A WordPress Blog-THE CHURCH MILITANT Ephesians 5:11-"And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them". This Christian News Blog maintains a one stop resource of current news and reports of its own related to church, moral, spiritual, and related political issues, plus articles, and postings from other online discernment ministries, and media which share the aims to obey the biblical commands to shed light on and refute error, heresy, apostasy, cults, and spiritual abuse. ALL CONTENT FROM HTTPS://RATHEREXPOSETHEM.BLOGSPOT.COM MOVED TO THIS NEW BLOG, MAY 2020
The corporate state is intent, apparently, on ramping up its propaganda against so-called “climate deniers,” presumably to set the rhetorical groundwork for more extreme legal and social action against them in the future. So it dispatched something called its “climate envoy,” John Kerry, to Scotland with that aim.
Here is the most incendiary portion of his comments:
Without facts or economics on their side, they flatly deny what is happening to our planet and what we must do to save it. They incite a movement against what they falsely label ‘climate change fanaticism,’ as they conveniently forget that the dictionary definition of a cult is the dismissal of facts in devotion to a lie.
This is an obvious truism at this point, but, of course, I would be remiss not to point out that these people always do what they accuse their opponents of doing. Freud got it right. From the Hunter Biden laptop hoax to the “safe and effective” COVID vax lie, lying in the service of their various profiteering and social engineering projects is their modus operandi. Climate change is no exception.
Continuing with what is essentially Kerry’s declaration of war on “climate change” deniers (emphasis added):
And while they refuse to accept the facts behind increasingly obvious damages, which the First Minister listed, they lash out at the truth-tellers instead, and label indisputable evidence as hysteria. They compound the already difficult challenge of the climate crisis, by promising to do more of exactly what created this crisis in the first place. So now, humanity is inexorably threatened by humanity itself, by those seducing people into buying into a completely fictitious, alternative reality, where we don’t need to act and we don’t even need to care.
Let’s take the phrase “inexorably threatened” and parse it a bit. Per Merriam-Webster, “inexorable” means “not to be persuaded, moved, or stopped.” What he’s saying — the reason his handlers chose that descriptor — is that there is no longer any need to try to persuade the public of their climate change scam because the “deniers” are individuals who cannot be reasoned with. On a societal level, what does one do with an existential threat that cannot be reasoned with because words are meaningless to it? One goes to war with it.
Humanity, for the record, is, in fact, inexorably threatened by humanity itself in a very real and meaningful sense, but the threat is posed not by “climate change” deniers but by technocrats like John Kerry (assuming he is actually human and not a demonic entity wearing a skinsuit).
Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.
Hawaiian officials say that 850 individuals are still missing following the catastrophic Lahaina fires, according to data obtained by the FBI and local police as of Monday morning.
Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen stated in a social media video that 114 people have been confirmed dead, 27 have been identified, and at least 11 families have been contacted.
Although more than 800 are still missing, the number had initially been estimated at well over 1,500.
“To the tireless work of the FBI and the Maui Police Department, 1,285 individuals have been located safe,” Bissen said. “We are both saddened and relieved about these numbers as we continue the recovery process.”
Bissen stated that these figures will fluctuate on a daily basis, and he requested that anyone who has close family members who are missing as a result of the fire send DNA samples in order to assist in the identification process.
Locals can offer such samples at a Family Assistance Center set up at the Hyatt Regency Ka’anapali on Nohea Kai Drive.
The Maui County Mayor is scheduled to hold a press conference on Tuesday to answer questions from the public.
“Our lives have changed forever, and things will not be the same,” he said. “What will be the same is the way we care for each other as we grieve and go through this together.”
The fast-moving flames devastated Maui this month, with the ancient town of Lahaina bearing the brunt of the damage. The town was entirely destroyed with over 2,700 structures demolished.
Some locals and visitors even ran into the ocean to escape the fiery hellscape, while others attempted to flee on foot or by vehicle.
Bissen was also questioned by reporters about how many children are currently missing due to the disaster, but he failed to find a response or reason for why Hawaiian officials did not have an estimate.
After ten days of devastating fire in Maui the mayor, Richard Bissen couldn’t give an answer how many kids are missing.
Honestly what is going on in Maui? Why is there no answers or accountability? pic.twitter.com/R0xjxVukMc
President Joe Biden is reportedly scheduled to visit Hawaii on Monday to assess the devastation and meet with survivors.
His administration has been chastised by a number of officials and local Hawaiians for choosing to vacation with family rather than respond to the crisis in a quick manner.
This is a developing story.
Stay informed! Receive breaking news blasts directly to your inbox for free. Subscribe here. https://www.oann.com/alerts
Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.
Politicians, the media and environmentalists spent the past week blaming the Maui fires on global warming.
“That level of destruction, and a fire hurricane, something new to us in this age of global warming, was the ultimate reason that so many people perished,” Hawaii Gov. Joshua Green claimed, while ignoring his state’s mismanagement of the disaster and its botched response at every level from the power grid that wasn’t secured to the sirens that didn’t go off.
Winds whipping up a fire isn’t some exciting new disaster, it’s how things have always worked in Hawaii where about 0.5% of Hawaii’s land burns every year. The worst previous Maui fire in 2010 was fed by 40 mph winds. This time the winds hit 67 mph. The bad timing of an electrical disaster with high winds, not ‘global warming’ made for something old, not new.
But the ultimate reason so many people perished is that Hawaii government officials failed in their responsibilities toward the residents and tourists they had been milking all these years.
And, conveniently, decided to blame global warming instead of taking responsibility.
Hawaii’s Sen. Mazie Hirono told CNN that “We very much need to acknowledge that climate change is upon us,” urging the heathen to repent and bow to the exciting new apocalypse.
And the global warming circus and its endless scams was just getting started.
The board chair of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs blamed the fires on the “climate crisis” and “colonialism”. Bloomberg ran an op-ed titled ‘Maui Fires Show Climate Change’s Ugly Reach’.
‘Fire and Fury: The Story of the 2023 Maui Fire and its Implications for Climate Change,’ a book written a few days into the wildfires, shot up the Amazon bestseller list. Its author, ‘Dr. Miles Stones’ appears to have been made up. But, then again, so was global warming.
A security camera captured what started the fires, and it wasn’t ‘climate change’.
A tree fell on a power line, there was an arc flash, a drop in power, and the fires began. The sirens didn’t go off and the water wasn’t released in time to properly fight the fires. None of those things had anything to do with a changing climate, but with ideological mismanagement.
But if a tree falls and no one is around to see it, politicians will blame global warming.
