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The climate scaremongers: BBC’s campaign against fossil fuels

By Paul Homewood | TCW Defending Freedom | March 4, 2022

As political pressure mounts for the UK fully to exploit North Sea oil reserves and begin fracking, the BBC is doubling down in its campaign to fight fossil fuels.

There is nothing new in this, of course: we have become used it down the years. But now they don’t even attempt to disguise it, so convinced are they of their moral superiority in the matter.

Last week they published two articles attacking critics of Net Zero. The reports were full of the opinions of the BBC’s chums in the Green Blob, such as Greenpeace, Carbon Brief and the Committee on Climate Change, but gave scant mention of opposing views.

The first report, ‘Climate change: Can the UK afford its net zero policies?’ was an attempt to take down the arguments of the Net Zero Scrutiny Group (NZSG), made up of about 20 Conservative MPs, who have perfectly legitimately drawn the public’s attention to the very real costs of Net Zero.

The article begins by portraying the NZSG as a tiny bunch of ultra Right-wing Brexiteers – you know, the ones who should be ignored!

The rest of the article carries on in the same one-sided vein, with grossly misleading and inaccurate comments and a failure to present the other side of the argument.

It starts by claiming that our energy bills are only £159 a year higher on average because of climate policies. But this does not reflect the full cost of those policies, which in total are estimated to cost £17.6billion this year. That is not £159, but £650 per household.

Much of this cost is paid by the public sector and industry/commerce, meaning higher taxes and prices. Either way, the public end up paying.

The BBC then go on to claim that we should be building wind farms, because they are cheaper than gas power stations.

They imply that you can simply swap wind for gas, ignoring the fact the former is highly intermittent. Currently we need reliable, dispatchable generation, such as gas, to turn on when wind power fails to meet demand. When this is factored in, wind power is nearly double the cost of gas power.

Next the BBC turns its attention to claims that fracking will reduce energy prices in the UK. They argue that we cannot affect global prices of gas, which totally misses the point. Even if UK gas is sold at world prices, the country will still benefit hugely, and in particular government revenues will be boosted. Moreover it will greatly enhance our energy security.

The NZSG have rightly raised the question of how much we will all have to pay for Net Zero, something which the public has been kept in the dark about. The BBC’s response quotes the ultra optimistic calculations of the Committee on Climate Change, which have already been proved to be false and give a cost of ‘only’ £344billion by 2050.

Anybody who claims what the economy will look like three decades hence is a charlatan. But what we do know about is the crippling cost being imposed on the public in the short term. Things like heat pumps, insulation and electric cars will cost us tens of thousands of pounds. The new hydrogen networks being proposed will drive our energy bills up yet further.

For some reason, the BBC makes no mention of any of this.

But won’t the costs of climate change far outweigh all of this? The BBC think so:

‘The UK government’s latest report into the risks of climate change warns that based on a conservative estimate of a 2C temperature rise by 2100, flooding for non-residential properties across the UK is expected to increase by 27 per cent by 2050 and 40 per cent by 2080. At 4C this increases to 44 per cent and 75 per cent respectively.’

Leaving aside the fact that these claims are pure make-believe, does the BBC really think that eliminating the UK’s 1 per cent of world emissions will have the slightest effect on the climate?

The second BBC article, ‘Government climate advisers say cut fossil fuels to lower energy bills’ is by our old friend Roger Harrabin, ‘BBC environment analyst’. Again it does little but report the views of the Committee on Climate Change and others in the Green Blob, who are campaigning for more renewable energy.

As in the first article, it repeats the claim that energy prices won’t drop if we develop shale and North Sea gas reserves as the amounts are so insignificant. However, a recent study by the Warwick Business School estimated that our shale reserves could easily supply a quarter of the UK’s gas consumption over the next twenty years – a hardly insignificant amount at a time when North Sea gas output is expected to halve.

But for ideological reasons, the Committee on Climate Change would like to throw this all away!

John Kerry worries about Ukraine war’s effect on emissions

Joe Biden’s Climate Tsar, the gaffe-prone John Kerry, put his foot in it again last week. In an interview with a Middle East TV station he said he was worried that the Ukraine war would have ‘massive emissions consequences’, and that it could divert the world’s attention away from climate change.

This is the same John Kerry who flew in a private jet to Iceland last year to collect an Environmental Award.  When asked why he chose private jet, he responded it was ‘the only choice for someone like me’.

It was only the other day that Kerry was full of praise for India’s climate efforts, despite the fact they continue to burn more and more coal. He was impressed by Prime Minister Modi’s promise to build lots of solar farms, which Kerry claimed would make India compliant with the 1.5C goal set at Glasgow, a goal which requires global emissions to be cut in half in this decade.

Evidently arithmetic is not John Kerry’s strong suit!

While Modi’s plans would increase wind and solar output tenfold by 2040, this will not be enough to even meet the rising demand for energy in India, which is projected to increase by 69 per cent by then. This means that fossil fuel consumption will continue to grow as well.

Even with all of this investment in renewables, wind and solar together will still only be supplying 20 per cent of India’s energy in 2040.

BP Energy Review & International Energy Agency Outlook

While John Kerry strolls around with his head in the clouds, the Indian Government have long realised that you cannot run a modern economy just on the wind and the sun.

Selling the UK steel industry down the river

As I explained a few weeks ago, the UK operates an Emissions Trading Scheme, a cap and trade system, applying to electricity generators, energy intensive industry and domestic aviation.

The scheme is designed to cut the use of fossil fuels by forcing companies to purchase carbon allowances if they dare to use them.

