Former ethics researcher at the W.H.O, Astrid Stuckelburger, PhD, sheds light on how our top world health agencies have used the COVID-19 pandemic to push a dangerous globalist agenda.
January 24, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Timeless or most popular, Video | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, United Nations |
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The World Economic Forum at Davos used to be THE place to see and be seen, but the idea of the richest and most influential people in the world hobnobbing around a common agenda for the world has lost its luster as the policies peddled by its attendees spark increased skepticism among average citizens.
Forum founder Klaus Schwab, the de facto frontman of the organization, has cranked out one distasteful hit after another in recent years. He has spoken of how the organization “penetrates the cabinets” of governments in its recruitment efforts. He coined the term “The Great Reset,” about which he published a book just a few months into the Covid-19 pandemic in July 2020, advocating that the pandemic be used as inspiration to “reimagine our world” at a time when much of the globe was locked down on orders of their governments – many members of which were Davos regulars. There was little appetite to turn lockdowns into a permanent lifestyle change, but here was Klaus promoting the benefits of burying the old life – all under the pretext of an event that the WEF had already wargamed in October 2019 in New York, just ahead of the crisis, in an exercise called “Event 201.” “The exercise will bring together business, government, security and public health leaders to address a hypothetical global pandemic scenario,” the WEF announced at the time. It’s all just a bit too creepy.
It’s the constant effort of top-down global coordination around murky financial interests laundered through the Davos agenda that irks the common person. The fact that just a single leader of a G7 country attended this year’s event speaks volumes about how poorly it’s now viewed. The premier of the western Canadian province of Alberta, Danielle Smith, said of the WEF after her cabinet’s swearing-in ceremony last October: “I find it distasteful when billionaires brag about how much control they have over political leaders. That is offensive… the people who should be directing government are the people who vote for them. Quite frankly, until that organization stops bragging about how much control they have over political leaders, I have no interest in being involved with them.”
Those invited to preach at the altar during the high mass of globalism this year seemed to know exactly what kind of sermon the crowd wanted to hear. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was apparently the only G7 leader who thought it would be a good look to be seen hanging out with the unelected masters of the planet while Westerners – and Europeans in particular – grapple with the high cost of their governments’ policies in their daily lives. Scholz doubled down on the same green dreams that put Germany’s economy in peril with no viable backup plan once the European Union had effectively cut off Russian energy through sanctions. “Most importantly, our transformation toward a climate-neutral economy, the fundamental task of our century, is currently taking on an entirely new dynamic. Not in spite of but because of the Russian war, and the resulting pressure on us Europeans to change. Whether you are a business leader or a climate activist, a security policy specialist or an investor, it is now crystal clear to each and every one of us that the future belongs solely to renewables. For cost reasons, for environmental reasons, for security reasons, and because in the long run, renewables promise the best returns,” Scholz said in his address. Meanwhile, Germany is firing its coal power plants back up and reconsidering its nuclear power phase-out. How about worrying about how German industry is going to function in the next year when green initiatives, such as hydrogen imports from Portugal and Norway, aren’t set to even get off the ground until at least 2030? Scholz used his time at the podium at Davos to greenwash the economic uncertainties that Germany faces as a result of the EU’s energy sanctions on Russia. In other words, green hopes and dreams took center stage in this pitch to global investors, thus providing a convenient distraction from the more worrisome current realities.
Greenwashing was joined at Davos by the pitching of anti-democratic initiatives via concern trolling. During a panel discussion dedicated to “disrupting distrust” – which really should have been called “How can we get people to better swallow our nonsense?” – Richard Edelman, the CEO of the eponymous global communications firm, blamed the derailments on right-wingers. “My hypothesis on that is that right-wing groups have done a really good job of disenfranchising NGOs. They’ve challenged the funding sources. They’ve associated you with Bill Gates and George Soros. They’ve said that you’re world people, as opposed to what you are, which is local,” Edelman lamented, ignoring the fact that they wouldn’t have needed to fly their private jets to a “local” event. What he’s really attacking are dissidents, many of whom just happen to be populists and right-leaning. And no doubt the fact that they’re digging into the special interests laundered through many NGOs makes the job of PR pros such as Edelman more challenging.
“Edelman is a despicable human being – his job is literally being a professional liar!” Tweeted billionaire Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, whose controversial purchase of the social media platform and subsequent reversal of its heavy-handed censorship policies haven’t exactly endeared him to the Davos crowd. Mocking Schwab’s call to “master the future” in the opening keynote, Musk tweeted, “’Master the Future’ doesn’t sound ominous at all … How is WEF/Davos even a thing? Are they trying to be the boss of Earth!?” Musk then took a Twitter poll that found that 86% of 2.4 million respondents answered ‘no’ to the question of whether the WEF should “control the world.”
A WEF spokesman said that Musk hasn’t been invited to the gathering since 2015. Musk confirmed his lack of interest in attending: “My reason for declining the Davos invitation was not because I thought they were engaged in diabolical scheming, but because it sounded boring af lol.”
Boring, indeed – in the same way that a cult meeting where everyone nods their heads in agreement is a snooze fest. The last time things were even remotely interesting at Davos was when former US President Donald Trump showed up and rejected the Davos mantra of climate change doom. “The message represents a sharp departure from the official playbook at the World Economic Forum, where this year’s theme is ‘Stakeholders for a Cohesive and Sustainable World’,” wrote CNN in January 2020.
