Steve Bull's Blog, page 146
December 31, 2022
Amazon Packages Burn in India, Final Stop in Broken Recycling System
Plastic wrappers and parcels that start off in Americans’ recycling bins end up at illegal dumpsites and industrial furnaces — and inside the lungs of people in Muzaffarnagar.
Muzaffarnagar, a city about 80 miles north of New Delhi, is famous in India for two things: colonial-era freedom fighters who helped drive out the British and the production of jaggery, a cane sugar product boiled into goo at some 1,500 small sugar mills in the area. Less likely to feature in tourism guides is Muzaffarnagar’s new status as the final destination for tons of supposedly recycled American plastic.
On a November afternoon, mosquitoes swarmed above plastic trash piled 6 feet high off one of the city’s main roads. A few children picked through the mounds, looking for discarded toys while unmasked waste pickers sifted for metal cans or intact plastic bottles that could be sold. Although much of it was sodden or shredded, labels hinted at how far these items had traveled: Kirkland-brand almonds from Costco, Nestlé’s Purina-brand dog food containers, the wrapping for Trader Joe’s mangoes.
Most ubiquitous of all were Amazon.com shipping envelopes thrown out by US and Canadian consumers some 7,000 miles away. An up-close look at the piles also turned up countless examples of the three arrows that form the recycling logo, while some plastic packages had messages such as “Recycle Me” written across them.
Waste pickers in Muzaffarnagar sift through mounds of plastic trash for metal cans or or intact plastic bottles that could be sold, while children look for discarded toys. Photographer: Prashanth Vishwanathan/BloombergPlastic that enters the recycling system in North America isn’t supposed to end up in India, which has since 2019 banned almost all imports of plastic waste. So how did Muzaffarnagar become a dumping ground for foreign plastic?
…click on the above link to read the rest…
Wrong Again: 50 Years of Failed Eco-pocalyptic Predictions
Photo Credit: Getty
Thanks go to Tony Heller, who first collected many of these news clips and posted them on RealClimateScience.
SUMMARY
Modern doomsayers have been predicting climate and environmental disaster since the 1960s. They continue to do so today.
None of the apocalyptic predictions with due dates as of today have come true.
What follows is a collection of notably wild predictions from notable people in government and science.
More than merely spotlighting the failed predictions, this collection shows that the makers of failed apocalyptic predictions often are individuals holding respected positions in government and science.
While such predictions have been and continue to be enthusiastically reported by a media eager for sensational headlines, the failures are typically not revisited.
1967: ‘Dire famine by 1975.’
Source: Salt Lake Tribune, November 17, 1967
1969: ‘Everyone will disappear in a cloud of blue steam by 1989.’
Source: New York Times, August 10 1969
1970: Ice age by 2000
Source: Boston Globe, April 16, 1970
1970: ‘America subject to water rationing by 1974 and food rationing by 1980.’
Source: Redlands Daily Facts, October 6, 1970
1971: ‘New Ice Age Coming’
Source: Washington Post, July 9, 1971
1972: New ice age by 2070
1974: ‘New Ice Age Coming Fast’
Source: The Guardian, January 29, 1974
1974: ‘Another Ice Age?’
1974: Ozone Depletion a ‘Great Peril to Life’
But no such ‘great peril to life’ has been observed as the so-called ‘ozone hole’ remains:
Sources: Headline
1976: ‘The Cooling’
Source: New York Times Book Review, July 18, 1976
1980: ‘Acid Rain Kills Life in Lakes’
Noblesville Ledger (Noblesville, IN) April 9, 1980
But 10 years later, the US government program formed to study acid rain concluded:
Associated Press, September 6, 1990
1978: ‘No End in Sight’ to 30-Year Cooling Trend
Source: New York Times, January 5, 1978
But according to NASA satellite data there is a slight warming trend since 1979.
1988: James Hansen forecasts increase regional drought in 1990s
…click on the above link to read the rest…One Great Big Nasty Prediction for 2023
Welcome to 2023!
