Briefing: SDG 13 & the Carbon Capture Boom

How climate activism and ‘climate action’ were made to suit the business as usual/sustainable development agenda.

February 2023

By Michael Swifte

 

Ahmad Al Khowaiter, Chief Technology Officer, Saudi Aramco, [Image credit: Aaron M. Sprecher / Bloomberg] – Quotes transcribed from the video ‘Decarbonization of oil and gas – 2019 Global Energy Forum’

 

“What we think of as a waste product can actually become a very valuable product.”

 

“CO2 is a valuable feed stock, we should not forget that.”

 

[Source: Atlantic Council, Decarbonization of oil and gas – 2019 Global Energy Forum, January 13, 2019]

 

CONTENTS

Part 1. Questions and Answers

Introduction

The Goal

Defining ‘Action’

A diabolical concession to carbon capture and storage

Part 2. Strategic Failure

Public failures

Strategic climate justice failure – a timeline

Part 3. Industry Readiness

Value adding CO2 as a waste product

Pipelines and storage deliver transition

Evidence of a CCUS boom

Part 4. Thinking Properly

Boondoggles do damage

Fast moving and dangerous

Conclusions

Part 1. Questions and Answers

Introduction

This briefing represents 10 years of research and activism starting with the fracking boom impacting my home state. A few years into the fracking boom I experienced the take-over of environmental/anti-fossil fuel activism by climate NGOs funded primarily through US based philanthropies working with Australian philanthropists.

I vowed to learn every possible lesson from the fracking boom and employ those lessons against the next phase of fossil fuel extractivism. I have always seen fossil fuel extraction as a dirty and destructive industry and a pillar of globalist hegemony. Like fracking, CO2 enhanced oil recovery (CO2-EOR) had been practiced/developed for decades before appearing as a ‘solution’ in the energy market place. Like fracking, efforts to advance carbon capture and storage for CO2-EOR have received weak resistance in legislatures as new subsidies and other industry development supports have been established.

It is lamentable that the many technical experts, pundits and spokespeople who offer positions on climate and energy refuse to speak about the political will. As a generalist and an independent activist and researcher, I don’t have the credentials or the backing of any institutions to give me a veneer of credibility. What I do have is a working understanding of critical theory, psywar and the networked nature of modern power.

As a generalist I can comprehend enough organic chemistry to feel confident that my statements about industry readiness for a carbon capture and storage (CCS) boom are substantive. I offer this briefing with the expectation that anyone who disagrees with my assertions will take the time to critique my work in good faith. It is most likely that this briefing will be met with silence by the climate campaigners who ought to care that the establishment is once again ensuring that business as usual continues. It is the silence of climate campaigners that I contend is the most dire outcome stemming from their reliance on billionaire philanthropists and their agents. It is in the space created by the shared silences of industry, government, media and non government organizations (NGO) that the forces engineering business as usual operate.

The Goal

Sustainable Development Goal 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts

Climate change presents the single biggest threat to development, and its widespread, unprecedented effects disproportionately burden the poorest and the most vulnerable. Goal 13 calls for urgent action not only to combat climate change and its impacts, but also to build resilience in responding to climate-related hazards and natural disasters.

[Further reading] https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2016/goal-13/

Defining ‘ACTION’

Q. What is ‘climate action’?

A. It is primarily/ostensibly about reducing emissions but it also includes adaptation plans.

Some defined actions:

• -avoided emissions from aforestation
• -carbon offsets purchased in the marketplace
• -reduced emissions from renewables
• -phasing out ‘unabated’ (without CCS) fossil fuels
• -carbon removal and carbon capture utilization and storage
• -biomass with carbon capture and storage (BECCS)

 

Q. Are fossil fuels being phased out?

A. No. The only commitments being made are for phasing out ‘unabated’ fossil fuels. Much of the phase out action involves the replacement of retired energy generation. Conventional coal fired power has been a particular focus of phase-out commitments.

[Further reading] https://wesuspectsilence.wordpress.com/2022/07/04/when-thinking-about-fossil-fuel-phase-outs-the-key-word-is-unabated/

Q. What have climate negotiations delivered?

A. Treaties, agreements and shared commitments, none of which specify phasing out of fossil fuels. All the measures were developed for mitigation and management of emissions. Carbon accounting is a primary emissions management tool.

Consensus Mechanisms

• -The 1992 Earth Summit intoduced climate change as an active theme in environmental consensus building.
• -The Kyoto Protocol provided 3 mechanisms which are all carbon accounting formulations: Clean development mechanism (CDM), Joint implementation, (JI) Emissions trading (ET). CCS was included as an eligible technology under the CDM in 2011 (Article 6).
• -The Paris Agreement is a binding international treaty providing frameworks and mechanisms for finance and carbon accounting. Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are the central carbon accounting framework in the Paris Agreement. NDCs do not compel or necessarily encourage any country or state to phase out fossil fuels. NDCs are about emissions reductions on a ledger.
• -COP 26 produced commitments to phase out ‘unabated’ fossil fuels.

 

[Further reading] https://unfccc.int/process/the-kyoto-protocol/mechanisms

[Further reading] file:///C:/Users/User/Downloads/20220317-CSUs_under_Article_6_Mar_2022_vf.pdf

A diabolical concession to carbon capture and storage

Q. How did ‘they’ turn climate activism into an ineffective force for the environment?

A. At Wrong Kind of Green we contend that an expansive network of philanthropies/NGOs and their connections in government, corporations and the media work under prescribed narratives and talking points defined by funders and in so doing become useful idiots for the global governance agenda. We call this networked formation the ‘non profit industrial complex’. We call the process by which networks are exploited and messaging shaped to control global consensus mechanisms and manufacture the consent of the general public, ‘networked hegemony’.

[Further reading] https://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2017/07/27/avaaz-the-globes-largest-most-powerful-behavioural-change-network-part-i/

Q. What is the Design to Win plan?

A. The Design to Win plan was produced in 2007 for a collection of philanthropic foundations to further their ‘climate’ ambitions. It contains positions in support of “unavoidable” fossil fuels and the deployment of carbon capture and storage. The Design to Win plan launched John Podesta’s ClimateWorks Foundation which became his vehicle for establishing a vast network of NGOs of varying types including re-granting NGOs which disseminated the prescribed narratives and talking points to smaller NGOs. The media helped to reinforce prescribed narratives through amplifying selected NGOs and spokespeople, and participated in considerable silences regarding the growing political will for carbon capture and storage.

The 2007 report Design To Win: Philanthropy’s Role in the Fight Against Global Warming would serve to shape the future of the climate movement. The result of a commissioned study funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Energy Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, the Oak Foundation, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Design To Win “served as a catalyst for an unprecedented outpouring of funding on energy and climate issues. Implicit to the report was the idea that the ‘market knows best’ and that the role of regulators is to create the right conditions and send the right signals for a transition to a low-carbon economy.

[SOURCE] https://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2019/09/11/the-manufacturing-of-greta-thunberg-for-consent-volume-ii-act-i-a-design-to-win-a-multi-billion-dollar-investment/

[Further reading] https://www.climateworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/Design-to-Win.pdf

Q. What is ‘net zero’?

A. Net Zero is an accounting outcome derived through the mitigation and management of emissions. Because it is based on results that appear on a ledger where actual emissions and various instruments representing offsets or avoided emissions are turned into numbers. Net Zero and other emissions mitigation and management schemes can and are being gamed.

[Further reading] https://mahb.stanford.edu/library-item/fossil-fuels-net-zero-carbon-emissions-scam-is-something-humanity-doesnt-have-time-for/

[Further reading] https://medium.com/@kim.hill/unpacking-extinction-rebellion-part-i-net-zero-emissions-5a5eed68d9ce

Q. What is BECCS?

A. The use of biomass as an industrial feed stock with carbon capture and storage applied. When biomass pellets produced from agroforestry trimmings, whole trees or timber industry waste is deemed carbon neutral, it provides a negative value on Net Zero ledger when CCS is applied. Biomass is widely reported as “renewable” when used in place of coal in conventional power plants.

The idea behind BECCS, Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage, is in part quite similar to CCS, Carbon Capture and Storage. However where BECCS goes a step beyond CCS is that Drax and other biomass burning companies proposing to use the technology argue that if they can capture the emitted CO2, burning biomass can become carbon negative and a climate solution! (This is based on the false premise that burning wood is carbon neutral) In 2019, Drax announced its ambition to become a “carbon-negative” company by 2030. Drax proposes that it will continue burning biomass and that with BECCS technology it will be able to capture up to 16 million tonnes of the CO2 it emits through its wood burning per year.

[SOURCE] [Download link] https://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/2022/beccs-factsheet/

[Further reading] https://www.chathamhouse.org/2022/10/why-burning-biomass-not-zero-carbon

Q. Why is Farhana Yamin a pivotal figure in climate action?

A. Because she spent decades working as a policy wonk for the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) and for the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, one of the key funders of Extinction Rebellion (XR). Shortly before joining XR with the sustainable development goals (SDG) tucked under her arm, Yamin’s think tank Track 0 produced the perfect articulation of the concession position engendered in global climate activism by John Podesta, and a range of billionaire donor advised funders and impact philanthropists.

The concession position, formulated in the mid 2000s and carried forward in the IPCC modelling, is to allow a little BECCS in exchange for a renewables revolution. The Track 0 rationale explains that to implement BECCS will require the implementation of CCS. The concession to BECCS is thus tethered to accepting some CCS. Because the BECCS concession is never included in any climate campaigner talking points and does not suit the prescribed narrative that asserts that there is political will to phase out fossil fuels, it is almost entirely excluded from discussion. It is as if the work of the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative which is supported by the National Grid, the North Sea Transition Authority, and the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy doesn’t exist. The collective narrative driven silence creates a false reality as the context for XR and Just Stop Oil (founded by XR founder Roger Hallam) activism.

Bioenergy production can be integrated with existing CCS technologies relatively simply and there are no technical implications of capturing a CO2 stream from biomass (Gough and Upham, 2010; Muratori et al., 2016). BECCS could complement the current expansion of the use of biomass as fuel (Rhodes and Keith, 2008). However, the success of BECCS is dependent on upcoming developments in CCS, where there are significant uncertainties surrounding CO2 transport networks, storage capacities, legality, social acceptability and technology incentives (McGlashen, Shah and Workman, 2010).

[SOURCE] https://climatenetwork.org/resource/a-compendium-of-solutions-for-achieving-the-sustainable-development-goals-and-staying-below-2ac-or-1-5aoc/

Q. How does the work of Biden administration senior advisor for ‘clean energy’ John Podesta intersect with the work of billionaire hedge fund manager Chris Hohn?

A. Both provide funding to Bellona Europa which has been creating opportunities for BECCS for at least 2 decades. Both have extensive interests in climate activism and steering industry toward greater emissions reductions using CCS and BECCS.

Bellona Europa works primarily on industrial decarbonisation, energy systems, circularity, sustainable finance, and negative emissions (carbon dioxide removal).

To back and support our work, our funders are mainly European and International philantropies: CIFF (Children’s investment fund), ECF (European Climate Foundation) and Climateworks. We also receive grants at the EU level (EU Horizon 2020 project, “European Negative Emissions Projects” ) and at the national level (Norwegian, Nordic & EEA grants for research).

[SOURCE] https://bellona.org/about-bellona

“Industrial sectors such as cement and steel production are responsible for nearly a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions. We need the right regulatory, policy and financial frameworks to bring industry emissions down. We focus on things like carbon performance regulation, heating and cooling legislation, innovation, carbon capture and storage technologies and enforcement through carbon disclosure and shifting investor behaviour. We want to ensure that Europe leads the way in industrial decarbonisation and accelerate industrial decarbonisation at a global scale.”

[SOURCE] https://ciff.org/priorities/climate-change/

‘An Industry’s Guide to Climate Action, CHAPTER 3 summary: The Dawn of a New Industry’ (Funded by the Childrens Investment Fund Foundation)

As the transformation of the energy system continues and new technology options are developed and brought to maturity, measures that can provide effective and deep emission reductions to industry processes are needed today. • The capturing of CO2 emissions from industrial clusters and their transport and permanent offshore storage in deep geological formations (CCS) constitutes an essential part of the solution

CCS buys humanity time and industry a functional climate transition.

[SOURCE] https://bellona.org/publication/an-industrys-guide-to-climate-change

[Further reading] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/09/02/president-biden-announces-senior-clean-energy-and-climate-team/

[Further reading] https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2020/01/06/a_british_billionaires_big_investments_in_us_environmental_politics_121359.html

[Video] ‘Sir Chris Hohn: The Full Interview’ https://youtu.be/xqP6091Wf9o

Q. Why is biomass with CCS (BECCS) so crucial to net zero accounting?

A. Because BECCS is the combination of the biomass double counting scam and the near zero emissions projections for CCS. BECCS has erroneously been labeled a ‘negative emissions technology’.

BECCS employs biomass as a feed stock, and the ‘technology’ is collectively known as carbon capture and storage. The biomass accounting scam labels trimmings from agroforestry including whole trees that, in theory, are permanently sequestering CO2 as ‘carbon neutral’. This means that when biomass is used as a feed stock, the emissions created by this ‘carbon neutral’ product acquire a negative value on the Net Zero ledger. The logic goes that with BECCS as the crucial supplier of negative net zero accounting value, variously derived carbon offsets, mitigation of fugitive emissions, and the assumption that CO2 storage works effectively, the net zero ledger can be brought to zero.

[Further reading] https://www.drax.com/sustainability/sustainable-bioenergy/ipcc-on-biomass-power-generation-carbon-accounting/

[Further reading] https://www.nrdc.org/experts/sasha-stashwick/how-biomass-industry-sent-sustainability-smoke

Part 2. Strategic Failure

Public Failures

Tzeporah Berman

Above: The Climate Group, July 7, 2016, “Bold New Climate Policy In Canada’s Oil Sands – Business & Climate Summit 2016”. The panel discussion featured Steve Williams, President and CEO of Suncor, Nigel Topping, CEO of We Mean Business, and Tzep Berman, “environmentalist”. On July 19, 2016, Berman would announce her new appointment as co-chair of the newly formed Alberta Governments Oil Sands Advisory Group. Two years later, The Climate Group (a co-founder of We Mean Business) and Callum Grieve (The Climate Group, We Mean Business) would play a quiet yet pivotal role in the “discovery” and rise of Greta Thunberg.

