Steve Bull's Blog, page 30
May 22, 2024
Creeping Fascism, Part 1: Just The Beginning
“Way crueler than any dictatorship”
I keep a “creeping fascism” file with the intention of tracking governments’ erosion of their citizens’ rights and freedoms. But the file is filling up so fast that the first few articles in this series will have to be “data-dump” cut-and-past jobs rather than in-depth analyses of any specific depredation. So here goes:
JK Rowling Could Be Imprisoned For “Misgendering” Trans People Under New Law(Modernity) – Author JK Rowling could be prosecuted for “misgendering” trans people under Scotland’s new hate crime law that comes into force today, an SNP minister has admitted.
A person could now be imprisoned for up to seven years if they engage in “insulting” behaviour towards ‘protected’ groups, and the prosecution only needs to prove that the hatred was “likely” rather than “intended”.
Siobhian Brown, the SNP’s community safety minister, stated that calling a “trans woman” (a man) “he” “could be reported and it could be investigated. Whether or not the police would think it was criminal is up to Police Scotland for that.”
During their training program on enforcing the new law, police officers were taught that even the content of plays and comedy gigs should be considered as potential hate crimes.
Rowling has vowed to continue calling biological males men and says she will now be targeted for telling the truth.
Blame Canada? Justin Trudeau Creates Blueprint for Dystopia in Horrific Speech Bill(Racket) – Life sentences for speech? Pre-crime detention? Ex post facto law? Anonymous accusers? It’s all in Justin Trudeau’s “Online Harms Bill,” a true “threat to democracy”
On February 21st, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave a press conference in Edmonton, announcing his government’s decision to introduce the Online Harms Act, or Bill C-63…
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Role of Energy in Production
Chapter 13 from my forthcoming book Rebuilding Economics from the Top Down
Human society is energy blind. Like a fish in water, it takes for granted the existence of that without which it could not survive.
This is Chapter 13 from my forthcoming book Rebuilding Economics from the Top Down, which will be published by the Budapest Centre for Long-Term Sustainability and the Pallas Athéné Domus Meriti Foundation. I am serialising the book chapters here. A watermarked PDF of the manuscript is available to supporters.
Like so many other aspects of our blindness to the true nature of our society, the failure to comprehend the vital role that energy plays in enabling human civilisation to exist can be traced back to economists. But for once, the culprit is not a Neoclassical economist, but the person that most economists of all persuasions acknowledge as “the father of economics”, Adam Smith.
Smith’s mistake occurred in the very first sentence of The Wealth of Nations:
THE annual labour of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniences of life which it annually consumes… (Smith 1776, p. 10)
The error is obvious when you compare this opening to the remarkably similar—in all but one respect—opening sentence to Richard Cantillon’s An Essay on Economic Theory, which was published 21 years before Smith’s second magnum opus:
Land is the source or matter from which all wealth is drawn; man’s labor provides the form for its production, and wealth in itself is nothing but the food, conveniences, and pleasures of life. (Cantillon 1755, p. 21)
The critical difference between the two is Smith’s substitution of the word “labour” for “land”. By seeing labour, rather than land, as the source of the material wealth of civilisation, Smith set economics on a course that put it in conflict with the fundamental laws that govern the Universe: the “Laws of Thermodynamics”.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Reaching the end of offshored industrialization
Moving industrialization offshore can look like a good idea at first. But as fossil fuel energy supplies deplete, this strategy works less well. Countries doing the mining and manufacturing may be less interested in trading. Also, the broken supply lines of 2020 and 2021 showed that transferring major industries offshore could lead to empty shelves in stores, plus unhappy customers.
The United States started moving industry offshore in 1974 (Figure 1) in response to spiking oil prices in 1973-1974 (Figure 2).
Figure 1. US industrial energy consumption per capita, divided among fossil fuels, biomass, and electricity, based on data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). All energy types, including electricity, are measured their capacity to generate heat. This is the approach used by the EIA, the IEA, and most researchers.Industry is based on the use of fossil fuels. Electricity also plays a role, but it is more like the icing on the cake than the basis of industrial production. Industry is polluting in many ways, so it was an “easy sell” to move industry offshore. But now the United States is realizing that it needs to re-industrialize. At the same time, we are being told about the need to transition the entire economy to electricity to prevent climate change.
In this post, I will try to explain the situation–how fossil fuel prices have spiked many times, including 1973-1974 (oil) and more recently (coal in 2022). I will also discuss the key role fossil fuels play. Because of the key role of fossil fuels, a reduction in per-capita fossil fuel consumption likely leads to a transition to fewer goods and services, on average, per person. A transition to all electricity does not seem to be feasible. Instead, we seem to be headed for increased geopolitical conflict and the possibility of a financial crash seems greater.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
May 21, 2024
Happiness is Just Chemistry, and Its Absence
(like everything on my blog, my graphics are covered by Creative Commons licence)
What is it about us that we never seem to be happy, at least for long? What does it even mean to be happy?
There have been endless studies suggesting that, a year after winning a major lottery, people are no happier than they were before. And that a year after losing a limb, those who suffered that tragedy are just as happy, on average, as the lottery winners.
Robert Sapolsky has explained how our body chemistry drives us to always want more — to never really be happy with what we have. That’s probably part of it. But another part of it, I think, is that our human brains’ constant ruminations — second-guessing, worrying, regretting etc, leave us in a stage of constant low-level anxiety, never content with the present, and obsessed with the past and the future.
This is all, of course, just my theory, just my amateur opinion. But my conditioning is to try to make sense of everything, and to use this blog to help me do so, so here we go.
Based on years of living with, observing, and reading about, non-human creatures, my sense is that, unless they have been abused or constrained under situations of chronic stress, they live most of their lives in a state of what I call alert equanimity (box 1 in the chart above). These are, I am guessing, times when their feelings of natural contentment are not being disrupted by stressful situations and the chemical responses of their bodies to those situations…
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The surveillance state will be a power hog
The amount of power required for the data centers that underpin the control grid and AI is overwhelming.
From ChatGPT to autonomous vehicles, the ever-expanding demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and data storage is sending power consumption in the US through the roof. Power consumption for data centers alone is projected to double by 2030, according to commercial property consultant Newmark.
From a recent Wall Street Journal article:
U.S. power usage is projected to expand by 4.7% over the next five years, according to a review of federal fillings by the consulting firm Grid Strategies. That is up from a previous estimate of 2.6%.
The projections come after efficiency gains kept electricity demand roughly flat over the past 15 years, allowing the power sector to limit emissions in large part through coal-plant closures.
“We haven’t seen this in a generation,” said Arne Olson, a senior partner at consulting firm Energy and Environmental Economics. “As an industry, we’ve almost forgotten how to deal with load growth of this magnitude.”
Just over 60 percent of China’s power grid is fueled by coal, according to the International Energy Agency. How else could you transform a country as big and as vast from backwater to tech leader in about 30 years?
source: https://www.iea.org/countries/chinaBut, while China has used every available source of energy in its arsenal, the West has been hell bent on destroying traditional energy generation for use by our remnant industrial base by focusing on wind and solar, which is nowhere near stable enough to maintain baseload for the kinds of important manufacturing activities needed in a modern economy — whether making steel, or appliances, or cars. Instead, we basically handed over our industrial and economic infrastructure to China, seduced by the lax environmental rules, cheap labor and promise of vast profits for shareholders.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Truth or CONsequences?
When your government cons you daily with its statistical “facts,” it’s hard to keep your balance. Conned-sumers are feeling the cognitive disconnect from reality.
For years, I’ve been saying it appears the BLS (Bureau of Lying Statistics) publishes fake labor statistics. The numbers always look like the seasonal adjustments are used by each administration to try to make the numbers look better, which means we are operating our country on delusions, not on facts. Ultimately that cannot possibly be as good for the nation as seeing reality as it is and dealing with it together.
Never, however, have the numbers looked so blatantly fake as they have under the Biden administration, and I’ve been pushing that point for months now. Then along came a major mainstream publisher (CNBC) who finally said (first I’d ever heard from the mainstream financial press), “These numbers look rigged.” And now, at last, comes a US congresswoman who tells the head of the BLS she should lose her job if she cannot come up with real numbers, pointing out, as I have for some time now, that it seems a bit too convenient that the numbers always come out initially looking great for her Boss, #NoMoJo Biden, and then get revised down to a more dismal reality later in the year when practically no one is looking … and that this happens EVERY SINGLE MONTH and ALWAYS IN THE SAME DIRECTION!
The fluctuating statistics have finally caught the attention of lawmakers in Congress. Last week, Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill., grilled Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su about her Biden-friendly reports.
“I pressed the Biden Administration on why their jobs numbers are consistently wrong and quietly revised downward after they are announced. What is going on at BLS?…”
— Rep. Mary Miller (@RepMaryMiller) May 3, 2024
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Russia Confiscates €800 Million From Deutsche Bank, Unicredit And Commerzbank
After two years of being on the receiving end of a weaponized global reserve currency, getting booted from SWIFT, countless (toothless) sanctions and watching some $350 billion of its assets be frozen and soon confiscated, Moscow has had enough, and over the weekend the FT reported that a St Petersburg court seized around €800 million worth of assets belonging to three western banks – Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank and UniCredit.
The seizure marks one of the largest moves against western lenders since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine prompted most international lenders to withdraw or wind down their businesses in Russia. It comes after the ECB told Eurozone lenders with operations in the country to speed up their exit plans.
According to court documents, the court seized €463 million-worth of assets belonging to Italy’s UniCredit, equivalent to about 4.5% of its assets in the country, according to the latest financial statement from the bank’s main Russian subsidiary.
Frozen assets include shares in subsidiaries of UniCredit in Russia as well as stocks and funds it owned, according to the court decision that was dated May 16 and was published in the Russian registrar on Friday.
