By Paul Antonopoulos | June 10, 2022
Hundreds of Ukrainian mines floating in the Black Sea threaten to halt tens of millions of tons of grain from being exported. Ukrainian officials claim it would take six months to clear the mines, something which directly contradicts the long-held claim that Russia’s naval blockade is preventing the export of wheat.
Markiyan Dmytrasevych, an adviser to Ukraine’s Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food, said that regardless of any agreement with Russia, thousands of mines would remain floating around the port of Odessa, making the export of wheat difficult. According to Dmytrasevych, it will take until the end of the year to clear out all the mines, thus making a mockery of the months-long disinformation campaign that Russia was blockading Ukrainian wheat shipments and therefore responsible for any global food shortage.
Russia and Ukraine collectively supply about 40% of the wheat consumed in Africa, and due to the war and consequential anti-Russia sanctions, prices have already risen by about 23% across the continent. The two countries also account for about 33% of the world’s grain supply, and wheat prices have skyrocketed by a third since February 24.
To derail a global food crisis, Ukraine’s Black Sea coastline will have to be demined. However, demining efforts require specialized equipment to scour wide swaths of open water, something Kiev was fully aware of when it began mining the Black Sea.
NATO issued a warning on June 1, stating: “Drifting mines have been detected and deactivated in the Western Black Sea by coastal nation’s authorities. The latest statement of regional authorities, confirming another sighting of a mine, shows the threat of drifting mines in the Southwest part of the Black Sea still exists.”
Along with the obvious problem associated with traversing mine-laden waters, shipping insurance for vessels heading to the region has skyrocketed. “There is clearly a growing nervousness around the region in the insurance market, especially in relation to the Black Sea,” Marcus Baker at insurance broker and risk adviser Marsh told Reuters.
Ukraine President Volodomyr Zelensky told the Financial Times that while, in theory, he supports a maritime corridor, no Russian vessels should be allowed access. “On UN-led talks to restore access to Ukrainian Black Sea ports, Zelensky was willing to back the idea of a maritime corridor to enable grain exports from Ukrainian ports as long as no access was given to Russian ships,” the paper reported. “There was no need for a dialogue with Moscow to resolve the blockade given that the only threat to world food supplies was coming from Russia.”
However, despite Kiev now acknowledging that demining efforts could take up to six months, Zelensky is still attempting to blame Russia’s naval blockade as the reason why 75 million tons of grain could be stuck in Ukraine after the summer season.
Latvian Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš is also disingenuous to the situation, questioning to the Atlantic Council on June 8 whether “a US or French warship [should] go through the Bosphorus and dock in the port of Odesa?”. Of course, his suggestion completely omits that US and French warships would not only have to break the Russian blockade, but also traverse mined waters.
None-the-less, Ukraine is in a difficult position. As the country unrelentingly refuses to negotiate an end to the war with Russia on the open orders of Washington and London, Ukraine does not want to weaken its coastal defenses around Odessa. However, at the same time, it has been exposed that Ukraine’s Black Sea mines are responsible for halts in the export of wheat, and not Russia’s naval blockade as Western leaders, officials and media led to us to believe for months.
Despite offering a way out of the emerging food crisis by calling for the demining of the Black Sea and the creation of a maritime safe corridor, Ukraine Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko tweeted on Wednesday that the words of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov “are empty.”
“Ukraine has made its position on the seaports clear,” Nikolenko tweeted. “Military equipment is required to protect the coastline and a navy mission to patrol the export routes in the Black Sea. Russia cannot be allowed to use grain corridors to attack southern Ukraine.”
As Kiev stubbornly continues to carry out the demands of the US and UK, it appears that the establishment of a safe corridor for the export of grain from Ukraine will not emerge anytime soon, thus artificially creating a global food crisis that can be relatively easy to resolve, despite the inevitability of high wheat prices. Most disingenuously though is the continued portrayal that Ukraine is not responsible for the halt of exports, however, even this has been exposed to the point that Western media cannot ignore Kiev’s refusal to demine its coast.
Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.
June 10, 2022
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Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | Russia, Ukraine |
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Samizdat – 09.06.2022
An Iranian tanker carrying oil was stopped off the Greek coast at the request of the US, based on unilateral sanctions targeting Iran’s oil trade. Tehran condemned Athens for bending to Washington’s orders and lambasted the impounding as an act of state piracy.
A Greek Appeals court overruled an earlier ruling that had prompted impounding of Iranian tanker Lana’s oil cargo in favour of the US, Iran’s embassy in Athens has stated. The confiscation of the cargo was earlier appealed by Tehran.
It is unclear if either Athens or the US will be challenging the decision of the Appeals court, however, an anonymous source claimed in an interview with Reuters that it might not be easy to achieve.
“The action for the reversal of the ruling was accepted by the court. It will be hard to overrule [the appeal court’s ruling]”, the legal source claimed.
The oil in question was removed from Luna to another vessel hired by the US authorities in May as the court was still reviewing Tehran’s appeal. It was then supposed to be moved to the US, but it is unclear if the ship transporting the Iranian oil, which now must be returned to the owner, has reached US shores.
Iran’s embassy in Greece expressed hope that the crude can still be returned. The embassy said that it is conducting “intensive consultations” with Athens to “ensure full implementation” of the court’s latest ruling.
“With God’s grace, the entire oil shipment will be returned [to Iran],” the embassy said.
The tanker Luna itself has since been released and arrested by Greek authorities again. The first time the ship was arrested was in April in a response to the order coming from the US, which slapped sanctions on Iran’s oil industry and now hunts for its oil tankers around the world. The second arrest, however, is related to unpaid towing services, according to report by Reuters citing a lawyer representing an unnamed company behind the arrest order.
Iran condemned the actions of Athens, equalling them to state piracy and vowing to respond. Several weeks later Iran seized two Greek ships sailing on the fringes of Iranian national waters, accusing both of “maritime violations”. Athens slammed the arrest of the ships sailing under its flag, while several media outlets alleged that their arrest could have been a retaliation for impounding Luna’s cargo.
Press TV – June 9, 2022
The secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) says the change in Greece’s approach to illegal confiscation of an Iranian tanker on the US order proves that retaliatory measure is the best way to protect the country against bullying.
Ali Shamkhani made the remark in a Thursday tweet after reports indicated that a Greek court has overturned an earlier ruling that allowed the United States to confiscate part of a shipment of Iranian crude on an Iranian-flagged vessel seized in the European country’s territorial waters.
“The action for the reversal of the ruling was accepted by the court,” a source familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. “It will be hard to overrule that (the appeal court’s ruling).”
The change in Greece’s behavior came after Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) retaliated Athens’ measure by seizing two Greek ships in the Persian Gulf for violations of rules and regulations. Tehran had already announced that it was going to take “punitive action” against Athens.
Reacting to the Greek court’s verdict, Shamkhani said, “The change in Greece’s behavior following Iran’s proportionate and powerful reaction to illegal seizure of its tanker on the US’ order, along with scores of other experiences, proves that the sole way to defend the country’s rights in the face of bullying, both in the case of JCPOA and in the [International Atomic Energy] Agency is retaliatory measure.”
Iran’s embassy in Athens on Thursday confirmed that the Greek Appeals court has overturned the initial ruling on the confiscation of Iranian oil following intensive follow-up.
“With God’s grace, the entire oil shipment will be returned [to Iran],” the embassy tweeted.
It added that the issue will remain on the agenda of “intensive consultations” between Iran and Greece to “ensure full implementation of the ruling.”
The embassy emphasized that preserving the Iranian nation’s rights is a red line.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry late last month summoned the Greek chargé d’affaires to protest the seizure of the Iranian-flagged vessel and confiscation of its crude cargo.
The ministry official condemned Greece’s “unacceptable” surrender to “illegal” US pressures and said the “seizure of the cargo of the ship” with the flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran was “an example of international piracy.”