As a direct consequence of government policy, the price of these allowances has in effect quadrupled in the last couple of years. (Although the UK system was only introduced last May, it directly replaced a similar EU scheme, which it now tracks.)

Higher carbon prices have not only pushed electricity prices through the roof, but they are also hitting industry hard as well, not least the steel industry.

According to the Telegraph, steelmakers are now facing the prospect of cutting production thanks to a doubling of the carbon price in the last nine months.

Steel companies receive a set number of free allowances each year, but this quota is reduced each year. Once they have used these up, they must buy them on the market, which adds £175/ton to the cost of the steel produced. This amounts to a third of the price they sell the steel for, which is quite clearly unsustainable.

Indeed, so high are the carbon prices that firms can often be better off selling their allowances and producing nothing!

Cutting production however has its own problems for the steel industry, because its fixed costs are so high. In the real world, steel plants need to run at near to full capacity to be profitable. It makes no financial sense shutting down furnaces and rolling mills for days at a time.

In other words, they are stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea.

Furthermore there is little that steel firms can do to cut fossil fuel use. By definition, making steel is a highly energy intensive process. From personal experience I know that steel works have forever been looking at ways to reduce energy use on a daily basis.

It is true that electric arc furnaces, which melt scrap steel, don’t need the colossal amounts of coke required in blast furnaces, but higher electricity prices have already crippled their viability.

The inevitable result of government policy is that we will end up importing more steel instead of making it ourselves. It will be made in countries like China and India, where carbon emissions will be much higher than here. And more emissions will arise from shipping it halfway around the world.

The whole thing makes no sense whatsoever.

It is just another senseless sacrifice to the Great Green God.

March 8, 2022 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

They lied about everything else, but believe them about this war

By Frederick Edward | TCW Defending Freedom | March 5, 2022

HOW long until we get reports of people pelting Siberian huskies on the street?

Probably not too long. Already there are videos of Russian food shops being vandalised such as this one in Germany.

A friend who runs a Russian language school in Britain has received threats, including that all Russians should leave the UK. That the school employs mostly Ukrainians and the owner’s wife is from Kiev is neither here nor there when you’re caught up in the latest tide of moral righteousness.

Having forgotten utterly about the preoccupations of yesterday – Covid, Partygate (whatever happened to Sue Gray’s report?) – we are now fully at work with our latest, all-consuming passion. War. Lots of it. Each detonation of a mortar round more titillating than the last. I haven’t seen this much unanimity since the first days of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Do you believe what you read in the media? Plucky Ukrainians, incompetent Russians. After a few days, claims that ‘Russia has lost the war’ abound. Stuck in the mud and stranded without fuel. That wars are rarely decided on the opening day seems lost to a world obsessed with only the present moment. There is plenty more time for Ukraine to fall.

But not without additional, unnecessary bloodshed, all encouraged by our politicians and media. Those wishing to volunteer for Kiev are sent away on a bandwagon of positive vibes and profile pictures with superimposed Ukrainian flags. That they are being sent to a probable death is neither here nor there.

The Russians are evil. The West never puts a foot wrong. Ignore the wars of the past – Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya – we are geopolitically chaste and without sin. That Ukraine is of approximately zero geostrategic interest to us does not matter. The forward march of Western hubris in its institutional form cannot be impeded.

Why would Nato not just say Ukraine will remain a buffer state? That nation’s entry into the alliance was so clearly a red line for the strategists of Moscow, nevertheless we courted its favour, assuming that being on the ‘right side of history’ would be enough. When Russia finally did invade, our ignorance leads us to throw our hands up and scream ‘bully!’ at Putin. I do not care much for Putin, but it is for the birds to assume that the West is entirely without blame.

Having been systematically lied to about every imaginable topic, I cannot simply buy our government’s line. Warrior Truss, whose unfamiliarity with the geography of the area should set alarm bells ringing, solemnly plays her role as a second-rate Thatcher-at-war. Johnson, who until yesterday was on the ropes of various scandals, is recast as a latter-day Churchill.

We’re fighting for democracy and freedom. Fighting for it in a corrupt eastern European state, cleft in two by a linguistic and ethnic fault line, and whose elites have bought the ear of the American President and his family.

We’re fighting it from the high horses of the West, which has just spent two years imprisoning its own citizens and demanding they undergo forced medical procedures. From the same West which would not dare comment on Trudeau’s totalitarian seizure of the bank accounts of those who dared disagree with him, nor on the dictatorial powers used daily in the Antipodes.

Forget all of that. We are the good guys. They are the bad guys. The world is black and white. We are not to blame, not one iota. Cheerlead for war and let the stakes get higher. Assume that Russia’s interests are invalid and to be ignored. We’re back to the gilded age of liberal democracies beating the drum of war.

Whatever you do, don’t look back or think about the recent past. Let your minds be firmly occupied by the indulgent orgy of violence, peddled by the same people who conned you so many times before, and who seek to keep us in a perpetual state of crisis. And certainly, never think about the law of unintended consequences.

March 4, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

Moscow and Kiev issue updates on Ukrainian border guards reported killed

RT | February 26, 2022

The Russian military has claimed that Ukrainian border guards, whom Ukraine initially declared entirely slain, survived, while Kiev’s military concurred that it might indeed be the case.

Both countries’ armed forces on Saturday said that a group of Ukrainian border guards stationed on Zmeinyy (Snake) Island, located some 48km off Ukraine’s southern coast in the Black Sea, were captured by Russian forces. Russia says they were taken alive and unharmed to Sevastopol in Crimea.

