Alberta Premier leadership candidate Danielle Smith – Dave Cournoyer / Wikimedia Commons
EDMONTON — Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s “Sovereignty Act” legislation was passed Thursday in the province’s legislature, despite pushback from left-wing critics including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
United Conservative Party (UCP) MLAs under Smith put their full support behind the bill to quicken its passage, which will now become law once it receives Royal Assent.
The act was passed with minor amendments made to it by the UCP, namely to make sure that Alberta’s regular legislative process is followed should a resolution be brought forth under the act.
The now-passed Sovereignty Act intends to prevent “unconstitutional” federal government overreach into matters of provincial jurisdiction, including but not limited to “firearms, energy, natural resources and COVID healthcare decisions.”
Smith had introduced the legislation, formally named Bill 1: Alberta Sovereignty within a United Canada Act, just nine days before its passing.
The bill will most notably help the province push back against federally-imposed rules that impact the region’s oil and gas sector, a major backbone of the western Canadian economy.
At the time of its introduction, the government explained that the act “will be used to push back on federal legislation and policy that is unconstitutional or harmful to our province, our people and our economic prosperity,” with Smith herself explaining that there is a “long and painful history of mistreatment and constitutional overreach from Ottawa has for decades caused tremendous frustration for Albertans.”
The bill was opposed by Alberta’s opposition party, the New Democratic Party (NDP), under former Premier Rachel Notley. The NDP claimed Smith’s Sovereignty Act was dangerous but did not bring forth any amendments to the bill.
Trudeau also took issue with the bill, threatening to take action against the Albertan government, saying all options remain on “the table.”
After the act passed yesterday, Trudeau slightly changed his tune and said his government would now work with Smith, but once again warned of Alberta’s efforts to “push back at the federal government.”
“We are not going to get into arguing about something that obviously is the Alberta government trying to push back at the federal government,” said Trudeau. “We are going to continue to work as constructively as possible.”
While many on the political left provided pushback, former Canadian Supreme Court justice John C. Major put his support behind the Sovereignty Act, rhetorically asking, “what’s so terrible about the province saying, ‘if you want to impose on us, you better be sure you’re doing it constitutionally?’”
Smith’s Sovereignty Act was a trademark of her campaign for leader of the UCP and premier of Alberta, promising throughout her run that if elected, she would table legislation to help make Alberta as independent from Ottawa as possible while staying in the Confederation.
Many have pointed out that Trudeau’s opposition to provincial autonomy, particularly with respect to the overseeing of natural resources in the western provinces, seem to mirror aspects of his own father’s policies.
In 1980, Trudeau’s father, then-Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, famously attacked Alberta’s oil and gas sectors by introducing the much-hated national energy program (NEP), which severely hampered Alberta’s and other provinces’ energy industries.
December 10, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | Alberta, Canada |
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Climate fanatics demand that we stop driving, flying on holidays, eating meat and completely change our lives. But it’s not enough. We must have fewer children and decrease in numbers overall to save the planet, these self-proclaimed world-improvers claim. Otherwise, we are all threatened by overpopulation, despite the fact that in the West and large parts of the world we have a population decrease.
Their demands seem to be met when the number of new-born children has suddenly begun to drop dramatically and alarmingly.
We have all heard about the climate and overpopulation threat. But those who preach this rarely talk about the fact that it is almost only in Africa that there is a very large population growth, while in the West and large parts of the rest of the world there is a de facto population decrease.
We can expect this milestone to be used extensively in the globalists’ propaganda going forward. It is important then that we remember that countries like Japan can barely take care of their many elderly people and that millions of empty houses are now standing and decaying there. Or that rural areas are being depopulated in Sweden and other developed countries, so that in many places it is no longer possible to get even basic services. This despite the fact that the long-term trend of moving to the cities has reversed in many countries.
In Sweden, fertility has slowly fallen from 1.91 children per woman in 2012, to 1.67 children per woman in 2021. Each woman must have 2.1 children on average to keep the population stable. So despite mass immigration for a long time, also of predominantly fertile groups, the net birth rate in Sweden continues to shrink year by year. This is how it looks throughout the Western world. But despite that, we will be forced to change our lives and give birth to fewer children. The propaganda for this and other things that achieve the same result, such as abortion or same-sex relations, is much stronger in the West than in Africa. The globalists’ dream now seems to be coming true.
Sweden’s low birth rate, which had a stable downward trend over time, has suddenly collapsed this year. In Stockholm, the number of births has decreased by 14 percent in the first quarter of 2022, compared to 2021. And it’s not just in Stockholm, fertility has dropped all over Sweden.
– It is a drastic and remarkable reduction beyond the ordinary. We have never seen anything like this before, that the bottom completely disappears in just one quarter, Gunnar Andersson, professor of demography at Stockholm University, told Dagens Nyheter in July.
On 28 October, Åland’s Statistics and Investigations Agency presented a report called “Population movements in the third quarter of 2022”. Already in the subtitle we can read that “Fewer births and more deaths have reduced this year’s population growth”. From the statistics we can then deduce that the number of births has decreased by 15.6 percent compared to the same time last year and that 13.3 percent more have died.
It looks similar or worse across Europe and large parts of the world. In the Netherlands and Germany, for example, the negative figures for the number of births this year are 11 and 12 percent, respectively. Taiwan saw an alarming 27.7 percent drop – over a quarter – in birth rates for the month of June this year. At the beginning of October, Taiwan’s Ministry of the Interior released statistics for the month of September, where it appeared that the country’s population decreased by 1 percent since September 2021. It is almost a doubling compared to the previous year, September 2020 to September 2021.
Newly released data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics ABS shows that from October to November 2021 there was a 21 per cent drop in the number of births compared to the ten-year average. From November to December 2021, just one month later, the figure was a frightening 63 percent. The information is said to be preliminary and may therefore be revised, but it nevertheless shows that something is not right. The December figure also coincides with the fact that approximately nine months have passed, the time for a pregnancy, since the corona vaccine was given on a larger scale in Australia.