Who asked them, though? These elites represent no one’s interests but their own, which are economic and are for the benefit of their shareholders – hence the forum’s name. If the average citizen is now waking up to the fact that anything coming out of Davos should be scrutinized through that lens, then it can only be a good thing for freedom, democracy, and national sovereignty.
Rachel Marsden is a columnist, political strategist, and host of independently produced talk-shows in French and English.
January 22, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Supremacism, Social Darwinism | Olaf Scholz, WEF |
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BRUSSELS – CO2 emissions are becoming more and more expensive – a consequence of EU emissions trading. Since 2005, it has been extended to more and more branches of industry. In the future it will also apply to shipping. But there are exceptions: rich yacht owners still do not have to buy CO2 certificates.
Since 2005, some large industrial companies have had to buy certificates for their CO2 emissions. This is a result of the EU’s emissions trading system, which has been gradually expanded since then. Since 2012, for example, airline companies have also had to obtain certificates for intra-European flights.
The system is to be expanded again, the EU decided at the end of 2022. In future, road traffic and buildings will also be included. Many are celebrating the decision to expand emissions trading to include shipping as a major breakthrough. But there are some curious exceptions.
From 2024, only large passenger and cargo ships over 5000 gross register tons will be affected. Owners or renters of lavish yachts can rest easy: they will benefit from an exemption rule in CO2 emissions trading. This was announced by the EU Commission when asked by the German broadcaster NDR.
In other words, no billionaire has to buy CO2 rights for his huge ship, no matter how much he uses it.
The emissions from yachts are enormous as they consume huge amounts of fuel, from “350 liters, 500 liters or even more than 1000 liters of diesel per hour”, reported the Tagesschau.
Some NGOs blasted the new regulation: “Super-rich yacht owners cause more pollution on a summer’s day than the majority of people do in their entire lifetime, but politicians continue to let them get away with it.” The 1500 larger yachts in Europe emit around 725 tons of CO2 per year on average.
January 21, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Progressive Hypocrite, Supremacism, Social Darwinism | European Union |
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A review of Net Zero has recommended that sales of gas boilers must be banned within ten years at the latest. The supposedly ‘independent’ review was commissioned by Liz Truss in her short spell as PM, and was written by Tory MP Chris Skidmore, who as Energy Minister signed the Net Zero Act into law in 2019.
The reality is that virtually nobody who owns a gas boiler is remotely interested in replacing it with a heat pump. Sales of heat pumps in the UK are running at around 35,000 a year, despite generous government subsidies, a long way short of the government target of 600,000 a year.
The reason is obvious. Installing a heat pump, with the new radiators, pipework and extra insulation required, will probably cost upwards of £20,000 for a typical home. Worse, despite the currently high cost of gas, running costs for a heat pump are still higher than a gas boiler.
In practice, a ban on gas boilers would force most people into buying conventional electrical heaters, such as storage heaters. These are cheaper to buy but hugely expensive to run; annual heating costs for a typical home are about £1,500 for a gas boiler, but would rise to £5,000 for electrical heating.
This is not the only mad policy suggestion in Skidmore’s review. He also wants all houses sold to meet EPC C by 2033. EPC is the Energy Performance Certificate, when it is estimated that only 40 per cent of houses meet this standard at the moment. Skidmore’s bright idea will force millions of homeowners and landlords to spend thousands on improving insulation against their will.
Of course, this ‘independent’ review is nothing of the sort. Skidmore, MP for Kingswood, is one of the bunch of extremist green Tories; he even opposed Truss’s attempts to reinstate fracking. It was inevitable that he would rubber-stamp the Net Zero agenda. A truly independent review would have critically assessed all the assumptions, costings and projections for this appalling piece of legislation. Instead we have got a report that might as well have been written by Gummer’s Committee on Climate Change. We get all the same platitudes that we have read many times before in CCC handouts – how cheap renewable energy is, millions of green jobs, how we will all be better off by 2050 (we have to take Skidmore’s word for this), how we must not fall behind the rest of the world in the race for Net Zero.
I have searched the report comprehensively, and cannot find a single reference to the costs which will have to be borne in the medium term by the public, things like heat pumps, insulation and electric cars. These costs will be unaffordable for most households, and will act as a brake on economic growth in the same way as high energy prices are doing now. Nobody cares about how well off they may be in 30 years’ time, and certainly won’t believe anybody who tells them he does know. But people do know that current policies will be extremely expensive.
Neither is there any quantification of the massive costs which will be incurred for upgrading electricity grids and distribution networks, and building hydrogen storage and infrastructure. Or the reliance on unproven carbon capture.
Nor is there any critical assessment as to how the country can run predominantly on intermittent wind and solar power, albeit backed up by nuclear power. Instead Skidmore seems simply to accept the pie-in-the-sky projections of the National Grid, calling for more wind and solar power.
The report does mention CCC estimates of the need to spend £50billion to 60billion a year by the early 2030s. As it points out, most of this will come from private sector investors, who will want high returns. Skidmore does not mention that it will be the poor old consumer who will end up paying for all this. It is no surprise that big business is queuing up for its share of the money pot.