However, the initial story allegedly went as follows: a group of 13 border guards on the island were confronted by a Russian warship on Thursday. The Russian ship ordered the group by radio to surrender, the Ukrainians replied “go f**k yourself,” and the Russian ship opened fire. After several hours of fighting, all the guards were killed.

The story spread like wildfire on social media and was held up by the Ukrainian government, Western media outlets and journalists as an example of Ukrainian “heroism.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky honored the troops he declared slain, saying: “On our [Snake] Island, defending it to the last, all the border guards died heroically,” and promising to award them the posthumous title of “Hero of Ukraine.”

The first signs that something else may have happened came early on Saturday, as Russia’s Black Sea Fleet announced that dozens of Ukrainian border troops were delivered to Sevastopol, Crimea, with videos online purportedly showing their arrival.

Ukraine’s Border Guard Service stated shortly afterwards that the troops on Snake Island “bravely defended themselves,” but were taken prisoner when the island was captured. According to the military branch, reports that all had perished were “preliminary,” and came after the Ukrainian military lost contact with the island. The ministry did not say how many guards were stationed on the island, and did not claim to know whether any died or were injured.

The Russian Ministry of Defense likewise confirmed the capture of the island. Spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said that 82 Ukrainian servicemen had been stationed on the island, that all surrendered, and that none were injured. Konashenkov said that as prisoners were being transported off the island, 16 Ukrainian Navy boats disguised as civilian vessels launched an attack on Russia’s Black Sea fleet.

Konashenkov said that Russians destroyed six of the Ukrainian vessels, and claimed that US drones were seen operating in the area, suggesting that the US “directed” the Ukrainian boats. These reports have not yet been corroborated.

A recording of the Snake Island garrison supposedly telling the Russian ship to “go f**k yourself” is still circulating on social media. There is currently no evidence that the recording is genuine, and Ukraine’s Border Guard Service only said that the troops gave a message indicating “no one will surrender.”

February 26, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | | Leave a comment

Ofcom Replies to Complaint About Sky’s Collaboration With the Nudge Unit

Use of Covert Psychological Techniques to Promote Climate Change Dogma

By Toby Young | The Daily Sceptic | February 23, 2022

Towards the end of last year, Laura Dodsworth and I complained to Ofcom about a collaboration between Sky U.K. and the Behavioural Insights Team – then part-owned by the Cabinet Office – to use “behavioural science principles”, including subliminal messaging, to encourage viewers to endorse and comply with the Government’s ‘Net Zero’ agenda. That is, Sky bragged about joining forces with a unit that was part-owned by the U.K. Government to use covert psychological techniques to try to persuade viewers to endorse one of the U.K. Government’s most politically contentious policies – and encouraged other broadcasters to do the same! Alarmingly, the joint report by Sky and the BIT also recommended broadcasters utilise these same covert techniques to change the behaviour of children “because of the important influence they have on the attitude and behaviours of their parents”.

In our complaint, Laura and I argued this was a breach of Ofcom’s Broadcasting code – in particular, paragraph 11 of section two, entitled ‘Harm and Offence’:

Broadcasters must not use techniques which exploit the possibility of conveying a message to viewers or listeners, or of otherwise influencing their minds without their being aware, or fully aware, of what has occurred.

Now, two months later, Ofcom has replied, effectively dismissing the complaint. You can read the full reply beneath our original complaint here, but this is the gist of it:

In the Guidance we outline that, among other things, whether an issue has “been broadly settled […] and whether the issue has already been scientifically established” should inform a broadcaster’s consideration of whether the special impartiality requirements in the Code apply to a particular issue. In our Guidance, we identify the scientific principles behind the theory of anthropogenic global warming as an example of an issue which we considered to be broadly settled. On this basis, we do not consider these principles in themselves to be matters of political or industrial controversy for the purposes of Section Five of our Code.

In other words, using covert psychological methods to persuade viewers to endorse climate change dogma and adapt their behaviour accordingly, e.g. switch to electric cars, is not a breach of the Broadcasting Code because the science of anthropogenic global warming is “broadly settled” and “scientifically established”.

What about the fact that many of the behavioural changes Sky is trying to persuade viewers to make also happen to be changes the current Government is promoting under the banner of ‘Net Zero’? On that point, Ofcom is slightly more ambivalent, leaving the door open to another complaint:

The U.K. Government’s position on net zero covers a wide range of policy areas around which there may be a degree of controversy. Policies on how governments deal with crises or controversies in general can be a “matter or major matter of political controversy or relating to current public policy”, even if the U.K. Government has a settled policy position on it. It is possible, depending on the specific content and context, that a broadcast programme containing discussion of specific net zero policy decisions by the UK Government may engage Section Five of the Code, and require consideration under the special impartiality rules.

Ofcom goes on to say that it has raised our complaint with Sky, but has been assured by Sky’s response, and for that reason, among others, won’t be taking our complaint any further:

Turning to your complaint, you did not identify any specific programmes broadcast by Sky which you considered to be in breach of the Code. As I have explained, Ofcom is a post-transmission broadcast regulator and as such, does not usually consider general complaints about a broadcaster’s policies. On this occasion, we drew Sky’s attention to your complaint. Sky has assured us that they retain full control of all editorial broadcast content on their channels, and they are aware of their obligations under the Code.

It is also important to note that, broadcasters have the editorial freedom to analyse, discuss and challenge issues across the board, including topics related to net zero policies. As set out above, a broadcaster’s right to freedom of expression can only be subject to restrictions which are in pursuit of legitimate aims, in accordance with the law, necessary, and proportionate. We must exercise our regulatory functions in a way which is compatible with those rights, and in line with our regulatory principles.