Hawaiian Electric claims to be the “most progressive and forward-thinking energy company in the world” whose mission was to “act with boldness and urgency, without fear of failure” to “build a sustainable Hawaii”. The massive devastation in Maui is proof of its accomplishments.
The progressive energy company was aware that there were serious wildfire risks, but instead, it prioritized green energy programs. It failed to shut off the power in time and its trucks ended up blocking evacuation routes. But at least “the company’s focus on equity includes approaching everything we do with an equitable lens” meant that people burned to death equitably.
Given a choice between the unglamorous business of preventing wildfires or going green, Hawaiian Electric picked the option that was sure to win praise from politicians and environmentalists. Solar panels replaced actual power plants and customers were lectured incessantly about global warming and the environmental stewardship of the company.
Hawaiian Electric CEO Shelee Kimura received environmental awards and boasted of having grown the state’s “clean energy resources”’ and worked to “decarbonize Hawaii’s economy”.
The over 100 dead people have been carbonized now.
The Maui Emergency Management Agency didn’t sound the sirens to warn people to evacuate but its hazard mitigation plan was focused on fighting “climate change”.
As the fires burned, a Hawaii water official blocked the release of the water. The official, Kaleo Manuel, an alumnus of the Obama Asia Pacific Leaders program, believes “that ancient wisdom and traditional ecological knowledge of native peoples will help save the Earth.”
Coming to his defense was Earthjustice, originally spun off from the defense lawyers for the environmentalist extremists of the Sierra Club.
While the scale of the fires has attracted attention, they’re not a new phenomenon. .
When the Polynesian colonists, now popularly described as “indigenous” first arrived, they slashed and burned much of the existing grasslands, wiping out whatever existed including the original population, which was killed, eaten, or enslaved. The actual indigenous people of Hawaii were born as slaves, had their foreheads tattooed, and were used for human sacrifice.
Some of the leftist descendants of the colonists, heavily intermarried with Westerners, have carved out an economic niche denouncing “Western colonialism” and upholding “native ways” which usually involve getting an academic or bureaucratic position and pretentiously using Hawaiian terms while bemoaning the utopia that Hawaii could have been without America.
These sorts of activists, collaborating with environmentalists, helped to cause a disaster on Maui, much as their counterparts recently did in Puerto Rico by mismanaging the infrastructure, failing at their most basic responsibilities, and then blaming Western technology for the mess.
Hawaii’s feudal nobles believed that they were descended from the gods, and its new nobility claims to be descended from the oppressed victims of colonialism and technology. They denounce the plantations and champion “native ways of growing crops” which would be unable to support their own population, never mind anyone else, and which aren’t native to Hawaii, but were brought over by their ancestors. Hawaii’s plants are more fire resistant, not because they’re superior to western agriculture, but because they had to survive the Polynesian colonizing wave of arsons.
If professional indigenous activists are really sincere, they’ll get rid of all the technology and live the way their ancestors did without smartphones, the internet, antibiotics, or indoor plumbing. Since that isn’t happening, maybe they can try to manage the technology responsibly instead of allying with leftist environmentalists to undermine the state’s infrastructure.
Climate change and colonialism didn’t cause the Maui wildfires. Environmentalists did.
It’s no coincidence that California and Hawaii were both devastated by preventable disasters. Both one-party states ignored responsible wildfire prevention policies and instead adopted the fashionable dogma that every natural disaster is caused by global warming and that the only way to head off natural disasters is by putting up solar panels and condemning technology.
These environmental policies cost human lives, homes, and billions of dollars. In response to disasters caused by their neglect of infrastructure and disaster management due to their belief in global warming, the climate cult blames the resulting catastrophe on global warming.
From Hawaii’s governor on down, global warming is an excuse for corruption and incompetence. Global warming isn’t a problem, those who believe in it are.
https://thevaccinereaction.org/2023/08/these-global-organizations-want-to-control-you/; Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.
There’s a group of people who control what you are allowed to see, what you read, what you watch, the posts you engage with. You haven’t heard of them, you don’t know their names. But they determine, through methods both direct and indirect, whether you are allowed to be exposed to particular messages. Their decisions can bankrupt companies, silence voices and fundamentally shift cultural norms. Who are these people and how do they do this? Well, at the top level you have a network of global elite and its creed… a universal framework full of guidelines and ratings designed to enforce approved narratives and punish disapproved ones.
Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre (L) looks on as US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm (R) speaks during a daily press briefing. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)
If a new Department of Energy plan that has been heavily opposed by Republican senators becomes law, water heaters might soon be subject to considerably stricter efficiency criteria.
The Biden administration is currently pushing towards requiring the majority of electric water heaters to adopt heat pump technology and gas-fired water heaters to utilize condensing technology in a draft regulation.
The proposal was released by the Department of Energy (DOE) on Friday.
It comes months after the Biden administration sparked a tempest over feared stovetop rules, with Albany, New York, lawmakers passing a contentious first-in-the-nation gas stove ban.
“Today’s actions, together with our industry partners and stakeholders, improve outdated efficiency standards for common household appliances, which is essential to slashing utility bills for American families and cutting harmful carbon emissions,” said Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm.
The Biden administration reportedly claims that the regulation “plan,” which is slated to take effect in 2029, would save Americans $198 billion and reduce CO2 emissions by 501 million metric tons over the following 30 years. However, these proposed numbers and estimates have been disputed by many analysts from GOP think tanks.
Minimum efficiency criteria for oil-fired storage water heaters, gas-fired water heaters, and gas-fired instantaneous water heaters will be heavily raised by the department.
“This proposal reinforces the trajectory of consumer savings that forms the key pillar of Bidenomics and builds on the unprecedented actions already taken by this Administration to lower energy costs for working families across the nation,” Granholm continued.
According to the agency, water heating accounts for 23% of consumer utility expenses and yearly residential energy usage.
Congress compels the agency to develop efficiency criteria, and it claims to have last modified its water heater policy in 2010.
Thomas Massie, a Republican U.S. representative for Kentucky’s 4th congressional district since 2012, shared his thoughts on the new water-heating proposal on Twitter.
“Leave us alone. These products already exist in the free market. Consumers should decide whether the upfront cost of a heat-pump water heater is worth the possible long term savings. In many cases, the monthly savings never make up for the upfront cost of the equipment,” Massie said.
“From the people who want showers and faucets without enough water pressure, dishwashers that don’t fully clean, washers and dryers that fully wash or dry, etc., they now want water heaters that don’t fully and quickly heat. All in the name of ‘environmentalism’ or ‘climate change,’” said a separate social media user.
These new regulations would apply to new water heaters that enter the market in 2029.
The departments emphasized that President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act includes “tax credits, rebates, and other incentives” to help people save money on more efficient water heaters.
