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Powerless and ridiculous for US to cry for its recognition as regional leader

Global Times | March 2, 2023

“Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t,” said former UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher. From this, we know how powerless and ridiculous it is when the US tries to persuade others by repeating, “I am still a leader, and you have to believe and admit it!”

In a video released Tuesday by NBC News, Nicholas Burns, the US Ambassador to China, who spoke by video link at a US Chamber of Commerce event, said Beijing must accept that Washington is a leader in Asia. He declared that China must now understand that “the US is staying in this region – we’re the leader in this region in many ways.”

What the US politician said implies two messages. First, he seems to criticize China for not understanding US’ presence in the Asia-Pacific. Second, Burns wants Beijing to acknowledge Washington’s leadership in the region. Yet, both are far from the truth.

Washington has always had the strategic miscalculation: It believes Beijing wants to push it out of the Asia-Pacific region. But China not only recognizes US’ presence in the area, but also seeks peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation with the US on the premise of mutual respect. What Beijing refuses is to be led by anyone else, including Washington.

Burns’ words are extremely US-centric, as they come entirely from Washington’s perspective of its regional role while ignoring the actual opinions of other Asia-Pacific nations. Such arrogance aims to satisfy the US’ strategic need for maintaining global hegemony.

“US continues to live in an alternative reality fuelled by hubris,” one tweet said, commenting on Burns’ remarks. This hits the nail on the head regarding US’ current status.

Washington has to understand that most Asia-Pacific countries do not want to be stuck in a Cold War-like confrontation again, nor do they want to see conflicts between major powers. The US’ desire to lead regional affairs and get the recognition of other countries is wishful thinking, which is completely at odds with the trend of development in Asia-Pacific.

Besides, against the backdrop of the deteriorating domestic problems and the relative decline in US’ national power, there’s also a sense of lack of confidence in Burns’ remarks: In fact, it actually sounds like a self-affirmation the US has to make.

“In the past, the US could confidently intervene in the affairs of any region and use force or coercion to maintain its leadership. But now it is increasingly incapable of acting as a leader, because Washington finds it more difficult to focus on other regions,” Zhang Tengjun, deputy director of the Department for Asia-Pacific Studies at the China Institute of International Studies, told the Global Times.

Almost one year in office, Burns has increasingly fueled the deterioration of China-US relations. As Washington’s megaphone for Beijing, the ambassador has frequently criticized China’s policies in public, including on social media. Many of his comments are damaging to US-China relations and inappropriate to his ambassadorship.

For instance, an exclusive report by the Global Times on Monday noted that Burns recently sparked discontent among the attendees of the 22nd Annual Appreciation Dinner American Chamber of Commerce when he criticized China in his address to the event.

The US Ambassador to China is the executor of US policy toward China. After taking office, Burns has been following Washington’s order on many China-related issues tightly and expressing what the White House wants him to say. Therefore, it is easy to see that Burns’ actions of fueling the fire essentially stem from the hysteria of the US’ containment policy toward China.

Over the past year, it seems that condemning China has become an instinctive reaction of any US official when dealing with China, especially in the current US political environment that promotes anti-China sentiments.

Nevertheless, politicians like Burns should understand that “pride and prejudice” toward China will only bring more danger and chaos to the region and the world. No matter how harsh they want to sound when talking about China and how assertive when talking about the US, they can never fool other countries by trying to sugarcoat US hegemony as “leadership.”

March 4, 2023 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite | , | Leave a comment

These 5 institutions allowed great harm to be inflicted on the world

All 5 are supposed to “search for the truth,” but increasingly seek to conceal important truths.

By Bill Rice, Jr. | March 3, 2023

The writer who publishes the Eugyppius Substack recently posted a scathing criticism of “academia.”

This essay got me thinking about all the institutions in the world that now seem to be completely captured; more specifically, all the institutions that are supposed to exist to “search for the truth” and now clearly exists to conceal truths and advance untruths.

At the top of this list are these five institutions:

Journalism organizations

I think tens of millions of Americans would agree with me that mainstream or corporate news organizations should not be trusted to provide fair and balanced coverage of the issues most important to the public.

As I have pointed out in other articles, it’s virtually impossible to find any serious articles that question any of the “authorized” Covid narratives. Not only does the establishment press push and endorse bogus or dubious storylines, they censor and attack people who are skeptical of official pronouncements.

Genuine journalists would be skeptical of the pronouncements of powerful figures and should always “search for the truth.” The fact this objective no longer applies in corporate newsrooms has tremendous and detrimental implications for society … today and in the future.

Scientists, science organizations and public health organizations

Those who practice real science are also supposed to make their living “searching for the truth.” By nature, a “scientist” should question, challenge and test accepted theories to see if they are, in fact, true.

Again, thanks to Covid, tens of millions of Americans are now beginning to question whether the majority of credentialed “scientists” are actually performing this vital task.

Many people now believe that scientists are unwilling to debunk false or dubious scientific theories. Instead, many (government-funded) scientists argue that the “science is settled” when it’s clearly not. Just like the corporate journalists, these scientists inflict further harm on society by attacking, censoring, bullying and cancelling their colleagues who do perform this vital role.

In short, they effectively prevent superior science from informing public policy.

For millions of citizens, the difference between false and correct science can be the difference between life and death. Millions of additional citizens are forced to needlessly endure life-altering pain and suffering as a result of “accepted” science that is wrong.

I would argue that journalism and science are the two most important professions and institutions in the world as the public needs to be able to discern what is true and what is not true if correct or wise policies are to be pursued.

Policies based on incorrect premises have the potential to cause harm to virtually every citizen on the planet. The fact “science” now seems to be corrupted – and is no longer  interested in “searching for the truth” – constitutes one of the gravest and most ominous developments of our times.

Academia

As Eugyppius reinforces with his provocative essay, “academia” is another institution that is supposed to exist to “search for the truth.”