For these reasons, in light of the assurances given by Sky, and in the absence of a complaint about specific broadcast content, there are no grounds for opening an investigation into Sky’s editorial policies and general organisational strategy related to net zero carbon emissions under the Code.

Accordingly, we will not be taking any further action in relation to the general matters which you raised with us about Sky. However, if you do wish to make a complaint about a specific programme that you consider raises issues under the Code, then you can do this by submitting a complaint on Ofcom’s website.

Disappointingly, at no point does Ofcom address our concern about Sky’s use of covert psychological techniques to prosecute its green agenda or its intention to use these methods to bend the minds of children.

Needless to say, Laura and I have no intention of letting the matter drop. If you see a programme on Sky that you think uses covert psychological methods to brainwash you (or your children) into accepting ‘Net Zero’ gobbledegook please bring it to our attention by emailing us here.

You can subscribe to Laura’s Substack newsletter here.

February 23, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Following the Money on Climate Change Media Coverage

By Chris Morrison | The Daily Sceptic | February 20, 2022

The Associated Press (AP) is assigning another two dozen journalists across the world to cover ‘climate issues’. AP Senior Vice President Julie Pace described the move as a “far reaching initiative that will transform the way we cover the climate story”. Over 20 of the journalists will be new hires and they will be funded by an $8m gift from five billionaire philanthropic organisations, including the Left-wing Rockefeller Foundation. The money is just the latest in a series of such gifts and AP reports that 50 writing jobs are funded from these sources.

AP is not the only large media company to collect such hand-outs. The BBC and the Guardian regularly receive multi-million dollar contributions from the trusts of wealthy philanthropists. It is estimated that Bill Gates has given over $300 million over the last decade to a wide variety of media outlets. Faced with plummeting paid readers and advertisers, mainstream legacy media seems eager to tap a new revenue stream.

The money is spread wide across such media. This month, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting received $1.5 million from Rockefeller to “expand coverage of under-reported and/or inaccurately reported critical public health information”. The Quadrivium Foundation, run by Democrat power couple James and Kathryn Murdoch, is also paying climate wages at AP. On its website, the Foundation notes that it also invests in Climate Central, using meteorologists as “trusted messengers” of the links between extreme weather and climate change. Since it is not possible to link individual weather events to long term climate change with any scientific certainty, this aim looks to be a waste of money, or perhaps not.

‘Trusted messengers’ seems to be a phrase much in vogue around philanthropic operations. Last October, Rockefeller gave $4.5 million to Purpose Global, a non-profit company that aims to help corporate clients with their “cultural intelligence”. The money was given in support of facilitating a “communication network of trusted messengers”. This would “amplify accurate information and combat mis- and dis- information on COVID-19 vaccines”. In September 2020, the Gates Foundation gave the Guardian $3.5 million to “support” its regular reporting on global health. Likewise, the Global Health Security Team at the Telegraph is Gates-funded.

Old school journalists might be a little happier to see less of the ‘trusted messenger’ stuff and more of the requirement to investigate. But critical inquiry of climate change science has been more or less banned from many mainstream outlets. This is despite the fact that the hypothesis that humans cause all or most global warming is unproven, and many scientists look more to natural causes for long term change. Predictions – often termed evidence – of future warming, are based on climate models that have never provided an accurate forecast in the last 40 years. Global warming started to run out of steam two decades ago, and it has been at a standstill for the last seven. When Google Adsense banned the main climate web page tracking accurate satellite data showing the standstill, the interest was confined to just a few outlets, including the Daily Sceptic.

One of the largest suppliers of cash for climate change is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the BBC and the Guardian are two of its favourite giftees. The Guardian has received upwards of $20 million over recent years starting with £6m in 2011 to establish a “millennium Development Goals” feed that provides “compelling evidence-based content”. During the last decade, Gates has given at least $20 million to help fund the BBC World Service and $5.5 million for the Corporation’s Media Action charity.

In that time, the software tycoon, once treated with great suspicion for early monopolistic tendencies, has become a prized ‘talking head’ across the BBC for epidemics, vaccines and anti-meat diets. His recent scary tales of climate change, “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster”, was recently given five airings on prime time Radio 4.

Elsewhere, there are prizes for the best behaved – sorry – most distinguished climate journalist. Every year, the foundation of BBVA, a Spanish bank heavily involved in financing Net Zero projects, hands out €100,000 to the lucky recipient. Last year it went to Marlow Hood of Agence France-Presse, who describes himself as the “Herald of the Anthropocene”, the latter being a political renaming of the current Holocene era. In 2019, Matt McGrath of the BBC pocketed the cash, while in 2020 the award went to – no great surprise – the Guardian.

Much of the BBC money appears to support advocacy in the developing world, although the terms of specific grants are sometimes hard to understand. A letter from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in August 2019 describing the purpose of a $2.03 million grant to the BBC reads as follows: “To help us learn deepen our underpinning of processes and user journeys for different sets of women’s empowerment collectives, develop use cases for where digital can help amplify effects bring efficiencies, and close gender gaps for women”.

No doubt when this non-sensical gibberish was translated into understandable English, the money was spent wisely.

February 20, 2022 Posted by | Corruption, Fake News, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

Canadian Media STILL Pushing Crackpot Theory That Truckers Are Russian Agents

By Steve Watson | Summit News | February 14, 2022

As the Canadian freedom convoy rolls on and continues to influence other protesters around the globe, Canadian media continues to push outright disinformation by suggesting that the Russian government is behind the movement.

When the convoy first came to prominence at the end of January, state broadcaster the Canadian Broadcasting Company began spreading completely unfounded claims that “Russian actors” were present among the Canadian truckers holding up major cities including Ottawa and Toronto, as well as border crossings.