The new suggestion has already sparked debate among many notable online users.
“First they came for your gas stoves. Then they came for your dishwashers. Next, they came for your water heaters and air conditioners. Now the Biden apparatchiks are coming for your portable gas generators,” Forbes contributor David Blackmon asserted.
In recent months, the government has also taken steps to tighten requirements for a variety of domestic equipment, including air conditioners, washing machines, refrigerators, and others. A member of the Consumer Product Safety Commission sparked outrage earlier this year when he suggested that a widespread ban on gas stoves may be on the table.
The House voted last month to prevent the federal government from doing so in the future, and the Senate has not yet voted on that bill.
The Biden administration boasted in December of last year that it had taken 110 steps to boost efficiency regulations in 2022 to help its “climate change goals.”
Kicked off #CEM14MI8 in Goa, India, by expanding on the launch of our Carbon Management Challenge.
This challenge inspires countries to reduce the pollution driving extreme weather events around the world by ramping up carbon capture, utilization, and storage. pic.twitter.com/u56eW8VNyi
— Secretary Jennifer Granholm (@SecGranholm) July 22, 2023
Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.
This one’ll really make your blood boil: with either remarkable tone-deafness or a haughty contempt for the people it’s supposed to be serving, the Biden regime chose some of the hottest days of this summer (and if the climate propaganda is to be believed, some of the hottest days in human history) to announce plans to restrict the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which are used in refrigerators and air conditioners. If the regime’s high-handedness and authoritarianism don’t already have you in a sweat, just wait.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced Tuesday that it was “issuing a final rule to implement a 40% reduction below historic levels from 2024 through 2028.” So if you’re keeping cool these days with your air conditioner set at a certain temperature, be prepared for our moral superiors to force you, on pain of who knows what, to turn it up significantly. And you won’t be sweating out just this summer alone: “The rule aligns with the bipartisan American Innovation and Manufacturing (AIM) Act’s goals to reduce the production and consumption of these climate-damaging chemicals by 85% by 2036 and help avoid up to 0.5 °C of global warming by 2100.”
Bipartisan? Well, that’s another indication of how the establishment Republican hacks in Washington have failed the American people. If anyone in 2100 remembers what the EPA did Tuesday, he or she will have abundant evidence at hand to prove that reducing the use of these “climate-damaging chemicals” by 85% didn’t do a thing to avoid up to 0.5 °C of global warming because the whole thing was a hysterical and manipulative myth. All that cutting the use of refrigerators and air conditioners is going to do is make food spoil more quickly (well, you can always enjoy a heaping helping of bugs) and make Americans hot, sweaty, and crabby. The EPA might as well say that reducing the use of hydrofluorocarbons by 85% by 2036 will help us avoid a significant influx of witches.
And this is only just the beginning. As you no doubt expect, the Biden regime has much more pain for us in store.Joe Goffman, Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator of EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, announced happily: “This rulemaking is a critical next step in the Biden-Harris Administration’s ambitious plans to phase down climate super-pollutants and ensure the United States leads the way as countries around the world implement the Kigali Amendment.” The Kigali Amendment is an international agreement that obligates the signatory nations to work to reduce the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). Goffman adds: “The U.S. HFC phasedown program, bolstered by domestic innovation to develop alternative chemicals and equipment, is paving the way for the United States to tackle climate change and strengthen global competitiveness.”
Climate change initiatives actually do nothing to “strengthen global competitiveness,” if what Goffman means by that phrase is the competitiveness of the United States worldwide. On the contrary, such pipe-dream efforts weaken and burden our economy and benefit China, which is, of course, not held to the same expectations regarding doing something about global warming.
Biden’s handlers, however, continue to sell Americans a bill of goods about that, not only continuing to propagate and act upon the climate change myth but also to claim that we will all come out better if we just turn down the AC and reach for the handheld fan.Ali Zaidi, the Biden regime’s National Climate Advisor, was full of praise for Old Joe and his henchmen: “President Biden has brought together a broad coalition of American manufacturers to work on next-generation technologies across refrigeration, HVAC systems, and more — helping us cool without contributing more to global warming.With today’s final rule, this Administration is continuing to deliver win-wins for climate action and U.S. manufacturing competitiveness while ensuring that American workers reap the benefits of a growing global market for HFC alternatives.”
This kind of nonsense is designed to keep the damage at the ballot box to a minimum and keep overheated Americans who have been forbidden to turn on the air conditioning from expressing their frustration (if they can mark their ballots clearly amid all the sweat) by voting out the green hysterics. After a while, cool homes in July will be a dim memory, just as affordable homes for single-income families are now. Prosperous and comfortable America will retreat into the past, and Americans won’t have time to be nostalgic, as they’ll be too busy guarding their meager, stiflingly hot apartments from the thieves and robbers that Democrat politicians have released from prisons or never jailed in the first place. They’ll barely have time to pause for a quick lunch of grasshoppers and beetles.
Congresswoman Victoria Spartz immigrated to the United States in the year 2000. She grew up in Ukraine, met her husband Jason on a train in Europe, became a US Citizen, and worked her way up from being a bank teller to a CPA, finance executive, successful business owner, and Indiana State Senator. Now, she serves on the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, where she is one of the loudest voices speaking out against the Administrative State, Communism, and the Influence of Mega Corporations like Blackrock and their takeover of the global economy.
Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.
“Don’t worry about the dishwasher,” our host told us as we checked out the house where my wife and I were staying in the south of France several years ago. “It’s more than two years old.” I had no idea why I needed to worry about this or any other dishwasher, but I was about to find out.
The year was 2017, and new EU regulations had gone into effect, effectively crippling the dishwashers people had long depended on to clean their dishes. A cleaning machine that cleans is a radical idea, I’m sure, to radical EU regulators. Our host had remodeled his kitchen barely in time to install a machine made the year before the new EU rules regarding water and energy use went into effect. The new washers use so little water and energy that EU truth-in-labeling laws ought to prevent manufacturers from calling these overpriced beasts “dishwashers.”
“Dishwetters” might be more accurate. Or perhaps more accurate still would be “Dishmoisteners.”
If it’s a choice between an appliance that’s been over-regulated to the point that consumers have to pay far more than they used to for a dishwasher that does far less than it should or them standing in front of the sink for 30 minutes every night after dinner, singing, “Tonight we’re gonna scrub like it’s 1929,” then Brussels has already made the choice for them: If you want to buy a dishwasher, you’re still going to have to hand-wash those dishes before they go into the machine.
Here’s where Presidentish Joe Biden steps up to say: You ain’t seen nothin’ yet, Jacque.