Since its very inception, the Net Zero Act was enacted as a ‘good idea’, without any plan as to how it could be carried out, or a clearly costed budget. This review should have been an ideal opportunity to row back, putting the whole thing on the back burner while these fundamental issues were addressed. Sadly it is a chance missed.
Is climate change killing off the puffins?
Another go-to scare story for climate alarmists is that Atlantic puffins are at risk from global warming. It is a story that comes around every year as regular as clockwork.
According to a recent report in the Telegraph, 70 per cent of Europe’s puffins could be lost in the next 80 years, because of ‘stormy weather caused by climate change’. Naturally no evidence is presented to prove that stormy weather is increasing, probably because it isn’t!
Far from dying out, puffins have been thriving off the Pembrokeshire coast on the islands of Skomer and Skokholm. There are more puffins there now than at any time since the 1940s, when numbers peaked before the population crashed.
Although there are an estimated 10 million puffins breeding along Europe’s coastline, it has been reported that some populations are declining around the North Sea. But the cause of this is not climate change, but something much more basic – the industrial fishing of sand eels, which make up most of the diet of puffins during their breeding season. If climate change was a factor, we would be seeing the same decline on Skomer.
Less fish available for adult puffins means underfed pufflins, which are less likely to make it to adulthood.
In 2020, 238,000 tons of sand eel were harvested by fishing vessels in the North Sea, all of which goes to Danish oil and fishmeal processing factories. Danish vessels have the largest share of the fishing quota, landing 72 per cent of the catch. Both the EU and Denmark claim that fishing quotas are adequate to maintain the sand eel population. But as is always the case with the EU, vested interests trump any other considerations.
The link between sand eel fishing and seabird populations is well established. A study in 2014 found that ‘the UK’s internationally important seabird populations are being affected by fishing activities in the North Sea. Levels of seabird breeding failure were higher in years when a greater proportion of the North Sea’s sand eels, important prey for seabirds, was commercially fished’. It also noted that seabirds breeding on the UK’s western colonies are faring better than those on the North Sea coast.
But don’t expect the EU to shut down Denmark’s fishmeal industry. It’s much easier to blame climate change!
January 21, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | UK |
3 Comments
The Federal Network Agency is planning to ration the power supply to heat pumps and EV charging stations in order to protect the distribution grids from collapse. Charging times of three hours to charge electric cars will be allowed so that they can cover a distance of 50 kilometers.
Electric cars, heat pumps and private solar systems are booming. This is pushing the power grids in cities and communities to their limits.
An expert quoted by the “FAZ” warns that the local power grids are in danger of becoming the bottleneck for the energy transition. According to estimates, expanding it would cost a three-digit billion amount.
The Federal Network Agency wants to ration electricity for consumers to prevent a collapse in supply.
Electric cars are booming, as are heat pumps and private solar systems on roofs. This should only be the beginning of the energy transition in Germany. But the energy industry is already warning that the local power grids in cities and communities are reaching their performance limits. This has been reported by the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” (FAZ). According to the report, the Federal Network Agency is planning to temporarily ration the power supply to heat pumps and charging stations in order to protect the distribution grids from overload.
A year ago, the network agency confirmed a “network development plan” in which up to seven million heat pumps in households are expected for 2035. So far there have been around one million heat pump systems.
Enormous growth is also expected in electric vehicles. For large network operators such as Eon, the current figures are a challenge. “The applications for the connection of new systems are going through the roof, and we assume that the growth rates will continue to grow,” said Eon board member Thomas König. According to the “FAZ”, the electricity supplier registered around 100,000 new charging stations for electric cars in 2021.
Local power grids threatened to become the bottleneck for the energy transition, Krzysztof Rudion, professor at the Institute for Energy Transmission and High Voltage Technology at the TU Stuttgart, told the newspaper. “The expansion of the distribution network simply cannot keep up with the boom in heat pumps, electric cars and solar systems.”
In order to arm the distribution grids, between 100 and 135 billion euros would have to be invested in Germany in the next decade and a half, the FAZ reports, citing a new study by the management consultancy Oliver Wyman.
Full story (in German)
Translation Net Zero Watch
January 21, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | Germany, Human rights |
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The World Economic Forum’s annual meeting took place in Davos on January 16-20, 2023. International observers sat down with Sputnik to formulate the main message of the gathering in a nutshell.
“This year’s forum featured the new state of the world: divided, resentful, and grim,” Gal Luft, director of the Washington-based Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, told Sputnik. “Davos has become the dressing room of the West and is more divorced than ever from the rest. It no longer represents the real concerns of most of the world’s population. Its obsession with climate change, social justice, gender and other forms of wokeness has made it a laughing stock and target of disdain for most of the world.”
The World Economic Forum (WEF), an international non-governmental and lobbying organization, was founded in January 1971 by German economist Klaus Schwab. Initially the entity was called “European Management Forum”; it changed its name to the World Economic Forum in 1987.
Bringing together business executives, thought leaders, and prominent politicians, the forum sought to become a global platform to spearhead the ideas of globalization and solve pressing economic and political dilemmas. However, some Western commentators observed that the forum quickly morphed into a technocratic globalist elitist club which sought to dictate rules for the rest of the world.
