Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 460
February 7, 2023
Would a ‘Climate Emergency’ Open the Same Door to Authoritarian Governance as the ‘COVID Emergency?’
There are better ways to address climate change than insisting federal lawmakers declare a national “climate emergency” — including building a left-right coalition that can work together to build resilience to the environmental challenges of the 21st century while preserving democracy, civil liberties and human rights.
In February 2022, 1,140 organizations sent President Biden a letter urging him to declare a “climate emergency.” A group of U.S. Senators did the same, in October 2022, and a House bill, introduced in 2021, also called on the president to “declare a national climate emergency under the National Emergencies Act.”
[…]
But what does it actually mean for the president of the U.S. to officially declare a “climate emergency”?
Most people don’t realize that under U.S. law, a national emergency declaration triggers a set of emergency powers that allows a president to act without the need for further legislation.
[…]
For civil libertarians across the political spectrum, from left to right, a “climate emergency” should be a focus of concern.
Even environmentalists who may instinctively and understandably support the idea should be worried about the potential for the authoritarian model of “emergency” governance that arose during COVID-19 to overtake climate policy.
[…]
Elements of the left and right should be coming together to reject demands that we sacrifice democratic norms, rights and freedoms for flimsy promises of safety from political and economic elites who seek to exploit a crisis — a cynical ploy that COVID-19 thoroughly exposed.
[…]
Before that, I might have supported a “climate emergency” without a second thought. Now, after three years of lockdowns, mandates, censorship and other heavy-handed policies, the trust is gone.
The leaders pushing for a new emergency who have failed to repudiate the abuses of the last one — even those with the purest of intentions regarding the environment — have lost credibility.
[…]
How would a ‘climate emergency’ even work?
Environmental advocacy groups such as the Center for Biological Diversity have called on the Biden administration to invoke specific emergency statutes that would give him the power to:
Ban crude oil exports.Stop oil and gas drilling on the outer continental shelf.Curtail international trade and investment in fossil fuels.The Center for Biological Diversity says that these emergency powers would allow Biden to put the U.S. on the path to “jettison the fossil-fuel economy and burgeon a just, anti-racist, and regenerative America in its place.”
However, there are many reasons to doubt such grandiose claims. Numerous energy and materials experts, including the well-known analyst Vaclav Smil, have concluded that a rapid transition to “green” energy may not even be possible.
[…]
Even if Biden fully exercised the emergency powers identified by the Center for Biological Diversity, this would have little effect on emissions.
Climate experts who must speak on the condition of anonymity to “avoid upsetting colleagues” admit that “while a climate [emergency] declaration is important in terms of media attention and galvanizing the climate movement, it does not have significant impacts on carbon pollution.”
When you look at the wish lists of the Senate and House members who want Biden to declare a “climate emergency,” and the demands of the many activists who say we must reach “net-zero” emissions by 2050, the emergency powers listed by the Center for Biological Diversity barely scratch the surface of what most say is needed.
[…]
Elizabeth Kolbert, a leading climate journalist, recently wrote an article “Climate Change from A to Z,” published in The New Yorker. Here’s what she says must happen to reach net-zero by 2050:
The fossil fuel industry will essentially have to be dismantled, and millions of leaky and abandoned wells sealed.Concrete production will have to be reengineered. The same goes for the plastics and chemicals industries.The fertilizer industry will also have to be refashioned.Practically all the boilers and water heaters that now run on oil or gas, commercial and residential, will have to be replaced. So will all the gas stoves and dryers and industrial kilns.The airline industry will have to be revamped, as will the shipping industry.Farming “emissions, too, will have to be eliminated.”Electrical transmission capacity must be “expand[ed] so that hundreds of millions of cars, trucks, and buses can be run on electricity.”“Tens of millions” of public charging stations [must be installed] on city streets and even more charging stations in private garages.Nickel and lithium must be extracted for electric batteries, “which will mean siting new mines, either in the U.S. or abroad.”New methods for producing steel or building a new infrastructure for capturing and sequestering carbon” must be invented.“All of this should be done — indeed, must be done,” Kolbert wrote. “Zeroing out emissions means rebuilding the U.S. economy from the bottom up.”
[…].
A 2021 report by Deutsche Bank said that we may have to accept “a certain degree of eco-dictatorship” to reach net-zero by 2050. The U.N. has suggested countries are moving too slowly, leaving us with no option but the “rapid transformation of societies.”
[…]
How a ‘climate emergency’ could infringe on civil liberties and human rights
How worried should we be that a “climate emergency” intended to “rapidly transform” our entire society by 2050 — which would be the 80th national emergency in U.S. history — might gradually expand in scope to infringe on basic civil liberties and human rights?
