WEF publishes ideas on a carbon allowance system where surveillance tech is used to track personal emissions
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | September 15, 2022
The World Economic Forum (WEF) is publishing ideas about yet another reason, or excuse, to deploy more surveillance technology: this time it’s climate change, and specifically, monitoring carbon emissions – at the individual level.
This is generally referred to as “My Carbon initiatives” and according to a post on the group’s website, penned by the director of India’s Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs Smart Cities Mission, it’s all about “inclusivity of citizens” in reducing carbon emissions in urban areas.
However, “My Carbon” and what’s dubbed as “personal allowance programs” have apparently not been a success, although the push has been there for years; but now, with tracking and surveillance technology continuing to, technically speaking, improve and become more and more ubiquitous, the idea is to start bringing those into the climate change story.
And since the share of emissions attributed to individuals in cities is 40%, the proposal is to tackle those things that are now identified by WEF and its cohorts as standing in the way of personal allowance programs taking root: social and political resistance, a lack of awareness, and, of “fair mechanisms” to track individual emissions.
The post, which says the views are “those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum,” sees “an improved” world not only when it comes to technology, but also society, and mentions the catastrophic pandemic restrictions in a positive tone, as proof that billions of people can effectively be trained to show “individual social responsibility.”
Good old Covid was a test for that. “A huge number of unimaginable restrictions for public health were adopted by billions of citizens across the world,” the WEF blog piece says approvingly.
The implication is that billions are also now more likely to accept restrictions regarding their lifestyle in other contexts. Then there’s the technology, “AI,” blockchain, digitization, “smart home” devices – all useful in advancing this specific dystopian agenda.
And the plan is to use surveillance tech to track in detail personal carbon emissions, along with giving “individual advisories on lower carbon and ethical choices for consumption of product and services.”
Further, costs for “carbon-intensive” activities and goods should be increased, while offering economic incentives to reduce demand – another way of saying, “low carbon emissions social credit system.”
And then, creating new social norms is also recommended. These would impose a new definition of what “a fair share” of personal emissions is, and set “acceptable levels” of personal emissions.
As African Countries Kick Off Local Energy Projects, West Rolls Out Climate Agenda-Based Opposition
Samizdat – September 17, 2022
While many countries in Africa are experiencing energy poverty, suffering from electricity cuts, and are working on regional energy projects, the West appears to be skeptical of African nations’ strive for self-sufficiency in this area.
The Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline (NMGP) project, an initiative of Nigeria and Morocco that was initially proposed in December 2016, officially kicked off with the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Nigeria, Morocco, and the Economic Community of West African States on Thursday in Rabat.
“Once completed, the project will supply about three billion standard cubic feet of gas per day along the West African Coast from Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Gambia, Senegal and Mauritania to Morocco,” a statement by the National Nigerian Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) reads.
The 5,600-kilometer pipeline, running across 13 African countries, will originate from Brass Island (Nigeria) and deliver gas to northern Morocco, where it will be connected to the existing Maghreb European Pipeline (MEP), through which the gas will subsequently go to Spain.
Nigeria possesses Africa’s biggest proven gas reserves, constituting around 5.8 trillion cubic meters, according to OPEC. The creation of a new pipeline allows to monetize Nigeria’s lavish natural gas resources, generate additional income for the country, and diversify Nigeria’s gas export routes. The project is also expected to improve the living standards of the sub-Saharan region’s population and provide opportunities for other countries along the pipeline route to develop and export their gas, as reported by The Nation.
“Some of the benefits include the creation of wealth and improvement in the standard of living, integration of the economies within the region, mitigation against desertification and other benefits that will accrue as a result of the reduction in carbon emission,” NNPC CEO Mele Kyari stated, speaking at the signing ceremony.
Central Africa Pipeline Project
The NMGP follows another African initiative that was launched on September 8 at the Central Africa Business Energy Forum, hosted by Cameroon, where Central African countries signed an ambitious deal to create a regional oil and gas pipeline network by 2030, including the construction of three multinational oil and gas pipeline systems, at least three refineries, and gas-fired power plants linking 11 countries, according to project documents cited by Reuters.
Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Gabon, Chad, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Republic Congo – members of the ECCAS which signed the pipeline agreement – are all oil producers who possess vast oil and gas reserves. However, lack of refining capacity and funding to modernize the plants has left them dependent on imported refined products.
This has become increasingly difficult due to the raging global energy crisis with its skyrocketing energy costs, global supply disruptions, and geopolitical circumstances, such as Western sanctions against Russia over its military operation in Ukraine.
Executive Chairman of the African Energy Chamber N.J. Ayuk argues that the project will require foreign assistance, and Russian technical know-how might be of help.
“Russians are the best when it comes to pipelines. African ministers plan to be in Russian Energy Week and discuss this. They are also inviting Russian energy players to African Energy Week to have bilateral talks on how to use Russian or Chinese expertise to make this work,” Ayuk told Sputnik.
Speaking of Russia’s potential participation in African initiatives, and in the above mentioned NMGP in particular, the Russian United Metallurgical Company noted that it might supply metal products to meet the needs of the construction of the Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline.
According to a statement published by the Russian Ministry of Energy following a meeting of First Deputy Minister of Energy Pavel Sorokin and Chairman of the African Energy Chamber N.J. Ayuk, Russia is ready to develop joint projects with African countries in order to increase energy supplies to African markets.
“Providing African countries with high-quality energy resources, creating conditions for the development and growth of cooperation in energy, increasing trade between Russia and African countries is an important task of our interaction. We are ready to continue to develop joint projects, thanks to which it is possible to significantly increase the supply of resources to local markets, to help generally strengthen the economic security of our friendly countries,” Sorokin said.
At the same time, N.J. Ayuk in a recent interview with Sputnik warned of potential resistance from various Western environmental groups who, under the guise of a climate protection agenda, have repeatedly thrown a spanner in the works on energy projects on the continent.
West Opposes African Energy Projects Due to ‘Environmental Risks’
As African countries continue to develop much-needed domestic energy projects, on September 15, the EU Parliament passed a resolution claiming that the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) project, which is being developed by Uganda and Tanzania, could lead to “human rights violations” and pose “the social and environmental risks.”
EACOP stretches 1,443km from Lake Albert in western Uganda to the Tanzanian port of Tanga on the Indian Ocean and could become of a great importance for Africa, where more than 600 million people, or 43 percent of the continent’s population, lack access to electricity, as per the International Energy Agency.
The EU Parliament has advised its member states not to support Uganda’s oil and gas projects either diplomatically or financially.
“Calls for the EU and the international community to exert maximum pressure on Ugandan and Tanzanian authorities, as well as the project promoters and stakeholders, to protect the environment and to put an end to the extractive activities in protected and sensitive ecosystems,” the resolution reads.
Uganda’s Deputy Speaker of Parliament Thomas Tayebwa, hitting back at the EU, pointed out that the resolution represents the “highest level of neocolonialism and imperialism” against the sovereignty of Uganda and Tanzania.
Tanzania’s Energy Minister January Makamba reaffirmed the country’s intention to implement the EACOP project, criticizing the resolution and describing it as based on misinformation and deliberate misrepresentation of key facts on environment and human rights protection.
“We care more about our country than other people do. We will continue to make sure this project protects local communities, protects the environment, and meets our international standards so that we will continue, but we commit to do,” Tanzania’s energy minister said.
The verbal spat over EACOP comes on the heels of the recent statements made by US climate envoy John Kerry, who in an interview with Reuters on the sidelines of an African environment ministers’ conference in Dakar, Senegal also warned against investing in long-term gas projects in Africa.
Kerry claimed that the long-term viability of gas projects could become an issue beyond 2030, the target date many developed nations have set for their transition to mostly renewable energy sources and curbing demand for gas. The US climate envoy also said developed nations must step up their efforts and help other countries overcome the initial difficulties in developing renewable energy systems.