MISCARRIAGE AND STILLBIRTH IN THE US between the years 1990 and 2022 where a reaction to a vaccine is listed as the cause. The increase is dramatic after mass vaccinations for the corona began around the turn of the year 2020-2021. There are fewer this year, because the statistics are lagging. There are also significantly fewer who took booster injections this year than those who received the first two doses in 2021, something some believe could possibly come into play. Systematic underreporting also means that there are usually at least 100 times more cases in reality. Source & graphics: OpenVAERS
A chart (above) is circulating on social media showing the number of miscarriages and stillbirths in the United States between the years 1990 and 2022 where a reaction to vaccines is listed as the cause. This is a dramatic increase over the past two years. Globalist-sponsored “fact checkers” quickly pounced, describing the chart as “misleading.” Reuters’ main argument for it was that it “contradicts the growing evidence that vaccines are safe during pregnancy”, something that goes completely against all the statistics that are starting to come out this year around the world. They then make a point of the graph coming from a “privately run website”, without mentioning that it is about OpenVAERS – a site that takes raw data directly from authority-run VAERS and gives the public the opportunity to use a simplified interface to search otherwise difficult-to-access government statistics.
Reuters then says that there were not 3 500 miscarriages and stillbirths at all in 2021, but they find in VAERS only 2 608 such cases linked to “vaccinations”. However, Reuters only finds 53 miscarriages and stillbirths for 2019. We can state that the “fact checkers” themselves thus admit an increase of 4 820 percent when comparing the years 2019 and 2021.
As final “proof” that the corona vaccine has nothing to do with the dramatic increase in miscarriages and stillbirths, they point out that the data in VAERS is only reported, but not investigated. However, they omit that several research reports over the years – such as the well-known Lazarus report – concluded that “less than 1 percent of all vaccine adverse events are reported”. This means that the already terrifying numbers are at least 100 times higher in reality. However, the reports were made before the alleged pandemic, so it can be assumed that health professionals, after the aggressive vaccine propaganda, are even more reluctant to report suspected vaccine injuries.
If the Corona vaccine is so “safe”, then why is this suddenly happening all over the world? And why is it so important for the establishment and its media to cover up everything that shows that vaccines are harmful, from clear statistics and new reports to scientists and doctors sounding the alarm? Shouldn’t it be natural for the authorities, with demands from massive drives in the media, to investigate what is happening and the bad wit? But the media is not doing its job, and neither are the regulatory agencies that exist solely to protect us from this very thing. If they do not do their duty, the alternative media and the people remain. It is high time to demand answers from politicians and the health establishment, especially those who have pushed for vaccinations – not infrequently in such a way that people felt forced to be inoculated against their will.
December 9, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Sweden |
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Who knew that the House of Lords had a Committee on Climate Change? I didn’t until I heard about the report published on October 12 titled In Our Hands: behaviour change for climate and environmental goals. It’s worth an examination to see just what these unelected, self-important individuals on the Upper House’s Environment and Climate Change Committee would like to impose on us proles.
Right at the start we read in the summary that they consider there to be a twin crisis of climate change and nature loss which demands an immediate and sustained response. Analysis by the committee suggests that without behavioural change now the Net Zero target of 2050 is not achievable. Their lordships and ladyships have kindly identified for us that 32 per cent of emission reductions up to 2035 require decisions by individuals and households to adopt low-carbon technologies and choose low-carbon products and services as well as reduce carbon-intensive consumption.
They think that polling shows that we are clamouring for leadership on this and are eagerly waiting to be told how to modify our behaviour to help achieve the 2050 target. They write that behavioural science evidence and best practice show that a combination of policy levers, including regulation and fiscal incentives, must be used by government, alongside clear communication, as part of a joined-up approach to overcome the barriers to making low-carbon choices.
They go on: ‘Fairness is key to effective behaviour change and now more than ever must be at the heart of policy design. As the country faces a cost-of-living crisis, the Government must tailor behaviour change interventions to avoid placing a burden on those who can least afford it. The Government must also work with the many groups and organisations at different levels of society who have a critical role in securing behaviour change for climate change and the environment. Businesses are in a position to enable behaviour change through increasing the affordability and availability of greener products and services and engaging customers and employees, but need direction from government if they are to act against their immediate financial interests. Numerous civil society organisations and local authorities work tirelessly to deliver behaviour change projects on a local level, and their efforts should be both supported and celebrated better by central Government.
‘Lessons can be learned from both successful and unsuccessful behaviour change interventions in other policy areas. Most notably, the widespread behaviour change brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic. We recognise that the changes demanded by the pandemic were seen as a short-term response to a short-term emergency, nonetheless it will be a major missed opportunity if the Government does not seize the chance to evaluate behaviour change interventions implemented during the pandemic and apply lessons learned.’
Chapter 1 says they found that we cannot rely on large-scale and unproven technologies alone to achieve the transition to Net Zero. Behaviour change is also needed. This means the whole country needs to be engaged in this immense challenge – every government department, every layer of devolved and local government, every business, every charity, civil society group and faith community, and every household. Leadership and co-ordination from the Government are vital.
In Chapter 2, Behaviour Change: Why, What and Who, the report says that many witnesses said behaviour change is needed to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 and to comply with international obligations under the Paris Agreement. Of course they did. They quote witness Sir Patrick Vallance, the government Chief Scientific Adviser (for it is he): ‘The reality is that behaviour change is a part of reaching Net Zero. It is unarguable.’ It seems we’re not even to be allowed to debate it.
The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change stirs the pot too: Tim Lord, Associate Senior Fellow at the Institute, said: ‘There is not a counterfactual where we carry on as we are and everything is okay. A world of 2.5, 3 or 3.5 degrees of warming will also require significant behavioural changes in other respects.’
Chapter 3 details the public’s appetite for change. It starts by quoting the Tory MP and minister Greg Hands, who says: ‘We know that the public are keen to play their part. The BEIS Public Attitudes Tracker shows that 85 per cent of the public are concerned or, indeed, very concerned about climate change. That number has doubled since 2016.’ This is backed up by paragraphs detailing the wailing and gnashing of teeth, particularly among the young (just who was it who scared them?) They go on to claim that most of the UK public support some form of action by the Government and others to address climate change and environmental issues.
Subsequent chapters go on to discuss theories, drivers and levers of change, read-across from other policy areas, delivering behaviour change in partnership, challenges and opportunities, communications and the Government’s approach and role. You won’t be surprised to read that the infamous Behavioural Insights Team, or Nudge Unit, will be heavily involved.
The report runs to 140 pages including appendices. It’s worth having a read if only to click on the links of the committee members so you can see just who is behind this and what their outside interests are. Lord (Peter) Lilley stands out as the only one fighting any rearguard action. He lost the vote 1-11.
Not to be outdone, the ‘independent’ Climate Change Committee (not to be confused with the HoL Committee on CC) is getting in on the act of behavioural change too. Its report has been produced by Imperial College London (what could possibly go wrong?) It covers behavioural change in surface transport, aviation, domestic heating and shifting to ‘sustainable ‘diets (pass the mealworms).