Tzeporah Berman heads up the campaign for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, she has a long history as a well connected environmental campaigner. In 2016 Berman joined UK High Level Climate Action Champion for COP 26, Nigel Topping (We Mean Business, Grantham Institute, UK Infrastructure Bank) and Suncor CEO Steve Williams to develop a ‘groundbreaking’ deal on emissions caps on Canadian tar sands. In 2021 Suncor acquired a stake in carbon capture technology company Svante. Suncor is part of the Pathways Alliance which has plans to emulate the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line as the basis for new gas and tar sands decarbonisation hubs. Chevron recently bought a stake in Svante who have made long term investments in carbon capture technology. Svante have stated their technology is for “rapid deployment”.

[Further reading] https://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2016/08/31/watch-albertas-environment-minister-commends-leap-manifestos-tzeporah-berman-for-helping-craft-the-tarsands-deal/

[Further reading] https://globalnews.ca/news/7705834/suncor-energy-svante-carbon-capture-investment/

[Further reading] https://www.ctvnews.ca/climate-and-environment/pathways-alliance-president-says-oil-industry-will-be-judged-on-climate-goals-1.6147569

[Further reading] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chevron-invests-carbon-capture-removal-213000800.html

[Further reading] https://esgtelegraph.com/environment/carbon-capture-tech-provider-svante-raises-over-300-million/

 

Screenshot: Tzeporah Berman joins Christiana Figueres Tom Rivett-Carnac and Paul Dickinson (co-founded the Carbon Disclosure Project which co-founded We Mean Business), for an episode of “Outrage & Optimism”. The initial funding for Global Optimism (rebranded to Outrage & Optimism) was provided by We Mean Business. In 2020, Figueres and Rivet-Carnac published The Future We Choose.

In 2019, the Climate Breakthrough Project awarded Tzeporah Berman with two million dollars. The Climate Breakthrough Project was launched in 2015 under the name the Climate Strategies Accelerator. It is an initiative of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation in partnership with the Oak Foundation, the IKEA Foundation, the JPB Foundation, and the Good Energies Foundation.

Tzeporah Berman has never mentioned the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line (ACTL) let alone contributed to any effort to unpack the project and contribute to public understanding. The North West Refining, Sturgeon plant was already under construction when Berman met with Topping and Williams. The brains behind the project, Ian MacGregor had already explained the scale of the vertically integrated refinery-pipeline-storage project in a speech to the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers 33rd Consolidated Convention in Las Vegas, Nevada. The ACTL has been called the “world’s largest CO2 pipeline”. With the Canadian government poised to introduce an American style tax credit for CCS, it seems like tar sands extraction and refining, gas extraction and CO2 enhanced oil recovery have a firm future in Alberta.

Recent statements from Alberta premier Danielle Smith make it very clear that the province is about to be subject to a CCUS boom.

“We are working with the federal government closely on technologies like carbon capture utilization and storage, hydrogen, critical minerals,”

[SOURCE] https://youtu.be/xE-hNQkX7CI

[Further reading] https://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/topstories/opinion-us-climate-action-a-roadmap-for-canada-to-support-carbon-capture-and-storage/ar-AA122faE

[Further reading] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-premier-danielle-smith-sovereigty-act-just-transition-1.6709043

[Ian MacGregor and the ACTL] https://youtu.be/y4r1_4t_eiM

Julian Brave Noisecat

JB Noisecat left 350 dot org in early 2019 and joined Data for Progress, the progressive polling agency/think tank, taking on the role of Vice President of Policy & Strategy. As a member of Data for Progress, along with Sean McElwee, Noisecat advised the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force in advance of the Biden campaign’s final policy statements. He would go on to proclaim that Biden’s “build back better” plans “are a Green New Deal in all but name”. Data for Progress never had a problem with CCS, indeed they redefined “non-renewable clean energy” to include CCS, hydrogen and nuclear in their ‘scorecard’ on Jay Inslee’s policy agenda in June 2019. Noisecat went on to join the NDN Collective who are recipients of significant funding from the Bezos Earth Fund.

[Further reading] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/20/joe-biden-has-endorsed-the-green-new-deal-in-all-but-name

[Further reading] https://www.filesforprogress.org/reports/gnd_scorecards/Inslee.pdf

It could be argued that Data for Progress, with the help of the World Resources Institute, authored the original Green New Deal document in September 2018. The Green New Deal became an election vehicle for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and a campaign focus for the Sunrise Movement. AOC and Sunrise cofounder Varshini Prakash also helped CCS and nuclear pass the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force. If you follow the money and consider how First Nations and frontline communities were marginalised from the Green New Deal process, it’s hard not to see it as a cynical ploy to get another neoliberal Democrat president into place.

[Further reading] https://www.dataforprogress.org/green-new-deal-report

[John Washington to New Consensus] https://youtu.be/fEA_9iKtSTY

JB Noisecat seems to have helped keep “the door open” for CCS in his time since leaving the world’s most influential climate campaigning organisation (350 dot org). Any number of climate NGOs have signed open letters stating their opposition to CCS citing multiple concerns. Noisecat transformed from a climate campaigner, utterly opposed to new fossil fuel extraction, to the spokesperson for a kind of mute reformism. The passing of the Inflation Reduction Act with its “monumental enhancements” to the 45Q tax credit is testament to Noisecat’s failure.

[Further reading] https://popularresistance.org/part-i-the-unannounced-death-of-the-green-new-deal/

[Further reading] https://carboncapturecoalition.org/inflation-reduction-act-of-2022-makes-monumental-enhancements-to-the-foundational-45q-tax-credit/

Greta Thunberg

Above. January 2019: Greta arrives at Davos at the invitation of former U.N. Secretary Christiana Figueres (co-founder of Outrage & Optimism funded by We Mean Business). Here, a young Greta Thunberg will be introduced to the World during the Fourth Industrial Revolution Panel session led by Marc Benioff, founder and CEO of Salesforce. In this photo, taken at the Arctic Basecamp, We Mean Business CEO Nigel Topping (UK High Level Climate Action Champion, COP26, Former Arctic Basecamp advisory board member), appears at the very right of the frame. To Thunberg’s right is Johan Rockstrom, chair of the Earth Commission (launched 2019) and steering committee member of the Global Commons Alliance.

Greta Thunberg is young and cannot be considered a failure, but a critical investigation of her messaging and content is always required. An important part of that critical view is consideration of Greta’s advisers and enablers. Cory Morningstar’s ‘The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg’ series, provides a compelling picture of a child with elite connections propelled into celebrity by philanthropically funded entities to direct the discourse away from the mitigation plans of the global climate consensus machine. While Greta has many minders, the only acknowledged adviser is Johan Rockstrom who wears a Sustainable Development Goals badge at public events and takes a position against degrowth.

It’s naive to say ‘Let’s go for de-growth, let’s completely divest, or let’s think of post-capitalist model and throw GDP in the waste bin’. We have to work with the economic machinery that we have in our engine room.

[SOURCE] https://today.rtl.lu/news/science-and-environment/a/1448687.html

[Further reading] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/29/johan-rockstrom-interview-breaking-boundaries-attenborough-biden

Greta has demonstrated a pattern of not speaking to the substance of mitigation plans relying on generalised statements that raise no questions about specific actors. Kevin Anderson who told me he is not an ‘adviser’ to Greta also acknowledged that she did not pay attention to the output of the IPCC Working Group 3 on mitigation when it was relevant to the discourse. I would argue that this inattention worked to protect the interests of those who would see enough fossil fuel CCS established to allow the implementation of CO2 storage for biomass with CCS. But, Greta is too young to know that she is enjoined to a long held compromise position held by organisations like the Bellona Foundation, WWF and the European Climate Foundation.

Climeworks: “On 10th March 2020 we had the honor of welcoming the inspiring Greta Thunberg to our direct air capture plant in Hinwil. The Swedish environmental activist was curious about our climate solution and wanted to learn more about it. She was accompanied by her father Svante as well as a BBC Studios film crew who, for a year, will be following Greta around the world to create a documentary.”

Michael Swifte @empathiser – July 24, 2019

What about the IPCC ‘pathways’ that never get discussed? They embed #BECCS and mask the political will for fossil fuel based #CCS ie hydrogen energy and industrial clusters linked to North Sea export hubs. #netzeroemissions

https://twitter.com/empathiser/status/1153941328431943682

Kevin Anderson @KevinClimate – July 24, 2019

Agree. Greta is principally focussing on the IPCC’s Working Group 1 (the physical science), much less on the ‘cost-optimised” procrastination that dominates Working Group 3 (on mitigation).

https://twitter.com/KevinClimate/status/1153942871080394752

[Further reading] https://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2019/10/19/perfect-distractions-and-fantastical-mitigation-plans/

 

Above: April, 2019 newsletter, We Mean Business. The combined market cap of the We Mean Business Coalition partner initiatives exceeds US$25 trillion dollars – equivalent to almost one-quarter of global GDP. [Source: WE MEAN BUSINESS COALITION SUBMISSION TO THE GLOBAL STOCKTAKE, March 2022]

In her climate book in Chapter 4 Greta provides an essay called ‘We are not moving in the right direction’. In it Greta develops the linguistic conflation that she carried to her public interviews while promoting the book. The linguistic conflation goes like this: direct air capture (DAC) as practiced at the Orca facility in Iceland is carbon capture and storage, and therefore any mention of carbon capture and storage is a reference to direct air capture. This conflation has resulted in statements by Greta that either sound like an endorsement of large scale fossil fuel CCS (but are not), or statements about DAC as a form of CCS that can easily be refuted by the existence of facilities like the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line.

No respectable adult public figure could get away with such a gross conflation, and since Greta is young, it is not fair to contend that she is acting on behalf of some kind of self serving agenda. Looking at the extensive list of accomplished and well positioned expert contributors, and being mindful of the extensive editorial effort it takes to produce a non-fiction book, it’s reasonable to assume that there were many adults of professional standing who let Greta’s conflation make it into the book and into her collection of talking points for its promotion.

Interview with Samira Ahmed:

Greta Thunberg: The Climate Event | Southbank Centre – 31 October 2022

 

Samira Ahmed:

“I wonder if there are any technologies which have impressed you which you think are a legitmate part of the solution?”

 

Greta Thunberg:

“I mean, many. I mean, for example carbon capture and storage is something we must invest every possible resource in.”

[SOURCE] https://youtu.be/ropBOwPvmLM

Zoom call with Bjork:

“I haven’t met a politician ready to do what it takes”: Greta Thunberg and Björk in conversation

 

BG: In your book, you point out that if there were as many carbon capture storage (CCS) facilities in the world as there are oil refineries, you’d start to see some results. Every country needs to be doing them, and it’s one solution of thousands. The fact that there is one place in Iceland doing it now, unfortunately, is not going to change a lot.

 

GT: Yes, the largest carbon capture storage facility in the world is in Iceland. And I remember in Stockholm, there were big campaigns where energy companies posted pictures of that facility saying, “Yeah, this is the future.” It was greenwashing! That facility, if all goes according to plan, will be able to capture about three seconds’ worth of our annual carbon dioxide emissions, according to one climate scientist’s calculations. They are not only being used as a way of greenwashing and legitimising the bad things we are doing now, but we also fail to invest in them – which is very contradictory, to say the least!

[SOURCE] https://www.newstatesman.com/environment/2022/10/greta-thunberg-bjork-guomundsdottir-interview-climate-change

Catherine McKenna

Catherine McKenna is the former environment minister of Canada, a Powering Past Coal Alliance leader, and the current chair of the United Nations – High-level Expert Group on the Net-zero Emissions Commitments of Non-State Entities. McKenna was one of the earliest and most prolific users of the terms “unabated” and “traditional” regarding coal and other fossil fuels. Under her leadership Canada, and Alberta in particular, made huge strides towards large scale CCUS for tar sands and gas.

When visiting the SaskPower – Boundary Dam facility in 2016 McKenna articulated a position in favor of CCS/CCUS as a climate ‘solution’ that would benefit Canada.

So when you have carbon capture and storage, that’s certainly an innovative solution — a made-in-Canada solution

[SOURCE] https://leaderpost.com/business/energy/environment-minister-mckenna-says-carbon-capture-part-of-solution-to-climate-change

In June of 2021 the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) which has long held a position in favor of CCS/CCUS as part of their ‘2 degree solution’, joined the Powering Past Coal Alliance.

The PPCA is a coalition of national and sub-national governments, businesses and organizations working to advance the transition from unabated coal power generation to clean energy.

[SOURCE] https://www.wbcsd.org/eng/Programs/Climate-and-Energy/Energy/New-Energy-Solutions/News/WBCSD-joins-Powering-Past-Coal-Alliance-as-corporate-partner

[Further reading] https://www.un.org/tr/node/182407

[Further reading] https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/mckenna-un-climate-change-panel-1.5934847

[Further reading] https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/news/2017/11/canada_calls_foraglobalalliancetophaseoutcoalelectricity.html

[Video] CCS: A 2 Degree Solution by WBCSD https://youtu.be/UeMfHXE_zsQ

Naomi Klein

Photo: “Naomi Klein speaks to the media before an event on December 12, 2019 in Berlin, Germany.” (Photo: Carsten Koall/Getty Images)

Naomi Klein writes non-linear prose, or what I like to call “project managed prose”. A journalist who is one of the sources for her book ‘This Changes Everything’ told me that she largely assembles the prose from research provided by assistants. Klein’s chapters are built around themes rather than developing a compelling thesis. Instead of framing the use of anthropogenic CO2 as a new “fossil fuel frontier”, Klein used her acknowledgement of the capacity of CO2-EOR (enhanced oil recovery) to vastly expand proven oil reserves as an opportunity to speak against “overall emissions” rather than the growing political will and the track record of the fossil fuel industry as exemplified by the fracking boom.