The New Year’s edition of the Economic Prism is a place of wild conjecture and rough suppositions. A place where abstract thinking is celebrated. Imaginative cycle theories, deep metaphysics, fractal wave patterns, happy accidents, and amateur fortune tellers of all stripes are invited too.
Today, with perfect 20/20 vision, we set our sights on the year ahead. After all, the New Year’s here. What better time than now to peer out 12 months through our proprietary prism and report back what we see?
On the periphery, we find new dreams, new directions, and new delusions, swirling about like storm clouds interspersed with warm radiant light. We see opportunities and contretemps. We see doom and despair. And we also see hope and redemption.
But what else? What are the essential insights you should take along as you set out to make another pass around the sun?
What does the New Year have slated for stocks, the 10-Year Treasury note, gold, oil, bitcoin, and everything else? Will junk bonds be roiled by massive corporate defaults?
Will Joe Biden’s recession turn into a depression? Will Federal Reserve issued digital dollars – a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) that’s traceable and programmable – replace the privacy of cash?
Will there be a painful inflation flareup? Will Sam Bankman-Fried mysteriously perish? What about Maxine Waters…will she croak too?
Will there be riots in your city? Will the power grid meltdown? Will California finally dry up and blow away? Will your social credit score be tarnished for not recycling your food waste?
Are we fated for complete societal breakdown? Will 2023 culminate in the second coming of Jesus?
The questions are limitless. The answers are exponentially limitless.
Where to begin…
Believe In Yourself
…click on the above link to read the rest…
2022’s Danger Signs: From Totalitarian Paranoia to Authoritarian Madness
The danger signs were everywhere in 2022.
With every new law enacted by federal and state legislatures, every new ruling handed down by government courts, and every new military weapon, invasive tactic and egregious protocol employed by government agents, we were reminded that in the eyes of the government and its corporate accomplices, “we the people” possess no rights except for that which the Deep State grants on an as-needed basis.
Totalitarian paranoia spiked. What we have been saddled with is a government so power-hungry, paranoid and afraid of losing its stranglehold on power that it has conspired to wage war on anyone who dares to challenge its authority. In a Machiavellian attempt to expand its powers, the government unleashed all manner of dangers on an unsuspecting populace in order to justify its demands for additional powers to protect “we the people” from emerging threats, whether legitimate, manufactured or overblown.
The state of our nation suffered. The nation remained politically polarized, controlled by forces beyond the purview of the average American, and rapidly moving the nation away from its freedom foundation. The combined blowback from a contentious presidential election and the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in Americans being subjected to egregious civil liberties violations, invasive surveillance, martial law, lockdowns, political correctness, erosions of free speech, strip searches, police shootings of unarmed citizens, government spying, and the criminalization of lawful activities.
Thought crimes became a target for punishment. For years now, the government has used all of the weapons in its vast arsenal—surveillance, threat assessments, fusion centers, pre-crime programs, hate crime laws, militarized police, lockdowns, martial law, etc.—to target potential enemies of the state based on their ideologies, behaviors, affiliations and other characteristics that might be deemed suspicious or dangerous…
…click on the above link to read the rest…
December 30, 2022
Of Economic Crises and Pandemics: Facebook as Fact, Government as Truth, Big Pharma as God
If events since March 2020 have shown us anything, it is that fear is a powerful weapon for securing hegemony. Any government can manipulate fear about certain things while conveniently ignoring real dangers that a population faces.
Author and researcher Robert J Burrowes says:
…if we were seriously concerned about our world, the gravest and longest-standing health crisis on the planet is the one that starves to death 100,000 people each day. No panic about that, of course.”
No panic because the controlling interests of the global food system have long profited from a ‘stuffed and starved’ strategy that ensures people unnecessarily go hungry when corporate profit rather than need dictates policies.
US social commentator Walter Lippmann once said that ‘responsible men’ make decisions and must be protected from the ‘bewildered herd’ – the public. He added that the public should be subdued, obedient and distracted from what is really happening. Screaming patriotic slogans and fearing for their lives, they should be admiring with awe leaders who save them from destruction.
During COVID, Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern urged citizens to trust the government and its agencies for all information and stated:
Otherwise, dismiss anything else. We will continue to be your single source of truth.”
In the US, Fauci presented himself as ‘the science’. In New Zealand, Ardern was ‘the truth’. It was similar in countries across the world – different figures but the same approach.
Like other political leaders, Ardern clamped down on civil liberties with the full force of state violence on hand to ensure compliance with ‘the truth’. Those who questioned the COVID narrative – including world-renowned scientists – were smeared, shut down and censored.
It was an internationally orchestrated campaign involving governments, the big tech companies, media and the WHO, among others.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
Struggling farmers face another challenge with diesel shortage
Three generations of the Heinrich family of farmers in front of a combine that Tim, right, says can go through 150 gallons of diesel fuel on a busy day. Heinrich familyAs if this year hasn’t been rough enough on the agriculture community, farmers can now add “global diesel shortage” to their hardship bingo card for 2022.Just weeks after Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed an executive order to continue drought relief efforts for farmers in that state, reports of what some are calling a devastating diesel shortage and the higher prices that come with it are rolling in to accompany farmers into the already harsh winter season.
“I’m harvesting soybeans that aren’t even worth harvesting right now,” Oklahoma farmer Tim Heinrich said last month.
Heinrich, who runs a 3,000-acre operation in north central Oklahoma, says a modern combine like the one he uses typically needs about 150 gallons a day to get the job done — a job that might ultimately cost him more in fuel than he will get back in sales. And the combine is just one piece of the operation affected by diesel costs.
“Most of us have diesel pickups that we use to feed cows with all winter long, all the trucks hauling the crops to and from the farm, all of our farm sprayers, our combines and our tractors,” said Heinrich, who also serves on the Garfield County Conservation District board of directors. “All of it is at the mercy of the rising cost of diesel.”
The U.S. Energy Information Administration said in its Short Term Energy Outlook in November that diesel prices were nearly 50% higher than they were a year earlier, and reserves were at the lowest level since 1951.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
It’s Not a Lie If You Believe It
“The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became the truth.” – George Orwell, 1984
“Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth.” ― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
I wish I could go through a day without having to reference Orwell and Huxley when observing how the ruling class is able to manipulate, subjugate, and propagandize the willfully ignorant masses through lies, deceptions, disinformation, and fear. But here we are, living through a dystopian nightmare blending the worst aspects of Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World.
It’s as if O’Brien and Mustapha Mond are running the show, using behavioral conditioning, restricting freedom of speech, adhering to a strict caste system, surveilling everything we say or do, using our fears to control us, utilizing propaganda to produce false narratives, and ultimately threatening to stomp a boot on our faces forever if we do not obey and conform. Virtually everything we are told by politicians, government bureaucrats, military brass, “esteemed” journalists, medical “experts”, bankers, and corporate executives is lies. They do not believe their lies, but they know it benefits themselves financially to lie, and as long as they work together, they know the ignorant masses will believe them.
George tells Jerry “It’s not a lie if you believe it” as he is going to take a lie detector test. I wonder how Fauci, Biden, Hillary, Obama, Comey, Wray, Pelosi, and the slew of other Deep State coup conspirators would fare on a lie detector test about Russiagate, Covidgate, J6 Insurrectiongate, and Vaccinegate. Based on the titanic volume of lies they have spewed over the last several years, I’m sure the machine would overheat and explode if hooked up to any of this traitorous vile scum.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
Austrian Defense Minister Warns Europeans Are Unprepared For Days-Long Blackouts
Leaving one third of citizens unable to “supply themselves.”
SOPA Images via Getty Images
The Austrian defense minister has warned that Europeans could face blackouts that go on for days, leaving one–third of citizens unable to “supply themselves.”
Klaudia Tanner made the comments during an interview with German news outlet Die Welt.
“The question is not whether it (the blackout) will come, but when it will come,” said Tanner, blaming the war in Ukraine.
“For Putin, hacking attacks on Western power supplies are a tool of hybrid warfare. We must not pretend that this is just a theory. We must be prepared for blackouts in Austria and Europe,” she added.
