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‘Ahuman Manifesto’: The Final Solution to Climate Change

By Robert Bradley Jr. | Master Resource | February 10, 2020

“This book is a delightful provocation and invitation: to imagine a world without humans and to think of what we can do to get there. It is an urgent call for action.”

― Christine Daigle, Professor of Philosophy, Brock University, Canada

Here you go: the “final solution” to climate change. This book is a glimpse of where the climate road to serfdom ends. (And it is not, I repeat not, a Babylon Bee satire.)

The Ahuman Manifesto: Activism for the End of the Anthropocene” by Patricia MacCormack (Bloomsbury Academic: 2020) is self-described as follows:

We are in the midst of a growing ecological crisis. Developing technologies and cultural interventions are throwing the status of “human” into question.

It is against this context that Patricia MacCormack delivers her expert justification for the “ahuman.” An alternative to “posthuman” thought, the term paves the way for thinking that doesn’t dissolve into nihilism and despair, but actively embraces issues like human extinction, vegan abolition, atheist occultism, death studies, a refusal of identity politics, deep ecology, and the apocalypse as an optimistic beginning.

In order to suggest vitalistic, perhaps even optimistic, ways to negotiate some of the difficulties in thinking and acting in the world, this book explores five key contemporary themes:

· Identity
· Spirituality
· Art
· Death
· The apocalypse

Collapsing activism, artistic practice and affirmative ethics, while introducing some radical contemporary ideas and addressing specifically modern phenomena like death cults, intersectional identity politics and capitalist enslavement of human and nonhuman organisms to the point of ‘zombiedom’, The Ahuman Manifesto navigates the ways in which we must compose the human differently, specifically beyond nihilism and post- and trans-humanism and outside human privilege. This is so that we can actively think and live viscerally, with connectivity (actual not virtual), and with passion and grace, toward a new world.

Four positive pre-publication reviews are shared:

“Patricia MacCormack goes relentessly beyond ‘just’ deconstructing anthropocentrism and dismantling multispecies extinction caused by human dominance in the Anthropocene. The manifesto is not only theorizing, but compassionately calling for direct abolitionist action for the other at the expense of the (human) self. Trembling with joyful energy and critically affirmative insights, this manifesto encourages us to engage in ahuman arts & activist practices, inspired by queer feminist (secular) spirituality, and death activism.” ―Nina Lykke, Professor of Gender Studies, Linköping University, Sweden

“This beautiful book is both a passionate, insightful meditation on the world we actually live in, and a radical call to action. Is it even possible for us to stop being human, to let multiple beings flourish without reducing them to means for our own selfish ends? Reading this book, thinking with it and about it, and responding openly to it, is absolutely essential.” ―Steven Shaviro, DeRoy Professor of English, Wayne State University, USA

“Patricia MacCormack’s splendid refusal to nuance her intent in The Ahuman Manifesto will both intrigue and infuriate. As a vegan abolitionist/extinctionist, she provides an unrelenting and exacting take down of the violent self-interest of the human species, and offers a call to ethical action best described as eating the Anthropocene.” ―Margrit Shildrick, Guest Professor of Gender and Knowledge Production, Stockholm University, Sweden

“This book is a delightful provocation and invitation: to imagine a world without humans and to think of what we can do to get there. It is an urgent call for action. A joyful, lucid, fiercely intelligent call to readers to hope and work for a future not for themselves, but for the thriving of all nonhuman life. Engaging with this book will be a transformative experience. One cannot see the world or oneself in the same way after reading it.” ―Christine Daigle, Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Posthumanism Research Institute, Brock University, Canada

A writeup by Alisair Ryder in Cambridge News, “‘The only solution for climate change is letting the human race become extinct,’” describes the book and author as follows:

Patricia MacCormack, a professor of continental philosophy at Anglia Ruskin University, has just released her new book The Ahuman Manifesto, which will officially be launched in Cambridge today (Wednesday, February 5).

The book argues that due to the damage done to other living creatures on Earth, we should start gradually phasing out reproduction. But rather than offering a bleak look at the future of humanity, it has generated discussion due to its joyful and optimistic tone, as it sets out a positive view for the future of Earth – without mankind.

It also touches on several hot-button topics, from religion and veganism to the concept of identity politics, tying these into how the creation of a hierarchal world among humans has left us blind to the destruction we are causing to our habitat and other forms of life.