In the years following the release of Klein’s book, she has never returned to the subject of CO2-EOR in the US or Canada. In that time extensive efforts have been made in the US to furnish big oil, gas, coal and biomass with a tax credit that will operate as an effective subsidy. In Canada the largest CO2 pipeline on earth, the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line, was built to supply CO2 captured from tar sands to a CO2-EOR project.

This Changes Everything, Naomi Klein, 2014

Chapter. ‘NO MESSIAHS: The Green Billionaires Won’t Save Us’.

We need to consider what is meant by “overall carbon footprint”. How can we include the emissions from oil that is sold on and its emissions created in another country. Klein’s book was written before the ‘scopes of emissions’ were well understood.

While more research is needed on the overall carbon footprint of EOR, one striking modeling study examined a similar proposal that would use CO2 captured not from the air but directly from coal plants. It found that the emissions benefit of sequestering CO2 would be more than canceled out by all that extra oil: on a system-wide basis, the process could still end up releasing about four times as much CO2 as it would save.52 Moreover, much of this is oil that is currently considered unrecoverable—i.e., not even counted in current proven reserves, which as we know already represents five times more than we can safely burn. Any technology that can quadruple proven reserves in the U.S. alone is a climate menace, not a climate solution.

pp 214

[Scopes of emissions] https://plana.earth/academy/what-are-scope-1-2-3-emissions

 

Above: Author Naomi Klein and World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab endorse “The Future We Choose“. Today’s liberal “activism” now flourishes alongside corporate “activism”. Following a full decade of the marketing campaign “Together”, this largely normalized alliance goes almost undetected by the citizenry and climate activists alike. 

Strategic climate justice failure – a timeline

2003

Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum launched with the help of the International Energy Agency

2005

European Union Carbon Capture and Storage Stakeholder Dialogue:

“We’ll never reach negative emissions without CCS.” Anonymous former Climate Action Network Europe representative.

2007

Design to Win plan completed.

2008

ClimateWorks Foundation and European Climate Foundation are created.

2010

Clean Energy Ministerial launched by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

2010

350.org sabotage of the People’s Agreement of Cochabamba.

2011

1 Sky and 350 merged with the help of the Clinton Global Initiative and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Sustainable Development Program.

2014

People’s Climate March demonstrates coordinated messaging strategy and the dominance of movement generation by philanthropy. The Rockefeller Brothers Fund – Sustainable Development program played a central role in establishing the ‘This Changes Everything’ project which went beyond the book and documentary establishing the concept of ‘Metrics as a proxy for social change’.

2015

Naomi Klein’s ‘This Changes Everything’ treated like a holy text within the climate justice movement.

2015

Paris Agreement produces Nationally Determined Contributions placing focus on emissions reduction and management.

2018

Greta and Extinction Rebellion arrive around the same time the IPCC released it’s AR5 report. While much focus was put on the dire warnings from IPCC Working Group 1 (‘the science’ and budgets), the output of Working Group 3 (mitigation) were almost entirely ignored.

2019

Greta Thunberg visits New York at the invitation of Antonio Guterres who sent his assistant to speak the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative the night before Greta’s big speech.

2021

Glasgow COP 26. All fossil fuel phase-out commitments contain the qualifier ‘unabated’. IEA modelling contains multiple uses of the qualifier ‘unabated’, but this fact is almost entirely ignored by the climate justice movement and their networks.

2022

CCUS boom begins. New projects announced on every continent. The Alberta Carbon Trunk Line and the Northern Endurance Partnership/East Coast Cluster are almost entirely ignored.

Part 3. Industry Readiness

Value adding CO2 as a waste product

Anthropogenic CO2 is seen as valuable for enhanced oil recovery (EOR), a practice used to access the remnant oil in depleted oil fields. Liquefied CO2 is pumped into depleted wells along with water in a process called water alternating gas (WAG) miscible flooding. The CO2 is said to integrate with the rock matrix during the WAG process, thereby sequestering it.

The oil industry, especially in the US, has known for decades what could be achieved if they had access to anthropogenic CO2. Companies like Exxon have been tapping geological formations called CO2 domes for decades. The naturally occurring CO2 that accumulates in these domes is liquefied and used for EOR.

Public figures like Naomi Klein are more than aware of the potential increase in proven oil reserves if anthropogenic CO2 can be deployed for EOR. In her book ‘This Changes Everything’ Klein cites research asserting that CO2-EOR using anthropogenic CO2 could quadruple proven US oil reserves. It is clear that almost nobody, not even Klein herself, have acted to resist the efforts to develop financial instruments and effective subsidies for CO2-EOR, and the other forms of energy production that will produce captured CO2.

[Further reading] https://nmpoliticalreport.com/2020/12/14/why-energy-companies-are-drilling-for-a-greenhouse-gas-in-new-mexico/

[Video] ‘Exploiting science to increase oil recovery’ https://youtu.be/oSQt5tRVvAA

Refining technology needing only CO2 transport and storage infrastructure

Two crucial technological developments that are applied widely in fossil fuel refining and processing need to be understood in the context of the oil and gas industry’s plans for blue hydrogen production and the expanding deployment of biomass as a feed stock for decarbonisation.

It is important to understand that the energy and refining industries produce and use hydrogen routinely. Industry has the capability to direct CO2 streams that would otherwise be vented to the atmosphere into transport and storage infrastructure such as pipelines and export hubs.

Steam methane reforming

Steam methane reforming is the most common method for producing hydrogen from gas, biomass and derivatives from oil. Refiners use high pressure steam (H2O) with gas (CH4) to produce hydrogen (H2) and CO2. The CO2 is conventionally vented off (grey hydrogen), but can be captured for storage and other uses (blue hydrogen).

Cracking

Cracking is a key technology in the evolution of processing oil, gas, coal and biomass. Unlike fractional distillation which is the foundational technology used by the fossil fuel industry to separate various compounds found in extracted feed stocks (oil, gas, and coal), cracking separates feed stocks into their constituent molecules. These molecules can be reconstituted into synthetic fuels. Cracking is generally seen as a set of more efficient process for producing alkines (derivatives from refining).

Hydrocracking is used extensively in combination with catalytic cracking by refiners for conversion/purification of feed stocks. Industry leaders regard hydrogen as ‘indispensable’ to the refining industry, and for future transport and energy needs. The oil, gas, biomass and coal industries are well positioned to deploy blue hydrogen when access to CO2 transport and storage is made available because existing technology allows for minimal retooling to capture waste CO2.

[Further reading] https://www.frompollutiontosolution.org/hydrogen-from-smr-and-ccs

[Further reading] https://fsc432.dutton.psu.edu/2014/07/06/hydrocracking-vs-catalytic-cracking/

[Further reading] https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/20100917_china_clean_energy_lunch_and_panel_3.pdf

Evidence of a CCUS boom

The CCUS boom has begun. This can be discerned by a dramatic increase in political support for approval and financing of CCS projects, and the number of new projects being announced. The most advanced projects rarely receive attention from climate campaigners, and their connections in the mainstream and liberal media.

USA

Navigator and Summit CO2 pipelines, Oxy Low Carbon DAC for CO2-EOR, Houston Ship Channel, monumental expansions to the 45Q tax credit and other support under the IRA

[Further reading] https://www.agweek.com/business/adm-partnering-on-carbon-pipeline-out-of-iowa

[Further reading] https://gcaptain.com/exxon-sets-sail-on-massive-houston-ship-channel-carbon-capture-project/

[Further reading] https://www.thebalancenewsletter.com/oxylowcarbonventuresdac

[Further reading] https://carboncapturecoalition.org/inflation-reduction-act-of-2022-makes-monumental-enhancements-to-the-foundational-45q-tax-credit/

Canada

Alberta Carbon Trunk Line and associated refining and extractive projects, Pathways Alliance plans to emulate the ACTL, CCS tax credit proposed

[Further reading] https://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/topstories/opinion-us-climate-action-a-roadmap-for-canada-to-support-carbon-capture-and-storage/ar-AA122faE

[Further reading] https://www.ctvnews.ca/climate-and-environment/pathways-alliance-president-says-oil-industry-will-be-judged-on-climate-goals-1.6147569

[Further reading] https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2022/10/26/Industry-Carbon-Capture-Steamroller-Could-Crush-BC-First-Nations/

[Further reading] https://www.ogci.com/ogci-climate-investments-continues-to-back-svante-a-new-unicorn-in-latest-funding-round/

Middle East

Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE blue hydrogen and blue ammonia projects

[Further reading] https://www.aramcolife.com/en/publications/the-arabian-sun/articles/2021/week-47-articles/ccus-efforts-day-to-day-effort-at-hawiyah-ngl-plant

[Further reading] https://www.jwnenergy.com/article/2022/9/1/qatar-to-tap-global-hydrogen-market-with-1-billion/

[Further reading] https://gulfbusiness.com/harnessing-the-power-of-hydrogen-in-the-uae/

Europe

Northern Endurance Partnership, East Coast Cluster, Porthos

[Further reading] https://www.business-live.co.uk/economic-development/chamber-backs-humber-2030-vision-25596678

[Further reading] https://www.business-live.co.uk/economic-development/east-coast-cluster-chief-latest-24770094

[Further reading] https://www.edie.net/government-unveils-ccus-project-shortlist-to-help-decarbonise-industrial-clusters/

[Further reading] https://www.equinor.com/news/uk/20220512-east-coast-cluster-carbon-storage-licences

[Further reading] https://carbonherald.com/eus-ccus-zero-emission-network-will-accelerate-carbon-capture-in-the-region/

[Further reading] https://www.porthosco2.nl/en/

[Further reading] https://www.gasworld.com/story/denmark-accelerates-development-of-ccs-chain/2119229.article/

Australia

Exploration acreage for Woodside, Total, Chevron and Santos, CCS decarbonisation hub proposed for Darwin

[Further reading] https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220908006060/en/Chevron-Granted-Interest-in-Three-Permits-to-Assess-Carbon-Storage-Offshore-Australia

[Further reading] https://www.inpex.co.jp/english/news/assets/pdf/20220824.pdf

[Further reading] https://energyclubnt.com.au/news/12891148

[Further reading] https://stockhead.com.au/energy/pilot-on-the-fast-track-to-becoming-one-of-australias-first-offshore-ccs-operators/

[Further reading] https://www.santos.com/news/santos-announces-fid-on-moomba-carbon-capture-and-storage-project/

Asia

Japan and South Korea making deals for import of blue hydrogen and blue ammonia, Malaysia, Indonesia and China all pursuing CCS, CCUS and decarbonisation hubs.

[Further reading] https://www.hydrocarbononline.com/doc/inpex-takes-fid-on-kashiwazaki-clean-hydrogen-ammonia-project-in-niigata-prefecture-japan-0001

[Further reading] https://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/adnoc-sells-first-blue-ammonia-cargo-to-japans-itochu-amid-clean-energy-push/

[Further reading] https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2022/08/419_333847.html

[Further reading] https://www.reuters.com/article/malaysia-petronas-idUSL1N32P0DJ

[Further reading] https://www.upstreamonline.com/energy-transition/pertamina-and-marubeni-to-develop-decarbonisation-projects-in-indonesia/2-1-1171212#:~:text=Pertamina%20and%20Marubeni%20to%20develop%20decarbonisation%20projects%20in%20Indonesia

[Further reading] https://www.upstreamonline.com/energy-transition/offshore-china-harbours-huge-carbon-capture-potential/2-1-1390955

Part 4. Thinking Properly

Boondoggles do damage

The fracking boom was a boondoggle. It did damage to nature and delivered throughput of resources for business as usual. Many critics point to fundamental signifiers of the boondoggle that is the fracking industry. David Wallace-Wells summed up the loss making mega-venture that has only recently begun turning a profit.

Perhaps the most striking fact about the American hydraulic-fracturing boom, though, is unknown to all but the most discriminating consumers of energy news: Fracking has been, for nearly all of its history, a money-losing boondoggle, profitable only recently, after being propped up by so much investment from venture capital and Wall Street that it resembled less an efficient-markets no-brainer and more a speculative empire of bubbles like Uber and WeWork.

[SOURCE] https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3784151/david-wallace-wells/hardly-anyone-talks-about-how-fracking-was-extraordinary

Countless commentators and members of the public have asserted to me that carbon capture and storage is a ‘boondoggle’ or words to that effect. Each of them has neglected to explain how CCS being a boondoggle obviates the need to be vigilant in monitoring the political will. In these discussions I raise the specter of a new fossil fuel extraction boom and point to the Halliburton Loophole that laid the crucial groundwork for fracking in the US, but commentators and members of the public generally refuse to join the dots.

In a recent explainer, Food and Water Watch asserted that CCS was a ‘boondoggle’, but laid most of the responsibility at the feet of “industry execs”. We know from the fracking boom that to build a boondoggle takes extensive and coordinated efforts over time. We know that efforts to establish the fracking boom required subversion of regulatory processes and protections. Why is it that Food and Water Watch can properly identify the threat, but seem unmotivated to unpack the political will?

Carbon Capture is a Multi-Purpose Boondoggle

There’s hardly a dirty energy that carbon capture doesn’t prop up. The fossil fuel industry plans to use it to revive dying coal and fracked gas plants. If allowed, they’ll attach it to hydrogen power generation derived from fracked gas.

[SOURCE] https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/2022/09/09/carbon-capture-and-storage-explained/

Fast moving and dangerous

New developments are coming thick and fast as part of the CCUS boom. The recent announcement that the ADNOC CEO will be appointed to COP28 as president is of special significance. ADNOC are leading proponents of blue ammonia which is a stable carrier for hydrogen and a useful product for chemicals manufacturers who want to go net zero. They are also, along with Saudi Arabia, Canada and the US, leading proponents of CO2-EOR. The COP 28 team are reportedly sharing an office building with ADNOC.