The tenuous reasoning behind the theory is that Canada has expressed support for Ukraine during the country’s ongoing tensions with Russia.

Rather than admit that working class truckers are sick of enforced restrictions and vaccine mandates threatening their livelihoods, CBC floated the crackpot idea that Vladimir Putin is secretly behind the protests.

CBC continues to push the conspiracy theory, with correspondent Harry Forestell filing the following report Friday giving airtime to ‘New Brunswick cybersecurity expert’ David Shipley, who is adamant that the Russians are behind everything.

Shipley proclaimed “Who would have reason right now to cause as much chaos in Canada as possible? Well, at the top of that list is Russia.”

He continued, “We are actively engaged in a geopolitical battle about the future of the Ukraine. Our Foreign Affairs minister, our Prime Minister, others have been very vocal in our support for the Ukraine and it seems very likely that the tactics that we are seeing, the creation of the massive Facebook groups using fake identities or in the case now alleged by a U.S. media outlet, a stolen identity of a Missouri woman to create these groups and to foster this communication hundreds of thousands of people, this is the Russian internet research agency playbook writ large.”

Shipley has considered that possibly the truckers are Chinese agents too, but ultimately no, they’re Russian.

He declared “You have other enemies as well. You have China, you have other states but when I narrow down my list of suspects and I don’t have enough evidence to win in a court of law but I don’t need that right now, this smacks of the kind of move that Russia has made in the past, the United States, and is continuing to do around the world.”

When asked what the solution to this pressing Russian agent problem is, Shipley’s solution was to restrict and shut down the convoy’s social media presence.

You certainly don’t have enough evidence Mr Shipley because there isn’t any.

February 14, 2022 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Part 5: A look at the face mask literature

By Hector Drummond

In Part 5 I look at the scientific literature on face mask use. I look at a lot of studies, but I am not undertaking an exhaustive review of all mask studies, which is an impossible task. However, I do review all the randomized controlled trials, which are the most credible trials. After that I look at a selection of the better trials and meta-analyses. I do focus more on those papers that conclude that there is little or no benefit to mask wearing. I have done this because academia, governments, health institutions and the media are currently giving such an appallingly one-sided view that a corrective is needed.

Also, many of the studies that pro-maskers refer to are not credible, or are not relevant to the real world, and a better evidence base is required.

Bear in mind, as statistician William Briggs says,

The burden of proof is entirely on those who make masklessness a crime: they are imposing, we are not. I have no obligation, none whatsoever, to show masks do not work. But, we have more than enough evidence they do not.

I also refer the reader to City Journal’s ‘Do Masks Work? A Review of the Evidence’, which demolishes some poor studies, including ones that the CDC has pushed. For example, the CDC has especially promoted an incredibly weak observational study which

focused on two Covid-positive hairstylists at a beauty salon in Missouri. The two stylists, who were masked, provided services for 139 people, who were mostly masked, for several days after developing Covid-19 symptoms. The 67 customers who subsequently chose to get tested for the coronavirus tested negative, and none of the 72 others reported symptoms.

The CDC’s spin was reported uncritically in media such as the New York Times.

‘This study’, the City Journal article went on,

has major limitations. For starters, any number of the 72 untested customers could have had Covid-19 but been asymptomatic, or else had symptoms that they chose not to report to the Greene County Health Department, the entity doing the asking. The apparent lack of spread of Covid-19 could have been a result of good ventilation, good hand hygiene, minimal coughing by the stylists, or the fact that stylists generally, as the researchers note, “cut hair while clients are facing away from them.” The researchers also observe that “viral shedding” of the coronavirus “is at its highest during the 2 to 3 days before symptom onset.” Yet no customers who saw the stylists when they were at their most contagious were tested for Covid-19 or asked about symptoms. Most importantly, this study does not have a control group. Nobody has any idea how many people, if any, would have been infected had no masks been worn in the salon. Late last year, at a gym in Virginia in which people apparently did not wear masks most of the time, a trainer tested positive for the coronavirus. As CNN reported, the gym contacted everyone whom the trainer had coached before getting sick—50 members in all—“but not one member developed symptoms.” Clearly, this doesn’t prove that not wearing masks prevents transmission.

5.1: The effectiveness of face masks: Randomized-controlled trials

5.2: The effectiveness of face masks: Other trials and studies

5.3: The effectiveness of face masks: reviews and meta-analyses

5.4: The effectiveness of face masks: preprints, commentaries, editorials and academic letters

5.5: The effectiveness of respirators in healthcare settings

5.6: The effectiveness of surgical face masks in surgical settings

5.7: Face mask harms

5.8. Relevant media reports (a small selection)

The main Face Mask FAQs page.

February 9, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Increased energy prices could “cause heart attacks and strokes”

In the middle of the cost of living crisis, the press has found yet another reason people might keel over… and it’s still not the vaccine.

By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | February 5, 2022

Our UK readers will be familiar with the press coverage of the cost of living crisis in this country, as wages continue to fall further and further behind inflation, and the economy reels from the deliberately devastating lockdown, the cost of everything from food to fuel is ever increasing.

People are understandably troubled and anxious, whether or not the energy cost crisis is genuine or manufactured for the sake of profits, the reality is that many people will face the choice of heating their homes or eating enough food over the last two months of winter and into the spring.

This could easily result in people – especially the elderly or disabled – suffering health problems or even death due to the cold or malnutrition. Many of these people will likely become “covid cases” or “covid deaths” once they’re subjected to the totally unreliable tests.

It’s all a perfect little circuit. And it serves the Covid agenda in more ways than one, because it’s just handed the press yet another explanation for heart attacks that haven’t happened yet.