Speaking to CambridgeshireLive, Professor MacCormack outlined how she came to this point of view, and how these ideas are not as provocative as they may initially sound.

She said: “I arrived at this idea from a couple of directions. I was introduced to philosophy due to my interest in feminism and queer theory, so reproductive rights have long been an interest to me – this led me to learn more about animal rights, which is when I became vegan.

“The basic premise of the book is that we’re in the age of the Anthropocene, humanity has caused mass problems and one of them is creating this hierarchal world where white, male, heterosexual and able-bodied people are succeeding, and people of different races, genders, sexualities and those with disabilities are struggling to get that.

“This is where the idea of dismantling identity politics comes in – they deserve rights not because of what they are, but because they are.

“The book also argues that we need to dismantle religion, and other overriding powers like the church of capitalism or the cult of self, as it makes people act upon enforced rules rather than respond thoughtfully to the situations in front of them.”

The central argument in The Ahuman Manifesto can be boiled down to this: mankind is already enslaved to the point of “zombiedom” by capitalism, and because of the damage this has caused, phasing out reproduction is the only way to repair the damage done to the world.

Additionally, humanity has to see it isn’t the single living dominant force – but first, it needs to dismantle an established hierarchy amongst itself. This argument has not received as much disagreement as you might expect.

Professor MacCormack continued: “Everyone’s okay with the ideas in the book until they’re told they’d have to act on it. There is a lot of agreement that these changes might work for the world, but when it imposes on people, it becomes proactive.

“Many people are surprised it’s so joyful and it has this radical compassion, which cares for the world. It’s not about our death, so much as it’s about celebrating the tools that exist to care for a decelerating Earth.

“People wonder why I don’t think humans are exceptional, dominant beings – but when I ask them why they think that, I never get a good answer back. The way we perceive the world isn’t the only one, we never think about animal life.

“Even Extinction Rebellion only focus on the effect this will have on human life when climate change is something that will affect every living being on the planet.

This worldview of hopelessness, victimization, and human-hate is truly the end of the road to serfdom. It is the final solution with all of humankind, not just one race or creed, in the balance.

February 11, 2020 Posted by | Book Review, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Save the planet & die alone: Swedish prof says we should ditch pet cats & dogs, for climate’s sake

By Helen Buyniski | RT | February 10, 2020

With human populations already on the decline in the West, climate-conscious academics have now taken aim at carnivorous pets. But even if ditching canine and feline companionship helps save the planet, is the loneliness worth it?

A Swedish agricultural studies professor has joined the growing chorus of environmentally-conscious academics scolding pet owners about their four-legged friends’ carbon pawprints. Cats and dogs eat meat, which produces significant emissions, and therefore should be replaced with herbivorous pets when possible, Sigrid Agenäs recently told Swedish outlet Expressen. While Agenäs does not join her more militant colleagues in insisting cat and dog owners attempt to feed their pets a vegan diet – a death sentence for cats, and a risk to dogs’ health for the uninitiated in canine nutrition – anyone who owns a carnivorous pet can testify that it is not as simple as trading in Fluffy for a goat or rabbit. They aren’t called “fur babies” for nothing – cats and dogs are increasingly the only living things keeping humans company in ever-more-atomized industrial societies.

Why are the climate militia setting their sights on pets? Birth rates are plummeting in Europe and the US, where record low fertility has long since dipped past the rate needed for the population to replace itself. While this trend was underway long before the climate brigade came along demanding women put off childbearing to save the planet, enough celebrities have taken up that line of argument that they can claim it as a victory and move on to people’s four-legged children.

But if pets are one of the last things standing between an increasingly large slice of humanity and utter alienation – and if, as medical experts are saying, loneliness is truly worse than obesity in predicting future health problems – those who would replace our cats with goats are asking us to make a very difficult choice.

As we get used to the lonely green future without our furry friends, we can take comfort in the fact that we’ve kept planet-wide warming to a manageable level, though, right? Not quite – the carbon footprint of the world’s domesticated cats and dogs pales in comparison to that of the US military, for example, which produces more emissions than most countries. Why, with elephants like this in the room, is the environmental movement setting its sights on dogs and cats? Aren’t we already lonely enough?