An outlier but helping to pull this all together is the Human Behavioural Change Project, sponsored by the Wellcome Trust and UCL among others, which is developing AI systems to scan, organise and interpret human behaviour-change literature. A few clicks on the website leads you, under Grant Holders, to the director, our communist friend Professor Susan Michie. Well, who’d have thought it?
It’s probably a good idea to be up to date on this stuff, or at least have it downloaded and available, just so we know what’s coming down the track: this should enable adequate avoidance, non-compliance and/or resistance.
December 9, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Supremacism, Social Darwinism, Timeless or most popular | Human rights, UK |
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The city of Oxford has embraced the concept of limiting citizens’ personal travel to fight climate change, an idea once dismissed as a conspiracy theory.
The Oxfordshire County Council’s so-called ‘traffic filter’ system, adopted last week, has gone viral, denounced as the first step toward “climate lockdowns” by climate skeptics and civil liberties activists.
The city will be divided into six “15-minute neighborhoods,” containing all local necessities, with residents required to register their cars so their comings and goings can be tracked by a network of cameras. They are allowed unlimited movement in their own neighborhood, but in order to drive through the filters, they must apply for a permit.
Even then, they are only granted access to other neighborhoods for an average of two days per week. Those who exceed their travel allotment will be fined.
Thousands of residents have expressed concern about the project, which has previously been rejected under a different name – including 1,800 who signed a single petition over worries it would actually increase congestion. However campaign director for Oxfordshire Liveable Streets, Zuhura Plummer, claimed that the initiative would “save lives and make our city more pleasant now and for future generations,” citing an “official analysis” that projected 35% less traffic, 9% fewer road casualties, 15% faster bus times, and 91% less air pollution.
The city will also benefit financially, with any driver caught passing through a filter without an exemption or a permit being charged a £70 penalty (just over $85) per violation. Planners expect the city could make as much as £1.1 million per year from fines.
Climate skeptics have attempted to raise the alarm about the measure since its passage, describing it as the first step toward the kind of “climate lockdowns” media outlets like The Guardian warned about at the height of the pandemic.
Economics professor Mariana Mazzucato outlined a grim future in which people would be required to submit to “climate lockdowns” for part of the year, barred from using personal vehicles and consuming red meat, while fossil fuel companies would be prohibited from drilling – all in the name of warding off catastrophic global warming.
When the essay was met with widespread public backlash, mentions of the phrase ‘climate lockdown’ were promptly scrubbed from news headlines, and the very notion of a government-mandated climate lockdown was declared a conspiracy theory.
December 9, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | Human rights, UK |
4 Comments
One Health is being embedded into the WHO’s International Health Regulations (IHRs) and Pandemic Treaty/Accord
First, what is One Health? It is essentially a meaningless concept that is important to the WHO, CDC and the new pandemic regulations being negotiated, as I heard it mentioned several times by country representatives discussing the new IHR amendments. My best guess is that One Health will be invoked as the justification to move people off the land in certain rural communities. The authors of a June 2019 article titled “The One Health Approach—Why Is It So Important?” provide 3 definitions and a graphic to try and explain the term:
The most commonly used definition shared by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the One Health Commission is: ‘One Health is defined as a collaborative, multisectoral, and transdisciplinary approach—working at the local, regional, national, and global levels—with the goal of achieving optimal health outcomes recognizing the interconnection between people, animals, plants, and their shared environment’. A definition suggested by the One Health Global Network is: ‘One Health recognizes that the health of humans, animals and ecosystems are interconnected. It involves applying a coordinated, collaborative, multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral approach to address potential or existing risks that originate at the animal-human-ecosystems interface’. A much simpler version of these two definitions is provided by the One Health Institute of the University of California at Davis: ‘One Health is an approach to ensure the well-being of people, animals and the environment through collaborative problem solving—locally, nationally, and globally’. Others have a much broader view, as encapsulated in Figure 1.
I hope you agree that these definitions shed no light on the meaningfulness of this concept, nor how it might be relevant to public health. However, the definitions seem to rope a lot of other things into a consideration of “health” which I fear is its main objective—eventually to justify social engineering under the rubric of health, or rather ‘One Health.’
The authors of the piece cited above note that they have not gotten buy-in from the medical community:
“Interdisciplinary collaboration is at the heart of the One Health concept, but while the veterinarian community has embraced the One Health concept, the medical community has been much slower to fully engage, despite support for One Health from bodies such as the American Medical Association, Public Health England, and WHO. Engaging the medical community more fully in the future may require the incorporation of the One Health concept into the medical school curricula so that medical students see it as an essential component in the context of public health and infectious diseases.”
And so cheap fixes are being applied. November 3 has been designated “One Health Day” since 2016 by the One Health Commission, the One Health Platform Foundation, and the One Health Initiative. One Health Day is celebrated through One Health educational and awareness events held around the world. Students are especially encouraged to envision and implement One Health projects, and to enter them into an annual competition for the best student-led initiatives in each of four global regions.
After titling their article as if it was going to explain why One Health is important, in the end all we get is a spurious sentence asserting that it is so:
Today’s health problems are frequently complex, transboundary, multifactorial, and across species, and if approached from a purely medical, veterinary, or ecological standpoint, it is unlikely that sustainable mitigation strategies will be produced.
I went to the WHO website to see if I could get a more satisfying explanation of this concept, but was left with the same sense—that it was simply an attempt to throw every living thing, plus every ‘ecosystem’ on the planet into the One Health basket, where pretty much everything might in future be manipulated under the guise of public health. See if you get a different take:
https://www.who.int/health-topics/one-health#tab=tab_1
One Health is an integrated, unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, animals and ecosystems.
It recognizes that the health of humans, domestic and wild animals, plants, and the wider environment (including ecosystems) are closely linked and interdependent.
While health, food, water, energy and environment are all wider topics with sector-specific concerns, the collaboration across sectors and disciplines contributes to protect health, address health challenges such as the emergence of infectious diseases, antimicrobial resistance, and food safety and promote the health and integrity of our ecosystems.
By linking humans, animals and the environment, One Health can help to address the full spectrum of disease control – from prevention to detection, preparedness, response and management – and contribute to global health security.
The approach can be applied at the community, subnational, national, regional and global levels, and relies on shared and effective governance, communication, collaboration and coordination. Having the One Health approach in place makes it easier for people to better understand the co-benefits, risks, trade-offs and opportunities to advance equitable and holistic solutions.
It matters because One Health appears to be a necessary part of the globalist, WEF plan to corral the earth’s people, akin to vaccine passports. Please help educate those who have ears to hear and eyes to see. This needs to be stopped. The best way is by exiting the WHO. Trump started the process, which was immediately reversed by the Biden administration. We can do it again. Or they will keep coming up with cockamamie programs designed to control us under the guise of health.
December 6, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Deception, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | CDC, Human rights, WHO |
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Deliveries of Russian seaborne oil to Europe have dropped more than fivefold since the start of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine, Bloomberg reported on Monday citing vessel tracking data.
According to the report, the shipments plunged to an average of 309,000 barrels per day in the four weeks to December 5. This is less than a fifth of their volume in the four weeks to February 25, an average of 1.58 million barrels a day. Deliveries in the final week to November 25 dropped by 34%.
Analysts expect those figures to slide further after an EU embargo and the Western coalition’s $60 price cap on Russian seaborne barrels are in full swing. Both measures came into force on Monday, but have a transition period during which some deliveries are still possible.
Over the past months, Moscow has stepped up efforts to redirect supplies elsewhere. So far, shipments have been mostly diverted to China, India, and Türkiye, which emerged as the largest buyers of Russian oil.
According to vessel tracking data, the volume of crude on tankers destined for the three countries, along with those that have not yet supplied their port of destination but typically end up in either India or China, stood at an average of 2.45 million barrels a day over the past four weeks. That is more than three times as much as the volumes shipped there in the four weeks immediately prior to the start of the Ukraine conflict.
Total Russian crude export volumes increased by 94,000 barrels a day to 2.99 million in the week before the new restrictions kicked in. Shipments to Bulgaria, which has secured an exemption from the embargo and is now Russia’s only remaining EU seaborne oil market, were unchanged at 125,000 barrels a day. It is unclear, however, whether further deliveries to the country will be affected by Russia’s response to the sanctions. Moscow repeatedly warned that it will stop selling crude to countries that support the price cap, and warned on Monday that it may even cut production in retaliation.
Russia’s overall oil output has grown 2.2% to 488 million tons in the 11 months between January and November 2022, according to Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, who spoke to reporters on Tuesday.
December 6, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | European Union |
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By Lucas Leiroz | December 6, 2022
According to recent reports, Ukrainian intelligence, with foreign support, is planning a provocation to prevent the resumption of Russian ammonia transit. The aim would be to further destabilize humanitarian deals to secure fertilizer supplies and, consequently, global food security. Ammonia is an important component in the production of various types of fertilizers, which is why the instability of its supply poses considerable risks to millions of people around the planet, whose food is cultivated with Russian products.
Sources interviewed by a Russian media outlet claim that Ukrainian agents are being instructed by the UK Special Services and the Canadian military company Garda World to destroy the Russian export infrastructure of ammonia. The operation would be very similar to what happened in September with the Nord Stream pipelines. Informers allege that Kiev wants to bomb the ammonia storage facilities at the Odessa Portside Plant. Thus, the flow of ammonia through the Tolyatti-Odessa pipeline could not be resumed, generating an increase in the prices of the product.
“The provocation has been planned and is carried out under the control of the UK special services stationed in Odessa. Members of Canada’s private military company Garda World, who are responsible for security of port infrastructure in the Odessa region under the contract with the administration of Ukrainian sea ports, are also participating in the implementation of this provocation”, the source said.
Although the UN-mediated grain deal in which Russia is involved did not originally include the return of ammonia transit, negotiations in this regard were making significant progress. UN officials have expressed optimism on the matter in several recent pronouncements. According to Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief at the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the ammonia deal was “quite close”. Indeed, since the beginning of the special military operation Russia has shown diplomatic goodwill in negotiating humanitarian agreements, so it was possible that something was close to being achieved soon.
However, once again Western-backed Ukrainian terrorists seem to plan maneuvers which will increase tensions and instability. The sources also claim that Kiev will try to blame Russia for the attack. With this, the possible plan appears even more similar to what happened on previous occasions, such as Nord Stream, the Crimean Bridge, and the bombing in Poland. Indeed, this has become common practice on the part of Kiev and its Western supporters: using terrorism to serve their anti-Russian interests and trying to blame Moscow. As on previous occasions, if the attack in Odessa actually takes place, it is expected that there will be a huge defamatory media repercussion, with western news agencies spreading lies and distorted narratives about the incident.
In addition to defaming Russia even more, thus “justifying” the sanctions and other coercive measures, the West would also be economically interested in this type of move, since, without the resumption of Russian ammonia exports, many emerging countries would start to buy ammonia from the EU and from the UK – or start importing ammonia-based fertilizers from Canada. Obviously, Western countries would increase prices exponentially, demanding really abusive prices, given the scarcity of ammonia in the global market.
This once again shows how the West-Kiev axis seems only interested in fomenting chaos and international crisis, without any regard for pacifying the current conflict and for lessening its consequences. All forms of boycotting Russia’s international ties seem “legitimate” to Western countries, even if this endangers the food security of millions of people. Considering the importance of ammonia-based fertilizers for the cultivation of grains, if the predictions made by Russian media’s sources are confirmed, in-depth investigations will be necessary in order to punish those responsible for this crime.
It is also important to remember that the grains and fertilizers exported by Russia have been seized in Europe. Tons of food and chemical products are detained in European ports due to the sanctions, without reaching the countries of destination in Africa and Asia, where Moscow prioritizes exports for humanitarian reasons. Despite several Russian denunciations in this regard, no action has been taken by the UN, which remains silent in the face of illegal European practices that are evidently contributing to worsening food shortages around the world.
There is no way to deny the destabilizing and terrorist attitudes that NATO and its Ukrainian proxy are promoting. And international organizations need to recognize this as soon as possible.
Lucas Leiroz is a researcher in Social Sciences at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant.
You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.
December 6, 2022
Posted by aletho |
False Flag Terrorism, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | Ukraine |
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The 15 Minute City is a UN and WEF plan, because they care about you want you to drive less.
A cartoon from the WEF just for you good girls and boys:
In the WEF’s own words — this rearrangement of cities is absolutely about climate change:
As climate change and global conflict cause shocks and stresses at faster intervals and increasing severity, the 15-minute city will become even more critical.