If the proposed regulations go into effect — and there’s no doubt that the enviro-cabal running the White House is in favor — water use would be reduced by a third on some standard-sized machines, and energy use would be reduced by more than a quarter.
Consumers already complain that machines that have been made since Obama-era restrictions went into effect a decade ago already don’t properly clean or dry dishes. In the future, they’ll have even less water and energy to work with.
Nobody in Congress voted on these new standards that will carry the force of law. DOE seems to enjoy almost unlimited authority to regulate almost anything that uses energy in the name of reducing carbon emissions.
Under the current rules, dishwashers are limited to five gallons of water per cycle, or 3.5 gallons if they want to wear the federal government’s Energy Star label. Under the proposed rules that snuck out of DOE while everybody was getting ready for the weekend, each cycle will be limited to 3.2 gallons, period. Today’s current five-gallon machines will be “eliminated from the market” unless manufacturers restrict their flow to 3.2 gallons.
Remember what happened when D.C. decided to reduce the amount of water toilets were allowed to use with each flush? Let’s just say it was messy until manufacturers completely redesigned toilet bowls to work with Washington’s whims. I suspect that there won’t be any salvaging today’s five-gallon dishwasher designs, and I know for a fact that increased design and manufacturing costs will be passed directly onto consumers.
Perhaps today’s machines could get away with using less water if they were equipped with more powerful pumps to move it around with more force. That’s going to be difficult, probably impossible since Biden’s new regs also require machines to reduce their average annual energy consumption from 307-kilowatt hours to 223-kilowatt hours. Just like when we spent a good part of the ’90s having to flush the toilet two or three times to “save” water, you’ll run your dishwasher two or three times to clean one load. You’ll probably have to finish drying them by hand, though, given the new energy limits.
Honestly, it will be easier and certainly cheaper just to go back to hand-washing — and I think that’s the point.
Going back to that trip to France a few years ago, we were sharing that home with sci-fi author (and Instapundit contributor) Sarah Hoyt and her husband Dan. Talking about how bad the E.U. dishwasher had become, Sarah said, “That’s the point of all these rules, to get us used to everything being a little bit worse than it was before.”
Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.
President Biden approved a controversial oil project today in a compromise, a multistep decision affecting the Willow Master Development Plan in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A). The decision reduced the ConocoPhillips Willow project’s drill pads by 40 percent, while also “protecting” up to 16 million acres of land and sea in the U.S. Arctic Ocean from any future oil and gas leasing.
Since before Biden took office, he has been at war with the oil and coal industries, seeking to reduce if not end their operations in the United States in deference to clean “green energy” wind and solar resources. Today’s decision supposedly was balanced to provide job opportunities and infrastructure for the nearby communities while protecting wildlife and the region’s unspoiled natural environment. It also helped to avoid a potential lawsuit over federal leases that ConocoPhillips has controlled on the NPR-A since 1999.
The Willow project covers an area roughly the size of the state of Indiana. AP reported:
The project could produce up to 180,000 barrels of oil a day, according to the company — about 1.5% of total U.S. oil production. The project is the largest proposed oil drilling on U.S. public land and the biggest oil field in Alaska in decades. Alaska Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan said the development could be “one of the biggest, most important resource development projects in our state’s history.”
Today, following Biden’s announcement, the Interior Department (DOI) issued a Record of Decision substantially reducing the size of the Willow project by denying two of the five drill sites proposed by ConocoPhillips, including relinquishing “rights to approximately 68,000 acres of its existing leases in the NPR-A, including approximately 60,000 acres in the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area.” The agreement also “reduces the project’s freshwater use and eliminates all infrastructure related to the two rejected drill sites, including approximately 11 miles of roads, 20 miles of pipelines, and 133 acres of gravel, all of which reduces potential impacts to caribou migration and subsistence users.”
Biden will still have to face the music over the new drilling agreement, as net-zero greenhouse-gas zealots will be greatly disappointed to learn the administration gave in to oil giant ConocoPhillips. “Extracting and using the oil from Willow would produce the equivalent of more than 278 million tons (306 million short tons) of greenhouse gases over the project’s 30-year life, roughly equal to the combined emissions from 2 million passenger cars over the same time period,” AP reported.
The Willow agreement didn’t stop the administration from moving forward with their climate-change activism by taking important steps to limit future industrial development in the Beaufort Sea and NPR-A, securing indefinite “protection” to the area. The DOI has proposed a rule, which will be available for public comment in the coming months, to consider additional protections for the more than 13 million acres designated as “Special Areas” in the region. The land was recognized for its importance to wildlife and subsistence users.
A DOI press release stated: “The rule would limit future oil and gas leasing and industrial development in the Teshekpuk Lake, Utukok Uplands, Colville River, Kasegaluk Lagoon, and Peard Bay Special Areas — places collectively known for their globally significant intact habitat for wildlife, including grizzly and polar bears, caribou, and hundreds of thousands of migratory birds.”
Adding to the Willow project agreement, the DOI in another announcement said that “the Biden-Harris administration is taking sweeping action to complete protections of the entire U.S. Arctic Ocean from any future oil and gas leasing.” This includes the DOI “preparing new rules to provide maximum protection to millions of acres of lands in the western Arctic….”
In today’s action, according to the DOI, Biden, using his authority under Section 12(a) of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, made approximately 2.8 million acres of the Beaufort Sea in the Arctic Ocean nearshore in NPR-A indefinitely off limits for future oil and gas leasing. “Today’s withdrawal ensures this important habitat for whales, seals, polar bears, as well as for subsistence purposes, will be protected in perpetuity from extractive development.”
These announcements and impending actions on controlling oil and gas leasing in the Arctic comprise yet another step in Biden’s goal of adhering to the UN’s Agenda 2030.
To prove Biden’s success in his ongoing climate-change agenda, the DOI closed its press release by stating, “With these actions, President Biden continues to deliver on the most aggressive climate agenda in American history. He has made the United States a magnet for clean energy manufacturing and jobs. He secured record investments in climate resilience and environmental justice. And his economic agenda has put the United States back on track to reach its climate goals for 2030 and 2050, all while reducing America’s reliance on oil and protecting American families from the impact of Putin’s war on global energy markets.”
Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes
President Brandon and his dainty sidekick, Mayor Pete, would have their constituents believe the East Palestine trainwreck site is under control. Everything is fine.
Nearly 45,000 animals have died as a result of a toxic train crash this month in an Ohio town, environmental officials have said.
The figure from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources updates the initial estimate of 3,500 animals dead after the 3 February derailment. …
Mary Mertz, who directs the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR), said in a news conference on Thursday that all of the 43,700 animals found dead were aquatic species, and that there is no evidence that any terrestrial animals were killed by the train’s chemicals. [emphasis added]
Consider the national shame of leaving it to British media to report (at least part of) the truth while the American corporate media plays PR secretary for Mayor Pete to protect his political ambitions.