The first German district blackout simulation: 400 dead in 96 hours
Free West Media | September 14, 2022
Germany’s municipalities are getting serious and preparing for the concrete consequences of a widespread power blackout. The Hessian Rheingau-Taunus district is the first of 401 German districts and urban districts to have a specialist company in Berlin examine and simulate what threatens in the event of a blackout in order to be prepared for the increasingly likely eventuality.
According to this, 400 deaths could be expected within 96 hours. After 24 hours, livestock would die, substations would fail, and water tanks would run dry. Then there would be looting, fires and economic damage in the hundreds of millions. Unlike Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck, district fire inspector Christian Rossel currently considers the risk of a blackout to be much more likely than a lack of gas, which would not have such dramatic consequences, even if one were not preparing for it.
Authorities admit danger is real
The blackout, a widespread power failure, is sadly no longer a horror fairy tale of sinister conspiracy theorists as authorities now consider the danger to be real (but conceal the fact that it is home-made and a consequence of their own catastrophic policies).
The German Association of Towns and Municipalities (DStGB) sounded the alarm and warned of a possible overload of the German power grid. Even worse: cities and municipalities are not remotely prepared for such a scenario.
“There is a risk of a blackout,” said DStGB chief executive Gerd Landsberg told German weekly Welt am Sonntag that realistic scenarios are both hacker attacks and “an overload of the power grid – for example, if the 650 000 fan heaters sold this year are connected to the grid if the gas supply fails”. In this case, Landsberg expressly does not want to rule out widespread power failures.
The head of the DStGB is even clearer: the federal government has recognized the situation, but is not responding as it should. Every citizen must be aware of what happens when there is no electricity: “Then there is no water, you can’t fill up, after two days you can’t charge your cell phone. We are in no way prepared for such a scenario!”.
The “blackout” would only be a particularly drastic scenario. Less drastic scenarios such as electricity or gas shortages have long been casting their shadows. An umbrella organization for independent welfare in Germany based in Berlin, the Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband recently warned that, as a result of the exploding energy costs, “the livelihoods of social institutions and services are threatened to an unprecedented extent”.
Retirement and nursing homes, for example, are coming under pressure due to the rapidly increasing costs. The Federal Association of Private Providers of Social Services (BPA) predicted that “this crisis will cost some providers their existence because the burdens from rising energy costs, general inflation and the omnipresent shortage of skilled workers can no longer be borne”. And all this is just the beginning, according to Bloomberg. The federal government’s €65 billion financial aid package will not be able to prevent the impending recession.
Commerzbank economist Jörg Krämer meanwhile warned that the announced steps only “create the illusion that large parts of the population can be protected from the consequences of rising energy prices”.
What happens if the lights go out?
In the event of a widespread power failure, nothing works anymore. Internet, landline telephony and heating systems would fail first, followed closely by mobile communications and digital radio. Gas stations would run out of petrol, electronic money and payment systems would fail, food could no longer be cooled. Clinics, care facilities and water suppliers and disposal companies depend on their respective equipment to outlast the blackout. Rossel made it clear that the district could not ensure the power supply. Like Landsberg, he advised citizens to stock up on food and drinking water for 14 days.
The district will ensure that administration and civil protection work so that emergency aid can be coordinated. For this, the “equipment security” has to ensure electricity for servers and satellite-supported communication systems for the crisis management teams. The current emergency generator can run continuously for 16 hours. However, since the police, fire brigades and rescue workers would also need several 10 000 liters per day, negotiations are being held with heating oil suppliers.
All of these scenarios show a country that is on the brink of complete collapse in an emergency due to ideology-driven politics and decades of neglect of important infrastructure. … Full article
Iran Needs Lifting of Sanctions, Guarantees From US to Revive Nuclear Deal, Raisi Says
Samizdat – September 16, 2022
Tehran needs the removal of sanctions and guarantees from Washington to restore the nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said.
“Removal of sanctions should be accompanied with the resolution of safeguards. There are some political and baseless accusations against Islamic Republic of Iran when it comes to safeguard issues,” Raisi told the Al Jazeera broadcaster on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in the Uzbek city of Samarkand.
The president noted that it is necessary to finalize these safeguard issues but it is not yet time to have face-to-face talks with the United States as Washington’s sincerity is questionable, according to Al Jazeera.
“Regarding the guarantees, if we have the trustworthy guarantees, and we have the lasting removal of the sanctions, not temporary removal of sanctions, and if there is a lasting solution for the safeguard issues, for sure it is possible to reach agreement,” Raisi added.
The JCPOA deal was sealed in 2015 by China, France, Germany, Iran, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as the European Union. Former US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the deal in 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Tehran.
Talks between Iran and the global powers to revive the deal and end US sanctions on Iranian oil exports have gained momentum recently. On August 31, Borrell said that an agreement to revive the 2015 nuclear deal will hopefully be reached in the next few days.
On September 2, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said that Tehran sent a “constructive” response to Washington’s proposals on the revival of the JCPOA, while a State Department spokesperson said the US had received Tehran’s response but described it as “not constructive.”
The Green New Deal in Europe is quickly turning into a House of Horrors
By P Gosselin | No Tricks Zone | September 16, 2022
One excellent site with all the late latest energy crisis developments in Germany and Europe is Blackout News. Here are some of the more notable headlines of the past week:
Europe’s largest aluminum plant cuts production by 22% due to energy costs
Deindustrialization
Europe’s largest aluminum smelter, Aluminum Dunkerque Industries France, will cut production by 22% due to rising electricity prices, thus putting the industry’s existence at risk and increasing Europe’s dependency on foreign suppliers.
High energy prices: Municipal utilities running into payment difficulties
Struggling utilities
German municipal utilities, who supply gas and power to their communities, are running into liquidity problems as suppliers of electricity and gas demand large sums as security guarantees before deliveries. Around 200 of the 900 German municipal utilities are affected.
The municipal utilities also “have to reckon with payment defaults by their customers on an unprecedented scale. Consumers have to cope with price increases of over 50% in some cases, which many will not be able to cope with”
Eight to 15% of consumers are expected to not to be able to pay.
It’s a serious danger signal because if they get into trouble, an economic crisis is usually not far away.
Exploding energy costs: economists sound the alarm
Hostile business environment in Germany
The German economy is reeling from exploding energy costs as insolvencies escalate and even once robust companies collapse. A number of industrial companies have imposed production stops or drastically reduced production – because of the skyrocketing energy costs. BDI industry association president Siegfried Russwurm warns that the spiraling energy prices are driving companies away.
In the latest BDI survey, 90% of all companies are severely challenged by the sharp rise in energy and raw material prices. In February 2022, the figure was just 23%.
France plans rolling blackouts this coming winter
Extreme power shortages in France
France normally generates a good 70 percent of its electricity from nuclear power plants but its power supply is massively at risk as 24 of the 56 reactors are off the grid due to repairs and maintenance. The country is now planning rolling blackouts should there be corresponding supply problems.
French utility RTE reports “it is clear that the country will not be able to produce enough electricity during the winter months unless consumers drastically reduce their power consumption.” As a result, the utility expects there may be rolling blackouts during the winter.
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If this keeps up, Europe might quickly turn into a continent of starving and freezing beggars. Watch for Europe to be looking at a new Enabling Act.
Willkommen and bienvenue! Welcome to the Green New Deal!
The elite are building Megalopolis, where the plebs will eat insects
By Lucy Wyatt | TCW Defending Freedom | September 14, 2022
We are at war in Europe. But not with Russia. The enemy does not have boots on the ground, tanks, machine guns or bombs; we cannot see it.
It is a devious, insidious many-headed hydra shaping our lives, aided by those who are meant to represent us. A critical battle line has opened up against this amorphous enemy in the heart of Europe. In the Netherlands.