And the solution was the pandemic (they really say that):
The obvious, yet incomplete, answer is the pandemic… with COVID-19 and its variants keeping everyone home (or closer to home than usual), the 15-minute city went from a “nice-to-have” to a rallying cry. Meeting all of one’s needs within a walking, biking or transit distance was suddenly a matter of life and death.
And then the dark hand of the totalitarian managers appears, as James Woudhuysen, warned in Spiked in late October:
The madness of the ‘15-minute city’
The green agenda is taking inspiration from the illiberal days of lockdown.
To this end, Oxfordshire County Council, which is run by Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party, wants to divide the city of Oxford into six ‘15 minute’ districts. In these districts, it is said, most household essentials will be accessible by a quarter-of-an-hour walk or bike ride, and so residents will have no need for a car.
On the surface, these 15-minute neigbourhoods might sound pleasant and convenient. But there is a coercive edge. The council plans to cut car use and traffic congestion by placing strict rules on car journeys.
Residents will have to register their cars with the council and they will be tracked to count their journeys through the key gateways. It’s the social credit scheme that starts with your car and works like anti-frequent-flyer points.
Under the new proposals, if any of Oxford’s 150,000 residents drives outside of their designated district more than 100 days a year, he or she could be fined £70.
The concept of the 15-minute city was born with ‘C40’. Chaired today by London mayor Sadiq Khan, C40 calls itself a ‘network of mayors of nearly 100 world-leading cities collaborating to deliver the urgent action needed right now to confront the climate crisis’.
Climate lockdowns? Seriously?
It all sounds a bit ridiculous to suggest a lockdown “for the climate” but listen to the BBC. They’re working awfully hard to persuade us — they obviously think voters won’t want this. Here they are connecting the “15 Minute City” to the fun of covid lockdowns, and setting this up as though it’s totally normal for the government to decide who your friends are:
And furthermore lockdowns in Paris were great social moments where we all made friends. Who knew how much fun it would be to be told you couldn’t drive far?
… for Fraioli, the two-month lockdown that began on 17 March – confining her to a 1km radius of her home – gave her a nuanced, enriching view of her neighbourhood. “I discovered it’s possible to feel like you’re in a small village in Paris,” she says. “To get to know your neighbours, to maintain good links with shopkeepers, to favour local craftsmen and shops over large supermarkets. I even joined a citizens’ movement where people prepare food baskets for homeless people. I thought I would have a hard time living the lockdown, but I was perfectly at home, in a quiet place.”
I don’t seem to recall “getting to know neighbours” as being part of any lockdown anywhere?
And lookout — the 15 minute city is not just Oxford, but turning up in Brisbane, Melbourne, Barcelona, Paris, Portland and Buenos Aires. It’s everywhere.
Oxford City Council is moving faster than the rest
Apparently, not enough people are catching buses or riding bikes. But instead of making that more appealing, the totalitarians will force it through tracking and fines. Oxfordshire has just approved on November 29th, the “traffic filters” trial which will turn the city into a “fifteen minute city”. The Trial will start in Jan 2024.
It’s a crowded area, Oxfordshire, and no one likes traffic congestion, but in a free world the problem is self-limiting as drivers get fed up with delays and exorbitant parking costs, and they car-pool or choose to catch the bus or ride a bike. But in Big Nanny State the local rulers start making rules about who can and can’t visit and how often, and they want your car registered on their own special list with cameras to track you and fines to punish you. They offer exemptions of course, but then you have to apply for them and get permission.
Vision News, November 30th
Oxfordshire County Council yesterday approved plans to lock residents into one of six zones to ‘save the planet’ from global warming. The latest stage in the ’15 minute city’ agenda is to place electronic gates on key roads in and out of the city, confining residents to their own neighbourhoods.
Under the new scheme if residents want to leave their zone they will need permission from the Council who gets to decide who is worthy of freedom and who isn’t. Under the new scheme residents will be allowed to leave their zone a maximum of 100 days per year, but in order to even gain this every resident will have to register their car details with the council who will then track their movements via smart cameras round the city.
Every resident will be required to register their car with the County Council who will then monitor how many times they leave their district via number plate recognition cameras.
In the end, these aggressively overmanaged schemes mean more paperwork, more tracking, more jobs for bureaucrats and more free passes for “friends” of Big Government.
The more rules you have the more corrupt the system gets. For example, some city blocks are included in the favored list with 100 passes, while others get just 25 — so the property values of the inner circle addresses rise. As a bonus, in years to come property developers “in the know” and on the favoured list with certain councilors can arrange for rezoning on the right day (the one after they buy the property) and voila — that’s a nice capital gain for them
“Reconnecting Oxford” wants to end these artificial blockages
From “Reconnecting Oxford” –– a protest movement to stop filters and road closures.
The councilors held a major consultation process but apparently knew the outcome. It says rather a lot about the attitude of one councilor who said it was going ahead whether people liked it or not.
Oxford Mail, October 24
ROAD blocks stopping most motorists from driving through Oxford city centre will divide the city into six “15 minute” neighbourhoods, a county council travel chief has said.
And he insisted the controversial plan would go ahead whether people liked it or not.
Businesses in Oxford are not impressed:
Hotelier Jeremy Mogford, who owns the Old Bank Hotel in High Street and the Old Parsonage Hotel and Gees, both in Banbury Road, described the plan as disastrous for business.
He previously told the Oxford Mail : “What we have is people making decisions that don’t live in the city centre or spend much time in the city.
“The council has adopted the position that climate change is real”
Skeptic and long range weather forecaster Piers Corbyn spoke to the council to warn them:
[Piers Corbyn said] “The point is that the basis of these documents are false – man-made climate change does not exist and if you don’t believe me, look at the sky. You should have a special meeting to discuss whether man-made climate change exists or not.”
Responding to Mr Corbyn’s claims, councillor Andrew, the council’s cabinet member for highways management, said: “Mr Corbyn said climate change is not real – this council has formally adopted a position that climate change is real.
“Mr Corbyn you are wrong, we are right.”
Well that’s it then. Councils control the weather. If this had nothing to do with climate change they could have said “we’ll see” and dismissed him anyway. But they have to believe…
Oxfordshire council has already infuriated local businesses earlier this year with road closures and traffic calming measures which have reduced the customer base significantly. Drivers destroyed 20 bollards in less than three weeks, and one frustrated cafe owner put up a giant billboard in protest saying “So much for democracy”. Even cyclists don’t like the traffic slowing measures, saying their road trips are more dangerous. There is at least one Oxford protest group that seems to have some success in stopping the road closures.