[…]
In October 2020, University College of London economics professor Mariana Mazzucato, who chairs an economics council for the WHO, published an article expressly raising the possibility of “climate lockdowns” to address a “climate emergency.”
[…]
A “climate emergency” is a powerful legal tool that could conceivably be used to impose “green” restrictions on the public in circumvention of the normal democratic lawmaking process, particularly if a presidential administration comes under pressure to stretch its emergency powers beyond their intended purpose.
[…]
The book “Bright Green Lies: How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do About It,” by three environmentalists, methodically picks apart arguments that solar, wind and other “green” energy technologies are clean, renewable or good for the planet.
Even to find sufficient quantities of minerals for “green” energy to be developed at scale, mining companies may begin “deep-sea mining” — some have already applied for permits — which ocean ecologists fear could annihilate ocean ecosystems.
Mining for lithium and other metals at a large enough scale would also have to take over vast areas of wildlife habitat, worsening the global biodiversity crisis.
[…]
Climate activists and progressive politicians seem to believe that this collateral damage to the environment is a small price to pay for a “green” economy, which will ultimately save more of the planet than it destroys — but there are reasons to be skeptical.
Gefology Professor Simon Michaux, Ph.D., for instance, concluded there are not enough minerals and other resources on Earth to build economy-wide “green” energy technologies and infrastructure.
And of course, it remains doubtful that “green” energy is even capable of powering the growing global economy, which still gets over 80% of its energy from fossil fuels. Even under a “climate emergency,” for the foreseeable future, we will most likely be stuck with the environmental damage caused by both fossil fuels and “green” energy.
Missing from the conversation about a “climate emergency” is a broader understanding of how ecological damage to soil, water, forests, biodiversity and ecosystems drives climate change and interrelated environmental problems.
As activist Vandana Shiva, Ph.D., explained, the globalized industrial food system is a main driver of climate change due to land use change, agrochemical pollution, monocultures, and other unecological methods.
[…]
Governments around the world are using environmental goals to forcibly shut down small farms as they promote dependence on industrial technologies and factory foods that could make climate change and other environmental problems worse.
[…]
Would government officials use a ‘climate emergency’ to let Bill Gates ‘dim the sky’?
As if all the above were not worrisome enough, there is one final thing that the U.S. government operating under a “climate emergency” might try to do — something that has unparalleled potential to end in ecological disaster.
Another New Yorker article — this one by the country’s foremost climate activist, Bill McKibben, who has led the charge for a federally declared “climate emergency, warns, “Dimming the Sun to Cool the Planet is a Desperate Idea, Yet We’re Inching Toward It.”
McKibben’s article is about “solar engineering” — spraying reflective chemicals into the stratosphere — to cool down the planet. Scientists funded in part by Gates have been studying the issue.
[…]
The potential side effects of “dimming the sun” are mind-boggling. They include turning the sky from blue to white and plunging entire regions of the Earth into ecological chaos.
‘Left’ and ‘right’ must collaborate to pursue alternatives to a ‘climate emergency’
[…]
This issue should not be framed as a dispute between “deniers” and “believers” in climate change. The prospect of a wide-ranging and long-lasting emergency mode of governance should prompt serious questions from everyone across the political spectrum.
These questions include:
Will a “climate emergency” put us on the path to solving climate change, or will it merely centralize power and enrich special interests while potentially undermining democracy, civil liberties and human rights?Will a “climate emergency” be used to promote dubious or even dangerous “green” technologies that actually harm the environment?What happens if/when emergency measures most likely fail to affect climate change? Will the government keep doubling down on policies that do not actually work, creating a doom loop of failure followed by louder calls for more to be done?[…]
One major cause that a left-right coalition could get behind is local, small-scale, organic agriculture — healthier and much friendlier to the environment than the globalized industrial food system, which is responsible for at least a third, and by some estimates, a majority of greenhouse gas emissions.
Small-scale organic agriculture also is good for family farmers and small business owners, and more conducive to local food security in a time of global instability and economic uncertainty.
[…]
Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/climate-emergency-authoritarian-governance-covid/
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Eastern Oregon Movement to Secede and Create “Greater Idaho” Picks Up Steam
Zero Hedge
A movement by east-Oregon conservatives to secede and join Idaho is picking up steam, according to the Daily Mail, which interviewed the movement’s leader, Mike McCarter.