It seems like only a few days ago we ran an article pointing out all the numerous different reasons the press are predicting people will have heart attacks this year… and that’s because it was.

Stress, anxiety, the weather, “long covid” and a plague of undiagnosed aortic stenosis are all predicted to cause thousands upon thousands of heart attacks and strokes in the near future.

And now so is the increased cost of living.

Appearing on Lorraine on ITV yesterday morning, Dr Amir Khan claimed:

… if you can’t afford to heat your home, it actually causes an increased risk of developing heart attacks and strokes because your blood vessels contract to conserve heat, which pushes your blood pressure up, and over time that has an impact on your heart attack risk.”

In future, maybe they should simply run press releases saying “Covid vaccine only thing in world which doesn’t cause a heart attack”

As Neil Oliver pointed out on Twitter…

February 6, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

MSNBC Misinfo: Zeke Emanuel Peddles Fear, Says Unvaxxed Children ‘Likely To Get Serious Case Of Covid’

By Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | February 5, 2022

Dr Ezekiel Emanuel – former Biden Covid-19 adviser and brother of former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (and the real ‘Ari Gold’ from Entourage) appeared on MSNBC Wednesday, where he proceeded to peddle the lie that unvaccinated children are ‘likely’ to get a ‘serious’ case of Covid.

“This repeats what we’ve seen in older kids, five and above, where we know the vaccine does protect very well. And there we still have under 50%, I believe, of the children vaccinated, and that’s a serious problem for the country,” Emanuel told host Kristen Welker after she asked about parents’ willingness to vaccinate their children. “Parents have to be more willing – I think they hear some of these rare side effects and think they’re very common.”

With the omicron variant, kids are either going to get the vaccine or they’re likely to get a serious condition of omicronHaving omicron with the vaccine is almost invariably going to be better and safer for children,” Emanuel added. “I am confused about parents’ attitudes. Five and above seems like a no-brainer. Two to five, I understand some hesitancy. Two and under with the small dose, I think probably a very good idea.”

It’s been widely established that Omicron is a relatively mild strain of Covid – from which children face an extremely low risk.

Another recent study cited by economist Emily Oster also reiterated the extremely low risk young children face of severe COVID-19 outcomes. “What we can say is that based on everything we know, the risks to small children from COVID-19 are extremely small,” she wrote. –Fox News

MSNBC faced harsh criticism over Emanuel’s statement.

The network even tweeted (and then deleted) the easily debunked misinformation, receiving a serious ratio of comments to ‘likes.’

Intentional? Or…

Following the backlash, Emanuel issued a Saturday tweet in which he says he “misspoke.”

February 5, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

US State Department alleges Moscow prepared ‘crisis actor’ video to invade Ukraine, refuses to offer evidence

RT | February 3, 2022

The US has accused Russia of creating a propaganda video featuring crisis actors, staged fake explosions, and NATO military equipment such as Turkish drones, as a pretext for invading Ukraine in the coming days.

The claim was first published on Thursday morning by the Washington Post, which cited an unnamed US official quoting US intelligence assessments. It was then picked up by CNN and other outlets. On Thursday afternoon, State Department spokesman Ned Price said the government “made public” that intelligence, and echoed the description of the alleged video featured in the Post and CNN stories.

The video is “entirely fabricated by Russian intelligence” and is “one of a number of options the Russian government is developing as a fake pretext to initiate and potentially justify military aggression against Ukraine,” Price claimed. He added that the US is making the claim public as a way to deter Russia from its “destructive and destabilizing disinformation campaign” against Ukraine.

Pressed to show any evidence for the claim, Price said his own statement constituted evidence, and that it was “derived from information known to the US government, intelligence information that we have declassified.”

“If you doubt the credibility of the US government, of the British government, of other governments, and want to find solace in the information the Russians are putting out, that is for you to do,” Price told AP’s diplomatic correspondent Matt Lee, dismissing his line of questioning.

“Russia never does such things,” Moscow’s ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, told RIA Novosti on Thursday, when asked about the new US allegations.

As proof of alleged Russian ‘actions’ in Ukraine, the State Department spokesman quoted the allegation anonymous US officials made to CNN in mid-January, claiming that Russia had sent a “group of operatives” trained in urban warfare to attack “Russia’s own proxy forces” in the two disputed regions of eastern Ukraine, in order to create a pretext for an “invasion.”

Moscow dismissed these claims as “unsubstantiated” hearsay. Several days later, leaders of the Donetsk militia told reporters it was British-trained Ukrainian saboteurs that were planning attacks they would then attribute to Russia as ‘false flags’.

February 4, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Former Pfizer VP Michael Yeadon demands apology from media over ‘lies’ asserting vaccine safety

Dr Michael Yeadon, former Pfizer vice president and co-founder of Doctors for COVID-19 Ethics
By Patrick Delaney | LifeSiteNews | February 2, 2022

After being excoriated by mainstream media outlets regarding his concern that COVID-19 gene-based vaccines could cause fertility issues in young women, Dr. Michael Yeadon is now requesting contrition on the part of media outlets as leaked data from the U.S. military indicates heavy spikes in these tragic outcomes. 

“I’m not vindictive, but I want some humility and contrition from the BBC and all other media outlets that lied to their audiences,” said the former Pfizer vice president and Chief Scientist for allergy and respiratory. 

Yeadon, who spent 32 years in the industry leading new medicines research and retired from the pharmaceutical giant with the most senior research position in his field, was an author of a submitted petition to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in December 2020 that raised substantial concerns regarding a lack of sufficient testing of the experimental COVID-19 gene-based vaccines, prior to their emergency use authorizations. 