Let’s not give the BBC too much undue credit, though. Their repetition of the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources' claim of “no evidence that any terrestrial animals were killed by the train’s chemicals” is contradicted by on-the-ground testimony from East Palestine residents.
Former Ohio Senate Democratic Minority Leader Capri Cafaro believes former President Donald Trump will be received well during his visit due to his significant success in Columbiana County, Ohio, where East Palestine is located, especially since there has been a lack of response from the Biden administration.
Trump Steps Up To Help Ohio ChemicaI Spill While Joe Biden Still In Hiding Doing Nothing
LIVE From East Palestine Ohio: FRUSTRATED Residents Gather Waiting for Donald Trump
Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.
In the wake of the train derailment that caused a huge environmental disaster in East Palestine, Ohio, Michael Barasch, a top lawyer for issues related to the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, is warning the public not to trust the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA is insisting that the air is safe.
Barasch led the charge to inform hundreds of thousands of people that they were entitled to compensation for the health problems they’d experienced as a result of breathing in poisonous dust from the World Trade Center after the attacks. He says he still has clients who are “are dying every single day from 9/11 toxic dust.”
He’s now warning the community in and around East Palestine to “stay away and don’t believe the EPA.”
Barasch noted that in 2001, the EPA similarly assured people the air was safe after the 9/11 terror attacks. He argued that “21 years ago, the government at least had a reason: they wanted to reopen Wall Street.”
“They should have just been honest with people then and said, ‘Look, if you don’t have to be downtown in your office, stay away until the fires go out,’” he told Breitbart News. “And that’s what they should have done here.”
“Otherwise we’re going to see in another twenty years exactly what I’m seeing now — with people developing illnesses and dying from post-9/11 toxic air — only on a lower scale,” he said.
Barasch wonders, “How can anybody with any kind of assurance say the air is safe?” given the amounts of toxic chemicals that were burnt into the air or have ended up contaminating local water sources.
“They’ve lost their credibility,” he added, noting that the issues with the EPA transcend politics because “it was the Bush EPA that said the air was safe to breathe 21 years ago, [whereas] now it’s the Biden EPA.”
The Obama EPA also had a number of scandals, most notably the Gold King Mine spill in Colorado, which the EPA caused.
Barasch suggests that the EPA “should be independent of everybody — even though the president does appoint the administrator.”
“It should be something like the CDC that people really trust, and I’m afraid that I have lost confidence when they say things like ‘the air is safe,’” he added.
I’m not sure who still trusts the CDC, frankly, so I think the lesson here is that no government agency can be trusted.
Joining NS President and CEO Alan Shaw (center) and the NS senior executive team on the NYSE bell podium were six craft railroaders from the company’s operating division. Photo – New York Stock Exchange
Norfolk Southern Corp. officials yesterday rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange to mark 40 years since the merger of Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway created Norfolk Southern Railway on June 1, 1982.
Joining NS President and CEO Alan Shaw and the NS senior executive team on the NYSE bell podium were six craft railroaders from the company’s operating division.
"Forty years since the merger that created Norfolk Southern, and nearly 200 years since the founding of our first predecessor railroad in 1827, we continue to play an essential role serving our customers and powering our nation's economy," said Shaw in a press release. "Norfolk Southern has a rich history, a vital purpose and a bright future."
Norfolk Southern train that derailed in East Palestine, Ohio broke down two days prior
Mayor Pete and his pal, CEO of Norfolk Southern Alan Shaw aren’t telling the people of East Palestine, Ohio that the train that derailed, and caused the toxic chemical spill that is now killing animals, and fish and making people sick actually broke down two days prior to the derailment in Ohio. Yet despite this same train breaking down just two days earlier (On February 1st), Norfolk Southern decided to run it out anyway, with the vinyl chloride. How are people not being arrested for such incompetence?
Norfolk Southern’s CEO said he is “terribly sorry” for the train derailment impacting residents in East Palestine, Ohio. Meanwhile, members of the community worry their health and safety could be at risk after the derailment.
COMING TO YOUR STATE:
500 tons of toxic chemicals:
Ohio derailment is 'consequence of limited regulation'~Trump coming Wednesday
Alan Shaw, Who Owns a $4.8 Million Home in Georgia, Has Spent His Career at Norfolk Southern Corporation, Working in Coal Transportation, Marketing & Other Areas
Shaw's primary residence is this $4.2million mansion in Atlanta, Georgia:
According to Wall Mine, Shaw’s estimated net worth was at least $11.2 million as of January 2023.
Shaw owns “over 3,141 units of Norfolk Southern stock worth over $8,342,995 and over the last 7 years he sold NSC stock worth over $2,015,680. In addition, he makes $873,416 as Pres at Norfolk Southern,” Wall Mine reported.
However, Daily Mail reported that Shaw “earns $4.5 million a year, lives in a $4.25 million mansion, and has a property empire.” The British news site reported that Shaw “owns more than 20 properties across Georgia and Virginia, but spends most of his time in a $4.2 million Atlanta mansion or on one of his two boats.”
Zillow now lists the Atlanta mansion as being worth $4,841,900.
Activist Erin Brockovich stands in front of a computer image showing photos of water samples from around the country, as she speaks during an Oklahoma Earthquake Town Hall Meeting at the University of Central Oklahoma on February 23, 2016, in Edmond, Oklahoma. In the inset, President Joe Biden. Brockovich called on Biden's administration to "step up" in response to the trail derailment in eastern Ohio.
Full interview: Erin Brockovich heads to East Palestine, Ohio
Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.
The concerns regarding the East Palestine, Ohio, Norfolk Southern train derailment, which until recently was barely even acknowledged by the U.S. government, are growing by the hour. Many in the state and federal government have written the disaster off as not that big of a deal.
However, many residents in the area are scared out of their minds of the after-effects of the derailment, which ultimately resulted in hazardous chemicals seemingly spewing everywhere. After you watch what Republican Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance tweeted while standing in a creekbed near the derailment site, you’ll understand why residents are frightened.
All it took for the senator to go viral on Thursday afternoon was a stick and a camera.
“Visited a local creek in East Palestine today. These waterways are still very polluted. It’s time for Norfolk Southern to finish the cleanup. Check this video out:” Vance tweeted.
“Hey guys, so I’m here at Leslie Run, and there are dead worms and dead fish all throughout this water. Something I just discovered is that if you scrape the creekbed, it’s like chemical is coming out of the ground,” Vance said before demonstrating what he discovered.