Mike McCarter is president of the Greater Idaho Movement. The campaign is stepping up its push for 15 counties to leave Oregon and join the neighboring state of IdahoArmed with just $70,000, McCarter has been lobbying for the move in the two states – and has seen allies introduce legislation in Oregon last month. He also has a bill ready to go in Idaho that would accelerate discussions for 15 counties to immediately secede.
“I think people within the United States are watching Oregon’s movement, hoping that it’ll establish a pathway for them in the future,” he told the Mail.
McCarter’s office, adorned with muzzle-loading rifles and the head of a musk deer, “could not be further from the image of Oregon as a haven for woke politics, where a majority voted to decriminalize hard drugs in 2020, where coastal valleys provide the perfect climate for the delicate pinot noir grape and where the liberal lifestyle was sent up in the TV comedy Portlandia,” reads the report.
That is Portland, with its homeless encampments outside artisan doughnut stores.
By contrast, central and eastern Oregon is a land of hardy ranchers, loggers and sawmill workers. Where daytime temperatures dropped below zero at the weekend after a snowstorm.
And where locals say they have more in common with next-door Idaho than they do Portland and its $6 caffe lattes.
‘Our movement is based on values,’ said McCarter, 75, a retired nursery worker who runs courses for people who want concealed carry permits
‘You know, the traditional values of faith, family, freedom, and independence.
‘We don’t want to be catered to by the government. In other words, if my power goes down, I have generator, I have water, everything … food storage.’
As America divides between urban and rural, Democratic cities and Republican hiss and prairies, eastern Oregon is at the forefront of reshaping state lines. -Daily Mail
According to McCarter, conservatives in Oregon would be ‘fairly represented’ in Boise, rather than the Oregon capital of Salem.
That said, despite 11 eastern counties already voting in favor of moving, he doesn’t expect Oregon to just give up 15 counties which contain 63% of the state’s land without a fight.
Last month, Oregon lawmakers introduced legislation which would require the state to enter into discussions with Idaho.
McCarter also pointed out that it would save western Oregon money to allow the east to split off, as rural residents are subsidized to the tune of around $500 per person per year.
“So if Oregon, let Eastern Oregon go, they would be much richer right on their side,” he said. “They would not have the conflict and the bickering battle that goes back and forth.”
As Michael Snyder wrote in 2020:
Out of Oregon’s existing 36 counties, only 14 would remain in the state if Greater Idaho is able to achieve their goals, and a big chunk of northern California would become Idaho territory as well.
But getting this accomplished will not be easy. Approval would be needed from the state legislatures of Oregon, California and Idaho, and that would be a real challenge.
On top of that, the U.S. Congress would have to approve any plan, and getting that to happen would probably require a miracle.
But one thing that this movement has going for it is the fact that it has been endorsed by some big name state lawmakers in Oregon, and that includes the top Republican in the state Senate…
The move would also give western Oregon Democrats a supermajority in the state legislature, allowing them to more freely pursue their progressive agenda.
“Chicago controls Illinois. Atlanta controls Georgia. New York City controls all of New York state,” said McCarter. “And there’s a distinct difference between urban and rural.”
[…]
Via https://www.zerohedge.com/political/east-oregon-movement-secede-and-create-greater-idaho-picks-steam
Retired Fauci Charging Up to $100,000 for Speeches
Beck Worsham
The Patriotic Blonde
WASHINGTON– Dr. Anthony Fauci was chastised online on Sunday after critics discovered that the retired NIAID director, who was once the highest-paid federal U.S. government employee, is charging up to $100,000 for speaking engagements.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis‘ rapid response director Christina Pushaw on Sunday tweeted a screenshot from the Leading Motivational Speaker’s Agency’s website, which lists Fauci as a “motivational” and “health care” keynote speaker with a price tag that ranges from $50,000 to $100,000.
The website describes Fauci as someone “who’s career warrants execution under immense pressure that can alter the course of human existence. His work on domestic as well as global health issues has saved millions of lives. This high level of research, discovery and execution is amazing given the grave challenges he faces on a daily basis,” the agency writes.
Outraged Fauci critics pounced on the former White House coronavirus task force member, accusing him of inflating his self-worth while emphasizing his role as one of the most controversial figures of the pandemic.
“Follow The Science Starting at 50k an hour,” Substack writer Jordan Schachtel wrote.
“Gotta replace the 400K federal salary…,” NewsBusters’ Tim Graham replied.
“The grift that keeps on gifting,” Kingsley Cortes, a conservative influencer and Trump 2020 campaign staffer, quipped.