It’s not an idle question when nearly four out of five members of Generation Z report that they are lonely, more even than their notoriously disaffected older siblings the millennials (“only” seven in 10 of whom report feeling loneliness). More than any other issue, Generation Z is concerned with climate change, according to a December survey conducted across 22 countries in which 41 percent named the phenomenon as their chief concern; a further 36 percent named pollution. But while “eco-anxiety” likely contributes to the spike in depression and anxiety  witnessed in Generation Z, the future presented as climate-friendly living, with no children, no pets, and an ascetic lifestyle that frowns on any form of carbon-emitting leisure, is liable to overwhelm them with feelings of loneliness.

But the misery that accompanies climate-change doomsaying is probably part of the attraction for some. Extinction Rebellion rallies have all the trappings of religious revivals – some play host to actual religious rituals – and the climate-change-obsessed preaching their low-consumption lifestyles can be likened to medieval devotees wearing hair shirts and whipping themselves in the public square. Guilt-stricken children of privilege can rush to absolve themselves in the eyes of some hypothetical Gaia by eating bugs, gluing themselves to trains, and renouncing the creature comforts their peers take for granted.

And with no children, no pets, and – apparently – no real-life friends to distract today’s young adults from the all-consuming quest to save the planet, environmental groups have never had more fertile recruiting grounds. Political movements the world over have long known that alienation is a feature, not a bug, when it comes to filling their ranks with soon-to-be ideological zealots.

If ditching cats and dogs fails to save the planet, there’s always a silver lining. Before our pets’ carnivorous diets heat Earth beyond habitability, Big Business stands to make a killing in psychiatric medication. After all, loneliness kills – kills worse than smoking, if the experts are to be believed. Generation Z is going to need medical intervention on a grand scale when they come out the other side of this green ‘phase.’

Helen Buyniski is an American journalist and political commentator at RT. Follow her on Twitter @velocirapture23

February 10, 2020 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Poll Results: Climate Is Always Low Priority

There is no evidence that climate change has ever been a top concern for most Americans.

By Donna Laframboise | Big Picture News | February 10, 2020

Recently I reported on a poll that Gallup has conducted in America every month of every year since 2001. Admirably, it makes no attempt to prompt or influence. It asks people to name the most important problem facing the country, then it records their answers.

If one seeks honest, genuine insight into ordinary people’s lives, that’s a great approach.

Pew Research Center, another American polling outfit, conducts a different kind of survey. For 25 years (from 1994 to 2019 inclusive), it has read members of the public a long list of pre-selected topics in random order. People have been asked to attach a label to each one.

Should it be a ‘top priority’ for the President and Congress this year? Should it be a lower priority? Is it unimportant? Does it deserve no attention at all?

In 2007, Pew added ‘global warming’ to this list of potential top priorities. In 2016, it started calling it ‘climate change’ instead.

Last year, 44% of respondents told Pew that ‘Dealing with global climate change’ should be a top priority. That sounds significant until you notice that every single item on the list received at least 39% support.

In such cases, raw percentages are meaningless. What matters is how a topic ranks compared to its fellows. Those results couldn’t be clearer. In 2019, climate change ended up in 17th place out of 18.

70% of people said strengthening the economy should be a top priority.

69% said reducing health care costs should be.

68% said the education system needs attention.

Those are very strong numbers, involving more than than two-thirds of the population. What came next?

4.  ‘Defending the country from future terrorist attacks’ – 67%

5.  ‘Taking steps to make the Social Security system financially sound’ – 67%

6.  ‘Taking steps to make the Medicare system financially sound’ – 67%

7.  ‘Dealing with the problems of poor and needy people’ – 60%

8.  ‘Protecting the environment’ – 56%

9.  ‘Dealing with the issue of immigration’ – 51%

10. ‘Improving the job situation’ – 50%

11. ‘Reducing crime’ – 50%

12. ‘Dealing with drug addiction’ – 49%

13. ‘Reducing the budget deficit’ – 48%

14. ‘Addressing race relations in this country’ – 46%

15. ‘Strengthening the US military’ – 45%

16. ‘Improving the country’s roads, bridges and public transportation systems’ – 45%

17. ‘Dealing with global climate change’ – 44%

18. ‘Dealing with global trade issues’ – 39%

In other words, another long-running US poll tells us the public’s climate concerns are weak. Ask people if they care about it, and many will say ‘yes.’ But they feel more urgency about a long list of other issues.