June 9, 2022
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Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | Greece, Iran, Sanctions against Iran, United States |
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Ukraine has rejected calls from Russia to de-mine its ports around the Black Sea to resume grain shipments, accusing Moscow of trying to “attack” the port of Odessa, the largest seaport in the crisis-stricken country.
Sergiy Bratchuk, a spokesman for Odessa’s regional administration, in a statement on Wednesday, noted that Russia “dreams of parachuting troops” into the city and that Moscow’s army “wants to attack” Odessa.
“The moment we clear access to the port of Odessa, the Russian fleet will be there,” Bratchuk said. He had earlier said that any exports from Odessa must be “escorted by NATO countries.”
His remarks followed a statement by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday about de-mining the Ukrainian ports.
“To solve the problem, the only thing needed is for the Ukrainians to let vessels out of their ports, either by de-mining them or by marking out safe corridors, nothing more is required,” Lavrov said.
Speaking alongside Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, Lavrov said the main problem was that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had “categorically refused” to resolve the issue of the mined ports.
“If they’ve now changed their position, then on our side there are no complications, let’s see how the preliminary agreements we discussed yesterday and today can be put into practice,” Lavrov stressed.
Defense ministers of Russia and Turkey discussed a potential grain export corridor from Ukraine on Tuesday, according to reports.
Russia’s Sergei Shoigu and Turkey’s Hulusi Akar evaluated “all measures that can be taken regarding the safe shipment of grains, sunflower, and all other agricultural products,” according to the Turkish ministry.
Turkey, a NATO member, shares a sea border with both Russia and Ukraine in the Black Sea. Ankara has offered its services to accompany maritime convoys from Ukrainian ports.
Ukraine, one of the world’s biggest exporters of grain, has not been able to export the commodity since the onset of the conflict in the country in late February. Kiev and the West accuse Russia of creating the risk of global famine by shutting Ukraine’s Black Sea ports.
The West has also accused Russia of blocking Ukrainian grain exports from the Black Sea.
Russia, however, says no action was required on the Russian side because it had already made the necessary commitments to solve the problem.
Moscow has also denied responsibility for the international food crisis, blaming Western sanctions.
The West’s unprecedented sanctions against Russia have sent the prices of grain, cooking oil, fertilizers, and energy skyrocketing.
In a separate statement on Wednesday, the Kremlin said that for Russian grain to be delivered to international markets, sanctions on the country must be lifted.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there have been “no substantive discussions” about lifting the sanctions.
Russia and Ukraine together produce virtually 30 percent of the global wheat supply.
President Vladimir Putin of Russia also reassured earlier this week that his government would “guarantee” peaceful passage to ships leaving Ukraine’s ports.
Ukraine, which is a major exporter of corn, barley, sunflower oil, and rapeseed oil, used to export most of its goods through its main ports on the Black and Azov seas. But it has been forced to export by train or via its small Danube River ports since February.
Since the war in Ukraine, wheat and corn prices have jumped 41 percent and 28 percent, respectively,
Experts warn that rising food prices and shortages in the fragile emerging markets in Africa and West Asia could lead to a humanitarian disaster.
Last month, the Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov said difficulties in the global food market have been building up for a long time, but “the crisis was further exacerbated due to the introduction by Washington and its satellites of illegitimate sanctions against Russia.”
Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine in late February, following Kiev’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements and Moscow’s recognition of the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.
At the time, Russian President Vladimir Putin said one of the goals of what he called a “special military operation” was to “de-Nazify” Ukraine.
June 8, 2022
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Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | Africa, Middle East, Ukraine |
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Government officials in Ireland recently wargamed a fuel crisis scenario wherein fuel had to be rationed, and companies were told to enforce mandatory work-from-home orders to reduce consumption.
According to an exclusive exposé from the Irish Independent, participants convened in a confidential meeting on May 27 at the National Emergency Co-ordination Centre to participate in a hypothetical “Oil Emergency Exercise” wherein Ireland faced 20 per cent diesel supply deficits in September and a 35 per cent supply drop in December.