Bitcoin and finance expert Saifedean Ammous tweeted, “Motivational? WTF is he motivating them to do? Triple mask? Gain of function?”
“The audacity of this man,” Latina conservative influencer Jennifer Barreto-Leyva tweeted.
Fauci is slated to give the 2023 Yale Medical School commencement speech in May. Last year alone, Fauci reportedly delivered keynote speeches at the commencement ceremonies for University of Maryland, Roger Williams University in Rhode Island and The City College of New York.
The chief Biden medical adviser was once considered the highest-paid employee of the U.S. government – surpassing even the president, a Freedom of Information Act request revealed. In 2019, Fauci pulled in $417,608.00 – his largest haul ever—and in the previous two years earned $384,625.00. Forbes reported that from 2010 to 2019, Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, earned $3.6 million.
The Faucis saw their net worth expand from $7.5 million in 2019 to $12.6 million at the end of 2021, watchdog group OpenTheBooks discovered and shared with Fox News Digital. The increase came from the likes of investment gains, awards, compensation and royalties.
Fauci has been embraced by many in the media and Hollywood who portrayed him as a calming presence during a tumultuous Trump administration. But he also has his share of detractors who say he was inconsistent with his messaging at the beginning of the pandemic and see him as a career bureaucrat relishing in his newfound stardom.
[…]
Fake Meat Fail: Sales Collapse At Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods As 20% Of Staff Laid Off
As Axios reports, “after years of hype, the tide is turning against the first generation of plant-based protein makers.“
Last year, both companies were riding high – with prime placement on supermarket shelves, and Burger King even adding an Impossible Whopper to its menu.
Impossible Meat even began to branch out – looking to expand offerings to highly processed meats such as chicken nuggets and sausages.
Sales have collapsed, however, which according to a recent Bloomberg report, has resulted in Impossible Foods planning to lay off around 20% of its workers.
Impossible Foods Inc., the maker of meatless burgers and sausages, is preparing to cut about 20% of its staff, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The Redwood City, California-based company currently employs about 700 workers. The new round of dismissals could reduce that amount by more than 100.
Impossible Foods also offered voluntary separation payments and benefits to employees at the end of 2022, said the person, who asked not to be named discussing private information. An internal document viewed by Bloomberg confirmed the separation packages being offered. The company previously reduced headcount in October, cutting about 6% of its workforce at the time. -Bloomberg
Beyond Meat’s sales fell over 22% in the third quarter of 2022, as the company is preparing to similarly cut 20% of its workers. The company has also lost several executives.
According to the report, supermarket sales fell by 15% y/y as of Jan. 1, according to market-research firm IRI, while orders in restaurants dropped 9% in the12 months ended in November, according to NPD Group.
Meanwhile, data from consumer-experience strategy firm HundredX suggests waning interest in general – as the percentage of shoppers polled who have eaten Impossible products and say they won’t do it again has risen.
Beyond Meat stock is also down around 67% vs. one year ago.
[…]
February 6, 2023
Eggs So Expensive Americans Smuggling Them from Mexico
By As egg prices rise in the US some Americans are attempting to save money by purchasing them in Mexico and bringing them back across the border Bringing eggs back into the US is illegal and this has led to a sharp increase in seizures at the US-Mexico borderUS Customs and Border Protection say egg seizures have risen by 91% in El Paso, 301% in Laredo, 333% in Tucson, and 368% in San Diego compared to last yearThe price of eggs has risen so much over the past year that Americans are now resorting to smuggling them across the US-Mexico border.
A lingering bird flu outbreak, combined with soaring feed, fuel and labor costs, has led to US egg prices more than doubling over the past year, and hatched a lot of sticker shock on grocery aisles.
The national average price for a dozen eggs hit $4.25 in December, up from $1.78 a year earlier, according to the latest government data.
Customs data through January 17 shows that the number of eggs being seized has increased 91 percent at the El Paso, Texas field office, 301 percent in Laredo, Texas 333 percent in Tucson, Arizona and 368 percent in San Diego, California compared to the same period the previous year.
As egg prices rise in the US some Americans are attempting to save money by purchasing them in Mexico and bringing them back across the border
One dozen eggs cost $1.78 in December 2021 rising to a high of $4.25 in December 2022
Bringing eggs back into the US from Mexico is illegal and has led to a surge in the amount being confiscated at the border. Pictured the El Paso, Texas, Ciudad Juarez, Mexico border
Bringing eggs back into the US from Mexico is illegal and had led to a surge in the amount being confiscated at the southern border.
Most of the eggs being seized involve cartons of 30-eggs that travelers bought for their own personal use because of substantially lower prices in Mexican stores.