Euggypius focuses on the shortcomings of college academics. Again, I think all would agree that college is the place we send our children so they can increase their knowledge of important subjects. As all the great philosophers tell us, the quest for knowledge is found through a search for the truth.

However, what if large expanses of the “knowledge” these professors are imparting to students is dubious or wrong? What if, just like so many scientists and journalists, these academics are concealing real truths and intentionally or unintentionally spreading dangerous non-truths?

If this is the case, our college system is “educating” our future leaders by promulgating bogus or dubious “accepted truths.” Even worse, they are preventing the spread of ideas that could save lives and improve the quality of life of the world’s citizens.

Of course, it should be noted that the majority of “science” performed in today’s world comes from scientists who work for colleges.

Colleges are also supposed to teach and develop critical-thinking skills in students. However, it seems increasingly obvious that the vast majority of academics lack the ability to think critically. This, or many academics seem more interested in promoting their personal agendas instead of questioning what is true and what is false or uncertain.

In the past, colleges did seem to have many professors who valued a search for the truth. Today, the groupthink among college professors and administrators is approaching 100 percent.

All colleges celebrate “diversity,” but they recoil against diversity of thought and scholarship. In reality, they are afraid of genuine debate or, more specifically, any campus voices that push back against their dogma.

As these academics influence tens of millions of students who are supposed to become “future leaders,” the long-term detrimental effects of this “indoctrination” are impossible to calculate (but frightening to ponder).

Agencies or officials of government

Certain employees who work in government are also supposed to seek the truth and expose individuals and organizations that are perpetrating untruths (fraud).

Members of Congress have oversight over every government department or agency that is allocated taxpayer dollars. If government agencies and officials are concealing truths that could harm countless citizens, it’s Congress’s job to expose this.

Yet again, I’m sure tens of millions of Americans would agree with me that senators and representatives have abdicated this responsibility. They effectively allow fraudulent and Unconstitutional edicts and “emergency orders” to control the lives of every citizen in the country.

Prosecutors are also government employees. No one would deny that it is the job of prosecutors to “search for the truth” (find the real facts) and bring criminal charges against individuals who are harming others by promoting untruths and/or violating the law or Constitution.

The third branch of government, the Judiciary, must also be questioned as judges at all levels have the power to control what cases can (and cannot) be tried in a court of law.

Once a criminal or civil case is placed on the docket, the same judges have the power to influence how these cases are tried. By not approving important prosecutions or lawsuits or by hamstringing the efforts of advocates to fully present their arguments, judges can also “conceal the truth.”

Elected representatives and government prosecutors (and too many judges) seem to have increasingly made an intentional decision to not perform their oversight or regulation duties, which effectively conceals the truth from the public.

Trial lawyers and plaintiff law firms 

Trial lawyers are another important professional class as attorneys can file lawsuits on behalf of clients who have been injured or harmed by the actions of defendants. Lawsuits are also filed by family members of those who may have died as a results of defendant actions.

Significantly, trial lawyers can demand testimony under oath and compel defendants to turn over important evidence or documents (discovery). They can cross-exam witnesses who may be lying, which allows a jury to determine whose testimony is or isn’t believable.

While this “search for the truth” can and has been abused with lawsuits that lack merit, the ability of any injured or harmed citizen to seek redress for wrongs is a vital component of our system of justice.

In the Covid era, it’s already clear that the plaintiff’s trial bar (with a few exceptions) is not going to represent clients who have suffered deaths, medical harm or financial damages (or citizens whose civil liberties have been violated by ignoring the language include in the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution).

If injuries have occurred, the legal proceedings that would document these “truth” are not taking place (again, with a few exceptions). By not filing lawsuits on the behalf of tens of millions of citizens who suffered some form of harm, the trial lawyers are, in effect, concealing the truth.

SUMMARY

Our society includes at least five key institutions or professions whose most important function is to seek the truth. All five of these institutions are supposed to expose untruths, especially those which have the potential to produce great harm among the citizenry.

As I see it, all five institutions are now “captured” and – at least as it involves Covid subjects –  are more interested in concealing truths that challenge the authorized narratives.

In a recent article, I tried to identify how the “madness” of our Covid times actually came to pass. That article focussed on pivotal events of the last few years.

However, a deeper treatment of the “how” question would highlight the important role played by the above-cited institutions and professions. It took many years for all of these institutions to become largely or completely “captured,” but the fact this happened also explains how so much harm was inflicted on legions of victims who have not received any form of justice.

I’ll conclude this essay with the same sentence I wrote in a July 2020 Covid article published by uncoverDC.com.

When a genuine search for the truth is increasingly viewed as taboo or off-limits, the prognosis for a nation we all want to see survive and prosper is probably bleak.

March 3, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

TREATING PUTIN AS AN IRREDEEMABLE IMPERIALIST HAS PAINTED THE WEST INTO A DANGEROUS CORNER

By Larry Johnson | Son Of the New American Revolution | February 27, 2023 

When it comes to imperialism — i.e., “the policy, practice, or advocacy of extending the power and dominion of a nation especially by direct territorial acquisitions or by gaining indirect control over the political or economic life of other areas” — the United States and Europe are quick to label Putin as a rabid practitioner who must be stopped or else he will conquer the world.

This is lazy propaganda on the part of the West and it is a bullshit accusation. Putin is an old school nationalist and an Eastern Orthodox Christian who eschews the Soviet Communist legacy. Since taking power in 1999, Putin has not led unprovoked conquests of adjacent territory. Russia’s military engagements with Georgia in 2008 and with Ukraine are a direct result of U.S. and NATO interference in the region.

But the U.S. and Europe persist in describing Putin as Stalin reincarnated and a man hell bent on imposing Russian sovereignty over the world. This just a 21st century version of the Domino Theory. It is Domino 2.0 and Putin is the new Vietnam. The truth of the matter is that the U.S. and Europe are bona fide imperialists and are ignoring Putin’s actual record. Instead, the West is engaging in gross hypocrisy and psychological projection — attributing to Putin what they themselves have done and are doing.

Here are some recent examples of the imperialist meme the West is pushing with regards to Putin and Russia:

Putin’s words speak for themselves: What he is aiming for in Ukraine is the restoration of Russia as an imperial power.

Many observers quickly picked up on one of Putin’s more provocative lines, in which he compared himself to Peter the Great, Russia’s modernizing tsar and the founder of St. Petersburg – Putin’s own birthplace – who came to power in the late 17th century.

“Peter the Great waged the Great Northern War for 21 years,” a relaxed and apparently self-satisfied Putin said. “On the face of it, he was at war with Sweden taking something away from it… He was not taking away anything, he was returning. This is how it was.”

Foreign Policy magazine, an establishment mouthpiece, pushes the same meme:

Above all, it means viewing contemporary Russia as the heir to the Soviet empire—a highly centralized state in which the Russian core determined the internal and external policies of the non-Russian republics—and the product of that empire’s sudden collapse.

Mikhail Mamedov, an Azeri by birth who fled Russia in 1996, offers an unintentionally ironic perspective on Russian imperialism:

How did Russia become an imperial power? Not how other European powers did, by crossing seas and oceans to colonize parts of Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Russia’s imperial growth was largely land-locked: expansion stretched continentally across Eurasia. The empire went west into Poland and Lithuania; east towards Siberia; and, in the south, towards the Caucasus region and Ottoman and Persian empires. . . .

“Russia’s concept of empire was different from that of the Western powers. Russia did not possess ‘distant colonies’ but expanded across its borders into the depths of Eurasia. It had a better opportunity for the closer integration of native and Russian nobility into one body.”

Did you catch that last paragraph? Mamedov apparently has not studied American history. If Russia is an imperialist because it “expanded across its borders” and exerted authority over adjacent territory, then what is the United States? Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California were not independent free states who voted to join the U.S. They came under U.S. control thanks to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which officially ended the Mexican–American War and “required Mexico to cede 55 percent of its territory including the present-day states of California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, and most of Arizona and Colorado. Mexico also relinquished all claims for Texas and recognized the Rio Grande as the southern boundary of Texas.”

After sixty years of failed foreign military expeditions, the political class in Washington, D.C. clings tenaciously to the childish notion that if you can just get rid of the “bad man” you can usher in a political utopia. Just consider the list of villains the United States has targeted in repeated bids to change governments and create “democracy or eliminate terrorism, etc. How have those worked out? Did it make the world safer? Is the United States more secure?

  • Mossadegh, Iran
  • Arbenz, Guatemala,
  • Castro, Cuba
  • Diem, Vietnam
  • Mao, China
  • Noriega, Panama
  • Saddam Hussein, Iraq
  • Bashir Assad, Syria
  • The Shah, Iran
  • The Ayatollah Khomeni, Iran
  • Osama Bin Laden, ???
  • Vladimir Putin, Russia

I am amazed that so many so-called foreign policy experts adhere to the magical belief that eliminating a leader will provide a political solution that favors the West. Just listen to Hillary Clinton pleading for the Russian elite to eliminate Putin:

The notion that getting rid of Putin will neuter Russia and make it an obedient serf of the West is profoundly stupid and myopic. Just because people like Clinton and Biden insist that Putin is a dictator in the mold of Stalin, it does not magically transform delusional belief into reality.

The Latin American Information Agency (ALAI) shares my scorn for the West’s double standard when it comes to portraying modern Russia as an amalgam of Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union:

The main Western governments and media outlets question Moscow’s incursions while justifying similar actions carried out by their own camp. The deployment of troops in Ukraine, Georgia or Syria is presented as an unacceptable act, but the occupations of Afghanistan, Iraq or Libya are interpreted as routine events. The annexation of Crimea is categorically repudiated, but the appropriation of land in Palestine is warmly welcomed.

This hypocrisy is combined with implausible allegations that seek to frighten the population. They describe a gigantic Russian power with immeasurable capacity for harm. Moscow’s manipulation of the US elections through infiltrators and algorithms has been the most absurd accusation in this campaign.

Every diabolical conspiracy is attributed to Putin. The media often portrays him as the embodiment of evil. He is depicted as a despot rebuilding an empire that rests on brutal methods of internal totalitarianism (Di Palma, 2019). Comparisons are never made with the lauded plutocracies of the United States or Europe, which enforces validation of the domination exercised by ruling elites.

Why should you care? If the West persists in demonizing Putin it is creating potentially insurmountable obstacles for future negotiations. This approach makes a diplomatic solution virtually unattainable and is likely to increase Putin’s doubts that the West can be trusted to uphold any agreement short of unconditional surrender.

February 28, 2023 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , , | 1 Comment

Hurricane activity not getting worse, new paper shows

By Paul Homewood | Not A Lot Of People Know That | February 24, 2023

The Global Warming Policy Foundation has today published its periodic review of hurricane activity around the world. The author, climate writer Paul Homewood, says that official data is absolutely clear: they are not getting worse. Indeed, there is some evidence that they are less active in recent years.

Homewood says:

“2021 and 2022 recorded the lowest number of both hurricanes and major hurricanes globally for any two year period since 1980, and this comes against long-term hurricane activity trends that are essentially flat.”

And Homewood calls on journalists to start reporting these undisputed facts to the public:

“While scientists are quite clear that we are not seeing a dramatic increase in hurricanes, or even any increase at all, the public have been conned into thinking that tropical storms are getting worse. It’s high time the mainstream media came clean and told people what is really going on.”

Executive summary

It is widely believed that hurricanes are getting worse as a consequence of climate change. This belief is fuelled by the media and some politicians, particularly when a bad storm occurs. This belief is reinforced because the damage caused by hurricanes is much greater nowadays, thanks to increasing populations in vulnerable coastal areas and greater wealth more generally.

But is this belief correct, or is it a misconception? This study has carefully analysed official data and assessments by hurricane scientists, and finds:

• 2021 and 2022 recorded the lowest number of both hurricanes and major hurricanes globally for any two year period since 1980.
• The apparent long-term increase in the number of hurricanes since the 19th century has been due to changes in observational practices over the years, rather than a real increase.
• Data show no long-term trends in US landfalling hurricanes since the mid-19th century, when systematic records began, either in terms of frequency or intensity.
• Similarly, after allowing for the fact that many hurricanes were not spotted prior to the satellite era, there are no such trends in Atlantic hurricanes either.
• Globally there are also no trends in hurricanes since reliable records began in the 1970s.
• Evidence is also presented that wind speeds of the most powerful hurricanes may now be overestimated in comparison to pre-satellite era ones, because of changing methods of measurement.
• The increase in Atlantic hurricanes in the last fifty years is not part of a long-term trend, but is simply a recovery from a deep minimum in hurricane activity in the 1970s, associated with the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation.

These findings are in line with those of hurricane scientists generally, as well as official bodies such as NOAA and the IPCC.

Paul Homewood: The 2022 Hurricane Season (pdf)

February 27, 2023 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | Leave a comment

Study Finds Zero Loss of Antarctica Sea Ice – But BBC Spins as “New Record Low”

BY CHRIS MORRISON | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | FEBRUARY 21, 2023

The catastrophisation of natural events and weather is relentless across the mainstream media as populations continue to be nudged towards an elitist command-and-control Net Zero future. The BBC recently copied a headline from the U.S.-based National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) claiming Antarctica sea ice had hit a “new record low”. Inexplicably missing from the story was the later observation from the NSIDC that since accurate satellite records began in 1979, the trend in the minimum ice extent is “near zero”. Any loss was said to be “not statistically significant”.

To be fair to the writer, BBC science correspondent Jonathan Amos, he did report later in the story that scientists consider the behaviour of Antarctica sea ice to be a “complicated phenomenon which cannot simply be ascribed to climate change”. Of course, as regular Daily Sceptic readers are aware, the Antarctic is a difficult hunting ground for climate catastrophists since over the last seven decades there has been little or no warming over large areas of the continent.

According to a recent paper (Singh and Polvani), the Antarctica sea ice has “modestly expanded”, and warming has been “nearly non-existent” over much of the ice sheet. According to NASA figures, the ice loss is 0.0005% per year. Down at the South Pole, even the most inventive climate alarmists are defeated. In 2021 it recorded its coldest six-month winter since records began, and last year the temperature was 0.4°C colder than the average over the last 30 years. In addition, the Pole recorded no less than seven new daily temperature lows.

The map above shows some warming in the western part of Antarctica, and it is to this area that climate warriors return – again and again. The day before his sea ice story was published, Amos ran with a routine BBC house scare about the Thwaites glacier, often known in green circles as the ‘Doomsday Glacier’. Amos states that glaciers such as Thwaites located in the west may be more sensitive to changes in sea temperature than was thought. “Its susceptibility to climate change is a major concern to scientists because if it melted completely, it would raise global sea levels by half a metre,” he said.

Many of the problems surrounding the unproven hypothesis of human-caused global warming is that it often fails to correlate with observable reality. Why would well-mixed atmospheric carbon dioxide produce a relative warm spot in Antarctica, but leave the rest of the vast continent in a static deep freeze? In 2017, scientists discovered 91 volcanoes in the West Antarctica Rift System. It brought the number of volcanoes discovered in the area to 138. Their heights ranged from 300 to 12,600 feet, with the tallest as high as Mount Fuji in Japan. The scientists noted that even dormant volcanoes can melt ice because of the high temperature they generate. “Volcanic activity may increase and this, in turn, may lead to enhanced water production and contribute to further potential ice-dynamical instability,” the scientists stated.

Again, to be fair to Amos, he does consider other causes of Antarctica ice stability, although the article is headlined “climate change”. His reporting is mercifully free of the emotional gushings produced by the BBC’s green activist-in-residence Justin Rowlatt. When Rowlatt flew to the area, he witnessed “an epic vision of shattered ice”. To him, the Antarctic is the “frontline of climate change”. Amos does note that Thwaites, a glacier the size of Florida, has retreated in some places by 14 km since the late 1990s. But such movement does not seem unusual. Recently a group of oceanographers discovered that parts of Thwaites had retreated at twice the rate in the past, when human-caused CO2 could not have been a factor. The retreat could have occurred centuries ago, and is said to have been “exceptionally fast”.

Meanwhile, research has just been published that indicates Antarctica could have been warmer in the recent past from 7,000 to 500 years ago. This type of research is always interesting since it helps debunks a common claim made by alarmists that current temperatures are the highest over the last three million years. But numerous scientific studies have shown that temperatures across the planet have been much warmer for recent periods in the Holocene. This latest study in Antarctica found remains of elephant seals along the Victoria Land Coast of the Ross Embayment, which borders both the West and East Antarctic ice sheets. These days, the area is largely free of elephant seals because of shelves of permanent sea ice frozen to the beaches. It is suggested that seals were able to occupy the beaches in a period of warmth before extensive sea ice pushed them off the present day coast.

“Our work shows that for much of the Holocene, the Ross Sea was less icy and presumably warmer than it is today, and this warmth may have driven retreat of the West Antarctica ice sheet from the Ross Sea during the last 8,000 years, and future warming could continue to push ice retreat,” conclude the researchers.

For climate alarmists, the ice is the gift that keeps on giving – every day is a “new record low”.

February 27, 2023 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | | 1 Comment

How Scotland pays back for Malawi (non existent) climate damage

By Paul Homewood | Not A Lot Of People Know That | February 26, 2023

Today’s climate disinformation from the BBC:

image

Scotland is one of the first countries in the world to stump up cash for “loss and damage” caused by climate change in poorer countries.

When torrential rains came to the village of Mambundungu in Malawi, people’s homes were washed away but that was not the worst of it.

The flood waters were infested with crocodiles. Children were carried away by them. It was terrifying.

Eventually, in 2015, the villagers couldn’t take any more and moved their entire community to higher ground.

Then the new village began to flood too.

Malawi in southern Africa has been hard hit by the effects of climate change

But it is one of the poorest countries in the world and struggles to pay for the measures needed repair the damage.

That’s where the Scottish government has stepped in, promoting the notion that rich nations should help pay for the damage from climate change in less developed countries.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-64501975

There is naturally no evidence provided of just how these floods are caused by climate change. (Well this is the BBC – what do you expect?)

And if you look at the three long running weather stations in  Malawi, no evidence exists that daily rainfall extremes are increasing:

https://climexp.knmi.nl/getstations.cgi

So why do these floods appear to be getting worse? There is a very simple reason – deforestation.

According to the BBC themselves:

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210420-the-underappreciated-power-of-human-poo

As we know, deforestation leads to increased rainfall runoff, siltation and floods down valley.

The World Resources Institute studied the problem in 2017, writing:

Nearly a year ago, the New York Times ran a devastating story about the deforestation crisis in Malawi and its impact on residents of Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital city. Illegal cutting of nearby forests was causing water shortages and disrupting the city’s hydroelectric power supply, forcing the government to deploy soldiers to protect the forests. The root of this problem was Malawi’s dependence on wood for meeting energy needs―more specifically, charcoal. Nearly 97 percent of Malawian households depend on wood or charcoal for cooking or heating. Even in urban areas, 54 percent of households use charcoal (a product of wood) for cooking. But there are only so many trees.

Malawi is one of the poorest countries in Africa, where electricity is an uncommon luxury and subsistence farming is the norm. With seemingly few options and climate change adding uncertainty, the situation depicted in the New York Times article seemed hopeless.

https://www.wri.org/insights/malawi-turns-corner-solving-its-deforestation-crisis

Instead of blubbering on about climate change, maybe the Scottish government should be helping Malawi to build a reliable electricity grid, based on fossil fuels.

February 27, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | Leave a comment

When I covered climate change for Reuters I thought CO2 was certainly to blame for rising temperatures. I was wrong

BY NEIL WINTON | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | FEBRUARY 23, 2023

The BBC and the mainstream media regularly frighten everyone with the latest climate disaster news with pictures of floods, fires and hurricanes, always followed by scary predictions that things will only get worse unless mankind mends its irresponsible ways.

My alma mater Reuters, the global news agency, used to be above all this hysteria and would relentlessly apply its traditional standards of fairness and balance, but even this mainstream outfit seems to have sold out to the hysterics and axe grinders.

The trouble is, many if not all of these disaster stories, far from being another step in a worsening scenario, are often nothing of the kind. In a recent book Unsettled. What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, And Why It Matters, Steven Koonin uses the UN’s Intergovernmental  Panel on Climate Change data to show that if reporters took the trouble to do a minimum amount of checking, most of these incidents would appear to be natural disasters, yes, but not part of some ever worsening syndrome.

Economist Bjorn Lomborg has been pointing out for years that humans are having an impact on the climate, but technology will be a match for any problems. Current Government plans to combat climate change will squander massive amounts of taxpayers’ money and achieve very little in terms of stopping rising global temperature, Lomborg says.

Warmist politicians and lobby groups regularly trash the work of a significant group of climate experts, insulting them with unfounded accusations that they can’t be taken seriously because they have barely perceptible links with ‘Big Oil’ and are ‘climate change deniers’. Criticisms are mainly personal and not aimed at their work. Koonin and Lomborg also suffer the unethical ‘denier’ slur, so let’s destroy that canard first.

Every scientist knows the world’s climate has been gradually and occasionally irregularly warming since the last Ice Age over about 10,000 years. Nobody denies the climate is changing. The ‘denier’ charge is nonsensical. But it performs the useful function of making clear the user knows nothing about climate science. The argument is about the ‘why’ not the ‘if’. Warmists say all the warming is because of man’s activity. The rest say some, a little or none.

Education is another area where balance has been replaced by hysteria-inducing propaganda. Children shown demonstrating on the news are often borderline hysterical. No doubt their teachers didn’t bother to tell them that man-made global warming is a theory not a proven fact, and that it’s okay to talk about different opinions.

If you wonder why much of the mainstream media seem united in accepting that the world will soon die unless humans don hair shirts, freeze in winter and walk instead of driving, you need to know about websites like Covering Climate Now (CCN).

Reuters and some of the biggest names in the news like Bloomberg, Agence France Presse, CBS News, and ABC News have signed up to support CCN, which brags that it is an unbiased seeker after the truth. But this claim won’t last long if you peer behind the façade. CCN may claim to be fair and balanced, but it not only won’t tolerate criticism, it brandishes the unethical ‘denier’ weapon with its nasty holocaust denier echoes. This seeks to demonise those who disagree with it by savaging personalities and denying a hearing, rather than using debate to establish its case.

CCN advises journalists to routinely add to stories about bad weather and flooding to suggest climate change is making these events more intense. This is not an established fact, as a simple routine check would show.

I asked CCN about the nature of its dealings with Reuters and the likes of Bloomberg. Was it to thrash out a general approach to climate change reporting or to be more partisan?

CCN hasn’t replied.

I have a particular interest in Reuters’ attitude because I spent 32 years there as a reporter and editor. The global news agency’s traditional insistence on high standards in reporting makes this liaison with CCN seem questionable.

When Reuters announced its tie-up with CCN in 2019 it said this, among other things.

The (CCN) coalition, which includes more than 350 organisations [there are many more now] has no agenda beyond embracing science and fair coverage and publishing more climate change content.

That is clearly not true. It has a partisan agenda and encourages reporters to dismiss those with contrary opinions as ‘deniers’.

The statement went on to quote Reuters Editor-in-Chief Stephen J. Adler:

Reuters is committed to providing the most accurate and insightful coverage of the climate crisis, as it threatens the health, safety and economic well-being of people world-wide. Our hope is that our careful, factual reporting will help nations, businesses and individuals respond to the challenge rapidly and intelligently.

The idea of a ‘climate crisis’ is not widely accepted, but partisans shout about it. It is a very vague claim and hard to define or prove. By Reuters standards shouldn’t this include a balancing view? Certainly, many people believe that there is such a crisis, but lots of people don’t. The idea climate change threatens the health, safety and economic well-being of people worldwide is an assertion, not a fact.

The involvement of Reuters in CCN seems to me to be in direct contradiction to three of its 10 Hallmarks of Reuters Journalism – Hold Accuracy Sacrosanct, Seek Fair Comment, Strive For Balance and Freedom From Bias.

I asked Reuters for its reaction to criticism of its CCN involvement in a new book Not Zero by Ross Clark, published by Forum, and it said this in a statement.

Reuters is deeply committed to covering climate change and its impact on our planet with accuracy, independence and integrity, in keeping with the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

When I became Reuters global Science and Technology Correspondent in the mid-1990s, the global warming story was top of my agenda. Already by then the BBC was scaring us saying we would all die unless humankind mended its selfish ways. Carbon dioxide (CO2) was the culprit and had to be tamed, then eliminated. I had no reason to think this wasn’t established fact. I was wrong.

My Reuters credentials meant that I had easy access to the world’s finest climate scientists. To my amazement, none of these would say categorically that the link between CO2 and global warming, now known as climate change, was a proven scientific fact. Some said human production of CO2 was a probable cause, others that it might make some contribution; some said CO2 had no role at all. Everybody agreed that the climate had warmed over the last 10,000 years as the ice age retreated, but most weren’t really sure why. The sun’s radiation, which changes over time, was a favoured culprit.

My reporting reflected the wide range of views, with Reuters typical “on the one hand this, on the other, that” style. But even then, the mainstream media seem to have run out of the energy required, and often lazily went along with the BBC’s faulty, opinionated thesis. It was too much trouble to make the point that the BBC’s conclusion was challenged by many impressive scientists.

Fast forward 20 years and firm proof CO2 was warming the climate still hasn’t been established, but politics has taken over. Sure, there are plenty of computer models with their hidden assumptions ‘proving’ man is guilty as charged, and the assumption that we had the power and knowledge to change the climate became embedded.

The Left had lost all of the economic arguments by the 1990s, and its activists eagerly grabbed the chance to say free markets and small government couldn’t save us from climate change; only government intervention could do that. Letting capitalism run free was a certain way to ensure the end of the planet; smart Lefties should take charge and save us from ourselves.

The debate about climate change is far from over. I’m not a scientist so I don’t know enough to say it’s all man-made or not. But politicians and lobbyists have decided that we are all guilty. They are in the process of dismantling our way of life, ordering us to comply because it’s all for the future and our children. If we are going to give up our civilization, at the very least we ought to have an open debate. Journalists need to stand up and be counted. The trouble is that requires bravery and energy, and an urge to question conventional wisdom.

Reuters should be leading this movement. All it has to do is stand by its 10 Hallmarks. And maybe tell CCN thanks but no thanks; it needs to apply Reuters principles to its climate reporting.

February 27, 2023 Posted by | Book Review, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | 1 Comment

Broadcaster sacks host after external influence probe

RT | February 23, 2023

French broadcaster BFMTV has fired an anchor following a probe into alleged external meddling into his work, AFP reported Thursday, citing an internal company email it had seen.

The host in question, Rachid M’Barki, was found not to have followed due editorial process in multiple news segments aired between 2021 and 2022, BFMTV Marc-Olivier Fogiel reportedly said in the correspondence. The faulty news segments included false information on assorted topics, ranging from Russian “oligarchs” to the situation in the Middle East and Western Sahara.

The anchor was suspended early in January, after the company became aware of the potential misconduct on his part. The affair became public this month, when the Forbidden Stories collective released an investigation into a secretive Israeli contractor group, dubbed ‘Team Jorge,’ which had specialized in assorted malign cyber activities to manipulate the outcomes of elections worldwide. To expose the group, the journalists fancied themselves as prospective clients seeking electoral meddling, while covertly recording hours of footage during meetings with the members of the clandestine contractor unit.

The group, run by Tal Hanan, a 50-year-old former Israeli secret services operative, operated a vast social media bots network it used to affect public opinion in different countries. The team also reportedly used legitimate news outlets to plant the information it needed for its activities, with M’Barki identified among presenters which had been fed the misinformation.

The presenter had previously acknowledged receiving information from shady anonymous sources, but denied a deliberate spread of fake news on his part. Speaking with Politico after the investigation came out, M’Barki acknowledged that he “used information… received from sources” and that “they did not necessarily follow the usual editorial process.”

“They were all real and verified. I do my job… I’m not ruling anything out, maybe I was tricked, I didn’t feel like I was or that I was participating in an operation of I don’t know what or I wouldn’t have done it,” the journalist stated.

February 23, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | 1 Comment

How Long Did Americans Support America’s Longest War?

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | February 21, 2023

In an op-ed in today’s Los Angeles Times, Alexander J. Moytyl, a professor of political science at Rutgers, asks, “How long will Russians tolerate Putin’s costly war?” After pointing out the many negative consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Moytyl makes a pointed observation: “And yet, almost a year after the invasion of Ukraine, Russians continue to support strongman Putin and the war.” Moytyl just cannot understand how this can be.

Well, maybe if we look inward, which Moytyl certainly does not do in his op-ed, we can figure out the answer. 

Let’s consider, for example, the U.S. government’s wars against Afghanistan and Iraq. There were lots of negative aspects of those two wars, beginning with the fact the U.S. invasions of both countries were illegal, both under International law and U.S. law.

It is undisputed that neither Afghanistan nor Iraq ever attacked the United States. That means that the U.S. was the aggressor in both wars.

Yes, I know, defenders of the Afghanistan invasion point to the fact that Osama bin Laden, who was accused of orchestrating the 9/11 attacks, was supposedly living in Afghanistan. Nonetheless, under International law, the U.S. had no legitimate legal authority to invade Afghanistan to arrest or kill him. 

It is also undisputed that there was no extradition treaty between Afghanistan and the United States. Therefore, when President Bush demanded that the Afghan government extradite bin Laden to the U.S., under international law Afghanistan had the legitimate authority to say no. Under international law, Bush had no legitimate authority to invade the country simply because Afghanistan rejected his unconditional extradition demand. 

It is also undisputed that neither the Iraqi people nor the Iraqi government had any connection to the 9/11 attacks. The U.S. invasion of that country was a pure war of aggression, one based on the flagrant and fraudulent pretense of uncovering non-existent “weapons of mass destruction.” 

It is also undisputed that there was no declaration of war issued by Congress against either Afghanistan or Iraq, as required by the U.S. Constitution. That made both invasions illegal under our form of constitutional government. 

It is impossible to know exactly how many people in Afghanistan and Iraq were tortured, injured, or killed by U.S. forces in those two wars of aggression. That’s because, early on, the Pentagon announced that it would not keep track of enemy dead. That’s because the lives of Afghans and Iraqis didn’t count. 

However, according to the Watson Institute at Brown University, “Nearly 20 years after the United States’ invasion of Afghanistan, the cost of its global war on terror stands at $8 trillion and 900,000 deaths.”

That is a lot of money. And that is a lot of dead people. I would estimate that 99 percent of those dead people had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. 

Yet, many Americans supported their government throughout all this mayhem, just as the Russian people are standing with their government during its current mayhem. In fact, I remember church ministers all across the United States beseeching their congregations for years to “support the troops, especially those in harm’s way in Afghanistan and Iraq.” I also recall how we were all encouraged to “thank the troops for their service” whenever we saw them in uniform. I also remember all those critical things that were said against those of us who opposed these wars of aggression and resulting occupations. 

Supporting their government in time of war is what most citizens do in every nation, including Russia, the United States, and Germany. Most citizens are forced into the state’s educational system at a very young age, where their minds are molded to blindly come to the support of their regime during wartime. Children are inculcated with mindsets of deference to authority and blind trust in their political, military, and intelligence officials. That mindset continues well into adulthood. In the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, I recall many people, including commentators in the mainstream press, exclaiming, “We need to trust our officials. They have access to information that we don’t have.”

So, what befuddles me is why Alexander J. Moytyl is befuddled by the overwhelming support by Russian citizens of their regime during wartime. If American citizens blindly support their regime during wartime, why would anyone expect that Russian citizens would respond differently?

February 21, 2023 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , | 7 Comments

Iran reacts to uranium claim

RT | February 20, 2023

Tehran has rejected as misleading a Bloomberg report, which claimed that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was investigating how the country enriched uranium “to levels just below that needed for a nuclear weapon.”

The news agency cited two anonymous diplomats, who alleged that the UN nuclear watchdog found uranium of 84% purity, or “just 6% below what’s needed for a weapon” in Iran, Bloomberg explained in its article, published on Sunday.

Responding on Monday, Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), said the piece was “slander and a distortion of the facts”.

“The presence of uranium particles above 60% during the enrichment process does not mean enrichment above 60% level,” he told IRNA news agency, claiming that in publishing the story, Bloomberg was serving as a tool of anti-Iran pressure.

Bloomberg did, however, acknowledge the possibility that the sample was found after unintended accumulation in an enrichment centrifuge cascade.

The IAEA has commented on the news by stating that it was “discussing with Iran the results of recent Agency verification activities” and would report the outcome to its board of governors when appropriate.

Iran agreed to impose restrictions on its nuclear industry, including enrichment activities, under a 2015 deal with world powers. The agreement was torpedoed by US President Donald Trump, who pulled out in 2018 to pursue a so-called “maximum pressure” campaign of sanctions.

Iran eventually started reneging on its commitments, and announced it was enriching uranium to 60% purity at its Natanz facility in 2021 and at the Fordo site in 2022.

The nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was touted as a way to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, an ambition that Tehran denies having.

February 20, 2023 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | 2 Comments

Journalist Receives $100,000 From Bank For Promoting Climate Alarmism

BY CHRIS MORRISON | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | FEBRUARY 14, 2023

Another €100,000 (£88,000, $107,000) has been gifted to a climate journalist via the foundation of Spain’s second largest bank, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA (BBVA). The money is an annual presentation and was recently given to the New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert. The bank said it gave her the cash “for her extraordinary ability to communicate in a rigorous, attractive manner the fundamental environmental challenges of our time”. BBVA is deeply involved in funding subsidy-heavy renewable technologies. It recently declared record profits for 2022 of €6.42 billion, and noted that it had channelled €50 billion into “sustainable business”. Past cash recipients include Matt McGrath of the BBC, the Guardian newspaper and Marlowe Hood of Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The foundation was particularly impressed with Kolbert’s 2016 seminal book, The Sixth Mass Extinction, which was awarded a ‘non-fiction’ Pulitzer Prize. This was said to have documented the dramatic loss of species that the planet is suffering. “One third of all reef building corals, a third of all freshwater molluscs, a third of sharks and rays, a quarter of all mammals, a fifth of reptiles and a sixth of all birds are heading towards oblivion,” she said. For good measure, she claimed that around a half of all living species on the Earth could disappear by the end of the century.

Kolbert is a Climate Catastrophist straight from central casting. She fervently believes that humans can control the climate by adjusting levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, a proposition that is disputed by many scientists. She compares climate ‘deniers’ to flat-earthers. What ‘deniers’ think of climate science, or rather her take on said science, is “completely irrelevant“. Like most people in her world, she says, “I have low tolerance for people who deny facts and disregard truths”.

The sixth mass extinction scare is becoming very popular in climate Armageddon circles, and is heavily promoted by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). But it suffers from a major flaw – a lack of proof. Most of the claims are produced by models and are just opinions. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists 823 animals and plant species (mostly animals) that have gone extinct since 1500. If you are in the Pulitzer prize winning territory of a sixth mass extinction, you might expect to be able to show more than 823 extinct species in 522 years.

The WWF has been responsible for much extinction alarmism since its Living Planet Index has estimated at least a 50% vertebrate decline since 1970. But a group of Canadian biologists recently cast considerable doubt on this claim, suggesting that it was a cherry pick. They showed that the estimate was produced from less than 3% of vertebrate populations. “If these extremely declining populations are excluded, the global trend switches to an increase,” they point out. “More informative indices are needed,” they conclude. The finding is perhaps not surprising since the small increases in CO2 over the last 40 years has produced 14% more vegetation across the globe.

Five years ago, the eminent Smithsonian palaeontologist Doug Erwin dismissed sixth mass extinction talk as “junk science“. He went on to state that “many of those making facile comparisons between the current situation and past mass extinctions don’t have a clue about the difference in the nature of the data, much less how truly awful the mass extinctions recorded in the marine fossil record actually were”.

As regular readers are aware, MIT Emeritus Professor Richard Lindzen believes the entire climate narrative is “absurd”. However, he acknowledges it has near-universal acceptance, despite the fact that in a normal world the counterarguments would be compelling. “Perhaps it is the trillions of dollars being diverted into every green project under the sun, and the relentless propaganda from grant-dependent academics and agenda-driven journalists, along with the political control offered to elite groups in society by Net Zero, that currently says it is not absurd,” he suggests.

Neil Winton spent 34 years working for the international news agency Reuters, including four years as science and technology correspondent reporting on global warming. He wrote a recent article noting that anyone who abused people by calling them a climate denier “betrays the fact they know little about climate science, or are too lazy to do their own research”. They are more interested in forcing their views on the public and silencing debate, he added. The idea that the science is settled, he says, won’t last long if the reporter can be bothered to use a search engine revealing “scores if not hundreds of highly qualified scientists who beg to differ”.

In his new book on Net Zero, Winton notes, the author Ross Clark accuses Reuters of joining an organisation “which is dedicated to presenting a partisan view of climate change, and silences those who dare to disagree by activating the obnoxious ‘denier’ assertion”.

This organisation is called Covering Climate Now (CC Now), and it specialises in ready-to-publish climate scare stories. The Daily Sceptic wrote about it in December under the heading ‘How billionaires fill the Media with climate fear and panic’. CC Now feeds over 500 media operations and its ‘partners’ include some of the biggest names in news publishing such as Reuters, Bloomberg, AFP, CBS News, ABC News and MSNBC News.

Winston notes that CC Now issues the advice: “For God’s sake do not platform climate denialists.” Op-eds that detract from the scientific consensus or ridicule climate activism “don’t belong in a serious news outlet”, it says. Since when did Reuters require an outside organisation to advise it on how to report on controversial issues, asks Winton.

He adds: “If you dig deeper though you’ll find it uses weasel words only too familiar to those like me who’ve striven to provide real honesty and balance to the argument. It reveals itself as just another arrogant, warmist outfit dedicated to shutting down those with whom it disagrees. Not a thing Reuters should be associated with, surely?”

February 19, 2023 Posted by | Book Review, Corruption, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

The climate scaremongers: Are hurricanes becoming more powerful?

By Paul Homewood | TCW Defending Freedom | February 17, 2023

If you believe what the media tell you, you would think so. But you would be wrong. As the chart below for 1980 to 2022 shows, there is no obvious trend in the frequency of major hurricanes worldwide during the satellite era.

http://tropical.atmos.colostate.edu/Realtime/index.php?arch&loc=global

The IPCC, the UN climate panel, can also find no evidence either, stating in their latest climate assessment: ‘There is low confidence in most reported long-term (multi-decadal to centennial) trends in Tropical Cyclone frequency- or intensity-based metrics due to changes in the technology used to collect the best-track data.’

The US National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration says the same about Atlantic hurricanes: ‘There is no strong evidence of century-scale increasing trends in US landfalling hurricanes or major hurricanes. Similarly for Atlantic basin-wide hurricane frequency (after adjusting for observing capabilities), there is not strong evidence for an increase since the late 1800s in hurricanes, major hurricanes, or the proportion of hurricanes that reach major hurricane intensity.’

But facts don’t matter to the climate warriors at the BBC, who published a ‘Reality Check‘ following Hurricane Ian last summer, which claimed that there was evidence that hurricanes were getting more powerful.

I fired off a complaint to the BBC at the time, which their Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) have now rejected. They presented no real data to counter any of the evidence I have outlined above. Instead they relied almost entirely on computer modelled projections of what might happen in future.

Their dismissal of my complaint sums it up better than I can: ‘The evidence would therefore appear to indicate climate scientists who have studied hurricanes and the effect of human-induced climate change agree the proportion of tropical cyclones which develop into hurricanes or major hurricanes is expected to increase, and those hurricanes are expected to have higher peak wind speeds ‘

Of course, it was not what could happen in the future which I was complaining about. It was their claim that such changes are already happening. In short, they created a straw man and knocked it down, while ignoring the actual complaint!

The real problem, of course, is that the ECU is part of the BBC, and will always back them up even when the evidence against them is overwhelming. The BBC will never be properly held to account until a truly independent complaints unit is set up.

February 19, 2023 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | 1 Comment

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