So who does want the traffic filters? Oxford University and the bus companies, and the council which expects to make £1.1m from fining errant drivers.
From the Oxford City Council Consultation page we see the plan is to reduce journeys that you think are necessary but the councilors don’t.
Why are we introducing trial traffic filters?
Across our county, we want to reduce unnecessary journeys by private vehicles and make walking, cycling, public and shared transport the natural first choice.
This will help us deliver an affordable, sustainable and inclusive transport system that enables the county to thrive whilst protecting the environment and making Oxfordshire a better place to live for all residents.
And it is about “protecting the environment” by tracking you and resisting your movement.
Canterbury is planning something spookily similar –– dividing up the city into five different districts with drivers unable to cross between zones without being fined. The old grid system of cities made for shorter distances and more choices. The new system offers only more obstacles and less freedom.
December 5, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | Human rights, UK, WEF |
3 Comments
Today my long-awaited energy storage paper was officially published on the website of the Global Warming Policy Foundation. Here is a link. The paper is 22 pages long in the form in which they have published it plus another few pages for an Executive Summary and table of contents. They have given it the title “The Energy Storage Conundrum.”
Most of the points made in the paper have been made previously on this blog in one form or another. However, there is a good amount of additional detail in the paper that has never appeared here. I’ll provide one example of that today, and more of same in coming days.
The main point of the paper is that an electrical grid powered mostly by intermittent generators like wind and sun requires full backup from some source; and if that source is to be stored energy, the amounts of storage required are truly staggering. When you do the simple arithmetic to calculate the storage requirements and the likely costs, it becomes obvious that the entire project is completely impractical and unaffordable. The activists and politicians pushing us toward this new energy system of wind/solar/storage are either being intentionally deceptive or totally incompetent.
If you follow the news on this subject at a general level, you might find this conclusion surprising. After all, there are frequent announcements that this or that jurisdiction has entered a contract to purchase some seemingly large amount of batteries for grid-level storage. The Report cites data from consultancy Wood Mackenzie as to announced plans or contracts for storage acquisition in all major European countries, and cites other reports as to announced plans from California and New York in the U.S. The title of the April 2022 Wood Mackenzie paper on Europe certainly gives the impression that these people have the situation under control and know what they are doing: “Europe’s Grid-scale Energy Storage Capacity Will Expand 20-fold by 2031.” Impressive!
But this is one of those subjects on which you have to look at the actual numbers to evaluate whether the plans make any sense. In this situation, you need to compare the amount of energy storage that would be required for full backup of an almost-entirely wind/solar grid (with fossil fuels excluded), to the actual quantity of grid-scale energy storage being acquired.
Consider the case of Germany, the country that has gone the farthest of any in the world down the road to “energy transition.” My Report presents two different calculations of the energy storage requirement for Germany in a world of a wind/solar grid and no fossil fuels allowed (both of which calculations have been previously covered on this blog). One of the calculations, by a guy named Roger Andrews, came to a requirement of approximately 25,000 GWh; and the other, by two authors named Ruhnau and Qvist, came to a higher figure of 56,000 GWh. The two use similar but not identical methodology, and somewhat different assumptions. Clearly there is a large range of uncertainty as to the actual requirement; but the two calculations cited give a reasonable range for the scope of the problem.
To give you an idea of just how much energy storage 25,000 (or 56,000) GWh is, here is a rendering (also from my Report) of a grid-scale battery storage facility under construction in Queensland, Australia by Vena Energy. The facility in the rendering is intended to provide 150 MWh of storage.
Remember that 150 MWh is only 0.15 of one GWh. In other words, it would take about 167,000 of these facilities to provide 25,000 GWh of storage, and about 373,000 of them to get to the 56,000 GWh in the larger estimate.
And against these projections of a storage requirement in the range of tens of thousands of GWh, what are Germany’s plans as presented in this “20-fold expansion” by 2031? From my Report:
In the case of Germany, Wood Mackenzie states that the planned energy storage capacity for 2031, following the 20-fold expansion, is 8.81GWh.
Rather than tens of thousands of GWh, it’s single digits. How does that stack up in percentage terms against the projected requirements?:
In other words, the amount of energy storage that Germany is planning for 2031 is between 0.016% and 0.036% of what it actually would need. This does not qualify as a serious effort to produce a system that might work.
The story is the same in the other jurisdictions covered in the Report. And remember, these are the jurisdictions that consider themselves the leaders and the vanguard in the transition to renewable energy. For example, New York, with an estimated storage requirement for a mainly-renewables grid of 10,000-15,000 GWh, is said by trade magazine Utility Dive to be “forging ahead” with plans to procure some 6 GW of grid storage (presumably translating into about 24 GWh). That would come to around 0.2% of what is needed. Unless, of course, New York simultaneously “forges ahead” with its plans to triple the demand on the grid by electrifying all automobiles and home heating; in that case the 24 GWh would be back down to less than 0.1% of the storage requirement.
California? The Report cites another article from Utility Dive stating that the California Public Utilities Commission has ordered the state’s power providers to collectively procure by 2026 some 10.5 GW (or 42.0 GWh) of lithium-ion batteries for grid-scale storage:
The additional 10.5 GW of lithium-ion storage capacity, translating to at most about 42 GWh, would take California all the way to about 0.17% of the energy storage it would need to fully back up a wind/solar generation system.
However bad you might think this situation is, it’s worse. Am I the only person who has ever made these simple calculations? I certainly have never seen them anywhere else.
I would be very happy to be proved wrong about any and all of this. All I say is that the proponents of this miraculous fantasy energy future owe it to the rest of us to build a working demonstration project before forcing us all to adopt their utopian scheme at ruinous cost, only to find out that it won’t work and can’t work.
Here’s what tells you all you need to know: not only is there no working demonstration project anywhere in the world of the wind/solar/storage energy system, but there is none under construction and none even proposed. Instead, the proponents’ idea is that your entire state or country is to be the guinea pig for their dreams. After all, they are “saving the planet.” If there has ever previously been something this crazy in the history of the world, I certainly can’t name it.
December 5, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Timeless or most popular | Germany |
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Over the past weeks a coordinated all-out assault on our agriculture—the ability to produce food for human existence—has begun. The recent G20 governmental meeting in Bali, the UN Agenda 2030 Cop27 meeting in Egypt, the Davos World Economic Forum and Bill Gates are all complicit. Typically, they are using dystopian linguistic framing to give the illusion they are up to good when they are actually advancing an agenda that will lead to famine and death for hundreds of millions if not billions if allowed to proceed. It’s driven by a coalition of money.