California, Texas and Arizonan residents living near the border often buy groceries in Mexican stores, but some agricultural products, including raw eggs, are not allowed to be imported into the US due to the risk of spreading Newcastle Disease and avian flu.
In the majority of cases, people are often unaware of such restrictions with eggs being seized from travelers who declared their purchase to inspectors.
Those who did so were not fined but there have been some instances where the eggs were undeclared and travelers were slapped with penalties.
The price for a dozen eggs has risen from $1.46 in January 2020 to $4.25 in December 2022
A lingering bird flu outbreak, combined with soaring feed, fuel and labor costs, has led to U.S. egg prices more than doubling over the past year, and hatched a lot of sticker shock in stores.The price of eggs in the US has been significantly higher in the past year, with prices in December being 60 percent more expensive than in 2021, according to the Labor Department’s consumer price index.
The cost has gone up far more so than other foods such as chicken or turkey — because egg farmers were hit harder by bird flu and the subsequent destruction of hen flocks.
More than 43 million of the 58 million birds slaughtered over the past year to control the virus have been egg-laying chickens, including some farms with more than a million birds apiece in major egg-producing states like Iowa.
However, there has been some relief for consumers as the wholesale price of eggs has slightly decreased over the past month.
In some places, it can even be hard to find eggs on the shelves. But egg supplies overall are holding up because the total flock is only down about 5 percent from from its normal size of around 320 million hens.
[…]
94% of Claims to the Government’s Vaccine Injury Payment Scheme Are Rejected, Many Because They Are Not “60% Disabled”. Mark Kerry is One of Them
by Claire HibbsDaily Sceptic
Mark Kerry was a healthy 48 year-old from Worcestershire, a father of three, grandfather of two and a loving husband to his wife Melanie. Together with Melanie, Mark loved life and lived it to the full, they socialised with friends every weekend, loved to travel and loved holidays.
Mark and Melanie run mobile home parks and were heavily impacted in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. With the mobile home business being a mixture of residential and holidays, the holiday side was halted when lockdown and heavy restrictions were enforced. As with millions of people worldwide, they found themselves spending most of their time at home.
Like most of us, Mark was eager to get life back to some form of normality and, knowing the business was suffering and being self-employed, the quicker the better.
In late 2020, nine months into the COVID-19 pandemic, it was announced that a Covid vaccine had been approved and was being rolled out to stop the spread of the virus and save lives, ready for use in December 2020.
[…]
Finally it was Marks turn to have his vaccine. On March 2nd 2021 Mark had his first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine. Initially everything was fine and Mark seemed to escape the mild flu-like side-effects and aching arm that people were talking about. That was until the evening of March 15th 2021 when Mark had a headache and noticed blood in his urine. Melanie called 111 and they sent them to Worcester hospital. When the doctor examined Mark he noticed that Mark had a rash on his legs and admitted him straight away. Over the next day Mark’s headache got worse and, following some blood tests, it was revealed that Mark’s platelet count was at a very low rate of 14; normal levels would read between 150 and 450, so this in itself was alarming. On top of that results from a brain scan revealed a blood clot on Marks brain known as Cerebral Venous Sinus Thrombosis (CVST).
[…]
Very quickly the doctors informed Mark and Melanie that they thought it was a reaction to the vaccine. The next day, on March 17th 2021, Mark was getting worse and lost some of the use in his left leg and arm. Another scan was ordered and this revealed the clot was growing.
[…]
That evening, before Melanie got back to the hospital, the hospital rang to say Mark had deteriorated and was now having seizures. He had also gone into cardiac arrest, and they made the decision to put Mark in an induced coma and on a ventilator. Melanie rushed to the hospital along with family members. They let her and their three children, Mark, Robert and Nicole wait in the corridor to say goodbye to Mark before they moved him to Birmingham Queen Elizabeth hospital. He was in an induced coma and they were told to expect the worst. On March 18th 2021, the hospital told the family that scans were showing Mark had a bleed on the brain and even if he survived there would likely be significant damage and not to expect Mark to walk out of the hospital.
[…]
The hospital called the family in the afternoon and told them they couldn’t control the seizures and they wouldn’t stop so they needed to perform a thrombectomy to remove the clot.