Brave Dutch farmers have mobilised their tractors, their slurry tankers and their bales of straw; they have taken to the streets to protest, as we first reported here and they have not let up.
After a tumultuous summer of protests by farmers over so called ‘pollution’ regulations – the Dutch government’s edict that will require farmers to curb their nitrogen emissions by up to 70 per cent in the next eight years – the Dutch agriculture minister, Henk Staghouwer, has resigned after only nine months in office telling reporters that he wasn’t the right person for the job. Indeed.
We would do well to pay attention. They are protesting on our behalf. They are taking on what’s been aptly described as ‘a corporatised “sustainability” agenda crafted by a billionaire-backed “green” elite with no popular constituency’.
Invisible institutions such as the World Economic Forum, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, as well as a bevy of transnational corporations, are key ‘stakeholders’ in this closely-knit network. These are the unelected figures who are influencing government policy in supposedly sovereign states across the globe.
The Dutch government plans to spend 25billion euros expropriating 11,200 farms – allegedly to cut nitrogen emissions in half by 2030. This will mean the loss of 20 per cent of farms, while another 33 per cent will be forced to scale back and reduce livestock.
The madness of these cuts comes at a time of global food and fertiliser shortages, when Holland is the second-largest food exporter after the US. It now risks following Sri Lanka in becoming a major importer as opposed to an exporter of food.
As well as the timing, what makes Dutch farmers so suspicious is that the curb on nitrogen emissions falls disproportionately on farming, when industry and transport are also major polluters. There is however a logic to this if the specific motive for this appropriation of their land and livelihood is the Tristatecity.
The Tristatecity is a ‘smart city’ project which began to emerge as a concept in 2015. It is the vision of Peter Savelberg, a Dutch consultant, to create a giant megalopolis from Holland through Belgium to the Ruhr in Germany, incorporating 30million to 45million people.
How in this carbon-conscious age could such a project have survived the eco piety of the environment zealots? It is hardly obvious how building skyscrapers and covering large areas in concrete can be more sustainable than farmland, but the project boasts that it supports all of the United Nations sustainability goals.
Of course it does – on paper. It is also keen to promote agritech, centred on the region of Brabant, which includes vertical farming (eg hydroponics). It is possibly no coincidence that, according to the Financial Times, the Belgian government has also begun buying up farmland, allegedly to avoid the Dutch ‘crisis’. In other words, the Tristatecity is a classic World Economic Forum ‘fourth Industrial Revolution’ concept.
Peter Savelberg is backed by the Dutch employers’ organisation VNO-NCW, pension funds and property developers. They believe that Tristatecity, with its 45million inhabitants, would be able to better compete for investment and talent with other global megacities, particularly those in China. And so, inevitably, the Tristatecity needs Dutch farmland for housing.
Meanwhile, the inhabitants of the Tristatecity will presumably live on bugs – because there would be less farmland to produce food for them. Hence the need for vertical farming. There would be little other industry for them to work in, because the fossil fuels needed for industry to function are drying up.
Germany is already experiencing signs of de-industrialisation as Russian gas disappears and the dried-up Rhine ironically prevents the movement of coal. Zero carbon is becoming a reality.
Despite a growing pushback against the UN’s ‘sustainable development’ programme Agenda 2030, against WEF and the Great Reset, the Dutch government, among others spurred on perhaps by the recent UN High-Level Forum in which the Netherlands participated this summer, has resorted to using so-called ‘climate change’ and ‘nature protection’ virtue-signalling as the devious and specious excuse for acquiring the land needed to implement its goals.
It is noticeable that the marketing hype around Tristatecity itself has gone quiet (only a few hundred follow its Facebook page), and the project has felt the need to issue a public statement claiming that it has no connection with nitrogen reduction programmes.
Here in the UK, we may have avoided the fate of the Dutch farmers for the time being, although our government’s financial incentive for farmers to leave their farms was on offer up till August 11. There is still a need for vigilance.