The main COP28 team is using two stories of an 11-floor office building in Abu Dhabi also used by the Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology located next to ADNOC’s headquarters.

[SOURCE] https://www.politico.eu/article/cop28-climate-team-uae-shares-offices-un-abu-dhabi-national-oil-company-ahmed-al-jaber/

[Further reading] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/12/cop28-uae-sparks-backlash-by-appointing-oil-chief-as-president.html

[Further reading] https://www.adnoc.ae/en/news-and-media/press-releases/2021/oil-and-gas-industry-to-play-an-important-role-in-providing-practical-solutions-to-climate-change

[Further reading] https://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/adnoc-sells-first-blue-ammonia-cargo-to-japans-itochu-amid-clean-energy-push/

When a group of young climate campaigners, including Greta Thunberg, met with the IEA boss Fatih Birol in Davos recently, neither the young panelists, nor any of the assembled media took the opportunity to ask the long term supporter of fossil fuel CCS about his frequent statements in support of CCS or his organisation’s consistent work to forward CCS under the banner of ‘clean energy’.

[SOURCE] https://www.youtube.com/live/69p4-B2R4Ho?feature=share

[Further reading] https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/a86b480e-2b03-4e25-bae1-da1395e0b620/EnergyTechnologyPerspectives2023.pdf

[Further reading] https://www.iea.org/news/iea-workshop-highlights-crucial-role-of-carbon-capture-technologies-for-clean-energy-transitions

The CO2 pipeline frenzy in the US mid west states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota and Nebraska appears to have accelerated after the Inflation Reduction Act delivered the long anticipated 45Q tax credit expansions. Land owners, including First Nations report aggressive tactics from pipeline and CO2 storage companies. Land owners in North Dakota recently provided testimony in support of a bill sponsored by a republican state senator. The bill would give greater negotiating rights to land owners against the might of pipeline and storage companies.

[Further reading] https://www.ndlegis.gov/assembly/68-2023/testimony/SNATRES-2228-20230127-16957-F-HAUPT_MICHAEL_L.pdf

[Further reading] https://www.ndlegis.gov/assembly/68-2023/testimony/SNATRES-2228-20230127-16679-A-DAHL_STACEY_A.pdf

[Further reading] https://www.inforum.com/news/north-dakota/bills-target-co2-pipelines-in-north-dakota-energy-industry-worries-about-impacts-to-oil-coal

[Further reading] https://www.mitchellrepublic.com/opinion/guebert-the-great-carbon-boondoggle-part-1

[Further reading] https://bismarcktribune.com/news/state-and-regional/project-tundras-carbon-storage-plans-approved-by-north-dakota-regulators/article_7e9e473c-3657-55e1-a3ef-92b2502f5fed.html

[Further reading] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/north-dakota/articles/2022-04-20/officials-mark-start-of-co2-pipeline-used-for-oil-recovery

[Further reading] https://www.kfyrtv.com/2022/05/25/100-million-loan-approved-project-tundra/

[Further reading] https://americanpolicy.org/2022/08/08/carbon-capture-pipelines-environmental-idiocracy/

Behind all the discussion around ‘Exxon knew’ is the reality that oil companies in the US have been tapping naturally occurring CO2 domes to supply enhanced oil recovery projects for decades. It’s reasonable to assert that the oil industry has retained latent demand for anthropogenic CO2. It’s reasonable to assert that if Exxon knew, then they also knew that they can exploit the political and lobbying environment to engineer demand for CCS to supply anthropogenic CO2 for EOR. One of the benefits to Exxon from hiding their knowledge of the science of climate change is avoiding scrutiny of the methods used in CO2-EOR, the risks posed by the pipelines used to transport CO2, and the potential to massively expand proven reserves.

It’s clear that Exxon have a significant interest in CO2-EOR and CCS. Exxon are a partner in multiple CCS projects including Chevron’s Gorgon Gas Project and with Pertamina in a cooperation agreement on developing CCS and CCUS in South Sumatra, East Kalimantan, and West Java.

[Further reading] https://exxonknews.substack.com/p/explosive-new-documents-show-big

[Further reading] https://energyfactor.exxonmobil.com/reducing-emissions/carbon-capture-and-storage-baytown-blue-hydrogen-video/

[Further reading] https://www.pertamina.com/en/news-room/news-release/pertamina-cooperates-with-exxonmobil-to-study-ccus-technology-application-in-three-oil-and-gas-field-areas

[Further reading] https://www.mrt.com/business/energy/article/ExxonMobil-launches-EOR-project-in-its-Means-field-7438411.php

[Further reading] https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/-/media/Global/Files/energy-and-carbon-summary/Energy-and-Carbon-Summary.pdf

[Further reading] https://www.jwnenergy.com/article/2021/3/5/exxon-ceo-eyes-money-making-potential-of-low-carbo/

 

Conclusions

 

Climate campaigners find it extremely difficult to comprehend the contentions made by Wrong Kind of Green members that philanthropy, through setting the terms of funding, and through expansive networks, has effectively shaped climate campaigning through constraining the acceptable limits of discussion. Rather than attempting to falsify our contentions by looking at the networks, talking points and funding highlighted in our analyses, climate campaigners merely dismiss our arguments without investigation or ignore us completely. Climate campaigners need to realise that the ultimate objective of the powerful is always more business as usual which is what CCS, CCUS and BECCS provide.

The media, through silence and echoing supplied talking points, smooths the path for philanthropy to continue fostering the conflated logics and errant silences of climate campaigners. There are any number of media organs in thrall to the false narratives provided by captive thinkers working at the behest of climate NGOs. The Guardian, The Washington Post, The Intercept, and The Atlantic are prominent among the many captive agencies. The collective effect of narrative adherence is repetition which produces a sense that certain assertions of fact are true. This can be observed in the misreporting of the modelling produced by the International Energy Agency.

It is highly likely that governments have engaged nudge units to develop guides to framing issues to elicit public compliance with the net zero agenda. We know that the UK has engaged the Nudge Unit who developed ‘principles for successful behaviour change’ on behalf of the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. While corporate behaviour is heading very quickly toward installing significant decarbonisation infrastructure with the full support of governments, ordinary people are being encouraged to accept the impacts of net zero strategies. We should not assume that community consultations and public feedback will do anything to slow the long term plans for CCS, CCUS and BECCS, indeed it is likely the nudge units will adapt their messages to ensure compliance with the existing agenda to deliver business as usual, but with some CO2 abatement.

In order to shape the direct actions of activists, the statements of experts, and the language of the global consensus machine, networked power – constituted by the collective agenda of governments, corporations and philanthropy – appeals to self interest. Self censorship is an immediate response to the perceived risk of speaking outside the acceptable limits of discussion. The collective effect of self interest is the reinforcement of the power of the assigned/acceptable/prescribed talking points and the logical conflations embedded within them.

Decisive direct action that contributes to the public consciousness of what is really happening in the extractivist industries is what is necessary. If Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil and other groups really wanted to confront the projects of the most wealthy oil, gas, coal and biomass proponents then they would be occupying and protesting the many new decarbonisation hubs in planning or under construction. If Just Stop Oil were intent on truly disrupting powerful oil and gas interests then they would be, for example, occupying sites in Hull and Middlesborough where BP and Equinor are developing new blue hydrogen projects. The UK Climate and Energy Minister, Graham Stuart has made it very clear that the political will is behind the decarbonisation plans of big oil, gas, coal and biomass. There is no excuse for not identifying the political will. It is right to ask why groups like Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil will not acknowledge the projects being built at their back door.

Plans for large scale CCS are part of the big oil and gas long game. The burning of biomass as a feed stock with CCS is the crucial linchpin in the net zero plans. We know that billionaire philanthropists like Chris Hohn, their impact philanthropy agents like John Podesta, and their well funded re-granting NGOs like the European Climate Foundation headed up by Laurence Tubiana hold strongly to this position. These individuals know on a deep level that BECCS is part of the long game to value-add CO2 as a waste turning it into feed stock to perpetuate the stranglehold of big oil and gas.

If you want to understand why the COP 26 phase-out commitments specified “unabated” fossil fuels, why COP 27 was overloaded with oil and gas executives, and why COP 28 will be headed up by a proponent of blue ammonia and CO2 enhanced oil recovery, then I suggest watching the Atlantic Council video I linked at the start of this briefing:

 

[Michael Swifte is an Australian activist and a member of the Wrong Kind of Green critical thinking collective.]

Wall Street’s Takeover of Nature Advances with Launch of New Asset Class

Unlimited Hangout

October 13, 2021

By Whitney Webb

 

A project of the multilateral development banking system, the Rockefeller Foundation and the New York Stock Exchange recently created a new asset class that will put, not just the natural world, but the processes underpinning all life, up for sale under the guise of promoting “sustainability.”

[Whitney Webb has been a professional writer, researcher and journalist since 2016. She has written for several websites and, from 2017 to 2020, was a staff writer and senior investigative reporter for Mint Press News. She currently writes for The Last American Vagabond.]

We Are Many. The Oppressors Are Not.

August 3, 2021

By Hiroyuki Hamada

 

Kadhim Hayder (1932-1985), title unknown, Iraq

 

I remember chatting with a man from Iraq in 2016.  He was driving a taxi in Germany.  I wrote about him in one of my essays [1]:

“Last month, I was chatting with an Iraqi taxi driver in Berlin. My 12 year old son and I took a cab from the Museum for Contemporary Art to our hotel. I couldn’t help but ask the cab driver why he ended up in Berlin. He said it was something to do with the availability of the visa. He stressed that he had to leave because he didn’t like Islam. He said Muslims were killing each other.

 

I felt very slightly sad because he sounded like he had to say that to prove that he wasn’t a “terrorist”. I told him that it was the US that supported Saddam when it was convenient. Then, the US flipped, changing its policy, as doing so became more convenient. I asked him, Taliban, al Qaeda, ISIS, same old story, no?

 

Then he said something unexpected. He said it was a “people’s revolution”. “We stood against Saddam”.  He was referring to the first gulf war in 1991. He went on to describe how it didn’t go as people wished, and it brought about the devastating trade embargo, more war, ISIS and so on.  His voice was passionate.  I felt the anger and frustration against war and imperialism that I also feel myself, in his voice.”

The imperial war against countries that defy the US hegemonic imperatives involves a few steps.  The target population is deprived of their basic necessities by economic embargo, trade sanctions, travel restrictions and demonization of its leader.  The society is destabilized by the lack of resources and economic activities.  The opposing forces in the country are generously funded by the empire to build a momentum against the defying “regime” in the name of “revolution,” “democracy,” “freedom” and etc. The communities are divided.  The institutions are compromised to serve capital, adding more confusions and predicaments to the population.

Quite often this is sufficient enough to silence those who defy such interventions and it results in an overthrow of the existing order.  The society is transformed to suit the colonial policies concocted by western industries, which result in resource extraction, privatization, financialization, exploitation of cheap labor, construction of US military bases and so on.

Quite a few middle eastern countries have defied such interventions resulting in proxy wars and western military interventions.

That was the war on terror which continues to this day as the US forces are freely employed against the world according to its “war on terror legal framework,” while its measures are still in place as restrictions against our legal rights as well as restrictions at airports and so on.

Many of us raised our voices against the obvious crime of invading other countries, colonizing them and subjugating them.  To my surprise there were people who objected to our assertion saying that if we didn’t invade them, they would have invaded us, they were “terrorists,” and so on.

Enormous profits were generated by this huge public project, war, at the expense of the people in the war torn countries as well as oppressed people in some of the richest countries of the world. No one was held accountable for deaths and destruction.  The war to save people from terrorists was a huge capitalist project to expand the power and wealth of hardened criminals who call themselves politicians, philanthropists, businessmen, intellectuals, patriots, academics, and so on.

Clockwork eyes by Mick Ryan

The underlining mentality of neocolonial violence is based on prejudice against the peoples of the targeted countries.  Those peoples, who reside within countries governed by “leaders” who have sworn to obey imperial policies, are subjected to tighter measures of exploitation and subjugation in order to serve the interests of the imperial institutions. The predicaments of the subject population—poverty, social unrest, and corruption, which stem from the economic subjugation, justify the mental superiority among westerners, falsely proving the inferiority of the “barbaric” population which must be “assisted” by westerners.  If the leader of a colonized country attempts to amend the unfair situation by implementing policies that serve that country’s own people, the western authority would mobilize policies to remove such an element.  The policies are firmly backed by the prejudice amongst the imperial population.  Simple slogans and key words such as “he is killing his own people,” “save the children,” “regime,” “dictatorship” and “genocide” can trigger the colonial mentality as well as the white savior mentality in the imperial population.

“In the cage there is food. Not much, but there is food. Outside are only great stretches of freedom. Nicanor Parra Bird Nightmare by Mick Ryan”

Fast forward to 2021–the era of war on virus. We are experiencing a massive wealth transfer to the rich and powerful, which can be best described by Jeff Bezos thanking his workers and customers for his rocket ride. [2] The cynical exploitative violence inflicted against workers is found in all sectors across the country, creating destruction of small community businesses, massive homelessness, suicide surge, spike in drug related deaths.  Lockdown measures are wreaking havoc in vital social relations, which must now be reorganized.

The virus event has turned the dwindling healthcare system into mask wearing, social distancing and getting injected with extremely lucrative experimental genetic modification drugs—which are surrounded by  unprecedented numbers of injuries and deaths, far surpassing all combined prior vaccine injury and death reports to the CDC reporting system VAERS.  The lockdown measures and profit oriented measures against the virus further narrowed the capacity of the general healthcare system, resolution in huge numbers of patients without vital care for their urgent conditions. Destroying the healthcare system for the sake of saving lives is only an aspect of the current mobilization.  The education system, which has been under attack for generations by corporate forces, has received a blank check to fire faculties, turn classes into online tutorials, and pursue a new mission to create obedient workers for the Forth Industrial Revolution.  The financial institution has accelerated its herding of the population into the digital realm where people are conditioned, commodified, and exploited as data.  In every industry, a massive restructuring process for profit is occurring in the name of Covid measures.

Now, I understand that respiratory illnesses can be very dangerous.  If you look up articles from pre-Covid time, you find desperate calls from healthcare professionals screaming about the risk of flu epidemics due to the lack of facilities and resources. This has become reality after Covid, as massive death tolls have resulted from nursing home lockdowns.  Profit oriented treatment options have been promoted while effective options were restricted, resulting in yet even more deaths and hospitalizations.  But statistically, all these deaths in the US had not exceeded the range of year to year variation in death rate.  This crucial fact has been observed in various countries.  The Covid situation, if anything, is very much a man-made event. It can not be described as a deadly pandemic comparable to the bubonic plague. This should shatter virus event narratives propped up by “cases“ concocted by unreliable PCR tests—its inaccuracy has been highly criticized by many scientists—including the inventor of the PCR test himself–due to its arbitrary results depending on the degree of amplification in search of the targeted DNA fragments. [3][4]

The above observation is strictly based on the opinions of numerous healthcare professionals, doctors, and scientists across the globe. At the very least, it must be recognized that there are significant disagreements within the field of science on every aspect of Covid-19, its treatments, and lockdown measures. [5][6]

However, none of those are examined in a serious manner by the establishment.  In fact there are many instances of healthcare professionals being disciplined for reporting cases of vaccine injury, speaking against the treatment policies, and questioning the prevalent assumptions regarding the virus.  Healthcare professionals are actively forced to play along with the official Covid narrative.

For the general public the mixed emotions over the contradictions have turned to frustration, and the frustration has turned anger as if we are stuck in a pressure cooker made with official narratives and structural impediments of lockdowns and forced vaccine injection.  The heat and pressure have broken down the social fabric as our daily routines are dictated by “new normal.”

So many things have happened since last year.  But somehow things don’t seem to fit in right places in our heads.

We mark our sense of time and space with traditional events, daily routines and our common knowledge.  When we lose those, we are left with a series of elements and dynamics without those markers.

But alternate markers have been provided by those who have deprived us of the markers.  Our lives are marked with lockdowns, masks and social distancing–the “new normal”.

Now we mark our lives with it.

We are told that there is a deadly disease out there and the only solution is to vaccinate.  Our life and death are determined by one of the largest corporate entities, the medical industrial complex.

Just as the war on terror was described as a “crusade”—legitimizing the twisted religious and cultural superiority of the colonizers, disguising white man’s burden as humanitarian obligation —  the war on virus crowns “science” as its guiding force.  However, needless to say, the credibility of the “science” is proportional to the accompanying might of wealth and power—just as the facts of war are bought and sold as “journalism”. Propaganda lies fill the air as those who oppose are marked as “others” who  deserve to be castigated as being outside of the protection of the gated community.

This way of framing—the medical industrial complex—is useful in understanding the dynamics within the capitalist hegemony.  However, such an entity is also a part of the media industrial complex, non profit industrial complex, political industrial complex, and of course military industrial complex.  In short, our lives are dictated by multiple dynamic forces of oligarchs, orchestrating a “reality” which firmly manifests as a capitalist framework—a cage to condition our lives based on its imperatives.

Patrice Letarnec’s Human Zoo project

As the current virus mobilization reframes our society, obliterating existing values, norms and beliefs, the corporate institutions and their owners are consecrated as absolute beings which determine our life and death. This is why decrees legitimated by the “emergency”  are acceptable political means now.  This is why large corporations have gained enormous wealth.  This is why our lives are herded into the digital realm where we are commodified, conditioned to be exploited, and truncated to be stripped of the mystery of life and the unknown.

But where do the anger and frustration go?

The US establishment is well aware of the boiling anger and frustration over the situation.  The momentum of anger is cultivated and it is being shaped to put the people against each other—an old corporate duopoly trick, which has grown steadily as a dynamic tool of social engineering in the US.  The ghosts of the Civil War still determine the means of enslavement, while allowing the ruling class to preside over the theater of “democracy,” “freedom” and “humanity”—a manufactured “reality.”  Individualism, self-determination and a sense of freedom based on the sacrifices of many oppressed people are a privilege only allowed to people with economic security.  This is a part of the reason why the resistance against the Covid lockdown measures encompasses a reactionary element.  In particular, erroneously defining the trajectory as “socialism” or “communism”.  This ironic twist, the capitalist oppression being blamed on the enemy of capitalists, once again reveals the mechanism of the imperial duopoly as well as the expansion of the exploitative violence against a formerly economically secure segment of the population, which will require tighter measures of draconian restrictions.

It is not a coincidence that the red states have embraced the opposing positions while the blue states firmly adhere to the official narratives on vaccines and lockdown measures.  The subject populations are allowed to choose the mode of enslavement, but the slight differences in the choice are big enough to activate colonial hatred toward each other.  The unresolved historical pain, emotion and grudge have found urgent expression against “enemies” among us.  A fight between teeth baring wolves and cunning foxes, as Malcolm X would call it, channels the anger and frustration safely within the capitalist framework.  The media, politicians and major institutions carefully instigate conflicts among the people by demonizing opponents over vaccines and lockdown measures, while protecting “pandemic” narratives one way or the other.

Some people might think that things must get worse before it gets better. Things can certainly get worse but it looks like it only means more fragmentation of communities and destabilization of institutions, which allows further erosion of people’s interests by the capitalist domination along with justifications for its draconian measures.  This probably gives a comfortable feeling for those privileged ones in gated communities. This also accompanies the exacerbation of fascist momentum, which always justifies the forces of western imperial hegemony—remember how the Trump phenomenon pushed neoliberal policies, which are embraced by the both corporate parties, while justifying anything else to oppose Donald Trump, who was largely perceived as an obvious caricature of the narcissistic failing empire?  The US capitalism moves forward while oscillating left and right within the acceptable spectrum of imperialism.

In short, everything is under control according to those who destroyed the middle eastern countries.  The only difference is that now the target is us. We are under attack.  Some of us are demonized by the establishment to play the role of scapegoats.  Some of us are praised as heroes saving lives and sacrificing themselves. Our communities are being destroyed to be further consumed by the colonizers of humanity and nature.

Crying tree – Ontario, Canada, 2021

The war on virus is meant as a crucial background of destabilization and fear which helps extract huge amount of public spending in the name of saving lives, saving environment and saving people’s livelihoods—which are all under attack by the savagery of the very capitalist domination.   Since the war on virus is largely targeting the public money, we are bombarded with an unprecedented amount of wholesale propaganda narratives, as if we are thrown into the process of corporate electoral process—we are supposed to vote yes to those lucrative capitalist fixes for the capitalist problems by going along with the narratives.  Public outcries against the policies are safely consumed among the populations as people are forced to fight among themselves.  Moreover, the war on virus is meant to be a perpetual war.  Inconceivable “mistakes” will be made, victories would be declared here and there, facts will be revealed when convenient, while much of the facts are distorted to prop up the pretense of this vast protection racket scheme by the oligarchs.  One step forward, and one step backward, our lives swirl within the torturous theater of the “medical crisis,” but the real solution is never to be found within it.  The empire can not lose the war but the empire has no intention of winning the war either, for the winning can destroy the domesticated momentum of the in-fighting among the people, as well as an assortment of “activism” backed by the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, which effectively drives capitalist agendas in the name of “our democracy”.  After all, we are many.  The oppressors are not.  The mechanism of the domestication must be kept in place to tame the masses within the feudal hierarchy of money and violence.  Meanwhile, fear, doubt and real threat against our livelihood in the form of economic strangulation continue to force us to swallow the protection racket deal with the criminal enterprise.

Ultimately, the trajectory points to a complete domestication of our species through management of all means of production, its products, and the distribution system.  As the peoples become products themselves with biotech procedures, the social relations within the digital realm seamlessly merge with the fabricated reality, virtually cementing the feudal hierarchy of the absolute power.

As we operate within social media outlets, as we present our identities within their frameworks, and as we are injected with genetic modification  drugs to modify our physical response to the natural world, we have already stepped into a dangerous stage which might very well spell the end of our species as we know it.

The Arsenal, 1928, Diego Rivera

What could Iraqis do as they suffered the deadly embargo and invasions?  The question is ours now.  Unfortunately, many of those who stood with the empire are still insisting on fighting the imperial war as we have become the targets of the war, demonizing our community members as enemies, repeating slogans and talking points to justify the imperial restructuring, as our communities fall apart to be devoured by the colonizers.  It is no coincidence that those who oppose the current mobilization are accused of being racists, conspiracy theorists, or fascist worshipers—just as not agreeing with bombing brown people would be accused of letting brown children die by the hand of a “dictator.”

Our real enemy is not the “antivaxxers,” or the gullible people swallowing the corporate propaganda.  The real enemy is the imperial oligarchs who are shaping our society in order to continue their ways of exploitation and subjugation.  They are shaping the capitalist cage to squeeze the last remnants of our imagination and our connection to humanity and nature.  How can we defy the colonization of humanity and nature?  How can we be a part of the resistance against the criminal pyramid scheme which is bound to implode with its destructive nature?  How can we build our ways to be in harmony with ourselves, with each other and with nature?  We are a part of the countless people who have held the dream of such a harmony.  We stand strong with them in solidarity.  We are many. The oppressors are not.

 

[1] Hiroyuki Hamada, How Do We Dream the Dream of Peace Together? September 23, 2016

[2] Lauren Elizabeth, Jeff Bezos Made Some Revealing Comments After His Trip into Space. July 20, 2021

[3] Apoorva Mandavilli Your Coronavirus Test Is Positive. Maybe It Shouldn’t Be.  August 29, 2020

[4] International Consortium of Scientists External peer review of the RTPCR test to detect SARS-CoV-2 reveals 10 major scientific flaws at the molecular and methodological level: consequences for false positive results.  November 27, 2020

[5] Off Guardian 12 Experts Questioning the Coronavirus Panic March 24, 2020

[6] Dr. Mike Yeadon Bitchute MICHAEL YEADON – HELA INTERVJUN – [SVENSK UNDERTEXT] June 8, 2021

 

[Hiroyuki Hamada is an artist. He has exhibited throughout the United States and in Europe and is represented by Lori Bookstein Fine Art. He has been awarded various residencies including those at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, the Edward F. Albee Foundation/William Flanagan Memorial Creative Person’s Center, the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and the MacDowell Colony. In 1998 Hamada was the recipient of a Pollock Krasner Foundation grant, and in 2009 he was awarded a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. He lives and works in New York.]

Dr. Romeo F. Quijano [series]: Covid-19: Militarism & Big Money Trampling Humanity [3]

By Romeo F. Quijano, M.D.

Professor (Ret.)

Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology

College of Medicine, University of the Philippines Manila

 

Romeo F. Quijano, M.D.

“The Covid-19 spectre, vaccine mania, deceptive remedial schemes and brutal, anti-people pandemic responses created by militarism and big money have shoved by the wayside pro-people, more sensible and a wider range of prevention and treatment strategies to address the pandemic. Bill Gates, Big Pharma and the militarist regimes and agencies, with the complicity of the WHO and others in the status quo successfully convinced practically the entire world that a vaccine and submission to authoritarian measures are the only things that will allow the people to “return to normal”. The clear scientific, empirical and historical evidence that the experimental vaccines being pushed are fraught with dangers of severe adverse reactions have been ignored. The criminal and unethical behaviour history of the major vaccine manufacturing companies, the blatant conflicts of interest of mainstream “experts” pushing for mass vaccination and the clearly ineffective militaristic measures that run roughshod over basic human rights are all swept under the rug. Indeed, with this Covid-19 calamity, militarism and big money has been trampling humanity.”

Download paper:

Covid_19_Militarism_and_Big_Money_Trampl

https://www.academia.edu/46641943/Covid_19_Militarism_and_Big_Money_Trampling_Humanity

 

[Romeo F. Quijano, M.D. is a retired professor of the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, College of Medicine, University of the Philippines Manila. He is president of Pesticide Action Network (PAN) – Philippines. He served as the co-chair of the International POPs Elimination Network, bureau member of the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development, and as a standing committee member of the Intergovernmental Forum on Chemical Safety. He is regarded as one of the country’s leading toxicologists.]

 

 

Dr. Romeo F. Quijano [series]: Should We Take the Vaccine Against Covid-19 [2]

Dr. Romeo F. Quijano [series]: Beware the Vaccine for Covid-19 [1]

By Romeo F. Quijano, M.D.

Professor (Ret.)

Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology

College of Medicine, University of the Philippines Manila

 

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

 

Albert Einstein

 

TIME double issue, January, 2021

There seems to be a strong presumption that the ultimate answer to the Covid-19 pandemic is a vaccine. People are made to believe that a magical vaccine is in the offing and the world will be saved from the pandemic. Bill Gates and Big Pharma push hard to hasten vaccine development. The WHO and most governments easily agree. Rapid clinical trials  have started and several companies are in the race to put their candidate products on the market. The mainstream media is all hype and bombards the public with glowing pro-vaccine messages, conditioning them to accept vaccination with no questions asked.

Yet, historical and scientific evidence clearly show that vaccines are not the saviours that they are purported to be. Many of the mass vaccination campaigns in the past resulted in disastrous results. For example, in the Philippines, prior to U.S. takeover in 1905, case mortality from smallpox was estimated to be 10%. In 1918-1919 with over 95 percent of the population vaccinated, the worst epidemic in the Philippines’ history occurred resulting in a case mortality of 65 percent.  Dr. V. de Jesus, Director of Health at that time, stated that the smallpox epidemic resulted in 60,855 deaths. In Japan, after compulsory vaccination was mandated, there were 171,611 smallpox cases with 47,919 deaths recorded between 1889 and 1908, a case mortality of 30 percent, exceeding the smallpox death rate of the pre-vaccination period. In England and Wales, between 1934 and 1961, not one death from natural smallpox infection was recorded, and yet during this same period, 115 children under 5 years of age died as a result of the smallpox vaccination. The situation was just as bad in the USA where 300 children died from the complications of smallpox vaccine from 1948 to 1969. Yet during that same period there was not one reported case of smallpox in the country (1).