According to another decision on the same date, the court seized €238.6mn-worth of Deutsche Bank’s assets, including property and holdings in its accounts in Russia. The court also ruled that the bank cannot sell its business in Russia; it would already require the approval of Vladimir Putin to do so. The court agreed with Rukhimallians that the measures were necessary because the bank was “taking measures aimed at alienating its property in Russia”.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Radical Step
BUILDING A COMMUNITY FOR SURVIVAL
Climate news this week is bleak. More floods, more wildfires, more death, more nature lost. The climate change warning bell is tolling hard. It’s time to take the most radical step you’ve ever taken in your life. It’s time to build the community you need to survive.
An exclusive Guardian survey of hundreds of the world’s leading clvimate experts has found that:
77% of respondents believe global temperatures will reach at least 2.5C above preindustrial levels, a devastating degree of heating;almost half – 42% – think it will be more than 3C;only 6% think the 1.5C limit will be achieved.As The Guardian reports:
‘Jonathan Cullen, at the University of Cambridge, was particularly blunt: “1.5C is a political game – we were never going to reach this target.”
The climate emergency is already here. Even just 1C of heating has supercharged the planet’s extreme weather, delivering searing heatwaves from the US to Europe to China that would have been otherwise impossible. Millions of people have very likely died early as a result already. At just 2C, the brutal heatwave that struck the Pacific north-west of America in 2021 will be 100-200 times more likely.’
… “I am scared mightily – I don’t see how we are able to get out of this mess,” said Tim Benton, an expert on food security and food systems at the Chatham House thinktank. He said the cost of protecting people and recovering from climate disasters will be huge, with yet more discord and delay over who pays the bills. Numerous experts were worried over food production: “We’ve barely started to see the impacts,” said one.’
It’s time to build the community you need to survive the climate chaos future unfolding in real-time.
Community! Ugh!
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Tornadoes strike across 7 states with more severe weather on the way
Severe weather is forecast for Thursday across the entire South.
The threat for tornadoes continues Thursday following an outbreak of deadly storms throughout the Midwest and South over the past few days.
As of Thursday afternoon, at least 17 tornadoes had been reported in the previous 24 hours across seven states. There have been nearly 100 reported or confirmed tornadoes across 18 states since Monday.
Over 30 million Americans, from Texas to South Carolina, are in the storm zone and can expect to see severe weather Thursday night into early Friday. The tornado threat is lower than it has been during the multiday outbreak — damaging winds and large hail will be the main threat with these storms Thursday — though a couple of tornadoes will still remain possible.
Severe storms remain a threat for the South.ABC NewsDamaging winds up to 70 mph, scattered hail and a couple of tornadoes will all be possible as a cluster of thunderstorms with a history of producing tornadoes moves through southern Georgia, heading south and east through the evening.
A tornado watch has been issued for South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Florida until 9 p.m. ET Thursday. The cities located in that tornado watch include Jacksonville, Florida; Savannah, Georgia; and Charleston, South Carolina.
In Texas, a cluster of storms is expected to fire up Thursday afternoon and evening then progress west across the Gulf Coast states through the overnight hours. The main threats are significant wind gusts to 85 mph and very large hail up to 4 inches, though a couple of tornadoes cannot be ruled out.
A tornado watch has also been issued for parts of Texas, including Dallas, Waco and Abilene, through 9 p.m. CT Thursday.
John Bernhardt searches for his belongings outside his storm-damaged home Thursday, May 9, 2…Show moreGeorge Walker IV/AP…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Living with/in Fear
There are more like you than you think.
Photo by Aarón Blanco Tejedor / UnsplashSign up for Collapse 2050“I think 3C is being hopeful and conservative.”
– Ruth Cerezo-Mota an expert in climate modelling at the National Autonomous University of Mexico
The unspoken truth about humanity’s frightening future.
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A recent survey of 380 leading climate scientists conducted by The Guardian has revealed the profound unease these experts feel as they examine the ongoing damage humanity has inflicted on the natural world.
One prominent voice in the survey, Ruth Cerezo-Mota, a climate modeling expert at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, expressed her deep despair:
“Sometimes, it feels almost impossible not to feel hopeless and broken. After witnessing the flooding, fires, and droughts around the world—all consequences of climate change—and experiencing the fury of Hurricane Otis in my own country, I was hopeful that governments would start heeding scientific advice for the benefit of the people.”
“The turning point for me was a meeting in Singapore—it was then that everything made sense, but it plunged me into deep depression. It was a very dark period in my life where I was just surviving.”
“We continue our work because it’s necessary. It prevents those in power from claiming ignorance. They might say they don’t care, but they can’t deny they didn’t know.”
“I believe projecting a 3°C increase is both hopeful and conservative. A 1.5°C rise is already serious, and frankly, I see no clear commitment from any government to stay below this threshold.”
She is not alone. 77% of surveyed climate scientists believe we are on a path to at least 2.5°C warming this century.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