“The third and most extreme scenario proposed for February 2023 is where gas and oil supplies cannot meet the demand for electricity generation or farmers [are] preparing to cut silage,” reports the Irish Independent.
In such a situation, participants of the wargame agreed the following measures would need to be taken:
- The government would impose a work-from-home mandate for “non-essential” workers.
- The government would impose travel bans on “non-essential car travel.”
- Speed limits would be imposed on various roads
- Fuel rationing would begin, with a firm limit set on individual purchases — likely irrespective of automobile or necessity.
- And a curious “emergency scheme” would be implemented to see people with odd-numbered license plates alternating refuelling days with people with even-numbered plates.
Participants of the exercise included the Department of the Environment, Climate, and Communications (DECC), the National Oil Reserves Agency (NORA), Fuels for Ireland (FFI), and the Department of Transport and National Emergency Coordination Group (NECG).
Speaking to the Irish Independent, Fuels for Ireland CEO Kevin McPartlan said, “While it remains highly unlikely that we will experience a reduced supply of fuel, it is prudent that we and Government engage in emergency planning.”
“As things stand, despite the invasion of Ukraine and the announcement of sanctions prohibiting the importation of Russian fuel into the EU, our stock levels are very healthy, and we see no cause for concern in our supply pipeline.”
Despite there being some prospects for oil extraction off the coast of Ireland, in 2021, Ireland shot itself in the proverbial foot, with the government banning all licenses for new oil and natural gas exploration as part of a plan to hit the mythical net-zero carbon emissions mark.
As per a government announcement, Climate Change minister Eamon Ryan said, “The decision we have made today to legislate for a ban on new oil exploration and extraction will send a powerful message, within Ireland and internationally, that Ireland is moving away from fossil fuels towards a renewable future. By keeping fossil fuels in the ground, we will incentivize the transition to renewable energy and put ourselves on a pathway to net-zero by 2050.”
Indeed, despite global trends all pointing towards the need to ramp up oil production and refinement, Ireland, along with other countries, has committed itself to hamper its very means of survival in the wake of mass inflation and shortages.
June 7, 2022
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Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | Ireland |
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Samizdat | June 6, 2022
President Joe Biden has blamed Russia for another crisis, saying the US might not be able to generate enough electricity to meet consumer demand partly because of Moscow’s military offensive against Ukraine.
The president declared an energy emergency on Monday, saying national security and quality of life are jeopardized by potential shortfalls in power supplies. He invoked the Defense Production Act – originally part of an industrial mobilization effort in response to the Korean War – to spur domestic production of solar panels and other forms of “clean” energy to boost power supplies.
“Multiple factors are threatening the ability of the United States to provide sufficient electricity generation to serve expected customer demand,” Biden said in his emergency declaration. “These factors include disruptions of energy markets caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and extreme weather events exacerbated by climate change.”
Increased reliance on renewable energy sources has been blamed for disruptions to power service in such states as California and Texas. Solar and wind power are intermittent, so periods of high demand aren’t always matched by supplies. For instance, wind turbines froze up during an historic winter freeze last year in Texas, contributing to blackouts that caused 246 deaths and at least $195 billion in damage.
Biden’s emergency declaration included a two-year exemption from tariffs on solar panels from four Southeast Asian countries. The proposed tariffs had been blamed for delaying major solar projects in the US. About three-fourths of the solar modules installed in the US are imported from Southeast Asia.
The president has blamed Russia for record US fuel prices and a surge in inflation to a 40-year high. He’s also attributed a looming global food crisis to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
June 6, 2022
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Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | California, Texas, United States |
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Samizdat | June 6, 2022
Authorities in Warsaw have allowed citizens to forage for firewood in forests to keep their homes heated amid spiralling energy costs. Poland is in the midst of a coal shortage after banning Russian imports.
“It is always possible, with the consent of foresters, to collect branches for fuel,” Deputy Minister of Climate and Energy Edward Siarka was quoted by Next Gazeta as saying on Monday.
Those wishing to gather wood must first undergo training and obtain permission from the local forestry unit. The report went on to clarify that people can only take branches already lying on the ground, and cannot cut down trees.