“Globalization was based on the premise of broad acceptance of global institutions, norms and rules, as well as reasonably free flow of goods, money and information,” Luft said. “Each one of those has been compromised over the past few years, first with the US-China decoupling and second with the war in Europe. Instead, we have global bifurcation into two camps – the collective West plus honorary members and all the others – and the emergence of new institutions, alliances, financial instruments, trade blocs and priority sets.”
“There is no return to the post-WWII system. In addition, we are seeing massive repudiation of some of the institutions and individuals who have been most associated with globalization: the media, Davos, entertainment industry etc. De-globalization can also be seen along cultural fault lines. Western ideas, ethics, and ‘values’ are rejected by billions who see them as dangerous and destabilizing,” the US scholar continued.
Russia’s Independence Doesn’t Fit in Davosian ‘Ideal World’
The necessity to “defeat” Russia became a leitmotif of the gathering, with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz declaring that to end the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, the Russian special operation “must fail.” The chancellor called for stepping up military aid for Ukraine, but fell short of confirming that Berlin would send its Leopard 2 main battle tanks to Kiev, something that the Ukrainian regime, Poland, Finland, and the UK are urging him to do.
For his part, Harvard Professor Kenneth Rogoff, former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), urged the West not only to step up anti-Russia sanctions, but to create conditions for “regime change” inside Russia.
“The forum in Davos is a congress of adherents of globalism,” Konstantin Babkin, president of the Rosagromash Association and co-chair of Moscow Economic Forum (MEF), told Sputnik. “These people would like to see a unified world where global corporations rule, dominating even the official state structures. What is happening in Ukraine contradicts their ideas of an ideal world. Many multinational corporations had to leave Russia. So, [Russia] has fallen out of the control of these Western corporations. This contradicts their ideas about the ideal state of affairs.”
While the Davos participants insisted that it is necessary to support Ukraine and to make sure that Russia obeys the rules established by the West, it appears that many countries have tired of this bellicose rhetoric, according to Babkin.
‘Biodiversity’ in Economy & Politics Instead of Global Unification
The Western-centric globalized world order is falling apart at the seams, with other countries adopting a non-aligned status and implementing their own scenarios of development in terms of their financial policies, foreign trade, and tax policies, according to Babkin. The Russian scholar argues that re-industrialization and strengthening of national economies could ensure the world’s stability and diversity of models.
“It would be nice to have different models, different states, different peoples, different cultures,” the Russian scholar said, drawing parallels with natural biodiversity. “[There will be] Iranian model, Indian model, Chinese model, Western model, and rejection of globalism. I think this is a good thing, and Russia needs to develop its own economy. I can also advise Iran, and China, and other large states, and state associations (…) I think the world that Davos is promoting is so unstable.”
Remarkably, major developing nations, including Russia and China, “have shunned the forum and inspired others to do the same,” said Luft, calling these countries a “resistance bloc.”
“In the years to come, with the inevitable departure of Klaus Schwab from the scene, the forum will lose its relevancy and will become just another exclusive overpriced Swiss club with entry ticket of $250,000,” Luft said. “It has already become a symbol of elitism and arrogance, representing the garden as opposed to the jungle, to use Josep Borrell’s terminology, and a platform to advance Western priorities.”
Babkin echoed Luft by saying that even though the Davos forum is likely to continue bringing together Western executives and politicians, it has ceased being a truly international platform and will never become what some call “the world’s government.”
“Globalization the way we know it has died and Davos 2023 was its funeral ceremony,” Luft concluded.
January 21, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Russophobia, Supremacism, Social Darwinism | China, Human rights, Iran, Russia, WEF |
4 Comments
By 2030, you will OWN NOTHING and be HAPPY.
This is not just a slogan or a conspiracy theory.
This is 1 of the 8 World Economic Forum (WEF) predictions. Watch their video https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/8-predictions-for-the-world-in-2030/
WEF was born out of a CIA-funded Harvard program headed by Klaus Schwab’s mentor, Henry Kissinger. Sulzer AG, in Schwab’s earlier years, where he was director, would go on to break international law by aiding the South African apartheid regime in its illegal thermonuclear bomb program.
Klaus Schwab, founder & executive Chairman of the WEF, in his book, “COVID-19: The Great Reset” published a few months after the start of Covid 19 outlines his plans for the world. Quoting Schwab, WEF’s Young Global Leaders have penetrated numerous Countries’ Cabinets and become Presidents, Prime Ministers, or CEOs. During the coronavirus pandemic, several WEF Young Global Leaders played prominent roles, promoting zero-covid strategies, lockdowns, mask mandates, and digital ‘vaccine’ passports. In contrast, there was a totally opposite approach from those who are not affiliated with the WEF.
Unfortunately, it is very difficult to get the truth, with the censorship of independent professors, doctors, journalists & politicians and the fact that mainstream media, Google & ‘fact checkers’ are funded & controlled by the same people behind this diabolical plan.
This might be the most important 1 hour 40 min you spend, unless you don’t mind ending up ‘owning nothing’, being tracked & 24/7 surveilled (under your skin, as per WEF Agenda Contributor, Yuval Noah Harari) and ending up with CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency), UBI (Universal Basic Income) and eventually Social Credit System.