[…]
Fortunately, the thrombectomy went well and Mark survived the procedure. He was then left to rest for a few days. After a few days the medical team couldn’t wake Mark successfully so on March 25th they put in a tracheostomy and on March 26th Mark finally woke. However it wasn’t until April 3rd, when they took the tracheostomy out, that Melanie and the family could finally talk to him on the phone. Mark had lost a lot of use of his left arm and leg, but over the coming days thankfully a lot of this returned. Mark was finally discharged from hospital on April 9th 2021, 26 days after being admitted. Against the odds, Mark proved the doctors wrong and walked out of the hospital, albeit loaded with several medications and a long road ahead.
Once home, Mark had to do a lot of therapy. He has now made a good recovery, considering what was expected. However his three fingers on his left hand are not really working and he still suffers with debilitating side effects. But both Mark and Melanie feel they are very lucky that he survived and thank the doctors and nurses for saving his life.
Even though when in hospital Mark was told that the AstraZeneca vaccine caused the CVST, it wasn’t until sometime after he left the hospital that they fully understood what the cause was. It was explained that Mark was diagnosed with Vaccine induced Thrombotic Thrombocytopenia (VITT).
[…]
Since being discharged from hospital Mark has had to go back in: his platelet levels dropped again and he needed an immunoglobulin infusion (IVIg), which made him feel so poorly he needed to go back yet again. It is now almost two years later but Mark still suffers and his life has been hugely affected. He remains extremely weak and tired; he suffers from debilitating fatigue and has daily headaches.
[…]
They applied to the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS) in April 2021. They really didn’t get much feedback for months. In June 2022, over a year later, they were told that Mark’s claim had been sent to the medical assessors. The medical assessors are the decision makers and assessed Mark’s claim solely on his medical notes that were requested early on; no personal assessment would be carried out and no up-to-date medical records would be requested, so the assessment is not based on any ongoing symptoms or any disabilities that have occurred as a result of VITT.
On December 23rd 2022, Melanie and Mark received an email saying a letter had been sent with the medical assessors’ decision. Melanie asked if the decision could be emailed and on December 29th 2022 that email arrived. It said that the medical assessors accepted causation – that the vaccine had caused Mark’s illness – but did not accept that Mark had reached the 60% disablement that is required to be eligible for an award.
[…]
Mark and Melanie, who are members of VIBUK, will now be asking for a mandatory reconsideration and will be supplying further evidence which was not requested by the VDPS. If this fails then it will go to a tribunal.
[…]
The latest VDPS figures show, as of January 10th 2023, there were 491 VDPS claims rejected and only 33 awarded – a success rate of just 6%. Thousands more are still waiting for their decisions, and with the percentage of claims being rejected so high it is expected that there will be many more disappointments in the coming weeks.
This is extremely upsetting for many who are injured, who can no longer live the lives they had pre-vaccine and also for the families of the bereaved. The financial impact is enormous and many claimants and families are desperate for financial help; the VDPS was a lifeline that has now, in more than 90% of cases to date, been taken away.
[…]
The Modern Legacy of Greek and Roman Technology
Croton Aqueduct Westchester County New York
Lecture 24: The Modern Legacy of Ancient Technology
Understanding Greek and Roman Technology: From the Catapult to the Pantheon
Dr Stephen Ressler (2013)
Film Review
The fall of Rome ended imperial sponsorship of big construction and military projects, as well as the rigorous training provided for Roman engineering students.
The museum at Alexandria was the primary Macedonian and eventually Roman (when Egypt became a colony) technological think tank. However by the third century AD, Roman rulers were deliberately suppressing its work. It burned down in 273 AD, possibly on the order of Emperor Aurelian.
This ended the work of Hero of Alexandria. One of Rome’s most prolific experimenters, Hero wrote treatises on pneumatics-powered catapults, optics and geometry. He also created the aeolopile (the world’s first steam engine), the syringe, the vending machine and the world’s first wind-powered organ.
In this final lecture, Ressler demonstrates a working aeolopile he has built.
Technologies Lost During the Middle Ages
Following the Roman empire’s collapse, concrete construction and urban planning were lost. Fortunately metallurgy, water power and glass making persisted into the Middle Ages. These technologies survived mainly in monasteries, in some cases undergoing further development.
Surviving Technologies
We have continued some classical technology (hydroelectric power production, steel manufacture and fiberoptics) to the present day.
Some construction technology (especially the arch and tie beam trusses) survived Rome’s collapse when the Roman basilica became the predominant model for medieval churches.
In the 17th century, French engineers made an inventory of surviving Roman roads and built new roads based on ancient technology. Many modern water systems use Roman aqueduct technology.*
The Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire also preserved some Roman structural engineering technologies. Charlemagne’s Aechon Cathedral (built 805 AD) employed Roman construction technology, as did the Los Angeles public library (1925) and the Cathedral Basilica in St Louis (1914).