 

Similar disastrous results also happened with the polio vaccine. The majority of polio cases actually do not cause symptoms in those who are infected. Symptoms occur in only approximately 5 percent of infections (2) with a case fatality rate of only about 0.4%. Even during the peak epidemics, poliovirus infection resulting in long-term paralysis, was a low-incidence disease that was falsely represented as a rampant and violent paralytic disease by fund raising advertising campaigns to fast track development and approval and release of the Salk vaccine with Rockefeller as the key supporter (3). The hasty approval led to the infamous “Cutter disaster”, the poliomyelitis epidemic that was initiated by the use of the Salk vaccine produced by Cutter vaccine company. In the end, at least 220,000 people were infected with live polio virus contained in the Cutter vaccine; 70,000 developed muscle weakness, 164 were severely paralyzed, 10 were killed. Seventy five percent of Cutter’s victims were paralyzed for the rest of their lives (4). When national immunization campaigns were initiated in the 1950s, the number of reported cases of polio following mass inoculations with the killed-virus vaccine was significantly greater than before mass inoculations and may have more than doubled in the U.S. as a whole (5).

Over the years, several scientists and concerned medical doctors and professionals have questioned the efficacy of several vaccines and have warned repeatedly on the significant risks associated with vaccination (6,7,8,9). Despite the fact that vaccines do stimulate the production of specific antibodies, vaccines may in fact be destroying the coordinated and total immune system response to an infection, contrary to what has been claimed that vaccines strengthen the immune system. Several studies have shown the adverse effects of various types of vaccines on the immune system of vaccinated individuals and clinical studies have shown an increase in the incidence of serious illnesses following vaccination. Many of these illnesses may manifest only much later and by then, the vaccine may not even be suspected as a causative factor (10,11,12,13,14).

More distressing is the fact that authorities often knew about the significant adverse effects of vaccines but instead of correcting their flawed assessment of vaccine safety, they manipulate results to conform to their predetermined conclusion of safety. An illustrative example is what happened at the US CDC (US Center for Disease Control) Simpsonwood Conference, where a study by Verstraeten and colleagues that looked at the potential associations between neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) and thimerosal among children born from 1992 to 1999 was discussed. Thimerosal appeared to be responsible for a dramatic increase in neurological disorders among children, such as speech delays, attention-deficit disorder, hyperactivity and autism. But instead of taking immediate steps to alert the public and rid the vaccine supply of thimerosal, the CDC opted to cover up the damaging data.(15)

A congressional committee hearing later concluded, among others, that:

1.”Manufacturers of vaccines and thimerosal, have never conducted adequate testing on the safety of thimerosal. The FDA has never required manufacturers to conduct adequate safety testing on thimerosal and ethylmercury compounds.”

2.“A growing number of scientists and researchers believe that a relationship between the increase in neurodevelopmental disorders of autism, attention deficit hyperactive disorder, and speech or language delay, and the increased use of thimerosal in vaccines is plausible and deserves more scrutiny.”

3.”The FDA and the CDC failed in their duty to be vigilant as new vaccines containing thimerosal were approved and added to the immunization schedule.(16)

The Dengvaxia vaccine fiasco in the Philippines also illustrates the danger of rushing a vaccine and allowing corporate interests driven by market forces to address people’s health needs. Despite the obvious lack of scientific and commonsensical justification and despite the warnings of potential adverse effects articulated by many independent scientists, the manufacturer pushed hard for the approval and use of their product. Together with their cohorts in government, medical associations and the WHO, they promoted the vaccine based on premature claims of efficacy and safety from their own flawed studies. As a result, many of the vaccinated suffered or died after a botched mass vaccination program.(17)  The vaccine was eventually withdrawn but the damage have already been done. According to the Chief Pathologist of the Public Attorney’s Office, 153 of those vaccinated with Dengvaxia had died as of February 18, 2020 (18).

Another example of corporate misconduct in vaccine clinical trial is that involving vaccine manufacturers who used phony placebos to conceal a wide range of health risks associated with HPV (Human Papilloma Virus) vaccines. A peer-reviewed report in 2017 unveiled evidence of numerous adverse events, including life-threatening injuries, permanent disabilities, hospitalizations and deaths, reported after vaccination with bivalent, quadrivalent or nine-valent HPV vaccines. Instead of using genuine inert placebos and comparing health impacts over observation periods required for most new drug approvals, two of the biggest vaccine manufacturers spiked their placebos with a neurotoxic aluminum adjuvant and cut observation periods. The company scientists routinely dismissed, minimized or concealed those injuries using statistical gimmicks and invalid comparisons designed to diminish their relative significance. Equally disturbing is that some regulatory agencies are complicit in covering up increased incidence of adverse effects in post-marketing surveillance studies.(19, 20)

Safety have never been satisfactorily demonstrated for practically all vaccines routinely given today using the gold standard research methodology, a double-blind,  randomized, placebo controlled clinical trial study. Current safety assessments under the corporate dominated status quo are grossly inadequate and oftentimes erroneous. In fact, it can be argued that most clinical trials undertaken in support of approved vaccines are violative of the ethical principles  for medical research involving human subjects as stipulated in the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki(21).  In the United States, there is not a single vaccine routinely injected into American babies between 6 months and 18 months of life that was licensed based on a clinical trial which included a placebo-control group (22).The same situation is most likely true for the Philippines and many other countries who follow the vaccination schedule recommended by the US CDC and WHO.

The truth about the hazards of vaccination seem to have been buried  in the past. The bitter lessons of history fall by the wayside in the mad rush to develop a new vaccine, this time for the Covid-19 virus. Barely a few months after the presumed discovery of the new virus, clinical trials have already started (23), too fast for comfort.  Vaccine development normally takes about 2 years before the vaccine can be ready for testing in humans and another 8 years before clinical trials can be completed. Despite the rigorous requirements, numerous problems still arise regarding safety and efficacy.  During the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak, it took about 20 months before a vaccine was made ready for human testing in clinical trials. Some researchers, including many of the experts who gathered at a WHO meeting to review testing procedures at that time said it was too fast. Still in question was the best animal to use to test the safety and efficacy of a SARS vaccine since without a good animal test, human trials could be dangerous. In particular, some vaccine developers were worried that the vaccine might actually “enhance” the pathogenicity of the virus, or make it more aggressive possibly due to antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE), as what happened with previous studies on test vaccines in animals. If that should happen in a major human trial, these scientists warned, the outcome could be disastrous. (24,25,26,27) There are many plausible biological mechanisms for potential adverse effects due to vaccination. Triggering an  antibody dependent enhancement or similar mechanism is just one. Synergistic harmful effects, especially to the immune system, due to concomitant exposure to other vaccines is another. Exposure to other environmental hazards (pesticides, air pollutants, 5G radiation, ionizing radiation, etc.) resulting to synergistic adverse effects is also another plausible mechanism that may result in acute or long-term injury, including death.  Another concern is that vaccine production methods involving genetic engineering technology and cell cultures that are often contaminated carry uncertain but potentially serious hazards. The inherent danger of injecting microbial protein fragments, contaminants, DNA and other foreign materials into the human body is well documented in the scientific literature.  All vaccines contain such hazardous foreign fragments and materials. Quite recently, a team of scientists found significant amounts of organic and inorganic contaminants debris in 44 types of vaccines, including micro- and nano-sized particulate matter composed of inorganic chemicals, metals and combination elements not previously known and which are neither biocompatible nor biodegradable (28).  More importantly, social determinants resulting to poor nutrition, overcrowding, poor sanitation and hygiene, unsafe working conditions, emotional stress, among others, can make vaccines more hazardous than they already are. All these hazards surrounding vaccination should not be ignored. All the potential adverse effects of a Covid-19 vaccine cannot possibly be detected adequately by limited clinical trials.

The reductionist thinking behind the vaccination dogma is woefully outmoded. It is more than a century old, coincident with the equally outmoded reductionist germ theory of disease. At that time, there was barely an understanding of the infinitely complex nature and behaviour of the immune system, interrelationships of humans, microbes and environment, social determinants and other factors that are too numerous to mention. There was no realization that viruses and other microbes are largely friends and have been playing a significant role in the evolution and survival of all life forms in our entire ecosystem (29,30).  Microbes and their elements are in fact essential components of the human biological entity and perform critical physiologic functions that maintain homeostasis and a robust immune system (31,32). Rather than cultivating harmony and co-existence, the power elite institutions and their agents have declared these microbes as mortal enemies that deserve to be eliminated. The prevailing medical paradigm failed to recognize that illness is in fact a disruption of the harmony between humans and their physical, chemical, biological, spiritual and social environment (33). Thus, the distorted, corporate-controlled medical science have pushed for mass vaccinations with the aim of total elimination of target microbes.

Authorities have consistently covered-up the truth about the adverse effects of vaccination and have greatly exagerrated potential benefits. Independent scientists and physicians who question the official narrative about vaccines are immediately vilified and persecuted. Victims of vaccination are denied recognition and  justice. Pharmaceutical companies and their cohorts are made unaccountable and continue to profit from the sales of harmful vaccines. The industry dominated research agenda deliberately avoids looking at the true picture of vaccine efficacy and safety by avoiding studies of such nature that would really test the safety and efficacy of the entire immunization schedule. This glaring gap in the body of scientific  research on vaccines also underscores the importance of truly independent research which has long been neglected by governments and international bodies such as the World Health Organization (WHO). The question of safety, however, should be foremost in the minds of program implementors, policy makers and those who influence them, including international organizations. It is unacceptable on both ethical and scientific grounds to rush a potentially dangerous invasive intervention on the population no matter how good the intentions are.

We must take a more rational, holistic and participatory approach in addressing the Covid-19 pandemic. A knee-jerk, reductionist, autocratic  and vested-interest laden solution does not serve people’s health and only aggravate the dire situation. It is essential that the true origin and characteristics of the Covid-19 virus be studied well. Official explanations of the origin of Covid-19 and existing modalities on how to manage it are fundamentally flawed. Preventive measures to forestall future pandemics are based largely on flawed assumptions. Benefits are magnified while risks are trivialized. In the assessment of risks, the precautionary principle should be the norm. Resources spent on community-based, public health participatory approaches in pandemic control are more rational and much less dangerous than haphazard lockdowns and expensive vaccination programs. Comprehensive measures to effectively address social inequity, poverty and poor diet, the main factors that compromise the immune system and make people susceptible to severe Covid-19 disease must be earnestly pursued. Environmental toxins, pharmaceuticals and other factors that also compromise the immune system and the capacity of the people to withstand the infection must also be addressed. Alternative medicine approaches, including expanded research in the management of cases must also be seriously considered.

The real cause of the Covid-19 pandemic is human folly. This is the inevitable consequence of the dominance of a neoliberal, national security state doctrine with a military-industrial complex pushing for perpetual war and corporate globalization that has devastated entire ecosystems, distorted medical science and disempowered communities. What is called for is discernment, rationality, courage and empowerment. The real solution is for the people to unite and muster the courage to confront cognitive dissonance and attain emancipative consonance. For health professionals, acclaimed heroes as they are in valiantly trying to save people drowning down the pandemic river, they must start looking upriver and find out who is throwing those unfortunate people into the pandemic river in the first place.

“If a problem we encounter today already happened in the past, we must think carefully about what really happened in the past and go beyond what we were made to believe. Only when we truly understand the problem can we come up with the correct solution to the problem at hand.”

RFQ

References:

(1). Sinclair, I. Smallpox True History.

http://www.cidpusa.org/true_history_of_smallpox.htm

(2). Hecht, A., Ed. (2009) Deadly Diseases and Epidemics: Polio 2^nd Edition, p. 19. Infobase Publishing.

(3). Humphries, S. & Bystrianyk, R.. (2014). Dissolving Illusions: Disease, Vaccines, and the Forgotten

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(4). Offit, P. (2006, March). The Cutter Incident: How America’s First PolioVaccine Led to a Growing Vaccine Crisis.

           Journal of The Royal Society of Medicine, Volume 99.

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           Long-term Immunization with Multiple Antigens: Final Report. U.S.Army Medical Research

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DC: The National Academies Press.

https://doi.org/10.17226/13164

(8). Conte, L. & Lyons, T. (2014). Vaccine Injuries: Documented Adverse Reactions to Vaccines.

Skyhorse Publishing.

(9). Palmer, A. (2019, August 15). Truth Will Prevail, 1200 Vaccine Studies, Version 2.4

(10). Stratton K, Wilson CB and McCormick MC, Editors.(2002). Immunization Safety Review: Multiple

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(12). Sutter, R.W., Patriarca, P.A., Suleiman, A.J.M. et al. (1992). Attributable risk of DTP (diphtheria and

              tetanus toxoids and pertussis vaccine) injection in provoking paralytic poliomyelitis during a

              large outbreak in Oman. Journal of Infectious Disease, 165:444-449.

(13). Nakayama, T., Urano, T., Osano, M., et al. (1988). Long-term regulation of interferon production by

             lymphocytes from children inoculated with live measles virus vaccine. Journal of Infectious

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(14). Shoenfeld, Y., Agmon?Levin, Tomljenovic, N-L. Eds.(2015)

Vaccines and Autoimmunity. Wiley Blackwell.

(15). Kennedy, R-Jr. Global Research (2015, February 14). Vaccinations: Deadly Immunity.

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(16). Burton, D., (2003, May 21).  Mercury in Medicine Report.Subcommittee on Human Rights and Wellness,

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(18). Erfe, E., Facebook post (2020, February 18). Dengvaxia victim No. 153.

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s://www.facebook.com/attyerwinerfe/

(19). Kennedy, R-Jr., Childrens Health Defense (2017, August 11). New study: Vaccine

             Manufacturers and FDA Regulators Used Statistical Gimmicks to Hide Risks of HPV Vaccines.

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statistical-gimmicks-hide-risks-hpv-vaccines/

(20). Martínez-Lavín, M., Amezcua-Guerra, L.(2017). Serious adverse events after HPV vaccination: a

           critical review of randomized trials and post-marketing case series. Clin Rheumatol.