Austrian armed forces are set to establish 100 self-sufficient barracks by 2025 that are capable of sustaining themselves for a minimum of two weeks if energy supplies are seriously disrupted.
Tanner spoke to how unprepared Europeans were for crippling elongated blackouts by warning, “one-third of citizens would not be able to supply themselves on the fourth day of a blackout at the latest.”
While Vladimir Putin remains the convenient scapegoat, others have pointed to Europe’s overdependence on ‘green energy’ and its shutting down of traditional coal-fired and nuclear plants as one of the primary reasons for increasing the risk of blackouts.
In Germany for example, the country only has three remaining operational nuclear power plants, with MPs even having to vote to extend their life span into 2023 after previous plans to shut them down.
As we previously highlighted, Germans buying up electric heaters in anticipation of the gas supply being cut off is threatening to cause huge spikes in demand that could lead to widespread blackouts.
…click on the above link to read the rest…
Bargaining to Maintain Civilization
Happy Winter/Summer Solstice!!As anyone reading my articles often already knows, ecological overshoot is the master predicament causing many different symptom predicaments. I constantly see many people blaming emissions or greed or capitalism or governments or oil companies or fossil fuels (and on and on…) for causing climate change (or their favorite symptom predicament). Playing the blame game gets us nowhere though, and unfortunately, it is also far more complicated than that. Reducing emissions is a great idea (NOT a solution as noted below in the new paper from James Hansen), but it cannot be accomplished without reducing ecological overshoot because ecological overshoot is precisely what is CAUSING emissions. Ecological overshoot is caused by technology use, which means that it is being caused by our behavior. In order to reduce emissions, there is no other choice than to reduce technology use. This requires changing our behaviors. Most emissions historically have been produced by Western Society, so Western Society must change the most in how we behave. This is not optional. If we don’t change our behavior, nature will solve the predicament for us by removing habitat that we require in order to continue surviving. This is the outcome for that scenario – extinction. Of course, inherent here is that infamous “we” which brings the good ole’ lack of agency into the mix.
Now, this is the background to what I am writing about. While my articles here have just been recently introduced to society at large, I’ve actually been conversing about this and writing about it far longer in several different groups, many of which I’m no longer a member of. Why am I no longer a member in these groups one may ask. Because those groups feature and promote a mental defect known as wetiko, and they refuse to accept the truth that ecological overshoot and its symptom predicaments are not problems with solutions…
…click on the above link to read the rest…
2022 — A Year-End Contemplation
Another year has passed (almost), yet the world didn’t collapse. We have got close to nuclear annihilation — probably closer than we’ve ever had — yet we are still here. The long decline of our High-Tech civilization in general, and the Western empire in particular works on different timescales than mere years though. The fall of a civilization does produce some serious humps on the road (some admittedly brutal and terrible), but for most people living through it, it is rather like a long trendline pointing downwards throughout many decades. Let’s review why we always end up in this process, and how it might continue to unfold in our case.
In order to have a better understanding what we are facing in the new year, we have to pull out our ultra-wide angle lens and see how 2022 fits into the large scheme of things. True, we are living through remarkable times, one of great flux and high unpredictability. This time though, it is quite a bit different from previous cases of decline and fall. We are at a turning point in human civilization, one which could only be understood from a truly historic and systems perspective.
Our modern, planetary civilization is complex system with innumerable positive as well as negative feedback loops. There are a multitude of factors, processes and groups of influential people competing with one another, producing a dynamic equilibrium. In a relatively stable world with abundant resources such systems of human beings produce remarkable results, growth and prosperity. Factors, serving as a basis for this growth and which we have took for granted, however, have started to shift under the immense pressure of our industrial activities. The climate has kept deteriorating from its ten millennia long mean in an accelerating way. Resources, we thought were inexhaustible have started to become ever harder to get. Sand. Fresh water. Fossil fuels. Metal ores. All of them.
Photo by Christopher Burns on Unsplash…click on the above link to read the rest…