‘Dealing with global warming’ ended up in second last place in 2007. Between 2008 and 2013, it ranked last (select a year and then ‘Overall’ here). Here’s what happened after that:

2014: second last

2015 second last

2016 third last (the first year Pew began calling it ‘global climate change’)

2017: second last (see bottom of the page)

2018: second last

2019 second last

Moral of the story: There has never been any evidence that climate change is a top concern for most Americans. This is not a crowd pleaser or a vote getter.

February 10, 2020 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

Media’s Horribly Dishonest Antarctica Propaganda

By Jim Steele | Watts Up With That? | February 9, 2020

Attempting to reinforce the climate crisis narrative, a recent high temperature record in Antarctica has been misleadingly ballyhooed as an example of global warming by the world’s largest media outlets – New York Times, BBC, the Guardian, etc. Although the NY Times tries to sell their paper with the slogan “The Truth is Worth It”, their misleading articles suggest you should spend your money elsewhere. These media giants seem more intent on scaring the public and manufacturing a false climate crisis, than educating the public about the real physics that cause weather changes causing Antarctica’s temperature record!

The NY Times wrote, “Antarctica, the coldest, windiest and driest continent on Earth, set a record high temperature on Thursday, underscoring global warming” But the fact that Antarctica is the coldest place on earth, has nothing to do with a temperature record at a single weather station, Esperanza. Esperanza is located at the warmest, most northerly part of the mountainous Antarctica peninsula. Esperanza is most sensitive to El Nino warming. It most sensitive to the southward flow of warm moist subtropical winds. And Esperanza’s topography always amplifies temperatures when winds from the northwest cause foehn wind events. What happened at Esperanza has nothing to do with Antarctica’s overall climate trends, never mind any global warming trend.

The Guardian wrote, Antarctica “is one of the fastest warming places on earth, heating by almost 3°C [5.4°F] over the past 50 years”. However, the Guardian hides the fact they are using zombie data. Recent research shows a cooling trend since the year 2000 and that contradicts any CO2 driven global warming theory.

In the 2016 peer-reviewed paper “Absence of 21st century Warming on Antarctic Peninsula consistent with Natural Variability”, Antarctic climate experts documented that from 1979–1997, Antarctic had indeed experienced the globe’s fastest warming temperatures, increasing by 3.2 °C [5.8 °F] per century. In contrast, from 1999–2014, temperatures then decreased at a rate 4.7 °C [8.5 °F} per century. This strong cooling trend is rarely reported or referred to by media alarmists. Dishonestly, the Guardian ignores the recent cooling trends to suggest a recent one day Esperanza temperature record is “a sign that warming in Antarctica is happening much faster than global average” and “is the foreshadowing of what is to come.” Likewise the NY Times dishonestly claims, “The high temperature is in keeping with the earth’s overall warming trend, which is in large part caused by emissions of greenhouse gases.

The Guardian’s author Graham Readfearn engages in his typical alarmist distortions to write, “Previous research from 2012 found the current rate of warming in the region was almost unprecedented over the past 2000 years.” Really? Almost unprecedented? The paper he refers to actually stated, “Although warming of the northeastern Antarctic Peninsula began around 600 years ago, the high rate of warming over the past century is unusual (but not unprecedented) in the context of natural climate variability over the past two millennia.

The BBC gets the prize for going completely off the rails stating, “Scientists warn that global warming is causing so much melting at the South Pole, it will eventually disintegrate – causing the global sea level to rise by at least three metres (10ft) over centuries.” But there has been no warming trend at the south pole nor in east Antarctica as exemplified by the Dumont D’Urville weather station.

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For those readers who only trust peer reviewed papers, I suggest reading, “Foehn Event Triggered by an Atmospheric River Underlies Record-Setting Temperature Along Continental Antarctica” which thoroughly investigated the causes of the previous 2015 record-setting temperature at Esperanza.

What is a foehn event? Foehn events cause rapid extreme temperature jumps simply due to changes in the air pressure as winds descend from a mountain top. During the 2015 foehn event, Esperanza’s daily temperature jumped from 0°C [32°F] 2 days before, to a record setting 17.5°C [63.5°F]. Elsewhere, Antarctic foehn winds are common and have been extensively studied, often raising maximum temperatures by 10+°C [18+°F] above normal.