While Welsh schools are encouraging children to eat bugs, France has become the innovation nation for insect production and hosts the world’s largest insect farms.
A start-up called Ynsect has raised 224million dollars from investors – including Hollywood star Robert Downey Junior’s FootPrint Coalition – to build its second insect farm in Amiens in northern France.
The company breeds mealworms that produce proteins for livestock, pet food and fertilisers. The ‘40-metre tall plant spread over 40,000 square metres’ was promised by CEO and co-founder Antoine Hubert to be ‘the highest vertical farm in the world and the first carbon-negative vertical farm in the world’.
We are still under attack from the many-headed hydra in other ways. Gaslighting takes many forms. One recent example was the granting of the top prize at the Chelsea Flower Show to a garden whose central feature was beaver-chewed wood and not flowers – as though untouched nature trumped cultivation and creation.
In June, we only narrowly missed the loss of 700,000 acres of farmland when the budget for ‘landscape recovery’ (aka ‘rewilding’) was slashed from £800million to £50million.
This war is not over and we should support our European allies as we did in the Second World War.
Recommended viewing is Jordan Peterson’s apocalyptic warning on what ‘sustainability’ really means and Michael Yon’s programme from July, when he was embedded with the Dutch farmers.
Their fight is our fight. ‘Useless eaters’ unite. Pitchforks at the ready.
Climate Emergency Not Supported by Data, Say Four Leading Italian Scientists
BY CHRIS MORRISON | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | SEPTEMBER 14, 2022
Four leading Italian scientists have undertaken a major review of historical climate trends and concluded that a ‘climate emergency’ is not supported by the data. Reviewing data from a wide range of weather phenomena, they say the climate crisis that many say we are currently experiencing “is not evident yet”. The scientists suggest that rather than burdening our children with the anxiety of a climate emergency, we should allow them to face various problems such as energy, food and health with a more “objective and constructive spirit” and not waste limited resources on “costly and ineffective solutions”.
During the course of their recent work, the scientists found that rainfall intensity and frequency was stationary in many parts of the world. Tropical hurricanes and cyclones showed little change over the long term, and the same is true of U.S. tornadoes. Other meteorological categories including natural disasters, floods, droughts and ecosystem productivity showed no “clear positive trend of extreme events”. Regarding ecosystems, the scientists noted a considerable “greening” of global plant biomass in recent decades caused by higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Satellite data show “greening” trends over most of the planet, increasing food yields and pushing back of deserts.
The four scientists are all highly qualified and include physics adjunct professor Gianluca Alimonti, agrometeorologist Luigi Mariani and physics professors Franco Prodi and Renato Angelo Ricci. The last two physicists are signatories to the rapidly growing “World Climate Declaration”. This petition states that there is no climate emergency and calls for climate science to be more scientific. It also calls for a freeing from the “naïve belief in immature climate models”. In future, it says, “climate research must give significantly more emphasis to empirical science”.
‘Extreme’ weather events attributed by climate models – somehow – to humans changing the climate, are now the main staple of the climate alarmist industry. As the Daily Sceptic reported on Monday, Sir David Attenborough used a U.K. Met Office model forecast in Frozen Planet II to claim that summer Arctic sea ice could all be gone within 12 years. But the likelihood of hardy swimming galas over the North Pole by 2035 seems somewhat remote, not least because Arctic sea ice has been growing in many summers since 2012. According to a recent report from the U.S.-based National Snow and Ice Data Center, at the end of August, “sea ice extent is likely to remain higher than in recent years”.
Hurricane and cyclones are favourite scares that are frequently drummed up by green alarmists. It is unsurprising why they focus on these storms, since the scientists note that historically around 60% of all economic damage caused by global disasters is the consequence of U.S. hurricanes. On May 27th, the Met Office predicted that the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June to November, would “most likely” be above average, with a “likelihood” of 18 named tropical storms including nine hurricanes and four major hurricanes. In fact, the current Atlantic hurricane season has had its slowest start for 30 years. At the end of August there have been no hurricanes, and only three named storms, none of which produced winds of 74mph or higher.