The “Great Reset” echoes the real, unspoken of plans behind UN Agenda 21, now known as Agenda 2030. (more of this in Part 2) Lastly, to understand why they say “you will be happy” when you own nothing, is where the METAVERSE comes in (more of this in Part 2),
Call to action: Please share this film. Knowledge is power. Lets work together to co-create a future independent from the WEF, WHO & UN
Be critical thinkers and do your own research. Here are links to the excerpts used in this video, curated in South Africa:
https://www.corbettreport.com/wef/
https://live.childrenshealthdefense.org/south-africa-vaers-conference-vaccine-victims-experts-data-an-independent-alternative-reporting
https://rumble.com/v1dxzgh-episode-278-radical-truths.html
https://rumble.com/v11p0vo-the-megadeath-intellectuals-of-the-great-reset.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI16ylFLLz8
https://www.jrepodcast.com/episode/joe-rogan-experience-1780-maajid-nawaz/
https://odysee.com/@MaajidNawaz:d/EP8-Radical:9
https://senatormastriano.com/2022/03/01/expert-panel-discussion-on-covid-19-and-medical-freedom/
https://odysee.com/@OracleFilms:1/New-Normal—Happen-Network:3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CA_Phpz4woY
https://www.corbettreport.com/how-green-finance-is-monopolizing-the-planet-with-whitney-webb/
https://odysee.com/@QuantumRhino:9/Maajid-Nawaz-with-Joe-Rogan—The-Joe-Rogan-Experience–1780:f
https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2019/11/26/yuval-noah-harari-interview-anderson-vpx.cnn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hL9uk4hKyg4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTfW-cchpYA
https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4425/rr-31
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfyIW9wRvB4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3aPT8MuH_E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDM1CIwa5Bw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydWYJSpsCLE
https://live.childrenshealthdefense.org/chd-tv/events/the-nuremberg-code-75th-annual-commemoration–mary-holland–vera-sharav-speeches/
January 21, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | Covid-19, Human rights, WEF |
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Suppose that Scotland’s CO2 emissions fell tomorrow to zero, i.e., that, at midnight, the country ceased to exist. Then according to the “Model for the Assessment of Greenhouse Gas Induced Climate Change” (MAGICC), based on the latest IPCC climate models, the reduction in the Earth’s temperature in 2100 would be…undetectable.
Motivated by the moral necessity and urgency of this goal, the Scottish Government is proposing a novel energy policy – its “Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan”.
This article reviews its major themes and their implications, and considers briefly the probability of success of the Scottish Government implementing it.
In 2022, due to an insufficient quantity of wind and sun, Scotland’s current collection of wind and solar energy-scavenging devices failed to generate about 70% of their nameplate capacity. Recent exhaustive statistical and econometric analysis of wind generation in Scotland by Edinburgh University shows that it is uneconomic and destined for taxpayer bailout. Under the Scottish Government’s novel energy strategy, wind and solar energy-scavenging devices are to be greatly expanded.
Hydrogen, an energy carrier that squanders in waste-heat a gigawatt of power generation for every gigawatt it carries, is elevated in the Scottish Government’s understanding of energy to the category of a fuel, and also greatly expanded.
Hydrocarbon and nuclear – actual fuels – provide the energy to manufacture and endlessly replace wind turbines and solar panels. They also, in Scotland, provide the power sources that run under all conditions to ensure continuity of energy supply during Scotland’s frequent sunless and windless conditions. These are to be discontinued.
Like all advanced economies, Scotland cannot tolerate even a small measure of power supply fluctuation. Without firm dispatchable thermal standby generation capacity to smooth supply fluctuation, the eventual daily around 40GW amplitude power fluctuation resulting from the proposed expansion of weather-dependent electrical generation must be adapted for use in some other way. This will be provided by some form of 180-plus day, grid-scale electricity storage – a technical challenge for which no precedent exists, and therefore no cost estimate is available.
Grid scale battery storage technology doesn’t exist. The Scottish Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan imagines that it will be developed.
Converting surplus energy to hydrogen for storage and use at grid scale is unprecedented, and fraught with risk.
Fifty per cent of the proposed new intermittent generation capacity, installed at a capital cost of around £26 billion, is to be wasted in the conversion process.
Hydrogen embrittles pipework, renders conventional valves ineffective and, unlike domestic gas, self-ignites under catastrophic decompression. Quantifying the risks of transporting it in bulk on Scottish roads and deploying it as a substitute for domestic gas in Scotland’s densely populated housing estates might be an exciting 10-year research project at the U.K. Government’s Spadeadam industrial hazard testing facility (“the remoteness of the area is key to their operations” – Wikipedia).
But, informed by what the Scottish Government claims is the need for “the fastest possible” transition, it prefers to bypass thorough safety testing, and to impose live hydrogen trials on Scotland’s citizens. Hydrocarbon gas is to be phased out of Scottish homes from 2030.
Energy densities in energy storage sites located next to Scotland’s towns and cities required by the Scottish Government’s reckless abandonment of thermal standby generation capacity will be measured in millions of tonnes of TNT – a risk for which 12-foot thick reinforced concrete containment domes are installed around nuclear facilities to manage. These risks are entirely unrecognised by Scotland’s current planning processes (or citizens).