“This is disgusting,” Vance continued. “And the fact that we have not cleaned up the train crash, the fact that these chemicals are still seeping in the ground is an insult to people who live in East Palestine. Do not forget these people; we’ve got to keep applying pressure; that’s how we’re going to fix this problem. Thank you.”
One little scrape in that particular spot where the senator stood in the video, which looked undisturbed otherwise, and a sheen of rainbow colors immediately appeared across the surface of the water. So, either Vance struck oil, or that creek is chock-full of whatever nastiness came from the hazmat explosion at the train derailment site.
To be fair, action to mitigate the damage to local water supplies is well underway. In the video, Vance is seen standing in front of multiple containment booms, which help to filter out chemicals. It’s not accurate to say that nothing is being done about the surrounding environment, and it’s certainly not the kind of clean-up effort that will happen overnight.
Ohio EPA and state officials have done several different things to try to contain pollution from the chemical spill. Crews have put oil containment booms in waterways and aerated contaminated soil and water.
Crews have excavated and removed nearly 500 cubic yards of “vinyl chloride-impacted material” including soil, according to Kurt Kollar, the on-scene coordinator for the Ohio EPA’s Office of Emergency Response. The EPA is also blocking off ditches around the contaminated dirt so that it doesn’t contaminate more water.
Tiffany Kavalec, the chief of the Division of Surface Water at Ohio EPA, reported that testing in Leslie Run shortly after the derailment revealed that “Data from February 4, the day after the train derailment, downgradient on Leslie Run and Little Beaver Creek showed very low detection levels of contaminants and mostly from fire residual chemicals. Data from February 10 more recently showed low levels of only two contaminants: butyl acrylate and ethylhexyl acrylate. Both are volatile, organic chemicals.”
So, are the chemical sheens simply firefighting chemicals hanging around from last week? Or is it something worse? Hopefully, in the coming days, we’ll find out more as further testing is conducted.
But people are justifiably uneasy about it all, especially when it’s viewed up close. On Twitter, many weighed in on Vance’s alarming video. One of the most significant concerns is that the water supply for East Palestine could be compromised, even though authorities insist that everything is totally fine right now.
“To those saying it’s all under control in Ohio (not many, I know) watch as @JDVance1 scrapes a creek bottom with a stick, instant chemical rainbow appears. This is people’s water supply we’re talking about and chemicals have been found hundreds of miles away,” DC Draino tweeted.
Another Twitter user expressed the harsh reality that this could be a long-term issue.
“Unfortunately I fear that it will take years to fully find out the damage these chemicals did to the community,” the Twitter user wrote.
As PJ Media’s managing editor Paula Bolyard noted Tuesday of some of the takeaways of Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s press conference on the disaster:
Bruce Vanderhoff, the director of the Ohio Department of Health, said the main concern at this point is drinking water, in particular, for those who have private wells. He urged both those with private wells and those on municipal water to use bottled water until more tests can be conducted. He also implored those with private wells to call the hotline so they can have their water tested at no cost. Bottled water is also being provided to residents. Vanderhoff said that women who are pregnant or breastfeeding could be especially vulnerable, in addition to infants on formula that is mixed with water.
“Make no mistake: This is still a very dangerous situation, and there are a lot of unknowns. Residents rightly fear there could be long-term health ramifications from being exposed to deadly chemicals. Only time will tell if officials on the ground have done enough to mitigate the risks,” Bolyard, an Ohio native, added.
During his visit to East Palestine on Thursday, Vance had a simple message for the Biden administration.
“I haven’t spoken to President Biden. My message to him is pretty simple. One, the Department of Transportation, your Department of Transportation, has things they can do. Stop blaming Donald Trump, a guy who hasn’t been president for three years, and use the powers of the federal government to do the things necessary to help the people in this community,” Vance said, according to Fox News.
The government’s overall tepid response to what feels like a mini-Chernobyl is beyond disturbing and only raises additional questions. The possible health risks and cancer clusters from potentially contaminated water supplies could take years — maybe more — to fully realize.
As PJ Media’s Matt Margolis reported Thursday, DeWine was notified that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has refused to provide assistance at this time.
“The DeWine Administration has been in daily contact with FEMA to discuss the need for federal support, however, FEMA continues to tell Governor DeWine that Ohio is not eligible for assistance at this time,” DeWine said in a statement. “Governor DeWine will continue working with FEMA to determine what assistance can be provided.”
It’s easy to see why people are so scared, especially when they feel they’ve been practically abandoned.
Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.
So, you (and the world) survived the giant UN COP27 Climate Summit that finished up last month in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. And you thought you might get a little relief from the incessant hectoring by the Klaus Schwabs, Joe Bidens, and Greta Thunbergs of the world about how your fossil-fuel vehicle, bacon burgers, and AC are melting the icecaps and destroying the planet. But, nooooo! No sooner had the UN’s self-indulgent, globetrotting technocrats left their luxury digs at that world-savers confab than they were off to Montreal, Canada, for another lavish, two-week marathon event. We’re referring to the 15th UN Biodiversity Conference of Parties (COP15), which was tasked with gaining global buy-in for a world-shackling “biodiversity” treaty to complement the UN Paris Agreement on climate. Instead of hysterical hand-wringing about the supposed existential threat from melting icecaps, rising sea levels, wildfires, and hurricanes, the biodiversity disaster choir insists that we are facing doom from the imminent “mass extinction” of plant and animal species due to our irresponsible “overconsumption.”
“Experts are warning that if the 196 countries under the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity don’t agree on a deal by the end of the conference, then it will be almost impossible to save what’s left of the world’s wildlife and natural lands,” the International Business Times reported on December 8 as the Montreal conference got underway. The “experts” so frequently cited in news reports are those associated with the UN’s Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), which is the UN’s biodiversity “science” counterpart to it’s infamous Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC), which regularly dispenses frightful predictions of doom about to befall us — unless we grant federal and global bureaucrats omnipotent powers of regulation and control to protect us from ourselves. Like the IPCC, the IPBES program is supported by the usual “experts” from Big Green — World Wildlife Fund, Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, National Geographic Society, Greenpeace, International Union for the Conservation of Nature, etc. — and the usual Big Media sock puppets. Like the IPCC, the UN’s IPBES is generously funded by governments (the U.S., China, Japan, France, Germany, the EU) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (see here).
Another notable IPBES donor is the Kering Foundation, an image-polishing project of French billionaire and fashion mogul Francois-Henri Pinault (husband of actress Salma Hayek), whose seedy underbelly was recently exposed in the Balenciaga “fashion” scandal featuring outrageous child-porn ads with BDSM (bondage-dominance/sado-masochism) imagery (see here and here).