“Only branches can be gathered. At the same time, the collected branches cannot be thicker than seven centimeters,” said Katowice Directorate of State Forestry official Marek Mroz.
He explained that branches should be taken to the local forester, who will issue an invoice. Collectors will have to pay between seven and 30 zlotys ($7.02) for approximately 0.25 cubic meters of firewood.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki’s government has blamed the war in Ukraine for skyrocketing energy costs. Critics, however, say the conflict is only partially to blame, arguing that costs have risen for the past seven years. Inflation in Poland has climbed to 14% in recent weeks, with fuel prices hitting 8 zlotys ($1.87) per liter.
Demand for raw materials in Poland has far exceeded domestic output since a ban on Russian coal was imposed. Throughout the military conflict in Ukraine, Warsaw has been calling for a complete embargo on Russian energy. In March, the EU nation said it would end all Russian energy imports, including oil, gas, and coal by the end of 2022.
According to media reports, Poland’s wood imports from Russia and Belarus stopped completely at the outbreak of the conflict, and those from Ukraine have fallen by around 75%.
June 6, 2022
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Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Russophobia | Poland |
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Head of Hezbollah’s Executive Council Sayyed Hashem Safieddine stressed on Sunday that the United States is the first side to blame for preventing Lebanon from gas drilling.
In a local ceremony in south Lebanon, Sayyed Safieddine said “Lebanon has potentials to extract gas and oil off its shores,” calling on the Lebanese state not to subdue to all forms of pressures exerted by foreign sides in this regards.
The Hezbollah official called on the Lebanese state to officially announce the Lebanese maritime borders and the disputed areas, “in order for the Resistance, Army and People to throng together and retrieve Lebanon’s rights regardless of the US stance.”
Sayyed Safieddine in this regard, stressed the importance of Lebanese unity in order to cope with the country’s political and economic crises.
“Resistance is the only choice to defend Lebanon’s wealth and preserve our victories,” he said in remarks carried by Al-Manar.
June 6, 2022
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Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | Hezbollah, Lebanon, United States, Zionism |
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When President Biden talks, there may or may not be any connection between what he says and the real world. Yes, you need to give every politician some leeway, since most of what any politician says will fall in the general realm of political exaggeration or hyperbole. But even within the disreputable category of politicians, Biden can take the lack of connection with reality to a whole new level.
You may have your own favorite among Biden’s preposterous statements. For me, the very most preposterous is one that he has been making repeatedly for the past several months, namely that his energy plans, including expansion of wind and solar electricity generation together with fossil fuel suppression, will save American families the very specific amount of $500 per year each. This claim has popped up in multiple places and multiple formulations. One example came in the State of the Union speech back in March, where Biden said, “Let’s cut energy costs for families an average of $500 a year by combatting climate change.”
It’s just not possible for anyone who thinks about the subject for even a few minutes to believe that building more and more wind and solar generation facilities as our primary sources of energy will do anything other than vastly increase the costs of energy for the American people. Even in the early phases of the process, where wind and solar generation are well less than half of electricity generation (and electricity is then only about a third of total energy consumption), you obviously need full backup from some dispatchable source, almost always fossil fuels, to make your electricity grid work. That means that you will come to have two fully redundant electricity generation systems, when previously you had only one to produce the same amount of electricity. Two fully redundant systems can’t possibly be cheaper than just one. Then, if you insist on phasing out the fossil fuel backup and replacing it with battery or some other storage, you have to add the cost of that storage to the mix. Readers here know that the cost of backing up wind and solar electricity generation with battery storage is truly monumental, potentially a large multiple of the entire U.S. GDP. For more on that subject, see some of my prior posts, for example here and here.
And this is not just a question of models and projections that can be debated. As more and more wind and solar generation facilities have been added to the electrical grid in various places, the inevitable dramatic rise in cost to the consumer has in fact occurred. Steven Hayward at PowerLine in a post on Wednesday reproduces graphs showing the results for two of the most enthusiastic adopters of the wind and sun for electricity, California and Australia. Here is the chart for California:
As California has added more and more wind and solar generation, its electricity rates to the consumer have followed a sharply increasing pattern, up some 58.3% from 2008 to 2021. Even after adding all that renewable capacity, the percent of California’s electricity production from the wind and sun in 2020 was still only about a third, according to a February 2022 Report from the California Energy Commission. Thus California has not yet even begun to confront the challenge of phasing out fossil fuel production and trying to back up its electricity grid with batteries — that will occur when the percentage of electricity from intermittent renewables gets past 50%. But note that dotted red line near the bottom of the chart: the 41 states with “low penetration” of wind and solar generation only had rate increases of 9.5% between 2008 and 2021.
And here’s the chart for Australia:
After declining gradually for decades, Australia’s consumer electricity prices have about doubled since 2005. The doubling coincides with the rapid addition of new wind and solar generation facilities since that time. And as with California, Australia’s generation from the intermittent renewables remains well below 50% of electricity generation, meaning that again the vast cost increases inherent in phasing out fossil fuel backup have not yet begun to hit to any significant degree.
Similar patterns of electricity prices soaring as renewable generation increases can be found in other places with high penetration of renewables, for example Germany and Denmark.
With these data and plenty more like them out there, Biden continues to double down on his assertion of the supposed $500 per family per year “savings” from his plan for green energy transition. In a an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal on May 30, Biden put it this way:
A dozen CEOs of America’s largest utility companies told me earlier this year that my plan would reduce the average family’s annual utility bills by $500 and accelerate our transition from energy produced by autocrats.
That line finally got the Washington Post’s “fact checker,” Glenn Kessler, on the job. Kessler’s June 2 piece has the headline “Biden’s fantastical claim of $500 in annual utility savings.” Kessler started by tracking down a White House transcript of the meeting that Biden held in February with the group of utility executives. There was no mention at all of a supposed $500 projected saving in “annual utility bills”:
But when we located the transcript of Biden’s conversation with utility executives on Feb. 9, we found no reference to $500 in utility savings. The figure was also not mentioned in the White House readout of the meeting.
When Kessler asked the White House for the source of Biden’s number, he was then referred to a report of something called Rhodium Group that projected an approximate $500 per household saving by 2030 not from lower utility bills, but largely from consumers switching to electric cars. Putting aside for a moment whether consumers switching to electric cars could save anybody any money as the government strives to destroy the electrical grid, Kessler points to these obvious flaws in Biden’s statement:
But he didn’t hear that [$500 figure] from utility executives. And the report he is citing is not about household utility-bill savings. Most of the claimed savings comes from the reduced cost of driving. And the estimate is for 2030 — when he would no longer be president, even if he served a second term.
Kessler then awards Biden four Pinocchios. And that’s without even figuring out that Biden’s plan to add more wind and solar to the grid is guaranteed to make electricity prices soar.
June 5, 2022
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Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | California, Joe Biden, United States |
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A report commissioned by the United Kingdom (UK) government says the entire country will need to ban most air travel within ten years and all air travel by 2050 to abide by impossibly lofty climate change laws.
“In her last significant act as Prime Minister, Theresa May changed the UK’s Climate Change Act to commit us to eliminating all greenhouse gas emissions in the UK by 2050. This decision is based on good climate-science, was a response to a great wave of social protest and has been replicated in 60 other countries already,” the Absolute Zero report commissioned by the UK government explains.
According to the authors of the report, the only way that the UK government can meet their Absolute Zero obligations is to phase out all air travel, implementing an outright ban in 2050 until such a time as the government can conceive of a means of producing planes that produce zero greenhouse gases at any point during an aircraft’s production or use.
It shouldn’t need to be stated, but this is absolutely impossible.
Nonetheless, the authors say that “All airports except Heathrow, Glasgow and Belfast [will] close” between 2020-2029 and “All remaining airports [will] close” by 2050.