The cost of adaptive storage, the cost of the new transmission and distribution infrastructure required by dramatically increased electrification of Scotland’s relatively sparsely populated areas, and the cost of Carbon Capture, are not factored into current estimates of Levelised Cost of Electricity (LCOE). These are vast. Grid-scale battery storage, for example, has an implied cost measured in trillions of pounds, and drives LCOE from £50/MWh to over £600/MWh.
Apparently unaware of the role of nuclear and gas in maintaining continuity of supply, and the prohibitive cost of electricity storage as a substitute, the Scottish Government confidently demands that the U.K. Government “break the link between the price of electricity and the cost of gas to help realise the benefits of the low costs [sic] of renewable electricity”.
The policy proposal cites a number of other benefits that it thinks will accrue in addition to the negligible reduction in the Earth’s temperature.
Electric vehicles can’t plough snow or fields, harvest corn, empty buckets, excavate ore, raise wind-turbine masts, or perform any other economic task for which ‘grunt’ is required. Notwithstanding, from 2030, diesel and petrol engines will be prohibited. Car kilometers are to be “reduced” – possibly by fining us if we travel from our home more than a permitted distance.
A child in the Democratic Republic of Congo mining the cobalt needed for the Scottish Government’s Just Transition to ‘clean energy’
The Scottish Government will impose catastrophic environmental damage on the non-OECD countries where millions of tonnes of toxic water and ores are processed to manufacture the EV batteries it is mandating. It will overlook the human rights violations endemic to China’s ‘clean energy industry’. These will have the benefit of promoting what it calls “A Just Transition” – supposedly, a socialist framework for ensuring “a fairer, greener future for all”.
Our security of supply is to be further enhanced by transferring energy generation from domestically produced oil and gas to mechanically unreliable, weather-dependent energy-scavenging devices containing millions of points of failure that are contingent on the supply of rare resources controlled by China – which the U.S. states it will declare war on if it invades Taiwan.
These weather-dependent energy-scavenging devices require oil for, amongst many other things, the manufacture of their exotic advanced materials. A leading energy consultancy records the collapse in 2020 to an 80-year low of replacement oil discovery volumes, and estimates that Western oil firms now have around 15 years of remaining economic oil reserves. It is under these circumstances that the Scottish Government is further enhancing the security of Scotland’s energy supply by discontinuing onshore and offshore conventional and unconventional oil and gas exploration.
To reinforce this enhancement, noting “the damage done by the deindustrialisation of central belt communities in the 1980s”, the Scottish Government is irreversibly disbanding the North East’s oil and gas industry communities and, with them, their 50 years of institutional knowledge of oil and gas operations.
These will be replaced with communities based on livelihoods sustained by a “clean energy industry”. The growth of this imaginary industry has been funded with the imaginary capital (a.k.a. “quantitative easing”) excreted in the response – ironically – to the energy contraction that triggered the ongoing 2008 Great Financial Crash. During this time, U.K. national debt has risen from 60% to over 100% of Gross Domestic Product, exceeded only by the public sector pension deficit (a proxy for the replacement of real industries in the global economy by imaginary ones), which has risen to more than £2 trillion.
As evidence of the sustainability of the policy of funding imaginary industries through the indefinite expansion of imaginary capital (for which, like much of this policy, no precedent exists in human history), the Scottish Government informs us that it has already allocated £5 billion of its record budget deficit to what it refers to as “the Net Zero Economy”.
Winter excess death in the UK’s cold Northern European climate is already around 25,000 a year. Any prolonged interruption of winter energy supply created by the failure of this policy, or further escalation of cost, will plausibly result in the deaths of thousands more of our most vulnerable fellow citizens. The magnitude and uncertainty of the implied costs, coupled to the scale of the energy contraction that this policy deliberately seeks to accelerate, could trigger the collapse of our financial system.
Irreversible impairment of either our energy or financial systems would have a catastrophic impact on the welfare of Scotland’s citizens. Yet few have expressed any desire, much less informed consent, for risk on the scale proposed for such little benefit.
Yet the project, representing a scope of unprecedented scale, cost, pace and technical uncertainty, will be overseen by a Government that is currently struggling to procure two relatively modest ferries for less than the cost that other governments can procure 34 ferries – again, ironically due in large part to cost overruns associated with the attempt to employ novel technologies to reduce CO2 emissions. As evidence of the extent to which the Scottish Government and its advisers have become unmoored from physical reality by the climate catastrophe hypothesis, it’s a document that is fascinating to read, and alarming to contemplate.
After reflecting on it, you may care to offer your feedback, either to the department that compiled it, or your political representative, or on social media.
Richard Lyon is a former senior oil and gas operations manager with 35 years of international experience and academic qualifications in electrical engineering and power systems, petroleum engineering, and energy economics. He maintains the Substack newsletter the State of Britain and can be contacted via LinkedIn.
January 18, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Supremacism, Social Darwinism, Timeless or most popular | Human rights, UK |
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EU citizens who do not want to unknowingly eat insects should be particularly careful: The EU Commission has already approved four types of insects in different forms as “edible insects”.