With regard to the possibility of the shots endangering the fertility of women, Yeadon and his colleague, Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, wrote, “There is no indication whether antibodies against spike proteins of SARS viruses would also act like anti-Syncytin-1 antibodies. However, if this were to be the case this would then also prevent the formation of a placenta which would result in vaccinated women essentially becoming infertile.” 

Such a possibility would need to be ruled out through standard experimentation prior to imposing such substances onto the entire population, according to the doctors. 

“It’s important to note that none of these gene-based agents had completed what’s called ‘reproductive toxicology,’” Yeadon wrote in his recent statement. “Over a year later, this battery of tests in animals still has not been done. So there was and still is no data package supporting safety in pregnancy or prior to conception.” 

Media response to valid concerns: attacks, smears, vilifications 

“As a society, we’ve practiced the precautionary principle most assiduously in relation to conception and pregnancy ever since the tragedy of thalidomide, over 60 years ago. So we had hoped that some at least in the media would take this [concern] with the seriousness it deserved,” he wrote. 

“Did that happen? No. Instead, we were attacked, smeared and vilified in every medium, from Twitter to the BBC,” the British national wrote. “[M]ajor broadcasters actively lied to the public, explicitly stating that these agents were completely safe in pregnancy.” 

Indeed, Reuters excoriated the doctors for making their inquiry “without providing evidence, that the vaccines could cause infertility in women,” shifting the burden of proof onto the petitioners from the regulators whose job it is to ensure proper safety trials are completed before the release of such drugs. 

Reuters later attempted to “fact-check” Yeadon as well over several concerns including the danger to fertility, to which he simply reiterated common ethical principles with regard to human experimentation: “No one in their right mind thinks giving experimental treatments to pregnant women is other than reckless. Especially when reproductive toxicity testing is incomplete.” 

Of special note for Yeadon was BBC Radio talk show hostess Emma Barnett, who “directly attacked me by name on air in the most unpleasant terms,” which also led to his charging the program with slander. In response, after a bit of investigation, the program editor conceded, apologized to Yeadon, and cut their false representation of the former Pfizer scientist from their recorded podcast. 

“[Barnett] also had her guest, who was from the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, repeat the lies that it was perfectly safe for young women to be injected,” Yeadon called out in his statement. 

Preprint paper reveals placental-damaging antibodies increased 2.5 fold after shots 

Also of note for the former executive was a preprint study published last May that appeared to attempt a rebuttal of his concern that anti-Syncytin-1 antibodies could be developed due to the shots, but instead reinforced them showing a 2.5 fold increase of the placental-damaging antibodies in days 1 to 4 after COVID-19 gene-therapy injections.  

The paper, which claimed a conflict of interest in being funded by Johnson & Johnson, went on to explain that though they had observed this major increase, they did not examine its “clinical significance,” thus admitting they didn’t know if these higher levels of the antibody flagged an actual safety problem with regards to fertility and miscarriage.  

At the same time, the study’s authors acknowledged data showing “spontaneous miscarriage as the most common obstetric outcome after COVID-19 mRNA vaccination.”  

Based on the outcome of this study alone, Yeadon said “all of these experimental products as a class should have been completely contraindicated in women younger than menopause.”  

Pfizer & Moderna ‘definitely knew’ these mRNA products would ‘accumulate in the ovaries’ 

An additional source of concern regarding fertility was that “the mRNA products (Pfizer and Moderna) would accumulate in ovaries,” the British national explained. 

“An FOI request to the Japanese Medicines Agency revealed that product accumulation in ovaries occurred in experiments in rodents. I searched the literature based on these specific concerns and found a 2012 review [here], explicitly drawing attention to the evidence that the lipid nanoparticle formulations as a class do, in fact, accumulate in ovaries and may represent an unappreciated reproductive risk to humans. This was ‘a well-known problem’ to experts in that field,” Yeadon explained. 

“I’ll say that again. The pharmaceutical industry definitely knew, in 2012, that formulating these agents in lipid nanoparticles would lead them to accumulate in the ovaries of women to whom these were given.  

“No one in the industry or in leading media could claim ‘they didn’t know about these risks to successful pregnancy,’” he emphasized. 

Results from the U.S. military leak confirm damage done to unborn children and fertility 

“So it’s with tremendous anger and sorrow that I heard of military physicians blowing the whistle about the evidence of harms in pregnancy that their proprietary safety monitoring database had thrown out,” Yeadon said, referring to last week’s revelations during a U.S. Senate panel discussion. 

“In the intervening months since journalists (including but definitely not limited to Emma Barnett) chose to downplay or downright lie about our concerns, we learned that women in the U.S. military were experiencing 3X normal rates of miscarriage,” he explained. 

In fact, these data leaks, given by three “decorated high-ranking soldiers who are doctors and public health officials,” in sworn declarations under penalty of perjury, show several increases in negative impacts upon fertility, including spontaneous abortion, among this military population where enforcement of an experimental COVID gene-vaccine mandate is strictly observed. 

As presented by these soldiers, the following 2021 increases only include the first 10 months of the year (January through October) and are compared with the full five-year average of figures taken from 2016 through 2020.  

  • Miscarriages — increase of 279% 
  • Female infertility – increase of 471% 
  • Male infertility — increase of 344% 
  • Congenital malformations (birth defects) – increase of 156% 

And considering most children conceived after these injections had not been born before November 2021, the final figure of birth defects is likely to significantly increase as well. 