From G20 to Cop27 to WEF
On November 13 the G20–representatives of the 20 most influential nations including the USA, the UK, the European Union (though it’s no nation), Germany, Italy, France, Japan, South Korea, and several developing countries including China, India, Indonesia and Brazil,– agreed on a final declaration.
The first major item is a “call for an accelerated transformation towards sustainable and resilient agriculture and food systems and supply chains.”
Further, “working together to sustainably produce and distribute food, ensure that food systems better contribute to adaptation and mitigation to climate change, and halting and reversing biodiversity loss, diversify food sources…”
In addition they called for “inclusive, predictable, and non-discriminatory, rules-based agricultural trade based on WTO rules.”
As well, “We are committed to supporting the adoption of innovative practices and technologies, including digital innovation in agriculture and food systems to enhance productivity and sustainability in harmony with nature…”
Then comes the revealing statement: “We reiterate our commitment to achieve global net zero greenhouse gas emissions/carbon neutrality by or around mid-century.” [i](emphasis mine)
“Sustainable agriculture” with “net zero greenhouse gas emissions” is Orwellian doublespeak. For an outsider to UN linguistics, the words sound too good. What in fact is being promoted is the most radical destruction of farming and agriculture globally under the name “sustainable agriculture.”
Following the Bali G20 confab by only days was the United Nations’ COP27 annual Green Agenda Climate Summit meeting in Egypt. There, the participants from most UN countries along with NGOs such as Greenpeace and hundreds of other green NGOs drafted a second call. COP27 launched something they revealingly call FAST– UN’s new Food and Agriculture for Sustainable Transformation (FAST) initiative. Fast, as in “to abstain from food…”
According to Forbes, FAST will promote a “shift towards sustainable, climate-resilient, healthy diets, would help reduce health and climate change costs by up to US$ 1.3 trillion while supporting food security in the face of climate change.” We are talking big numbers. $1.3 trillion by transition to “sustainable, climate-resilient, healthy diets” that would reduce cost of climate change by $1.3 trillion. [ii] What’s really going on behind all these words?
Big Money Behind
According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization speaking to Reuters during COP27, within a year the FAO will launch a “gold standard” blueprint for reduction of so-called Greenhouse gases from agriculture.
The impulse for this war on agriculture comes not surprisingly from big money, FAIRR Initiative, a UK-based coalition of international investment managers which focuses on “material ESG risks and opportunities caused by intensive livestock production.”
Their members include the most influential players in global finance including BlackRock, JP Morgan Asset Management, Allianz AG of Germany, Swiss Re, HSBC Bank, Fidelity Investments, Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management, Credit Suisse, Rockefeller Asset Management, UBS Bank and numerous other banks and pension funds with total assets under management of $25 trillion.[iii] They are now opening the war on agriculture much as they have on energy. The UN FAO Deputy Director for Climate Change policies, Zitouni Ould-Dada said during the COP27 that, “There has never been this much attention to food and agriculture anytime before. This COP is definitely the one.” [iv]
The FAIRR claims, without proof, that:
“food production accounts for around a third of global greenhouse gas emissions and is the main threat to 86% of the world’s species at risk of extinction, while cattle ranching is responsible for three quarters of Amazon rainforest loss.” [v]
The FAO plans to propose drastic reduction in global livestock production, especially cattle, which FAIRR claims is responsible for:
“nearly a third of the global methane emissions linked to human activity, released in the form of cattle burps, manure and the cultivation of feed crops.”
For them, the best way to stop cow burps and cow manure is to eliminate cattle. [vi]
Unsustainable Sustainable Agriculture
The fact that the UN FAO is about to release a roadmap to drastically reduce so-called greenhouse gases from global agriculture, under the false claim of “sustainable agriculture” that is being driven by the world’s largest wealth managers including BlackRock, JP Morgan, AXA and such, tells volumes about the true agenda. These are some of the most corrupt financial institutions on the planet. They never put a penny where they are not guaranteed huge profits. The war on farming is their next target.
The term “sustainable” was created by David Rockefeller’s Malthusian Club of Rome. In their 1974 report, Mankind at the Turning Point, The Club of Rome argued:
“Nations cannot be interdependent without each of them giving up some of, or at least acknowledging limits to, its own independence. Now is the time to draw up a master plan for organic sustainable growth and world development based on global allocation of all finite resources and a new global economic system. [vii](emphasis mine)
That was the early formulation of the UN Agenda 21, Agenda2030 and the 2020 Davos Great Reset. In 2015 UN member nations adopted what is called the Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs: 17 Goals to Transform our World. Goal 2 is “End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.”
But if we read in detail into proposals of COP27, G20 and Davos WEF of Klaus Schwab we find what is meant by these nice sounding words. Now we are being inundated with claims, unverified, by numerous government and privately-funded think tank models that our agriculture systems are a major cause of, yes, global warming. Not only CO2 but methane and nitrogen. Yet the entire global greenhouse gas argument that our planet is on the brink of irreversible disaster if we do not radically change our emissions by 2030 is unverifiable nonsense from opaque computer models. Based on these models the UN IPCC insists that if we do not stop a global temperature rise of 1.5 C above the level of 1850, by 2050 the world will essentially end.
The War Is Just Beginning
The UN and Davos WEF teamed up in 2019 to jointly advance the SDG UN Agenda 2030. On the WEF website this is openly admitted to mean getting rid of meat protein sources, introducing promoting unproven fake meat, advocating alternative protein such as salted ants or ground crickets or worms to replace chicken or beef or lamb. At COP27, discussion was about “diets that can remain within planetary boundaries, including lowering meat consumption, developing alternatives, and spurring the shift towards more native plants, crops and grains (thus reducing the current reliance on wheat, maize, rice, potatoes).” [viii]
The WEF is promoting a shift from meat protein diets to vegan arguing it would be more “sustainable”. [ix] They also promote lab-grown or plant-based lab meat alternatives such as the Bill Gates-funded Impossible Burgers, whose own FDA tests indicate it is a likely carcinogen as it is produced with GMO soy and other products saturated with glyphosate. The CEO of Air Protein, another fake meat company, Lisa Lyons, is a special WEF adviser. WEF also promotes insect protein alternatives to meat. Note also Al Gore is a Trustee of WEF. [x]
The war on animal raising for meat is just getting deadly serious. The government of the Netherlands whose Prime Minister Mark Rutte, formerly of Unilever, is a WEF Agenda Contributor, has created a special Minister for the Environment and Nitrogen, Christianne van der Wal. Using a never-invoked and outdated EU Natura 2000 nature protection guidelines designed allegedly to “protect moss and clover,” and based on fraudulent test data, the Government just announced it will forcibly close 2,500 cattle farms across Holland. Their goal is to force fully 30% of cattle farms to close or face expropriation.