As seen in figure “c” below, weather systems in 2015 had driven a warm and humid subtropical air flow from the northwest onto the northern Antarctic Peninsula. That warm air flow raised the western peninsula’s temperatures above normal. Then those winds rose up and over the peninsula’s mountain range amplifying temperatures even further on the east side of the peninsula. As the air rose, its water vapor condensed, both releasing precipitation and releasing latent heat that had further warmed the air. As that warmer and drier air passed over the mountain crest and descended onto Esperanza, temperatures warmed further as air pressure increased temperatures at a rate of over 5°F for every 1000-foot drop in altitude. A typical foehn event.

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As happens in all the earth’s mountainous regions, foehn winds warm the air due to simple physics and well-established gas laws. Warming does not require any added heat from the sun or CO2. During Esperanza’s 2015 record warmth, temperatures had hovered around 0.5°C [0.9 °F] the day before. But as winds from the northwest increased air flow over the peninsula’s mountains, those foehn winds increased Esperanza’s temperatures by 17.5 °C [63.5 °F]. Those same dynamics were in play during the February 2020 record temperature.

In contrast to several paragraphs trying to implicate global warming, the Guardian did offer one sentence hinting at a foehn wind warming, quoting Dr. Renwick: “higher temperatures in the region tended to coincide with strong northwesterly winds moving down mountain slopes – a feature of the weather patterns around Esperanza in recent days.”

Also a quote from Dr Steve Rintoul, an Antarctic expert at CSIRO, admitted: “This is a record from only a single station, but it is in the context of what’s happening elsewhere and is more evidence that as the planet warms we get more warm records and fewer cold records.”

But Rintoul is not sharing all the facts. The current context for the Antarctica Peninsula is that for over a decade it has experienced cooling temperatures driven by natural variability. In fact, glaciers in Esperanza’s region have also expanded. Esperanza’s record temperature simply happened due to foehn winds despite a cooling trend. Unfortunately, the media would rather scare the public to promote a climate crisis, than honestly educate them about the causes of natural climate variability.

Jim Steele is Director emeritus of San Francisco State’s Sierra Nevada Field Campus and authored Landscapes and Cycles: An Environmentalist’s Journey to Climate Skepticism

Contact: naturalclimatechange@earthlink.net

February 9, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

Just Don’t Call It Global Warming! – #PropagandaWatch

Corbett • 02/04/2020

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Watch this video on BitChute / Minds.com / YouTube

Global warming. Climate change. Climate weirding. Climate emergency. What’s in a name? A lot, apparently. So much so, in fact, that the advertising execs over at Ad Age are openly wondering whether they can “rebrand” climate change so it sounds scarier. Yipee!

SHOW NOTES

RENAMING CLIMATE CHANGE: CAN A NEW NAME FINALLY MAKE US TAKE ACTION?

Oxford Word of the Year: “Climate Emergency”… Seriously?

February 5, 2020 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | Leave a comment

Warren blames global warming for cold-loving influenza

CFACT | January 30, 2020

Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren blames global warming for assisting influenza, and warns on her campaign website that President Donald Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord may fuel the next epidemic. This is despite the fact that influenza is greatly assisted by cold temperatures and peer-reviewed studies and objective data show cold temperatures kill far more people than warm or hot temperatures.

Under a tab on her website titled, “Preventing, Containing, and Treating Infectious Disease Outbreaks at Home and Abroad,” Warren states, “Experts believe the world is due for another bout of pandemic influenza. The latest threat comes from coronavirus….” She later adds, “On the global stage, his [President Trump’s] decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement demonstrates reckless denial about the role of climate change in fueling epidemics.”

Yet the National Institutes of Health observes that influenza, “is more infectious in cold winter temperatures than during the warmer months. At winter temperatures, the virus’s outer covering, or envelope, hardens to a rubbery gel that could shield the virus as it passes from person to person, the researchers have found. At warmer temperatures, however, the protective gel melts to a liquid phase. But this liquid phase apparently isn’t tough enough to protect the virus against the elements, and so the virus loses its ability to spread from person to person.”

A Harvard University medical article reports that an average of 200,000 people in the United States get sick with the flu each year and 36,000 people die. Observing that the obvious fact that the flu season occurs during cold winter months, the article notes, “the main reason we have a flu season may simply be that the influenza virus is happier in cold, dry weather and thus better able to invade our bodies.”