Journalists, regulators and manufacturers: ‘You are way out over thin ice and deep water’ 

After Yeadon’s request for contrition from the BBC and other media outlets, he went on to implore readers, “please do not get injected with these inherently dangerous and ineffective experimental products. Warn anyone you know about the risks to pregnancy, now confirmed by whistleblowers from physicians in the U.S. military. 

“Please also tell them there are likely to be other reproductive health consequences, even in young girls, because of accumulation [of lipid nanoparticles] in their ovaries.“ 

Having originally alerted the EMA of several other possible toxic outcomes due to the injections, Yeadon highlighted that he and Dr. Wodarg were sadly also right about their warning of “allergic, potentially fatal reactions to the vaccination,” citing examples from the UK of emergency interventions and tragic deaths. 

“Having had two of two serious harms we warned about, prior to regulatory authorisations, come to pass,” he said. “I humbly recommend that governments and journalists everywhere recognise what you’ve done and lobby for or directly decide to immediately and completely withdraw all these experimental products from the market, before some of the other specified concerns (or issues we didn’t think of) show up in the safety monitoring systems.” 

“Journalists, regulators, healthcare professionals and politicians, as well [as], of course, the manufacturers, you are way out over thin ice and deep water. I don’t know how you’re planning to get out from under this before the wider public more fully appreciates what you’ve done,” Yeadon wrote. 

“One possibility is that you won’t be able to hide your complicity in the massed harms you’ve done to millions of people. In this case, I look forward to giving evidence against you in a court of law,” he concluded. 

Dr. Yeadon’s full statement can be accessed here. 

February 3, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Relax, Wisconsin Public Radio, Climate Change Isn’t Making Human Health Worse

By H. Sterling Burnett | ClimateRealism | January 28, 2022

A story run by Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR) today claims climate change poses a threat to human health. Disease and mortality data show this is false. During the recent period of modest warming, deaths resulting from extreme heat and weather have declined sharply, and research indicates climate change is not contributing to pandemics or parasite borne diseases.

WPR’s story, titled “Wisconsin health providers say climate change is a medical issue,” features input from the climate activist group, Wisconsin Health Professionals for Climate Action. WPR writes:

“Heat waves, cold spells could harm people, along with dangerous flooding, according to Wisconsin Health News panelists. Last year, top medical journals warned that climate change, not COVID-19, was the greatest threat to public health.”

“In the Midwest, climate change is likely to bring extreme temperatures and flooding, along with more mosquito and tick diseases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP).”

While many top medical journals and the politically controlled CDCP have claimed climate change is causing worsening health and increasing incidences of premature mortality, hard data presented in peer reviewed literature proves this is false.

Data from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration presented in Climate at a Glance articles disprove claims that heat wavescold spells, and incidences of flooding have increased during the recent period of modern warming.

If instances of extreme heat or cold, and flooding events aren’t increasing, or are in fact declining, they can’t be causing an increase in adverse health events, which is precisely what the data establish.

As detailed in Climate Realismhere, deaths resulting from climate related events have fallen to a historic low, having fallen by more than 99 percent over the past 100 years.

On July 1, 2021 The Lancet published what is arguably the largest study ever to examine excess mortality associated with temperature. The study’s authors, 68 scientists representing universities and research institutes in 33 countries spanning all regions of the world, came to two very clear conclusions: Cold temperatures contribute to far more deaths each year than warmer temperatures; and deaths associated with extreme temperatures, hot or cold, are declining.

This study confirms what research previously published in The Lancet, the Southern Medical Journal, and other outlets, has consistently shown: Cold is the biggest temperature related killer, not heat, and as he earth warms the number of deaths related to extreme temperatures is falling dramatically.

Also, contrary to the impression given in the WPR story, there is no evidence insect borne tropical diseases are expanding their range or sickening, or claiming the lives of greater numbers of people as the earth has warmed.

The vast body of scientific literature referenced in Chapter Seven of Climate Change Reconsideree II: Biological Impacts and Chapter Four of Climate Change Reconsidered II: Fossil Fuels fails find any link between global warming and the spread of Lyme disease, malaria, Dengue fever, West Nile virus, and other vector-borne diseases are either grossly overstated or outright false.

For example, a 2010 study in the peer-reviewed science journal Nature:

“[C]compared historical and contemporary maps of the range and incidence of malaria and found endemic/stable malaria is likely to have covered 58% of the world’s land surface around 1900 but only 30% by 2007. They report, ‘even more marked has been the decrease in prevalence within this greatly reduced range, with endemicity falling by one or more classes in over two-thirds of the current range of stable transmission.’ They write, ‘widespread claims that rising mean temperatures have already led to increases in worldwide malaria morbidity and mortality are largely at odds with observed decreasing global trends in both its endemicity and geographic extent.’”

Also, in a 2008 article in the Malaria Journal, Pasteur Institute of Paris professor Paul Reiter wrote:

“Simplistic reasoning on the future prevalence of malaria is ill-founded; malaria is not limited by climate in most temperate regions, nor in the tropics, and in nearly all cases, ‘new’ malaria at high altitudes is well below the maximum altitudinal limits for transmission, [continuing] future changes in climate may alter the prevalence and incidence of the disease, but obsessive emphasis on ‘global warming’ as a dominant parameter is indefensible; the principal determinants are linked to ecological and societal change, politics and economics.”

Despite numerous claims to the contrary, claims parroted by WPR without citing any hard evidence, human health is not being threatened by climate change. Indeed, on every health indicator: human lifespan, premature mortality, premature births, infant mortality, hospitalizations linked to extreme temperatures or weather events, hunger, and malnutrition, to name the most often discussed health indicators, humans are living better, longer, healthier, lives than ever before.

February 3, 2022 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment