of why LCOE is completely misleading when comparing the cost of a grid powered predominantly by dispatchable sources to the cost of a grid powered predominantly by intermittent wind and solar sources backed up by storage.
Consider, for example, the International Renewable Energy Agency, going by the acronym IRENA. IRENA is a UN offshoot, launched in 2009 and based in Abu Dhabi, that currently has 168 member countries including all the big ones. IRENA’s mission is to advocate for and promote “renewables” as the way to go for the world’s energy system. Surely, with all the big countries (and most of the small ones) backing its efforts, IRENA’s utterances can be relied upon as definitive.
IRENA puts out annual reports on the costs of renewable power generation. The latest one, titled “Renewable Power Generation Costs in 2021,” just came out in July. Here is the press release, dated July 13, 2022. Excerpt from the press release:
New IRENA report shows almost two-thirds of renewable power added in 2021 had lower costs than the cheapest coal-fired options in G20 countries. . . . IRENA’s new report confirms the critical role that cost-competitive renewables play in addressing today’s energy and climate emergencies by accelerating the transition in line with the 1.5°C warming limit and the Paris Agreement goals. . . . “Renewables are by far the cheapest form of power today,” Francesco La Camera, Director-General of IRENA said. “2022 is a stark example of just how economically viable new renewable power generation has become.”
Amid the excited claims that renewables are “by far the cheapest” sources of power, the term LCOE does not appear anywhere in the press release. To find that that is the metric being used to make these “by far the cheapest” claims, you need to go to the main Report. Excerpt:
The global weighted average levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) of new utility-scale solar PV projects commissioned in 2021 fell by 13% year-on-year, from USD 0.055/kWh to USD 0.048/kWh. . . . The global weighted average LCOE of new onshore wind projects added in 2021 fell by 15%, year-on-year, from USD 0.039/kilowatt hour (kWh) in 2020 to USD 0.033/kWh.
Here is the featured chart, showing that costs of power from solar PV cells have now fallen well below the costs of power from natural gas:
You can see right there that here in 2022 power from natural gas is at least three times as expensive as power from solar PV cells. But the title of the chart gives away that the metric for comparison is LCOE.
Look around for others making cost comparisons of ways to produce electricity, and you will find more and more of same. From Bloomberg, June 30, 2022, “Renewable Power Costs Rise, Just Not as Much as Fossil Fuels”:
The costs for renewable plants plunged for a decade as production of solar and wind equipment surged and technologies improved, but the supply-chain chaos triggered by the pandemic ended those steady declines last year, according to BNEF’s biannual survey of the levelized cost of energy. . . . New onshore wind now costs about $46 per megawatt-hour, while large-scale solar plants cost $45 per megawatt-hour. In comparison, new coal-fired plants cost $74 per MWh, while gas plants are $81 per MWh.
From the Guardian, June 23, 2021 (citing last year’s report from IRENA — also based on LCOE):
Almost two-thirds of wind and solar projects built globally last year will be able to generate cheaper electricity than even the world’s cheapest new coal plants, according to a report from the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena). . . . Francesco La Camera, Irena’s director general, said . . . “ “Today renewables are the cheapest source of power.”
So it’s not just Dessler. Some big international agency of “experts” adopts LCOE for making these cost comparisons, and everybody just nods along without ever putting in the 30 or so minutes of critical thinking that would be needed to figure out that this is completely wrong.
To reiterate points previously made, the LCOE metric assumes that wind and solar generators are essentially the same kind of thing as dispatchable fossil fuel-powered generation plants. Just build about the same amount of nameplate capacity, and everything will work out just fine. But in fact a predominantly wind/solar system requires vastly more infrastructure to make a fully-functioning reliable grid: some combination of a 4x or 5x overbuild of generators, vastly more transmission lines, and 20 or 30 days of battery storage. These elements could easily multiply the cost of electricity to the consumer by a factor of 5 or 10 or more. Nobody knows, because there is no functioning demonstration project from which reasonably precise costs can be extrapolated. And frankly, there never will be such a demonstration project, because the costs are so enormous that it can never be done. Meanwhile, everyone just nods along as if LCOE comparisons are meaningful.
Oracle is sued for alleged surveillance network
By Ken Macon | Reclaim The Net | August 22, 2022
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties has launched a class action lawsuit against Oracle’s worldwide surveillance machine. Tech companies have claimed to have “detailed dossiers on 5 billion people,” and generate $42.4 billion in annual revenue, according to the complaint filed at the US District Court for the Northern District of California.
We obtained a copy of the complaint for you here.
The dossiers include names, physical addresses, email addresses, physical movements, online and real-world purchases, detailed online activity, income, and interests, including political views.
Oracle trades the dossiers through the Oracle Data Marketplace, the lawsuit alleges.
“For example, one Oracle database included a record of a German man who used a prepaid debit card to place a €10 bet on an esports betting site,” ICCL wrote in a report announcing the lawsuit.
Lead plaintiff in the complaint, ICCL’s Dr. Johnny Ryan, said: “Oracle has violated the privacy of billions of people across the globe. This is a Fortune 500 company on a dangerous mission to track where every person in the world goes, and what they do. We are taking this action to stop Oracle’s surveillance machine.”
The complaint alleges Oracle is in violation of the California Invasion of Privacy Act, California’s Constitution, the Federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and competition and common law.
The complaint has been filed on behalf of all internet users around the globe that have been affected by Oracle’s violation of privacy.
Dr. Robert Malone sues The Washington Post who accused him of spreading “misinformation” online
By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | August 22, 2022
Dr. Robert Malone, an expert in mRNA technology and a vocal Covid vaccines critic who has been consistently censored by Big Tech, is suing the Washington Post for defamation. The lawsuit alleges that the news outlet made defamatory statements against him in an article published on January 24.
The article claimed that Dr. Malone spread “misinformation” in a speech where he said the vaccines “are not working” against the Omicron variant. As evidence the statement was false, the Post cited a paper by the CDC that found that booster shots were protecting people against severe disease.
The Post omitted the part where Dr. Malone said that vaccines, “do not prevent Omicron infection, viral replication, or spread to others.”
Speaking to The Epoch Times, Dr. Malone said: “I said nothing about disease and death at that point in time.” He went on to accuse the Post of selective misquoting and using the CDC study to counter a claim he never made.
The Epoch Times obtained an interview between the article’s writer, Timothy Bella and Dr. Malone, before the article was written. Bella told Dr. Malone, “I have respect for you and your body of work,” and that he was hoping to shadow the doctor during his stay in DC where he gave a speech at a protest against Covid mandates.
Malone initially sent a notice to the Post threatening legal action if the article was not removed or the defamatory statements retracted. When the outlet refused, he filed a lawsuit at a federal court in Virginia.
According to the lawsuit, the article made 10 defamatory statements against Dr. Malone, including that he has been “discredited,” his claims are “not only wrong, but also dangerous,” and that he “repeated falsehoods that have garnered him legions of followers.”
We obtained a copy of the complaint for you here.
“The qualities WaPo disparaged—Dr. Malone’s honesty, veracity, integrity, competence, judgment, morals, and ethics as a licensed medical doctor and scientist—are peculiarly valuable to Dr. Malone and are absolutely necessary in the practice and profession of any medical doctor and scientist. WaPo ascribes to Dr. Malone conduct, characteristics, and conditions, including fraud, disinformation, misinformation, deception, and dishonesty, that would adversely affect his fitness to be a medical professional and to conduct the business of a medical doctor,” the suit states.
“Dr. Malone’s statements concerning COVID-19 and the purported ‘vaccines’ were 100% factually accurate. He has never committed fraud on [sic] engaged in any medical disinformation or misinformation. Further, the so-called ‘vaccines’ do not work, as is abundantly clear from both the scientific and anecdotal evidence to date,” it also says.
Dr. Malone is also currently involved in a lawsuit against Twitter over its censorship.
Western University mandates vaccine booster dose
By Keean Bexte – The Counter Signal – August 22, 2022
Western University has joined University of Toronto in mandating the vaccine booster for nearly all of its students.
“As of October 1, 2022, all members of our community (Western, Brescia, Huron and King’s) are required to provide proof of vaccination of the primary series plus a booster shot (generally, three doses total) of any combination of COVID-19 vaccines recognized by Health Canada,” a COVID policy update published on August 22 reads.
According to Western University’s vaccine FAQ page, the policy applies to all students, faculty, staff, and some visitors.
Moreover, even if most of a student’s classes are online, the student must still comply with the vaccine booster mandate if any aspect of their course has an in-person component.
“Only those students and employees granted a medical or Ontario Human Rights Code accommodation will be exempted from the vaccination requirement, and those with exemptions are required to participate in regular, rapid antigen testing in order to be physically on campus this fall,” writes Western University.
The university has not stated the consequence for not complying with its policy, but de-enrollment for non-compliance is likely on the table.
Additionally, as of September 1, Western University is bringing back its mask mandate for classes, labs, and seminar rooms. However, masks will not be required when students present, perform, facilitate, or speak to a group. The university will also not require masks for those living in residence or those in offices, cubicles, libraries, or dining areas.
Why the university only wants to make students suffer in classrooms is unclear.
With only two weeks before classes start, many unvaccinated students are undoubtedly scrambling to figure out what they will do. Moreover, speaking with True North, several students say that despite the change on the website, they received no formal notice of the change in vaccination policy.
The university says that those who’ve received two doses will still be able to attend university so long as they receive a booster dose within 14 days of being eligible.
However, given the fact that recipients need to wait for a recommended eight weeks between the first and second dose, it’s impossible for students who haven’t received a single dose to reach the level of vaccination required for attendance, regardless if they’ve already paid their tuition.
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Revive Iran’s MOU Deal or Face a Forever War /John Mearsheimer
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New Book
The Garlic Book — 2026
Lies are Unbekoming | November 5, 2026
What The Garlic Book shows
The book is in four parts.
Part One, The Record, treats the history of garlic as evidence. From the clay garlic bulb placed in an Egyptian grave nearly six thousand years ago, through the Ebers Papyrus, through Hippocrates, Dioscorides, Pliny and Galen, the Arab physicians under Avicenna, the medieval herbals, Culpeper, and the plague years, to the last era in which Western physicians prescribed garlic as a matter of course, which ran from 1850 to 1945. It closes with the living traditions that never stopped using it, and with the folklore of charms, vampires and the evil eye.
Part Two, The Chemistry and the Evidence, sets out what is known about why a clove has no smell until it is cut, and why the order of crush, rest and heat changes the medicine. It then reads the clinical evidence against the historical record — bacteria, blood and vessels, cancer epidemiology, metals and fatigue — and names the trials that went against garlic as directly as the trials that went for it, including the 2007 Stanford trial funded by the US National Institutes of Health which found that raw garlic, garlic powder and aged garlic extract moved LDL cholesterol no more than placebo did. It then turns to onion, garlic’s closest relative, and reads the newer evidence published since 2015, before closing with the whole of the record through the terrain lens.
Part Three, Why Medicine Set It Aside, asks the question directly. One chapter contrasts the pharmaceutical model of isolating a single active compound with the folk model of combining whole plants, and reports what the garlic evidence says about which model works better. One chapter examines the economics of research on a plant that cannot be patented. One chapter — Fire Cider — tells the story of a folk preparation whose name was taken into a United States trademark by a Massachusetts company in 2012, and won back by three herbalists in 2014 who documented forty years of prior use through Rosemary Gladstar and her students into the older tradition.
Part Four, Garlic in Practice, is the working manual — the kitchen pharmacy, traditional uses by body system, a full chapter on safety and interactions, and a complaint-by-complaint practical guide. The book closes with The Trial That Was Never Run — a one-chapter reading of the whole evidential architecture.
At the back: two appendices (a traditional list of uses, and a preparation quick-reference), a full bibliography, and a live index.
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Revive Iran’s MOU Deal or Face a Forever War /John Mearsheimer
- Kafr Qasim at 70: The massacre Israel still hasn’t owned up to
- Would President Vance really ditch Israel?
- LAPD Pilot Will Track Vehicles In San Fernando Valley
- Britain’s Online Censorship Law Now Comes With a Crisis Plan for Your Posts
- NATO’s “Nordic model” brings Arctic confrontation closer to Russia’s nuclear bases
- Using nuclear weapons, the US-Israeli alliance still can’t beat Iran
- Sunset on the Quality of Western Propaganda: Arrival of the Dr Strangelove Moment
- Ukrainian general accused of protecting crime bosses
- US-‘Israel’ alliance faces growing rupture after midterms
- If Americans Knew
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- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: The Net Fossil Fuel Contribution To Rising Atmospheric CO2 Has Been Zero For 500 Years
- Germany’s Green Energy Transition Becoming Increasingly Expensive…Another 6 Trillion Euros!
- Sudden Stratospheric Warming, Powerful El Niño Combination May Lead To Extreme Europe Cold, Energy Crisis!
- Two New Studies Find Thwaites Glacier Melt Cannot Be Driven By Human Activity Or A Warming Ocean
- E-Cars Reduce CO2 Emissions By Only 41% Compared To Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles
- Predictions Made By Renowned Climate Professor Over Past Decades Have Been Proven To Be Poor
- New Study Suggests Large Regions Of The Pacific Ocean Have Been Cooling For The Last 80 Years
- Germany’s Green Energy Debacle: High Energy Costs Force Kahla Porzellan to Close After 182 Years!
- New Study: 50 Years Of The Most Aggressive ‘Net Zero’ Policies Can Only Affect The Global Climate By 0.03°C
- US September “Heat” Was No Record…Many Records Set Decades Ago