Ongoing modest warming has reduced the length of winter and the prevalence of the cold temperatures that assist influenza. It seems rather difficult to blame the next influenza pandemic on global warming, but climate alarmists like Elizabeth Warren sure are trying. Worse, by diverting research, attention and resources away from programs that might actually fight influenza, and instead directing them to climate change programs, Warren’s plan could well cause thousands of additional deaths each year.

February 1, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

Democrat Congressional Committee Demands Google Bury “Climate Misinformation”

By Eric Worrall | Watts Up With That? | January 29, 2020

The U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on the Climate Crisis has demanded Google demonetize climate skeptics, and provide education to millions of people who have been exposed to “dangerous misinformation”.

Letter from Congress

If the letter is not readable on your device, the original link is available here.

The key actions demanded:

  • Stop promoting climate denial and climate disinformation videos by removing them immediately from the platform’s recommendation algorithm.
  • Add ‘climate misinformation’ to the platform’s list of borderline content
  • Stop monetising videos that promote harmful misinformation and falsehoods about the causes and effects of the climate crisis.
  • Take steps to correct the record for millions of users who have been exposed to the climate misinformation on YouTube.

The people who wrote that letter seem to believe ordinary people are too stupid to figure things out for themselves; they think voters have to be guided into making acceptable choices, by experts like the Democrat majority members of The U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on the Climate Crisis.

January 29, 2020 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

Whole Milk Less Fattening Than Skim!

O’Shaughnessy’s Online

Drinking skim or low-fat (1 percent) instead of whole milk seems to promote obesity in children, according to a meta-analysis in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. As summarized by Nicholas Bakalar in the Times :

“Canadian researchers analyzed 14 prospective studies including 20,897 children up to 18 years old. The studies compared children who drank whole milk (3.25 percent fat) with those given milk containing less than 2 percent fat.

“Combining the data from these studies, the scientists calculated that compared with children who drank low-fat milk or skim milk, those who drank whole milk were at a 39 percent reduced risk for overweight or obesity, and the risk for obesity declined steadily as whole milk consumption increased.

“The authors speculate… It may be that children who drink whole milk consume fewer calories from other food. Some studies suggest that milk fat has properties that make people feel full. Reverse causality could also be at play: It’s possible that skinny children have parents who offer them whole milk to fatten them up.

Our vote is for explanation B, milk fat has properties that make people feel full, i.e., satisfied.

January 29, 2020 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | Leave a comment

Cancel Culture Hits Medical Journals

By Donna Laframboise | Big Picture News | January 27, 2020

Much scientific research is now conducted by tribes. Some tribes think certain foods are good for us. Eggs, fat, coffee, dairy, whatever. Other tribes insist their own research shows the opposite.

The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) has just published a shocking account of how the ‘eat red meat sparingly’ tribe tried to make research by a rival tribe disappear.

Last fall, a collection of systematic reviews were published by a prominent journal, the Annals of Internal Medicine (see here, here, here, here, and here). Online publication happened on October 1st, prior to the material appearing in the printed journal in mid-November.

After carefully reviewing scientific evidence concerning meat consumption, the PhDs and medical doctors involved formulated a clinical guideline, aka a nutritional recommendation, which was published at the same time. This was intended to help practicing doctors provide appropriate advice to their patients.

The short version is that most of these researchers (11 votes to 3), believe no reliable evidence justifies telling adults to eat less red meat and less processed meat. As this commentary explains, nutritional research is typically “shaky.” Studies that identify a link between meat consumption and a particular disease usually show tiny increases in risk.

The Annals had taken into account the feedback of peer reviewers both pro and con, and had made its call. To quote editor-in-chief Christine Laine, “the public should know we don’t have great information on diet.”

The JAMA article tells us that, as the Annals was preparing to publish this material online, the anti-meat tribe began mobilizing. An estimated 2,000 vitriolic e-mails flooded into Laine’s inbox during a half-hour period.

Members of an organization called the True Health Initiative contacted her at least twice. They complained about the wording of a press release the journal was circulating about the upcoming research. They also urged her to “preemptively retract publication of these papers” for “the sake of public understanding and public health” (read their letter here).

How did these people react when their outrageous attempts to suppress scientific results failed? Did they start behaving like grownups? Hardly. Instead, they complained to an agency of the US government, the Federal Trade Commission. You can read about that here in their own words.