36(10):2169-2178.  doi: 10.1007/s10067-017-3768-5.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28730271

(21). WMA Declaration of Helsinki(2013) Ethical principles for medical research involving human

subjects.

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research-involving-human-subjects/

(22). Informed Consent Action Network  (ICAN) (2018, December 31) Reply Re: HHS Vaccine Safety

Responsibilities and Notice Pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 300aa-31

https://childrenshealthdefense.org/wp-content/uploads/ican-reply-december-31-2018.pdf

(23). Terry, M. (2020, April 07). The hopes and challenges of a COVID-19 vaccine. Biospace.

https://www.biospace.com/article/the-covid-19-vaccine-challenge-timelines-and-innovation/

(24). Tseng, C-T., Sbrana, E., Iwata-Yoshikawa, N., Newman, P.C., Garron, T., et al. (2012)

Immunization with SARS coronavirus vaccines leads to pulmonary immunopathology on

            challenge with the SARS virus. PLoS ONE 7(4): e35421. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0035421.

(25). Bolles, M.,Deming, D.,Long,K., Agnihothram,S., Whitmore,A. Ferris,M.,Gralinski,L., Totura,A.,

Heise,M., Ralph S. Baric, R.S., (2011, December). A double-inactivated Severe Acute

            Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus vaccine provides incomplete protection in mice and induces

            increased eosinophilic proinflammatory pulmonary response upon challenge.  J Virol.

            85(23):12201-12215.  doi:10.1128/JVI.06048-11

(26). Weingartl, H., Czub, M., Czub, S., Neufeld, J., Marszal, P., Gren, J., et al. (2004). Immunization

             with modified vaccinia virus Ankara-based recombinant vaccine against severe acute

             respiratory syndrome is associated with enhanced hepatitis in ferrets. J Virol. 78:12672–6.

(27). Marshall, E., Enserink, M. (2004,February 13). Caution urged on SARS vaccines. Science

303(5660):944-946.  DOI: 10.1126/science.303.5660.944

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/303/5660/944

(28). Gatti, A.M., Montanari, S., (2016) New Quality-Control Investigations on Vaccines:

            Micro- and Nanocontamination. Int J Vaccines Vaccin 4(1):0072

(29). Durzy?ska, J. & Go?dzicka-Józefiak, A. (2015). Viruses and cells intertwined since the dawn of evolution. Durzy?ska

           and Go?dzicka-Józefiak Virology Journal. 12:169 DOI 10.1186/s12985-015-0400-7

(30). Arnold, C. (2016, September 29).  The Viruses That Made Us Human. NOVA Next.

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(31). Broeker, F. & Moelling, K. (2019) Evolution of Immune Systems From Viruses and Transposable

           Elements. Front. Microbiol. 10:51. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2019.00051.

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the New York Academy of Sciences.

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—000—

 

[Romeo F. Quijano, M.D. is a retired professor of the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, College of Medicine, University of the Philippines Manila. He is president of Pesticide Action Network (PAN) – Philippines. He served as the co-chair of the International POPs Elimination Network, bureau member of the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development, and as a standing committee member of the Intergovernmental Forum on Chemical Safety. He is regarded as one of the country’s leading toxicologists.]

 

Naomi Klein, Conspiracy Theorist

OpEd News

March 9, 2021

By Lorenzo Raymond

 

Author Naomi Klein, and Klaus Shwab, founder of the World Economic Forum, endorse “The Future We Choose”, authored by Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac. [Source: Amazon]

When it comes to the “Great Reset,” Naomi Klein is offended. Her intelligence is insulted. Her legacy is tarnished. And she is here to correct the record.

As the sun set on 2020, Professor Klein stood up as the only adult in the room among those who research the machinations of multi-national corporations. The celebrated author excoriated all those sounding an alarm about The Great Reset program advanced by the World Economic Forum, the hypercapitalist organization notorious for its annual meetings in Davos, Switzerland. There was no evidence, she wrote in December, that the Great Reset promised to “turn the world into a high-tech dictatorship that will take away your freedom” through “a Big Pharma/GMO/biometric implants/5G/robot dog/forced-vaccine” agenda, as some on the “far left” claimed. Anybody who entertained the idea was just a useful idiot of Steven Bannon, serving up “an information-sh*t sandwich.” It all adds up to a yucky “conspiracy smoothie” because the Great Reset is merely a linear progression from inconsequential WEF programs of the past, and the Forum itself is relatively insignificant.

Why such brusque dismissal and puerile invective from the public intellectual? Klein insists that the Reset is a desperate “lunge for organizational relevance,” because the World Economic Forum is lacking in that apparently. This assertion is odd because the WEF counts among its partners Microsoft, BP, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the United Nations. Repeat visitors to Davos over the past three years include the world’s most celebrated activist, Greta Thunberg, and its most prominent state leaders, including Donald Trump and President Xi of China. If this indicates a lack of relevance, what would being impactful look like?

Beyond “exaggerating” the significance of WEF, Great Reset analysis vexes Klein because it’s “a bastardization of a concept” that she’d discovered, the “shock doctrine.” She describes the shock doctrine as encompassing “the many ways that elites try to harness deep disasters to push through policies that further enrich the already wealthy and restrict democratic liberties.” But as many critics of the theory have pointed out, the shock doctrine doesn’t just portray establishment actors as harnessing catastrophe ex post facto, it chronicles them causing it to advance monopoly disaster capitalism. Klein has repeatedly applied it this way herself.

Klein’s 2009 book on the subject includes the following examples of conspiracy: Jeffrey Sachs and the IMF deliberately forcing poor governments around the world to collapse their countries’ social institutions through austerity so that the infrastructure could then be “rescued” (that is, bought up or infiltrated) by private investors; Margaret Thatcher instigating the Falklands War as a way to undercut labor unrest in the UK; and George W. Bush contriving the Iraq War as a pretext for imposing a pliant neoliberal economy and winning profits in military spending and oil concessions for his cronies. The extended metaphor she chose for the shock doctrine involves MK-Ultra, a Central Intelligence Agency program that secretly hired distinguished doctors and nurses to conduct torturous brainwashing experiments on unsuspecting mental patients; the healthcare workers actively destroyed the victims’ psyches so that they could be built back better in a more malleable form.

Critics of the book pointed out that the shock doctrine sounded like a conspiracy theory. Klein was livid, and wrote a blog post debunking some of their lesser examples as straw men. But despite the 5000-word length of her piece, the author never rebutted the observation that her IMF, Falklands War, and Iraq scenarios were conspiratorial. Instead, she simply ignored them. This was an understandable strategy, as Klein’s status as a pillar of the progressive establishment would be over if she explicitly stated that the actions of the elite not only have vicious consequences, but often malicious premeditated intent. Even fellow progressive Joseph Stiglitz called her “overdramatic and unconvincing” and “not an academic” in her analysis, while ex-UN official Shashi Tharoor wrote that Klein “is too ready to see conspiracies where others might discern little more than the all-too-human pattern of chaos and confusion…” “Conspiracism” won’t just get you sneered at, but potentially labeled an anti-intellectual, an anti-Semite, a psychotic, and a fascist.

In 2021, concern about conspiracy theories has grown into a full-fledged moral panic fed both by the neoliberal establishment and by the respectable left. Social media companies now have a policy of censoring any post regarding the Great Reset; YouTube banned a Zero Books video that merely mentioned Reset theories to criticize them in terms similar to Klein’s. Then there are the jibes made by Adam Curtis in his new documentary Can’t Get You Out of My Head. Alongside a sensible warning about crediting the elite with omnipotence, Curtis oversells his opposition to unofficial narratives to the point of telling us not to do our own reasoning. “Pattern recognition” he tells us, is faulty thinking that leads to paranoia. The proof? Jim Garrison, the New Orleans District Attorney who prosecuted a JFK assassination-conspiracy trial, wrote a memo entitled “Time and Propinquity: Investigation in Phase One,” where he told his staff to look for patterns of relationships among suspects. D.A. Garrison’s project had many problems, but this wasn’t one of them–pattern recognition is a standard part of forming hypotheses, and generating a hypothesis is the first step of the scientific method. (Curtis also chides that pattern recognition is the basis of artificial intelligence, forgetting he once made a documentary that discussed how the Aladdin AI system conquered the stock market for BlackRock through its 95% predictive accuracy.)

The real question is if it’s possible to be a deep critic of power and not be a conspiracy theorist of some kind. Indeed, Klein’s opponents could go much further with their accusations of conspiracism if they look at her more recent writing. Miriam-Webster defines conspiracy theory as a that which “explains an event or set of circumstances as the result of a secret plot by usually powerful conspirators.” Stated positions of Naomi Klein that meet this criteria include:

– That the Democratic Party secretly influenced “the media and culture industries” to downplay the dangers of climate change during the Obama era (On Fire, pg. 76).

– That Barack Obama and the Filipino government conspired to remove anti-business climate negotiators from the Paris summit to deliver a plan so conservative it was basically “everything the Bush administration wanted.”

– That the 1989 Montreal spree-shooting was not just conceived by a lone madman, as many experts have said, but was generated by a discreet cultural network of homicidal misogynists.

– That “an elite minority has a stranglehold over our economy, our political process, and most of our major media outlets.”

“An elite minority has a stranglehold” over most of our major media outlets? I won’t claim that Klein, Jewish herself, is being antisemitic here. I prefer not to jump to conclusions. But it is one of the oldest dog whistles in the book. One that led to the Holocaust.

That last observation has a powerful emotional effect that makes us recoil from Klein’s claim. The reflex, ironically, is based on pattern recognition: The Nazis said X to falsely implicate the Jews; therefore anyone who says X is also implicating the Jews. It’s a decent first hypothesis–“phase one” as Jim Garrison would say–because a segment of conspiracy theorists really are antisemitic. There are good reasons to dismiss it as a paradigm though. One is that this would also disqualify discussion of Israeli war crimes and cover-ups in Palestine, as many Zionists insist.

So Klein isn’t opposed in principle to theorizing elite conspiracy. What then is her problem with investigating the Great Reset? Supposedly it’s a “distraction” from the real Covid shock doctrine embodied by Andrew Cuomo’s alliance with Silicon Valley oligarchs to “Reimagine Education” in New York. But looking at Klein’s May 2020 discussion of Reimagine Education, we find facts that are fully complementary to treating the Great Reset as an exceptional threat. The present Bill Gates-Eric Schmidt takeover, she writes, is “Far more high-tech than anything we have seen during previous disasters,” as it “treats our past weeks of physical isolation not as a painful necessity to save lives, but as a living laboratory for a permanent–and highly profitable–no-touch future.” She quotes the CEO of a rising AI corporation: “There has been a distinct warming up to human-less, contactless technology,” under the New Normal. “Humans are biohazards, machines are not.” Klein continued:

It’s a future in which our homes are never again exclusively personal spaces but are also, via high-speed digital connectivity, our schools, our doctor’s offices, our gyms, and, if determined by the state, our jails. Of course, for many of us, those same homes were already turning into our never-off workplaces and our primary entertainment venues before the pandemic, and surveillance incarceration “in the community” was already booming. But in the future under hasty construction, all of these trends are poised for a warp-speed acceleration–a future in which our every move, our every word, our every relationship is trackable, traceable, and data-mineable by unprecedented collaborations between government and tech giants.

This is more truth than we generally get from the progressive establishment in the US. But if it is possible to “damn with faint praise,” then it’s also possible to support with moderate criticism. The fact that this is all that Klein wrote about digital re-education through three entire seasons of lockdowns is an indictment. One would think from this report that Gates and Google have to be invited publicly by state officials in order to manipulate schools and profit off of remote learning. In fact, Reimagine Education has been discretely infiltrating schools across the country since 2015 with the collusion of two national teacher unions, the AFT and NEA. Labor leaders Randi Weingarten and Becky Pringle joined with Microsoft in promoting “disruptive technology,” “out-of-school learning,” and “blended learning.” These are all codewords for digital-dominated education, which would enable automated “experiential learning” to downsize the very school staff that the union bosses nominally represent. Klein’s remark that this technocratic power grab is “under hasty construction” is misinformation–the public-private, corporate-labor scheme has been at least five years in the making.

Klein: "It is, first & foremost, about blocking a real #GreenNewDeal, which most assuredly would not have the support of BP, Mastercard, the #Prince of #Wales, & all of the other #GreatReset partners."

Guess again. We mean Business/ Prince of Wales's Corporate Leaders Group. ? https://t.co/oVmSQNLWfZ pic.twitter.com/EDH7If9LNO

— Cory Morningstar (@elleprovocateur) December 8, 2020

What else did Klein fail to mention? The plans for harvested data to be placed on digital blockchain and packaged into “social-impact bonds” (SIBs). SIBs are basically a “social-service” update on the derivatives that inflated the market in the days of the housing bubble. Since Wall Street supports continuing austerity, corporate monopolies, and precarious (at best) employment, this bubble of “social impact” is bound to collapse. The big investors will likely profit once again from shorting the market, leaving the general public in worse shape than ever. This appears to be the actual path to the “You will own nothing, and you will be happy” future that the World Economic Forum notoriously predicted. If nothing else it means what social scientists call “the financialization of urban policy.” Meanwhile, digital blockchain keeps a permanent record of intimate data, right down to DNA, on each “at risk” youth–disproportionately black and brown youth–who’ve received the social services. That certified data, officially collected for benign schemes like universal basic income and test-and-trace, can be used for whatever purposes the public-private partners in government and corporate America choose. For this reason, the NAACP passed a resolution two years ago denouncing blockchain social services:

Hundreds of billions of dollars have already been directed into social impact investments by the world’s most powerful individuals and financial institutions…in effect amplifying the investment wealth of elite investors on the backs of vulnerable communities.