In Germany the German Meat Industry Association (VDF), says that within the next four to six months Germany will face a meat shortage, and prices will skyrocket. Hubert Kelliger, a VDF board member said, “In four, five, six months we will have gaps on the shelves.” Pork is expected to experience the worst shortages. The issues in meat supply are due to Berlin insisting on reducing the numbers of livestock by 50% to reduce global warming emissions. [xi] In Canada, the Trudeau government, another Davos WEF product, according to the Financial Post of July 27, plans to cut emissions from fertilizer 30 per cent by 2030 as part of a plan to get to net zero in the next three decades. But growers are saying that to achieve that, they may have to shrink grain output significantly.
When the autocratic President of Sri Lanka banned all import of nitrogen fertilizers in April 2021 in a brutal effort to return to a past of “sustainable” agriculture, harvests collapsed in seven months and famine and farmer ruin and mass protests forced him to flee the country. He ordered that the entire country would immediately switch to organic farming but provided farmers with no such training.
Combine all this with the catastrophic EU political decision to ban Russian natural gas used to make nitrogen-based fertilizers, forcing shutdowns of fertilizer plants across the EU, that will cause a global reduction in crop yields, and as well the fake Bird Flu wave that is falsely ordering farmers across North America and the EU to kill off tens of millions of chickens and turkeys to cite just a few more cases, and it becomes clear that our world faces a food crisis that is unprecedented. All for climate change?
*
F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
Notes
[i] G20 Bali Leaders’ Declaration, Bali, Indonesia, 15-16 November 2022, https://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/60201/2022-11-16-g20-declaration-data.pdf
[ii] Kit Knightly, COP27 reignites the war on food, https://www.theburningplatform.com/2022/11/13/lab-grown-meat-nuclear-yeast-vats-cop27-reignites-the-war-on-food/
[iii] https://www.fairr.org/about-fairr/network-members/page/14
[iv] Sarah El Safty, Simon Jessop, COP27: UN food agency plan on farming emissions to launch by next year after investor push, November 10, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/business/cop/cop27-un-food-agency-plan-farming-emissions-launch-by-next-year-after-investor-2022-11-10/
[v] FAIRR Initiative, Where’s The Beef, https://www.fairr.org/wheres-the-beef/
[vi] Simon Jessop, Gloria Dickie, Global investors write to U N to urge global plan on farming emissions, June 9, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/exclusive-global-investors-write-un-urge-global-plan-farming-emissions-2022-06-08/
[vii] Club of Rome, Mankind at the Turning Point, 1974, https://web.archive.org/web/20080316192242/http:/www.wiseupjournal.com/?p=154
[viii] THE SHARM EL SHEIKH CLIMATE IMPLEMENTATION SUMMIT, cop27.eg 1, Round table on “Food Security” 7th November 2022, https://cop27.eg/assets/files/days/COP27%20FOOD%20SECURITY-DOC-01-EGY-10-22-EN.pdf
[ix] Vegan, vegetarian or flexitarian? 3 ways to eat more sustainably, October 28, 2022, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/10/vegan-plant-based-diets-sustainable-food/
[x] WEF, Have we reached the end of meat?, https://www.weforum.org/podcasts/house-on-fire/episodes/have-we-reached-the-end-of-meat
[xi] J. Shaw, Germany cutting back meat production to fight global warming, November 21, 2022, https://hotair.com/jazz-shaw/2022/11/21/germany-cutting-back-meat-production-to-fight-global-warming-n512518
December 4, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | Canada, European Union, Germany, United Nations, WEF |
2 Comments
In a report on wind farms on Wednesday, the Times wrote: ‘Labour argues that the ban on onshore sites has raised energy bills by £150. Ed Miliband, the shadow climate secretary, said Tories were “dinosaurs” for opposing them.’
It is a claim that has often been bandied around recently. So what is the truth of the matter?
The first point to make is that onshore wind was never banned. What did happen was that in 2016, subsidies were withdrawn from any new construction, while wind farms had to obtain local planning permission. It is quite extraordinary that Labour don’t want communities to make these decisions themselves.
The most recent wind farms built under the subsidy mechanism are paid an index-linked, guaranteed price of £100.31/MWh. For many years until last year the market price for electricity has hovered between £40 and £50/MWh most of the time. In other words, those onshore wind farms were heavily subsidised until last year, when market prices rose. The cost of subsidies is of course passed on to energy bills.
There is no evidence that the construction costs for wind farms have fallen since then. It is therefore evident that if more wind farms had been built since 2016, we would have been paying double the wholesale price until last year when prices began rising.
Of course since then wholesale electricity prices have rocketed because of the rising cost of natural gas. But nobody forecast that this would happen in 2016, and clearly the right decision was made by the government, given the facts at the time.
Over this year, wholesale prices of electricity have averaged £177/MWh. As the guaranteed price under the Contracts for Difference scheme is £100.31, the difference is refunded by generators and subsequently knocked off our bills.
Miliband’s claims of a £150 saving are based on an analysis by Carbon Brief, a lobby group for renewable energy. According to them, based on previous trends, an extra 5.4 GW of onshore wind would have been built if subsidies had not been withdrawn. The lost output works out at 11.8 TWh, and consequently the saving would have amounted to about £900million, which would only have knocked about £10 off household bills, which account for about a quarter of total UK electricity consumption.
In reality, you cannot directly compare the cost of intermittent wind power with other dependable sources. Our bills are much higher because of the costs incurred in grid balancing costs and other items, which directly result from the intermittency of wind and solar power.
But what Ed Miliband conveniently forgot to tell us was the cost of all the renewable subsidies which we have already paid out, and will continue to for years to come. In the last ten years, these have totalled £78billion, and in the next six years will cost a further £56billion, according to data from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).
All of these costs lie at the door of Ed Miliband, who pushed through the Climate Change Act in 2008. If he really cares about our electricity bills, he would immediately campaign to abolish all subsidies and suspend the carbon tax, which is also responsible for energy bills being much higher than they need be.
He won’t, because of his obsession with climate change.
December 4, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Economics, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | UK |
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