The most recent approval was on January 5: From now on, after mealworms, grasshoppers and crickets, the grain mold beetle can also be used as an ingredient in foods such as bread, soups, pasta, snacks, peanut butter and chocolate products.
The mealworm received the first approval for a so-called “edible insect” in June 2021 : The EU Commission’s Implementing Regulation 2021/822 approved the placing on the market of dried larvae of Tenebrio molitor (meal beetle) as a “novel food”.
The SAS EAP Group from France has submitted the application and is allowed to market the mealworm in the Union. It may be sold individually or with a maximum content of 10 grams in protein products, cookies, dishes made from legumes and pasta products.
If insects are used, there must be a note on the packaging of the food that consumption may cause allergic reactions in people with known allergies to crustaceans and molluscs and their products and to house dust mites.
In November 2021, the second “edible insect” was approved by Implementing Regulation 2021/1975 : “Fair Insects BV” from the Netherlands has since been allowed to market frozen, dried and powdered Locusta migratoria (migratory locusts) in the EU.
Depending on the form of processing, the locusts may be used as ingredients in different maximum levels in the products such as processed potato products; dishes made from legumes and products made from pasta, meat substitution, soups and soup concentrates, legumes and vegetables in cans/jars, salads, beer-like beverages, alcoholic beverage mixes, chocolate products, frozen milk-based fermented products, cured meats.
Since 2022 and 2023 respectively, the domestic cricket (Acheta domesticus) has been permitted in various forms of processing. Implementing regulation 2022/188 allows the use in frozen, dried and powdered form. The application came again from “Fair Insects BV”. The house cricket, just as locusts, may be used in similar foods.
Since January 3, the Vietnamese company “Cricket One Co. Ltd” has also been allowed to sell “partially defatted powder from Acheta domesticus” in the EU by implementing regulation 2023/5 . Potentially affected foods are multigrain bread and rolls; crackers and breadsticks, cereal bars, dry bakery premixes, cookies, pasta products and many more.
The executive order 2023/58 of January 5 allows “Ynsect NL BV” from the Netherlands to bring larvae of Alphitobius diaperinus (grain mold beetle) in frozen, paste, dried and powdered form as a new food to EU citizens. The list of food categories in which the larvae can be used as an ingredient in most processed foods.
January 18, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | European Union |
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From population bomb to false prophet, Ehrlich, and his protege John Holdren’s, book Ecoscience has a concerning passage about a bioweapon as a “solution” to overpopulation. Meanwhile, history shows Holdren lifted the moratorium on gain-of-function research less than two weeks before Trump’s inauguration in 2017. Another data point to a troubling, ongoing investigation.
When it comes to the COVID-19 vaccine, world-renowned doctors and scientists are jumping ship. Many of those same experts, however, are pivoting sharply, insisting the same skepticism should not be applied to ‘safe and effective’ childhood vaccines. The HighWire host, Del Bigtree, whose 7-year investigation into Vaccine Safety and Policy in America inspired the launch of ICAN (icandecide.org) and The HighWire, explains why ‘it ain’t Just the Covid Vax’ that you should be worried about.
January 18, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, United States |
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WEF conference looks set to focus on what the globalist elite can learn from the failures of their “pandemic” narrative
The World Economic Forum’s annual meet-up kicks off tomorrow. Politicians, corporate giants, “philanthropists” and all manner of elite monstrosities gather for a weekend of telling each other how smart they are and making the world generally worse.
But what’s on the menu this year?
Well, here are the five main items up for discussion, according to the WEF’s website:
See if you can notice a pattern:
- Addressing the Current Energy and Food Crises in the context of a New System for Energy, Climate and Nature
- Addressing the Current High Inflation, Low Growth, High Debt Economy in the context of a New System for Investment, Trade and Infrastructure
- Addressing the Current Industry Headwinds in the context of a New System for Harnessing Frontier Technologies for Private Sector Innovation and Resilience
- Addressing the Current Social Vulnerabilities in the context of a New System for Work, Skills and Care
- Addressing the Current Geopolitical Risks in the context of a New System for Dialogue and Cooperation in a Multipolar World
Now, none of this is news. A “new system” for energy is a “green new deal”, a “new system” for international cooperation is some type of global governance, and a “new system” for investment and trade covers a lot of topics, including digital currency.
Like I said, nothing new, but it’s always refreshing to see it in print, with no effort to hide it.
It’s also interesting that they don’t use the phrases “new normal”, “great reset” or “build back better” anywhere on the page, despite the fact it’s obviously what they’re talking about.
A little victory for the alternate media, who have clearly raised enough awareness that those phrases are now considered too tainted to use.
In fact, the WEF brotherhood is clearly concerned about losing control of the narrative, as this article from a few days ago highlights:
The world’s biggest problem solvers need to craft better narratives
It argues:
People are more persuaded by the information presented within a narrative because a good narrative helps to ease information processing. Those trying to solve the world’s most pressing challenges must take notice of this.
The whole article is essentially a very long-winded way of saying “we need to tell better lies”.
We must name the real antagonists: irresponsible politicians, bought scientists and some companies failing to live up to the needs of the transition to net-zero.