In fact there is plenty of evidence that hurricane and cyclone intensity and frequency has changed little over the recent historical record. “To date, global observations do not show any significant trends in both the number and the energy accumulated by hurricanes,” note the Italian scientists. The two graphs below demonstrate this.
The IPCC has reported that hurricanes have increased strongly in the North Atlantic since 1878, but the scientists note that observations were relatively low during the first decades of the 20th century. After adjusting for lack of observational capacities in the past, there is a nominal upward trend. This trend, they explain, “is not significantly distinguishable from zero”.
The scientists accept that there has been a recent increase in heatwaves, which they attribute to the 1°C rise in global temperatures, although they note global heatwave intensity trends “are not significant”. They also note an increase in global rainfall, although an increase in extreme precipitation is observed only in a limited number of weather stations. Corresponding evidence for increases in flooding remains elusive, they say, “and a long list of studies shows little or no evidence of increased flood magnitudes, with some studies finding more evidence of decreases than increases”. So far as drought is concerned, the scientists note the AR5 finding of the IPCC that “conclusions regarding global drought trends increasing since the 1970s are no longer supported”. Several studies are said to show no increase in the main indices regarding global droughts.
In fact, a slightly warmer and wetter planet and a little extra CO2 seem to have done wonders for global crop yields. For the period 1961-2019, maize, rice, soyabean and wheat global average yields are reported to have grown every year by 3.3%, 2.4%, 2.6% and 3.8% respectively.
Well-researched, fact-driven, credible scientific papers such as this are crucial in the battle to stop green activists and rentiers having a free run to catastrophise every bad weather event in the interest of promoting a command-and-control Net Zero agenda. Attempting to attribute single weather events to humans burning fossil fuels is the product of feverish imaginations and garbage in, garbage out climate models. Rational, evidence-based science should be promoted at every opportunity.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
Wall Street Giants Set to Smash Profit Records Off Global Hunger, Energy Crisis
By Jake Johnson | Common Dreams | September 9, 2022
Russia’s war on Ukraine has wreaked havoc on global commodity markets, driving up energy and food prices and exacerbating hunger emergencies around the world.
“We’re in a market where speculators are driving prices up.”
But while disastrous for the global poor—millions of whom are living on the brink of famine—the chaos has been a major boon for Wall Street giants, according to new data showing that the world’s 100 largest banks are on pace to smash commodity trading profit records this year.
“The 100 biggest banks by revenue are set to make $18 billion from commodities trading in 2022,” Bloomberg reported Friday, citing figures from the London-based firm Vali Analytics. “That would be the highest in the data, which goes back 14 years, and exceed the previous high watermark in 2009.”
“The prediction is the latest evidence that the wild swings in energy prices triggered by the war in Ukraine are delivering a boon to commodity traders, even as they push European nations into crisis,” Bloomberg added. “Vali, an analytics firm that tracks trading business, compiled data that includes the leading five banks in commodity trading: Macquarie Group Ltd., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc., and Morgan Stanley.”
Though the prices of wheat and other food staples have fallen from their peak in recent months, they remain significantly elevated compared to last year, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, leaving millions vulnerable to hunger and starvation.
The World Food Program estimates that “as many as 828 million people go to bed hungry every night” and “the number of those facing acute food insecurity has soared—from 135 million to 345 million—since 2019.”
Energy prices have also eased but remain high, contributing to cost-of-living crises throughout Europe and other parts of the globe.
“People’s misery makes capitalists’ superprofit,” Salvatore De Rosa, a researcher at the Lund University Center for Sustainability Studies, tweeted in response to Bloomberg‘s reporting. “How do you reform this?”
Wall Street banks have not just benefited from the commodity price increases—they’ve actively helped fuel them, experts say.
“We’re in a market where speculators are driving prices up,” Michael Greenberger, former head of the Division of Trading and Markets at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, told Mongabay in July.