After a monk found it in a Swiss monastery, the Italian Renaissance revived Vetruvius’s 30 BC De Architechtura, which became the engineering Bible of the Western world. In 1499 Domincan friar Giovan Giocondo revived the use of pozzolana-based concrete for the Piers of Notre Dame Bridge in Paris. Urban planning and construction cranes were also revived around this time.
Archimedes screw pump is still used in Holland for reclaiming swamp land, in wineries for moving grapes, combine harvesters and snow blowers. It’s also used for hydroelectric generation in London, because unlike turbines it allows fish to swim through safely.
In the US, the neoclassical school of architecture saw the revival of Roman Doric columns at Monticello, the Virginia state capital and the rotunda-based library at the University of Virginia. The original Penn Stations in New York City is modeled on the Baths of Carcala, and the Lincoln Memorial, National Gallery and Jefferson Memorial all demonstrate this style.
In New England, the federal architectural style combined Roman columns with red brick walls as a symbolic manifestation of democratic freedoms.
Somewhat later, Greek Revival architectural styles reappeared (in the Brandenburg Gate and the British Museum) after the Ottoman Empire opened Greece to the West in the early 19th century.
*Including the 1840 Croton aqueduct that crosses the Harlem River to supply water to New York City.
**See Technology in Ancient Greece and Rome
***See Ancient Greek and Roman Pumps
Film can be viewed free with library card on Kanopy.
https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/146678/146726
February 5, 2023
Unknown Story of Ancient North America
Episode 1: Unknown Story of Ancient North America
Ancient Civilizations of North America
Dr Edwin Barnhart (2018)
Film Review
Evidence Barnhart gives for pre-European civilizations in North America includes
Cities of thousands of people
Palaces
Roads connecting cities
Kings
Councils
Astronomers
Architects
Artists
Musicians
There are numerous reasons why there is limited public knowledge, including the absence of writing systems in ancient North America, the tendency of new more primitive cultures to arise on the same sites as earlier civilizations and (following European contact) the mass die (from infectious disease) elders who knew the history of past civilizations, as well as the massive displacements that followed colonization.
Barnhart goes on to talk about the importance of DNA studies in understanding the history of pre-European North American residents. He divides them into two major groups: the Mississippian mound builders of eastern North America and the desert dwellers of the Southwest. The latter built apartment complexes housing thousands of people, as well as thousands of miles of complex hydraulic irrigation systems.
The Mississippians built pyramids the size of mountains. Though they look like mounds now, at the time they were angular structures covered with painted hard packed plastic covers. They were terraced with frontal ramps or staircases and topped with lavish palaces or temples. The explorer Herando De Soto writes about sleeping in several of these palaces.
The Louisiana pyramids, dating back 5,000 years, are as old as the Egyptian pyramids. The cities surrounding the pyramids featured hundreds of acres of public plazas, sports courts and fortified walls and thousands of residents. Their elaborate art work suggests a shared religion.
There were five civilizations at different times in the Southwest. Only the Ancestral Pueblo endured past European contact.
The Southwest people were master architects, engineers and masons. In addition to adobe apartments housing 900-1150 residents, they built astronomically aligned great houses and roads extending for hundreds of miles in all directions.
The Hohokam in Arizona designed an irrigation system that turned hundreds of acres of desert green with corn and cotton. This civilization faded away in the 1300s, leaving behind hundreds of miles of irrigation canals.
In addition to these civilizations, North America hosted hundreds of complex hunter-gatherer cultures that were just as nuanced as medieval Europe.
Barnhart also includes a lengthy discussion in this lecture regarding the increasing unreliability of carbon 14 testing associated with higher background radiation levels also with atmospheric nuclear weapons testing. According to Barnhart, 99% of carbon materials are carbon 12, with 1% radioactive carbon 14. When a plant or animal dies, the carbon 14 begins to decay to carbon 12. Theoretically the amount of carbon 14 remaining, should allow a scientist to estimate when death occurred. However high levels of background radiation and ease of contamination make other more recent dating approaches more reliable.
Tree ring dating is extremely reliable in dry areas where wood is unlikely to decay. Optically stimulated luminescence uses a variety of radioactive isotopes to date quartz, feldspar and other mineral grains that have been heated by the sun.
Why Was Pfizer mRNA Vaccine Created Prior to Covid Outbreak?