We must also stop pretending that there is a debate over the facts of climate change. A false balance is a phenomenon that occurs when a news organization or other media outlet presents an issue as being the subject of a debate, even when there is no actual debate or disagreement among experts on the matter.
The author is talking about climate change, but his points about shifting blame and shutting down debate apply across the board.
Look for a shift of narrative “villains” this year, as well as increased emphasis on positivity and “unity”. Unity likely means attempting to woo back some of the fringe-mainstream elements pushed further to the alternative by the Covid narrative (as they did with Ukraine).
Elsewhere – and on a related note – there is likely to be talk of censorship – or, sorry, “countering misinformation” – as discussed in this WEF article from 6 days ago, headlined:
Digital safety: Applying human rights in the digital world
The article details the “challenges” facing the WEF’s “Global Coalition for Digital Safety” in their efforts to tackle…
the likes of child sexual abuse and exploitation, terrorism and hate speech, misinformation and content related to self-harm and suicide.
Notice how “hate speech” and “misinformation” are thrown in there with the actual crimes? To quote Sesame Street, “one of these things is not like the other”. But that’s no surprise in the age of “legal but harmful”.
To be clear, these people do not care about any of those things. Not at all.
Their businesses exploit children, their state agencies fund terrorism, and their media outlets spit out misinformation at 50 words a minute.
They only really care about control. In this instance that means controlling the internet – more specifically, controlling what you are allowed to say and hear on the internet.
Another potential focus for discussion, highlighted in a couple of places, will be a push for more direct action. What they seem to be calling “tangible solutions”.
The head of Amnesty International – who will be in attendance – has called for Davos attendees to focus on:
tangible solutions that we already know work, rather than opting to protect the existing global economic system at any cost.
Underlining that “now is the time for action” not “empty gestures”, and simultaneously echoing the “new system” messaging.
The “tangible solutions” line is repeated in the “narratives” article mentioned earlier, by financial consultancy giant Mercer on their page about Davos, a WEF “expert panel”, and by Forbes in their article on young leaders at Davos.
Of course “solutions-based thinking” has been corporate talk for decades, and “now is the time for action” is a cliche which does the rounds at every meeting, summit or conference.
Nobody in history has ever said “now is not the time for action, now is the time for gestures”.
So, of course, it could be empty words designed to make the speakers (and their meeting) feel important.
But it could be something else, perhaps a sign that the propaganda stage of the “great reset” is over, and now we transition to the next stage. Signalling a move away from passive manipulation and psychology-driven control mechanisms and toward more direct enforcement.
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
Either way, you can broadly define the Davos agenda as four main themes:
- “A new system”: Reforming the global systems of politics and finance
- “controlling the narrative”: Telling more believable lies & limiting public debate
- “countering misinformation”: Censorship, especially of the internet
- “tangible solutions”: Taking more direct action via enforcement and policy.
The Davos talking points, it seems, will be a retrospective focusing on what they can learn from the shortcomings of their “pandemic” narrative.
One final thought, an (unconfirmed) story doing the rounds is both hilarious and telling…if true:
Apparently, DAVOS attendees are deliberately seeking out unvaccinated pilots. Make of that what you will.
January 15, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | Human rights, WEF |
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There has been considerable conjecture that billions of dollars worth of assets in the fossil fuel industry will be stranded when fossil fuels are no longer needed because of the energy transition.
But what about the billions being spent by the automobile industry to build factories for the manufacture of batteries and battery-powered vehicles (BEVs)?
What if the market for BEVs doesn’t materialize?
The battery factories and factories to build BEVs won’t be needed. They will become stranded assets.
According to the WSJ, the automobile industry has committed, over the past two years, to invest $70 billion in factories to build batteries and BEVs.
According to the Center for Automotive Research, over half of this investment will be for battery factories.
Here is a chart from the Center of Automotive Research that provides another view of the investments being made for manufacturing BEVs.
It’s also been reported that the automobile industry worldwide will spend $526 billion on factories to build batteries and BEVs.
As noted in the WSJ article:
The capital outlays amount to a collective bet by the car industry that buyers will embrace battery-powered models in numbers large enough to support these investments.
What happens if the market for BEVs in the United States is only one-third the size being predicted?
Or, if it’s even less, say 10% of the predicted market size?
How will the automobile companies pay off their debt? Will they have losses?
Will these factories be stranded investments, unable to pay for themselves?
There is a herd mentality that’s gripped the automobile industry. As one CFO said,
You have to invest now, or you’re going to be left behind in the transition.
Toyota isn’t so sure.
Could Toyota have been right all along?
When anyone considers the volume of materials that must be mined and processed it must raise doubts about the stampede to build these factories.
The book, Clean Energy Crisis has estimated the number of new mines that must be developed to support the worldwide BEV market. One look at this aspect of the BEV market should give anyone pause.
The stranded assets may be in the automobile industry, not the fossil fuel industry.
January 15, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | United States |
3 Comments
The following translation was performed free of charge to protest an injustice: the destruction by the ADL of Ariel Toaff’s Blood Passover on Jewish ritual murder. The author is the son of the Chief Rabbi of Rome, and a professor of Jewish Renaissance and Medieval History at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, just outside Tel Aviv.
Aletho News 