According to the IPBES’ often-cited 2019 report on “Nature’s Dangerous Decline,” “around 1 million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction, many within decades, more than ever before in human history.” And, said the IPBES, “the rate of species extinctions is accelerating, with grave impacts on people around the world now likely.”
This “mass extinction” scare story is not new; we have been reporting on the scientific debunking of this manufactured “crisis” for decades, as the video below from 2012 shows.
Typical of UN summits, delegates representing 195 countries and the European Union at the Montreal biodiversity farce haggled for two weeks (December 7-19) over details of the text of the “framework” before going into an all-night, hyper-pressured session, with an army of NGO activists (subsidized by taxpayers and the usual tax-exempt foundations) pushing for negotiators to adopt the most extreme positions. Finally, at 3:30 a.m. Montreal time Monday, the great faux drama concluded with the announcement that an agreement had been reached on the framework text.
Billions for Eco-bribery
What’s inside the new “biodiversity framework”? The left-wing Guardian of Great Britain reported early on the morning of December 19 that “the gathering nations at the biodiversity summit have agreed to four goals and 23 targets. The goals include protecting 30 percent of the world’s land, water, and marine areas by 2030, as well as the mobilization, by 2030, of at least $200 billion US per year in domestic and international biodiversity-related funding from all sources, both public and private.”
“There is also a pledge,” the Guardian continued, “to reduce subsidies deemed harmful to nature by at least $500 billion by 2030 while having developed countries commit to providing developing countries with at least $20 billion per year by 2025, and $30 billion per year by 2030.”
It was a foregone conclusion that the summit would be another multi-billion-dollar UN shakedown of taxpayers in the developed world ostensibly to aid the poor in developing countries. That’s always the compassion appeal cover story. But everyone knows that whatever funds are finally delivered will be funneled through various national governments and UN agencies to kleptocrat regimes, politically connected corporations, and favored NGOs — and, of course, with ample pilfering by the UN banditti along the way. Whatever trickles down to local Potemkin-village projects for media exploitation are likely to be inconsequential (or even harmful) to the local people and the environment.
The Agenda 2030 “Masterplan for Humanity” and the 30X30 Initiative
However, while multi-billion-dollar payoffs provide plenty of incentive for politicos and corporates alike to hop on board the biodiversity bandwagon, for the consummate globalists the real objective is power — earth-shaking, “transformative” power, on a global scale. Power as envisioned by the Davos elites to “reset” the entire world — and all humanity — according to their own demonic whims. Thus, does the World Economic Forum’s majordomo Klaus Schwab openly put forward in the WEF’s proposed “Great Reset,” which supposes the need for Klaus and his fellow megalomaniacs to structurally “transform” the planet (and all of us who live on it) politically, economically, socially, environmentally, biologically, morally, and spiritually.
A big part of the Great Reset involves the promotion and adoption of the UN’s Agenda 2030, which has been prominently and repeatedly featured on the WEF website since it was officially launched by the UN in 2016 (see, for instance, here, here, here, and here).
Agenda 2030, as regular readers of The New American know, is a rebranding of the massive Agenda 21 that emerged from the 1992 UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. In his “Sustainable Development Goals Implementation Strategy Briefing” to the UN General Assembly on November 8 of 2016, then-President of the UN General Assembly Peter Thomson called Agenda 2030 a “masterplan for humanity.” Of course, a master plan assumes a master planner (or master planners), who will also be the master(s) that order the slaves to carry out the master plan. The Agenda 2030 “masterplan” is guided by 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets, to be fully cemented into place by the year 2030.
The 30-by-30 (or 30X30) initiative is a key component of Agenda 2030, calling for, as noted above, “protecting 30 percent of the world’s land, water, and marine areas by 2030.” In this context, “protecting” means controlling, which means putting huge swaths of land and ocean (as well as rivers, lakes, streams, and aquifers) under government (national and global) control. President Joe Biden jumped into the 30X30 initiative as one of his earliest actions in the Oval Office, signing an “Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad” on January 27, 2021. The Biden executive order announced the administration’s intent “to achieve the goal of conserving at least 30 percent of our lands and waters by 2030.” Notice the qualifying phrase “at least.” That’s because the 30 percent is viewed by Big Green as the first installment on the way to 50 percent.
National Geographic is one of the many “prestige” transmission belts to promote this 50-percent idea, writing, for instance, in 2019: “Countries should double their protected zones to 30 percent of the Earth’s land area, and add 20 percent more as climate stabilization areas, for a total of 50 percent of all land kept in a natural state, scientists conclude.” Again, we see those ubiquitous “scientists” who, like Anthony Fauci, presume to speak in the name of science. That means, of course, no drilling for oil or gas or mining for minerals in these “protected” areas. It also means farming and ranching — food production — will be made next to impossible for all except the huge globalist food cartels. (See here, and here.)
So, if we allow the globalists’ 30X30 land and water grab to succeed, they will soon be back for their 50X50 (50 percent of land and water by 2050).
But, hey, it’s all being done for Mother Earth, right? After all, she is reverentially mentioned eight times in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. (Note: It’s called the Kunming-Montreal framework because Communist China held the presidency of the conference and the event originally was to have taken place in the Chinese city of Kunming. However, the venue was changed to Montreal due to China’s renewed Covid outbreak.) Those Gaia-style references include pseudo-legal claims concerning the “rights of nature and rights of Mother Earth.” These, we are told, are “an integral part” of the biodiversity framework and “its successful implementation.” And we can count on Big Green and its army of lawyers to represent the “rights of Mother Earth” and interpret what she demands of us mere interloping mortals. This translates into more regulations and lawsuits aimed at farmers, ranchers, miners, loggers, manufacturers — virtually anyone who produces any of the things we need, use, and consume.
Veteran readers of this magazine will recognize in the 30X30 and 50X50 schemes a rebirth of the radical Wildlands efforts of 1990s to implement the 1992 UN Convention on Biological Diversity through “rewilding” half of the United States. (See the April 3, 1995 article “Global Green Regime: The Biodiversity Treaty” by this writer and the July 3, 2000 article “The United Nations’ Big Green Machine” by Idaho Congresswoman Helen Chenoweth-Hage). The John Birch Society and other property-rights groups and liberty-loving activists fought much of that agenda to a standstill. However, like the vampire that keeps returning unless a stake is put through its heart, these UN programs keep coming back, powered by infusions of U.S. taxpayer dollars. The only genuine solution is to Get US out! Of the United Nations; and Get the UN out of the United States.
The most recent effort in this direction is The American Sovereignty Restoration Act (H.R. 7806) introduced in this past Congress by Representative Mike Rogers (R-Alabama). It did not go anywhere in the Pelosi-controlled Democratic House, but it, or a similar version, should fare much better in the new Congress.
Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.
The globalist movement to insist that corporations do business according to how well they align with left-wing ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) scores received some pushback from another American state on Thursday. Florida’s CFO announced that the state was pulling $2 billion in investments from the behemoth investment management company BlackRock, largely over its commitment to valuing ESG scores in its business dealings.
Recall that several states, including West Virginia, Texas, and Idaho, have already pushed back against banks and corporations such as BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, U.S. Bancorp, and Wells Fargo for using ESG scores to determine, among other things, the creditworthiness of states.
Now, Florida CFO Jimmy Patronis has announced that the Sunshine State is backing away from ESG promoter BlackRock, promising a $2 billion dollar divestment from the globalist company.
“Using Florida’s cash to fund BlackRock’s social-engineering project isn’t something we signed up for. It’s got nothing to do with maximizing returns and is the opposite of what an asset manager is paid to do. We’re divesting from BlackRock,” Patronis tweeted.
Patronis further laid out his case in a statement:
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink is on a campaign to change the world. In an open letter to CEOs, he’s championed ‘stakeholder capitalism’ and believes that ‘capitalism has the power to shape society.’ To meet this end, the asset management company has leaned heavily into Environmental, Social, and Governance standards — known as ESG — to help police who should, and who should not gain access to capital.
Indeed, Fink’s open letter could have been written by Klaus Schwab himself:
In today’s globally interconnected world, a company must create value for and be valued by its full range of stakeholders in order to deliver long-term value for its shareholders…. The pandemic has turbocharged an evolution in the operating environment for virtually every company.
But Patronis has the same questions a lot of people have about what Schwab and Fink refer to as “stakeholder capitalism.”
“Whether stakeholder capitalism, or ESG standards, are being pushed by BlackRock for ideological reasons, or to develop social credit ratings, the effect is to avoid dealing with the messiness of democracy,” the Florida CFO pointed out. “I think it’s undemocratic of major asset managers to use their power to influence societal outcomes. If Larry, or his friends on Wall Street, want to change the world — run for office. Start a non-profit. Donate to the causes you care about.”
A statement from BlackRock accused Patronis of valuing politics over the performance of funds: “We are disturbed by the emerging trend of political initiatives like this that sacrifice access to high-quality investments and thereby jeopardize returns, which will ultimately hurt Florida’s citizens. Fiduciaries should always value performance over politics.”
But isn’t that exactly what ESG is doing? Valuing ideology over performance? Using a corporation’s or a government’s commitment to left-wing values such as climate-change action, abortion availability, and transgender rights as a means to determine something that should be as black and white as creditworthiness would certainly make it seem so.
And it’s not some future “what if” scenario — it’s already happening.
“The ESG rating methodology that S&P has implemented to ‘provide additional disclosure and transparency’ when evaluating creditworthiness appears to be nothing more than a subjective way to penalize Idaho and other states for their political priorities,” said Idaho Treasurer Julie Ellsworth in May.
If financial companies are already using ESG scores to determine the creditworthiness of states and corporations, how long will it be until individual consumers are asked to take a “loyalty oath” to purchase a new car?
Ask the nation of Sri Lanka or Dutch farmers how their governments’ very high ESG scores have worked out for them.
According to Patronis, Florida will no longer play BlackRock’s ESG game:
Using our cash, however, to fund BlackRock’s social-engineering project isn’t something Florida ever signed up for. It’s got nothing to do with maximizing returns and is the opposite of what an asset manager is paid to do. Florida’s Treasury Division is divesting from BlackRock because they have openly stated they’ve got other goals than producing returns.
Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.
(Natural News) Over the past fifty years, the world has been undergoing a mass extinction event, as habitats and bio-diverse ecosystems are diminished from the planet. The World-Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) published a new report documenting the appalling loss of animal populations since 1970. According to their latest Living Planet Report 2022, today’s agricultural practices (mono-culture) and other deleterious human activities are rapidly destroying natural habitats and displacing wildlife, leading to devastating losses for biodiversity and animal populations.
Wildlife populations plummet by 69%; millions of species on verge of extinction
The report investigated more than 5,000 species of birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and fish, spanning 32,000 different animal populations. The report finds that animal populations have plummeted by 69 percent in the last 50 years! In Africa, two-thirds of animal populations have been lost. In Europe, there has been an animal population decline of 18 percent. In Asia, the damage is 55 percent, and in North America, animal populations have fallen by 20 percent. The greatest losses are occurring in Latin America and throughout the Caribbean; animal populations have plummeted by 94% in these areas. Millions of species of plants and animals are now on the verge of extinction.
Marco Lambertini, director general of WWF International, said the entire organization is “extremely worried” by the new data. The data shows “a devastating fall in wildlife populations, in particular in tropical regions that are home to some of the most biodiverse landscapes in the world,” he said. This includes warm-water coral reefs, which have been cut in half over the past 50 years.
The preservation and restoration of biodiversity should be the goal
The freshwater populations monitored by the WWF have declined by an average of 83% since 1970. The dwindling of lakes, streams, and rivers also poses significant threats to migration routes. To make matters worse, nearly a third of all monitored global fish stocks are now over-fished. Other problems include pollution, the introduction of invasive species, and the spread of disease. The greatest threat continues to be rapid deforestation and careless agricultural practices.
“Food systems today are responsible for over 80 percent of deforestation on land, and if you look at the ocean and freshwater, they are also driving a collapse of fishery stocks and populations in those habitats,” Lambertini said. “We need to stress the fact that nature loss is not just a moral issue of our duty to protect the rest of the world. It is actually an issue of material value, an issue of security for humanity as well,” said Lambertini.
A team of researchers from Europe found that diverse plant communities are more successful and enable higher crop yields than monocultures. While monocultures are cultivated efficiently, they are not sustainable for the environment, for they cause damage to the soil and water. A more diverse plant community would therefore allow more plants and animals to thrive in their natural habitats. Instead of viewing herbs and animals as pests, farmers could find ways to allow for greater biodiversity and preserve forestry in the process. By utilizing a mixture of plants in farm fields, the different plant species, fungi, and animal populations evolve together, complementing one another. In permaculture, less pest control is required and natural fertilizers are incorporated and used more effectively.
Lambertini believes that world leaders should address biodiversity loss using a binding international commitment similar to the Paris Climate Accord. The report calls for more sustainable food production and more responsible consumption of foods, along with an increased focus on the conservation and restoration of natural habitats. The report also calls for governments to respect the value of resources provided by diverse ecosystems, including various wild foods and natural medicines.
(@ImMeme0) 