The authors continue, saying that under the current legislation, the following changes to daily life will need to be taken as all will be illegal in 2050: stop using aeroplanes; end all shipping; take the train, not the car; rideshare; use an electric vehicle; reduce energy consumption, including and especially heating; reduce fertilizer use; reduce cement and steel use and imports, etc.
The authors say that progressively limiting red meat consumption will also be necessary, as lamb and beef will be outlawed in the UK by 2050.
“In addition, obeying the law of our Climate Change Act requires that we stop doing anything that causes emissions regardless of its energy source. This requires that we stop eating beef and lamb – ruminants who release methane as they digest grass – and already many people have started to switch to more vegetarian diets,” the report reads.
This is quite an astounding proposal, as the authors say that under the climate change legislation, all fertilizer use will need to be “greatly reduced,” as will all processed foods, and the total energy required to cook or transport food must be reduced by 60 per cent of today’s levels.
So, the UK will not produce meat, will not use fertilizer to produce vegetables, will reduce other food imports to avoid greenhouse gas emissions, and will not produce or import processed food as a substitute.
It isn’t clear what, if anything, the authors and the government expect the people of the United Kingdom will eat in 2050. By all accounts, this appears to be a policy of misery and death.
June 5, 2022
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Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | UK |
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Great Britain has adopted an ambitious climate and energy policy. By 2050 all CO2 emissions are to be eliminated from the British Isles and Prime Minister Johnson wants to make Great Britain a model country for the energy transition. As early as 2019, the British climate targets were formulated in a comprehensive report entitled “Absolute Zero”.
The report is updated at irregular intervals. This time the tone of the authors has changed. They are now pointing out that the ambitious goals can only be achieved through drastic adjustments and changes in behavior.
The report offers a formidable refutation of the case that a solution to the climate emergency exists in the form of breakthrough technologies. The report’s lead author, Julian Allwood, Professor of Engineering and the Environment at the University of Cambridge, stressed that no new technologies were available to replace our current energy needs.
“In the age of climate emergency, one of the central myths that breeds complacency is that breakthrough technologies will gallop to the rescue, when instead we require radical action,” Allwood said.
Specifically, in order to meet its Absolute Zero commitments, the UK government has no choice but to phase out all air travel by 2050 and then impose a total ban – until a way is found to produce aircraft that do not generate greenhouse gases at any time during manufacture or use.
The authors further specify their forecast to the effect that “all airports except Heathrow, Glasgow and Belfast should be closed between 2020 and 2029” and “all other remaining airports should be closed by 2050”.
But that’s not all. If the current legislation remains in force, further drastic changes in daily life would have to be made, since they would be illegal in 2050: no longer use airplanes; cease all shipping traffic; use the train instead of the car; use carpooling; use an electric vehicle; reduce energy consumption, including heating; reduce the use of fertilizers; reducing the use of cement and steel, imports etc. It will also be imperative to limit or ban the consumption of red meat as lamb and beef will be banned in the UK in the future.
“Additionally, to comply with the Climate Change Act, we must refrain from anything that causes emissions, regardless of the energy source. This requires that we refrain from eating beef and lamb,” the report states.
German-speaking public kept in the dark
It’s also worth taking a look at “Absolute Zero” for Germans, because the German climate protection requirements are very similar to the British ones. The only thing is that the inevitable consequences of a draconian climate policy are being hidden from voters.
In Austria, skyrocketing fuel prices and a decidedly car-hostile traffic policy are paralyzing car traffic. But those who switch to the train and prefer public transport are often left out in the rain these days in the truest sense of the word.
Since the introduction of the climate ticket, there are no longer enough seats on the trains. Hundreds of people traveling and commuting have already been expelled from the train because there is no space for them. Instead of purchasing new train sets and expanding the offer with foresight, it was simply made cheaper in accordance with the green doctrine and on behalf of Black-Green coalition, in order to celebrate this catastrophe with higher utilization figures as a “success” in the end.
Parking space brawls
In Vienna, this policy has led to even further extremes. The shortage of parking spaces there recently led to a mass brawl among Ukrainians.