The anti-meat tribe thinks a government body tasked with ensuring marketplace competition and fair business practices should be second-guessing medical journals. Arguing that the journal’s press release amounted to misleading advertising, their petition asked the Trade Commission to:

permanently prohibit [the Annals of Internal Medicine] from disseminating, or causing the dissemination of the advertisement at issue and require [the journal] to issue a public retraction and corrective statement regarding the advertisement. [bold added]

When that went nowhere, did these people finally start behaving in a civilized manner? I’m afraid not. Their next stop was the Philadelphia district attorney’s office. You know, the prosecutors and detectives tasked with keeping citizens safe from criminals. (The Annals offices are in Philadelphia.)

In their own press release, the anti-meat tribe said the Annals should be investigated for “potential reckless endangerment.” The journal, they insisted, had distributed “dangerous and misleading information.”

The entity that turned first to the Trade Commission and then to the criminal justice system calls itself the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. It’s unofficial motto is: if you can’t persuade people to do what you want, find a third party who’ll compel them to do so. Just kidding. It actually sees itself as leading a “revolution” – based on the idea that plant-based diets “can prevent and even reverse diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure.”

This is a lobby group, an activist organization. According to its own website, only 12,000 of its 175,000 members (7%) are actually physicians.

Welcome to the polarized world of medical publishing. This is how the scientific community now behaves.

To be continued…

January 27, 2020 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

Attenborough’s Arctic Betrayal

GWPF | January 27, 2020

A new video documenting Sir David Attenborough’s inaccurate claims about climate change and Arctic wildlife blames his apocalyptic language and misleading narrative for the dramatic rise in eco anxiety among young people.

January 27, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

America’s most widely consumed oil causes genetic changes in the brain

Soybean oil linked to metabolic and neurological changes in mice

By Jules Bernstein | UC Riverside News | January 17, 2020

New UC Riverside research shows soybean oil not only leads to obesity and diabetes, but could also affect neurological conditions like autism, Alzheimer’s disease, anxiety, and depression.

Used for fast food frying, added to packaged foods, and fed to livestock, soybean oil is by far the most widely produced and consumed edible oil in the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In all likelihood, it is not healthy for humans.

It certainly is not good for mice. The new study, published this month in the journal Endocrinology, compared mice fed three different diets high in fat: soybean oil, soybean oil modified to be low in linoleic acid, and coconut oil.

The same UCR research team found in 2015 that soybean oil induces obesity, diabetes, insulin resistance, and fatty liver in mice. Then in a 2017 study, the same group learned that if soybean oil is engineered to be low in linoleic acid, it induces less obesity and insulin resistance.

However, in the study released this month, researchers did not find any difference between the modified and unmodified soybean oil’s effects on the brain. Specifically, the scientists found pronounced effects of the oil on the hypothalamus, where a number of critical processes take place.

“The hypothalamus regulates body weight via your metabolism, maintains body temperature, is critical for reproduction and physical growth as well as your response to stress,” said Margarita Curras-Collazo, a UCR associate professor of neuroscience and lead author on the study.

The team determined a number of genes in mice fed soybean oil were not functioning correctly. One such gene produces the “love” hormone, oxytocin. In soybean oil-fed mice, levels of oxytocin in the hypothalamus went down.

The research team discovered roughly 100 other genes also affected by the soybean oil diet. They believe this discovery could have ramifications not just for energy metabolism, but also for proper brain function and diseases such as autism or Parkinson’s disease. However, it is important to note there is no proof the oil causes these diseases.

Additionally, the team notes the findings only apply to soybean oil — not to other soy products or to other vegetable oils.

“Do not throw out your tofu, soymilk, edamame, or soy sauce,” said Frances Sladek, a UCR toxicologist and professor of cell biology. “Many soy products only contain small amounts of the oil, and large amounts of healthful compounds such as essential fatty acids and proteins.”

A caveat for readers concerned about their most recent meal is that this study was conducted on mice, and mouse studies do not always translate to the same results in humans.

Also, this study utilized male mice. Because oxytocin is so important for maternal health and promotes mother-child bonding, similar studies need to be performed using female mice.

One additional note on this study — the research team has not yet isolated which chemicals in the oil are responsible for the changes they found in the hypothalamus. But they have ruled out two candidates. It is not linoleic acid, since the modified oil also produced genetic disruptions; nor is it stigmasterol, a cholesterol-like chemical found naturally in soybean oil.