By Robert Kogan
Brownstone Institute
A BioNTech-“Pfizer” Vax Project Timeline
The bizarre Project Veritas “sting” videos that have gone ultra-viral on Twitter have undoubtedly confused the public even more. But the actual developer and owner of the so-called “Pfizer” Covid-19 vaccine is the German company BioNTech. The underlying mRNA technology belongs to BioNTech and – supposing this has been happening at all – if any company has been modifying mRNA to encode for a homebrewed variant of the virus, it would have to be BioNTech.
Be that as it may, as discussed in my last article, although BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin claims in the book The Vaccine that BioNTech launched its Covid-19 vaccine project on January 27, 2020, we know this is not true: a BioNTech study report released in response to an FOIA request shows that the company had already in fact begun preclinical (animal) testing on January 14.
This is already astonishing enough, since January 14, 2020 was only 2 weeks after the first report of Covid-19 cases in Wuhan. On that very day, moreover, the WHO was saying that there was no “clear evidence” of human-to-human transmission. (See WHO tweet here.) Why in the world would BioNTech begin work on a Covid-19 vaccine without clear evidence of human-to-human transmission?
At this point, Pfizer was not part of BioNTech’s C-19 vaccine project. As narrated in The Vaccine, the small German company, which had never had any product on the market, only succeeded in recruiting the American multinational as partner three months later (p. 156).
So, we know that BioNTech began preclinical testing on January 14. But, of course, this means that the project as such must have been launched even earlier. The formulation being tested had to be produced first. In this case, that meant first manufacturing the mRNA and then formulating it in lipid nanoparticles.
As touched upon in my last article, this was in fact the purpose of the study: to test the performance of BioNTech mRNA formulated in lipids made by the Canadian company Acuitas. BioNTech was not yet able to manufacture mRNA encoding for any element of the SARS-CoV-2 virus – the full genome had only been published the day before – and instead used mRNA encoding for a proxy antigen (luciferase).
So how long would it take to get the formulation ready for testing? Thankfully, Sahin’s book, which is coauthored by his wife Özlem Türeci and the journalist Joe Miller, provides relevant technical and logistical details. According to the book, manufacturing the mRNA – a process involving “tens of thousands of steps” (p. 182) – takes five days (pp. 170 and 171).
Five days brings us then to January 9. But the mRNA had still to be wrapped in the lipids, and this involved a particular logistical problem: BioNTech could not do this itself at its headquarters in Mainz, Germany.
BioNTech had its own in-house lipids, but they were found not suitable for purpose. To get the mRNA wrapped in the Acuitas lipids, the mRNA had to be shipped to an Austrian subcontractor by the name of Polymun outside Vienna.
The mRNA was transported by car – an 8-hour drive, according to Sahin and Türeci – then formulated in the lipids by Polymun, and then the formulation was driven back to Mainz. In the book, Sahin and Türeci describe a batch of mRNA for a subsequent animal study being completed on March 2, being shipped to Polymun, and then returning to Mainz wrapped in the lipids on March 9 (pp. 116 and 123).
So, this adds another 5 days, which would bring us now to January 4. But, as it so happens, BioNTech did not conduct the animal testing itself. This too was subcontracted and conducted at testing facilities elsewhere. In The Vaccine, Sahin and Türeci note that the later preclinical study began on March 11, 2 days after delivery of the lipid-encapsulated mRNA.
Adding another 2 days to our timeline brings us now to January 2. January 2, 2020 was not two weeks, but merely two days after the first report of Covid-19 cases in Wuhan on December 31, 2019.
But before it could be manufactured, needless to say, the formulation to be tested had first to be conceived and designed; and contact had to be made with Polymun and Acuitas to obtain the required permissions and arrange for the required collaboration. All of this takes time.
There is no avoiding the conclusion that BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine project must in fact have started before any Covid-19 cases had even been reported! The obvious question is: How is this possible?
[…]
Via https://brownstone.org/articles/biontech-pfizer-vax-timeline/
Your Phone Runs on Cobalt from Democratic Republic of Congo
Zero Hedge
The chances of your phone’s battery being made using cobalt from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are, as Statista’s Martin Armstrong notes in this chart using data cited in Statista’s DossierPlus ‘Mining Industry in Africa‘ shows, very high.
The country, ranked 166 out of 180 countries on Transparency International’s 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index (with a score of just 20 out of a possible 100), and with an estimated one million people living in modern slavery as of 2018, also happens to be the world’s largest producer of the metal key to lithium-ion battery production.
The use of child labor in the mining of cobalt in DRC is well documented, with the U.S. Department of Labor estimating that 40,000 children, some as young as 6 years old, work in the mines there.
Via https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/your-phone-runs-cobalt-dr-congo
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