The problem is home-made: For years it has been observed how the previous city administrations kept reducing parking spaces. This happened in part through opting for “bicycle parking spaces” or art installations that are not used by anyone and are only noticed by drivers looking for a parking space.
With the Ukraine crisis, the move was made to allow refugees to park for free, wherever they wanted, until May.
They were then deprived of this luxury and Range Rovers, Porsches and other expensive wheels now vie for the already scarce parking spaces. In line with the “sustainability” of Agenda 2030, people are first deprived of their freedom and self-determination of individual transport, in order to then banish them to train stations from which they cannot be transported to any destination due to a lack of capacity.
Fly-shaming
In Sweden, a movement was formed in 2018 to have a hundred thousand people sign up and pledge not to fly for a year. That led to ‘flight-shaming’ [flygskam]. As a result, if one looks at national statistics on take-offs in Sweden, the domestic ones have fallen and the government has responded by promising to invest more in rail as an alternative to aviation. Except that trains do not cross oceans.
Led by a small group of celebrities, including Olympic winter gold medallist Bjorn Ferry and the musician Malena Ernman, who also happens to be climate activist Greta Thunberg’s mother, their “commitment” to give up flying forced Swedes to comply.
The Facebook group’s Jag flyger inte – för klimatets skull [I’m not flying – for the sake of the climate] campaign managed to lower the number of international flights at Swedish airports by 4 percent within a year.
June 5, 2022
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Civil Liberties, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Science and Pseudo-Science | Human rights, UK |
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Samizdat | June 4, 2022
Gas prices began to climb soon after the 2020 election, with President Joe Biden blaming Covid, and then Vladimir Putin, and insisting that his administration’s policies had nothing to do with the situation. The Russian president dismissed Biden’s claims, saying Western ruling elites’ greed, “mistakes, myopia and ambitions” were responsible.
The national average price of a gallon of gasoline has officially more than doubled under President Biden, climbing from $2.39 a gallon on 20 January 2021 to $4.81 a gallon as of Saturday, the American Automobile Association (AAA) has reported.
According to the AAA’s national stats, Californians are paying the most, with the state’s retail price averaging $6.29 a gallon. Meanwhile, observers in northern California outside San Francisco spotted prices as high as a whopping $9.60 a gallon for regular on Friday afternoon. Georgia enjoys the lowest average prices in the union, with its residents paying $4.25 per gallon on average.
For perspective, the Ford F-150, America’s best-selling vehicle, has a 23-gallon fuel tank, meaning that someone who owns one in California would have to spend nearly $145 to fill ‘er-up. Georgian F-150 owners, meanwhile, would have to fork out about $97.75.
Gas prices unexpectedly became a top concern for the Biden administration amid the looming November midterms, with the White House tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve this week and expressing support for an OPEC move to boost global output after spending months trying to blame forces outside its ability to control and foreign governments.
Republicans place the blame squarely at the feet of Biden and the Democrats, suggesting that the ruling party’s federal spending programmes and ill-considered push away from hydrocarbons toward renewable energy were responsible.
“Joe Biden’s war on American energy has forced families across the country to empty their wallets to fill their tanks,” RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement.
“Unfortunately, Biden is doubling down on his disastrous agenda because he’s not the one paying the price – the American people are.”
Biden Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre deflected the administration’s responsibility in a briefing on Tuesday, blaming a resurgent pandemic and Putin. “This – when we talk about the gas prices right now, this is indeed Putin’s gas hike. This is what we have seen in the most recent months of what we’ve seen at the gas pump. And so, that is a fact,” she said.
The Russian president addressed attempts by Biden and other Western leaders to blame him and Moscow for the inflation, food and fuel crunch facing the US and its European allies. “The truth is that the current problems that millions of people in the West face are the result of many actions by the ruling elites of their states, their mistakes, myopia and ambitions. These elites are not thinking about how to improve the lives of their citizens. They are obsessed with their own selfish interests and surplus profits,” Putin said in a briefing back in March.
June 4, 2022
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | United States |
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