Identifying the compounds responsible for the negative effects is an important area for the team’s future research.

“This could help design healthier dietary oils in the future,” said Poonamjot Deol, an assistant project scientist in Sladek’s laboratory and first author on the study.

“The dogma is that saturated fat is bad and unsaturated fat is good. Soybean oil is a polyunsaturated fat, but the idea that it’s good for you is just not proven,” Sladek said.

Indeed, coconut oil, which contains saturated fats, produced very few changes in the hypothalamic genes.

“If there’s one message I want people to take away, it’s this: reduce consumption of soybean oil,” Deol said about the most recent study.

January 26, 2020 Posted by | Economics, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

The Thunberg fallacies

By David Wojick | CFACT | January 25, 2020

Ever since she splashed into view I have wondered about Greta Thunberg’s reasoning. Her quoted statements, blasting the world for not doing the impossible, have given no clue where she is coming from.

Now, thanks to some detailed published statements of hers, from the World Economic Forum in Davos, I have my answer. It turns out she is hotly embracing not one, but two, howling fallacies. No wonder she sounds nuts.

To begin with, she cites the IPCC report on climate change from 2018, which claims we have only a few years left to act if there’s a 67% chance of keeping the global temperature rise from now to below 0.5 degrees C. (She, like everyone else, talks about a rise of 1.5 degrees, but the IPCC says that 1.0 degrees has already happened, which she knows.) If she said a half a degree people might laugh.

She says this is “not an opinion”, that it is THE science. Which is the first fallacy. What the IPCC writes is of course just an opinion and a highly contested one at that. It is nothing but model-based speculation, which is contradicted by real evidence.

But hey, lots of alarmists buy the IPCC stuff and they are not yelling that our planetary house is on fire. Getting to that point is Thunberg’s second, and far bigger, fallacy. She has decided that another half degree of global warming is the threshold to catastrophe.

Mind you she gives no actual reasons here. It appears to be a pure leap of faith. She mentions in passing some apparently dreadful things like tipping points and unknown feedbacks, but nothing specific. The IPCC certainly does not suggest any such hidden cataclysmic triggers.

She even says, “Either we prevent temperatures from rising above 1.5 degrees (Celsius), or we don’t. Either we avoid chain reaction of unravelling ecosystems, or we don’t.” It sounds like one follows from the other but it doesn’t.

This is the first I have heard of a chain reaction of unraveling ecosystems, especially one triggered by tiny warming (just half of what we supposedly have already seen.) I am sure the IPCC has never mentioned this demon or we would all have heard of it.

So there it is. She starts with the questionable IPCC and then simply leaps into the abyss but she calls it, “THE science”. There is no science here. In fact, there is no reasoning that I can see. In logic this is called argument by assertion.

The IPCC report merely addressed the relatively mundane question “What is the difference between 1.5 degrees of total warming (0.5 to come) and 2.0 degrees?” This question arises because the Paris Accord includes both targets. It says we want to hit 2.0 but get below it toward 1.5 if possible. In no case is 1.5 a target.

Given that 2.0 is the basic target, it is perfectly clear that 1.5 is not the threshold to catastrophe. In fact the report says that while holding to 1.5 is better, the difference is small. This is why the UN has not proposed dropping the 2.0 degree target. All of which contradicts Greta Thunberg’s claims. The report she cites simply does not support her outlandish position. No wonder the CLINTEL people say there is NO emergency.

To recap, there are two fallacies in her reasoning. Let’s call them the IPCC fallacy and the Thunberg fallacy. The IPCC fallacy is thinking that humans control global temperature. The Thunberg fallacy is thinking that a mere half degree of future warming is the threshold to catastrophe, to the point of threatening human existence. Unfortunately her followers have embraced her delusion.

The IPCC fallacy is well established and widespread, including among many scientists. It is the basis for the Paris Accord. It is moderate in its way. The Thunberg fallacy is new and nuts. In fact it is tearing the alarmist community apart, which is fine by me. Although like all forms of madness, the Thunberg fallacy bears watching, lest it get out if control.

Greta Thunberg and her followers are calling for rapidly rebuilding the global energy system, while also completely restructuring the world’s economic, social and political systems. All this turmoil in the name of limiting future global warming to one half a degree. It does not get any crazier than that.

January 26, 2020 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | Leave a comment

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