“Commodity markets are supposed to be hedging markets for people who are dealing with the commodity involved,” Greenberger said. “In the case of wheat, it would be farmers and people buying wheat. But if we looked at it, there would be banks in there with no interest in what the price of wheat is, writing swaps and controlling this price.”
“It’s too easy to say the war in Ukraine has unbalanced all these markets, [or that] supply chains and the ports are shot, and that there’s a supply and demand reason for these prices going up,” Greenberger added. “My own best guess is anywhere from 10% to 25% of the price, at least, is dictated by deregulated speculative activity.”
Global Oil Output Short of 6Mln BPD Due to Western Policy: Russian Energy Official
Samizdat – 14.09.2022
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia – A significant investment shortage into traditional energy sources caused by the Western sanctions and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policy has caused a global production deficit of 5-6 million barrels per day, Russian First Deputy Energy Minister Pavel Sorokin said on Wednesday.
“The current situation on the energy market is not a result of the last few months but a consequence of the policy that was being created by the West during the last decade. The sanctions, which were imposed not only on Russia but on other countries, as well as the green agenda and the ESG policy of the last 10-15 years caused a significant shortage of investments into traditional energy sources. It has deprived the world of 5-6 barrels of oil per day, according to our estimates,” Sorokin said at the 11th St. Petersburg International Gas Forum.
The official also said that traditional energy sources are short of at least 250-270 billion euros ($25.1- $27 billion) in investments per year, adding that the slowdown in demand for oil and gas in the developing countries in Latin America, Africa and in the Asia-Pacific region affect the global economy, increasing the risks of economic recession.
The 11th St. Petersburg International Gas Forum (SPIGF), which is taking place from September 13-16 in the Expoforum Convention and Exhibition Centre, is hosting more than 80 events with the participation of 700 speakers from 20 countries. It aims to outline prospects for the further development of the sector, according to the organizers.
Among the main events of the SPIGF 2022 convention program are the international scientific and practical conference “Underground Gas Storage: Reliability and Efficiency” and plenary session “Gas Engine Fuel: a Reliable Solution in the Face of New Social-Economical and Environmental Challenges.”
German President Says Homeless Numbers May Rise Amid Cost-of-Living Crisis
Samizdat – 11.09.2022
More people in Germany may become homeless this winter as soaring costs of living keep adding pressure on vulnerable households, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned on Sunday.
Over 300,000 Germans do not have a home, Steinmeier told a conference at his Bellevue residence. Of them, 45,000 are forced to sleep rough on the streets.
“More than 300,000 is a huge figure! And let’s be clear: this number may rise in the coming months. The war and crises may increase the number of people suffering from lack of housing in fall and winter,” he said.
Germany marks the Day of the Homeless on September 11. The German president traditionally invited people who do not have a roof over their head to his Berlin residence in the upscale Tiergarten neighborhood.
Steinmeier said that the problem of homelessness was more acute than ever at this time of crisis. He urged politicians to make sure that “the topic is not relegated to the bottom of the political agenda”.
Germany and other European countries are suffering from soaring inflation and immense energy prices caused by Brussels’ decision to impose sanctions on Russia after the start of the special military op in Ukraine. As a result, gas prices and energy bills at record-high levels have become a major issue for many Europeans.
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From the Archives
British weapons and personnel doing much of the killing in Yemen
Press TV – June 18, 2019
A detailed report published by the Guardian newspaper has shown how Britain is massively contributing to Saudi Arabia’s devastating war on Yemen as it suggests that London is not only supplying the bombs that fall on Yemenis, but it provides the personnel and expertise that keep the war going.
The comprehensive report by Arron Merat published on Tuesday showed that Britain was doing much of the killing in Yemen as the country continues to provide Saudi Arabia with everything it needs to turn its southern impoverished neighbor into a graveyard.
“Every day Yemen is hit by British bombs – dropped by British planes that are flown by British-trained pilots and maintained and prepared inside Saudi Arabia by thousands of British contractors,” said Merat in the report. … continue
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