You wouldn’t learn any of this from reading the author of The Shock Doctrine–nor from major progressive media outlets like Democracy Now!. I learned it from Alison Hawter McDowell and Cory Morningstar, two of the astute “far-left” researchers that Klein seems to be throwing shade at. They are also among the few on the left who are warning us about emerging schemes promoted by the WEF like militarized nanotechnology, “the Internet of Bodies,” “digital humans,” and the wrap-around concept of the “Fourth Industrial Revolution.” These recipes for disaster capitalism have been documented in the business press for a decade, but Klein, despite her past specialization in corporatist conspiracies (and despite McDowell presenting them to her directly) has said nothing about them.

Professor Klein pillories Great Reset researchers like McDowell and Morningstar because some of their observations are echoed in conservative sources, and because they have an incisive critique of the corporatism of the progressive establishment. But this is a position that Klein herself championed in the past; her reputation as a radical is effectively built on it. In 2013, she told Salon that

there is a very deep denialism in the environmental movement among the Big Green groups. And to be very honest with you, I think it’s been more damaging than the right-wing denialism in terms of how much ground we’ve lost. Because it has steered us in directions that have yielded very poor results. I think if we look at the track record of Kyoto, of the UN Clean Development Mechanism, the European Union’s emissions trading scheme… Not only are emissions up, but you have no end of scams to point to, which gives fodder to the right. The right took on cap-and-trade by saying it’s going to bankrupt us, it’s handouts to corporations, and, by the way, it’s not going to work. And they were right on all counts.

What explains Naomi Klein’s current silence on, and even deflection from, crucial issues? Once perceived as the spokesperson for street activists of the anti-corporate globalization movement, Klein now works as the Facebook and Ford Foundation-sponsored Gloria Steinem Endowed Chair in Media, Culture and Feminist Studies at “Public Ivy” Rutgers University. She promotes a version of the Green New Deal that’s guided by the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation through her organization 350.org. Klein’s devotion to this “sustainable” program (which relies on neocolonial technologies like carbon-capture storage, lithium strip-mining, and even nuclear power) recently led her to coordinate a censorship campaign against the documentary Planet of the Humans–an investigative film covering corporate influence on the Green New Deal. But it gets spicier: Klein’s own environmental film The Message (This Changes Everything) was funded largely by Eric Schmidt (“The Schmidt Family Foundation“)–the very Google executive whom she purports to have exposed as a Covid corporatist.

Photo: Susan Rockefeller, home, NYC Klein’s 2015 book and film “This Changes Everything”, was initially launched as project “The Message” [Source]

Emulating Klein’s own past technique of connecting the dots, we can see there’s substantial ties between her Green New Deal and the WEF’s “stakeholder capitalism,” an overlap that Rockefeller Brothers Fund President Stephen Heintz made clear when he sat down for a public discussion with her two years ago. As reported on the RBF website, Heintz, following the lead of “the talk at Davos this year”, feels strongly that we need to “move to a new economy–from obsolete capitalism to a wellbeing economy, a wellbeing society that’s organized around equity and inclusion.” But, he said, social impact and profiteering “don’t need to be mutually exclusive”; “We can be both good stewards of capital and also of what the dollars are doing.” “Klein concurred,” states the Rockefeller report.

In the ninth chapter of The Shock Doctrine, Klein wrote about the sad fate of the once-revolutionary labor leader Lech Walesa. Walesa told the truth to the Polish working-class about the Stalinist technocracy that stifled them in the late 1970s, advocating for a populist socialism instead. As he rose to prominence in the Gorbachev years, however, Walesa became more pragmatic and mature. He joined the establishment and formed a new technocracy with “revolutionary” capitalists from the global institutions. Rather than reveal the danger that this great reset posed to Polish society, Walesa downplayed it and promoted the “bold vision” of economic reform that elite comrades like Jeffrey Sachs whispered in his ear about. The result was a bonanza for Western billionaires and catastrophic peonage for the most vulnerable in society. It’s bitterly ironic that Naomi Klein seems to be following a similar journey of betrayal.

 

[Lorenzo Raymond is an independent historian and educator living in New York City. He has contributed to The New Inquiry, Black Agenda Report, Commune magazine, and Counterpunch. He blogs at DiversityOfTactics.org]

Did Wrongdoings in Africa Force M-Kopa Solar to Rebrand? [B Team Africa, Gates, Generation Investment]

Cyprian Nyakundi

December 24, 2020

 

 

“The financial industry is undergoing rapid technological change… The increase in demand for digital services triggered by COVID-19 is turbo-charging this transformation.”

 

“Fintech’s potential to reach out to over a billion unbanked people around the world, and the changes in the financial system structure that this can induce, can be revolutionary.”

 

December 17, 2020, What is Really New in Fintech, IMF Blog

 

“Upon first glance, a person would assume this business is the selling of solar. Yet this assumption would be a mistake. The product is finance: “About a quarter of those who pay off their first purchase move on to others, the company says.” This is colonization in a 21st century new form. Colonization via debt made possible by the selling of Western values. Other vultures exploiting the impoverished and vulnerable under the guise of green and “clean energy for all” include iniquitous organizations, such as the Gates Foundation and Mastercard.”

 

January 28, 2019: An Inconvenient Case Study: M-Kopa Solar, Africa, [The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg – for Consent: The Most Inconvenient Truth: “Capitalism is in Danger of Falling Apart”, ACT III]

 

 

 

 

“The B Team continues to grow and expand its coalition of corporate executives. In 2018, Indra Nooyi, chairman and former CEO of PepsiCo, joined the coalition. More recently, The B Team welcomed Ajay Banga, president and CEO of MasterCard. Another B Team leader is Andrew Liveris, chairman and CEO of Dow Chemical Company. Liveris also serves as a member of The Nature Conservancy’s Latin America Conservation Council, and the Concordia Leadership Council. ”

 

September 17, 2019, We Mean Business Co-founder – The B Team [The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg – for Consent: They Mean Business, Volume II, Act IV]

 

Blacklock’s Reporter is a subscription service that monitors corruption in Canada and in the light of the WE Charity scandals, it has been one of the sites that has continued to give timely briefs.

The site has made a link between Jesse Moore, CEO of M-Kopa and Craig Kielburger, CEO of We Charity, another organization accused of siphoning off Canada taxpayer money in Kenya.

M-Kopa is described as a ‘money-losing door-to-door sales company in Nairobi that received millions in federal funding’ (funded by Canadian taxpayers).

Jesse Moore, a former Toronto child activist, earlier served in a youth leaders’ group with WE Charity co-founder Craig Kielburger.

WE Charity Scandal in Kenya

1. We Charity forces whistle-blower to recant evidence of mistreatment
2. WE Charity suspicious activities that should get the attention of Kenyan authorities
3. We Charity shuts down Canadian operations after scandal

The link between We Charity’s Craig Kielburger and M-Kopa’s Jesse Moore

The issue was picked up by a Canadian MP in an interview with a Toronto radio station last Thursday (Last week) and it’s becoming an emerging scandal in Canada.

 

Kampala, Uganda – October 25, 2018 – “Mastercard in partnership with M-KOPA Solar and Centenary Bank, celebrated the first ‘pay-as-you-go’ QR transaction this week, officially launching the initiative, which provides a simple and inexpensive way to power the homes and businesses of Ugandans.”

 

 

Jesse Moore, CEO of M-Kopa. Moore is a shareholder and chief executive of M-Kopa Holdings Ltd., a Kenyan firm that sells home appliances, cellphones and household loans on the installment plan. M-Kopa was the first recipient of FinDev funding on a promise of “creating good quality jobs in East Africa.” M-Kopa laid off 150 employees two days after FinDev announced its initial share purchase in 2018. The company lost $51 million (Sh5.5 billion) over two years as taxpayer funds were spent on the company, according to financial records.

Also FinDev admitted giving another US$ 2 million (Sh218 million) in 2019, after the firing of the 150 software developers became public news.
In the past, FinDev, a federal agency bought $15.4 million (Sh1.7 billion) in shares in M-Kopa Holdings Limited.

FinDev has confirmed it was aware Moore held shares in the company. The agency has an observer on the M-Kopa board, but would not comment on salary and benefits approved for the chief executive.

“FinDev has an observer status that allows us to be informed about M-Kopa’s business developments,” said Shelley Maclean, a spokesperson for the agency. “Following its investment in M-Kopa, in January FinDev was made aware of certain employee share purchases that took place.”

Moore is a former director with CARE Canada and a 2006 Fellow at Action Canada, a federally-subsidized “leadership development” program for students. Kielburger was also a 2006 Fellow in the program.

In the article, the predatory M-Kopa is refusing to cooperate.

On other note, M-Kopa has told staff it is exiting the solar business in Uganda and will focus on its 26,899/- A11 phones (https://m-kopa.com/kenya/products/) on an extreme high-interest payment plan ( you can get same phone on Jumia for 13,500 ).

At the same time it has taken the word “Solar” out of all of its brand identity- https://m-kopa.com/ does not have the old M-Kopa Solar logo anymore. In Kenya they are telling staff that solar will reduce as they become a pure predatory phone finance company.  https://androidkenya.com/2020/01/samsung-m-kopa-phone/  And they are only selling phones, not solar, in Nigeria and Ghana.

 

 

 

From Eritrea to Bolivia: Who Supported the Washington Backed Coup?

 

On October 18th, 2019 Eritrean activist Vanessa Tsehaye quote tweeted an article from Bolivian activist Jhanisse Vaca Daza published on the Human Rights Foundation page, encouraging the overthrow of socialist leader Evo Morales.

“If democracy and human rights are further compromised, Bolivia could become the next Venezuela. The presidential election on October 20 is a critical opportunity to remove Morales from power and restore justice in Bolivia. Our planet cannot afford another authoritarian leader who remains in power at the expense of the natural world.”

A few weeks later in Bolivia, the world witnessed a successful coup by the fascist junta and the ousting of Evo Morales, leaving him in exile, humiliated, and targeted.

The new regime immediately went on a killing rampage, murdering dozens, massacring Indigenous protesters, and overturning all economic and political gains made by the socialist government. The coup advanced Washington’s foreign policy that has been consistent from Latin America to Africa in targeting socialist leaders or any non-compliant state.

Who is Vanessa Tsehaye, and why is an Eritrean activist so close with a Bolivian regime change activist?

The connection is the Human Rights Foundation, where Jhanisse V. Daza is the manager of the Freedom Fellowships, a program they selected Vanessa to be a part of on May 21, 2019. Jhanisse revealed on the announcement of the fellowship program : “Anyone running a non-profit or civil society organization or start-up needs help and guidance with personal leadership, movement building, marketing and media strategy, fundraising, and digital security. My own experience was transformative, and I’m looking forward to bringing world-class expertise in each of these areas to 10 new Fellows.”

What is her experience and who are the “world-class experts”?

A more detailed examination of Jhanisse Vaca Daza’s connections and working relationships reveal that she guides an international network of Washington-backed regime change operations from Bolivia, Hong Kong and other strategic regions.

As first reported by Wyatt Reed and Ben Norton from the GrayZone, Daza is linked to Venezuelan figures Leopoldo Lopez, and Thor Halvorssen, the founder and CEO of the Human Rights Foundation. They are both connected to the right-wing and racist oligarchy who have been waging a long campaign of destabilizing Venezuela with the support of Washington.

Furthermore, Daza is associated with Srdja Popovic, the former organizer with the group Otpor which had substantial financial support from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the International Republican Institute (IRI), and the US Agency for International Development (USAID). The Otpor group was one of many decades-long sophisticated operations to target socialist Yugoslavia and break it apart.

As per the investigative report by The GrayZon revealed:

“CANVAS had been funded largely through the National Endowment for Democracy, a CIA cut-out that functions as the US government’s main arm of promoting regime change.”

 

According to internal emails from Stratfor, an intelligence firm known as the “shadow CIA,” CANVAS “may have also received CIA funding and training during the 1999/2000 anti-Milosevic struggle.”

 

CANVAS grew out of the Otpor! movement, a US-backed cadre of youth activists that brought down Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, who was targeted for overthrow by NATO for being insufficiently compliant.

 

An email by a Stratfor staffer boasts: “the kids who ran OTPOR grew up, got suits and designed CANVAS… or in other words a ‘export-a-revolution’ group that sowed the seeds for a NUMBER of color revolutions. They are still hooked into U.S. funding and basically go around the world trying to topple dictators and autocratic governments (ones that U.S. does not like ;).”

 

Stratfor revealed that CANVAS “turned its attention to Venezuela” in 2005, after cultivating opposition movements that led pro-NATO regime-change operations across Eastern Europe. Among those trained by CANVAS were the leaders of Venezuela’s coup attempt this year, including Juan Guaido, Leopoldo Lopez, and scores of figures associated with the US-supported Popular Will party.”

Bolivian anti-Evo Morales activist Jhanissa Vaca Daza (center) with Otpor leader and CANVAS founder Srdja Popovic (right)

On July 19th, 2019, Vanessa also tweeted in support of Srdja Popovic: “We can only succeed by learning from the ones who fought similar before us”.

Meron Estefanos is another Eritrean activist that is also associated with Human Rights Foundation and connected with Srdja as seen by the tweet below in May of 2015. Both Meron and Vanessa’s Twitter accounts are verified and are always centered on all news developments to give the impression of representing an impartial Eritrean voice, despite their connection to shadowy elements and aims for the state. Vanessa Tsehaye was also nominated for the Index on Censorship’s Freedom of Expression Award in 2016:

As reported by Morning Star :

“Index on Censorship continues to function today, posing as an organisation that promotes freedom of expression across the world. But a cursory glance at its major donors sets alarm bells ringing. As well as the aforementioned Ford Foundation, it is funded by Open Society Foundations, Open Democracy and the shady soft power organisation the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)”

What can we infer about the active harm on the state of Bolivia and Eritrea from Vanessa in the Eritrean diaspora spaces, and her links with Jhanisse Vaca Daza/Human Rights Foundation? Her emergence is part of many counter-revolutionary aims over the years to defang the Eritrean revolution of its socialist roots, demoralize the Eritrean people’s sense of revolutionary nationalism, and weaken the state. The strategy of Washington has been multi-faceted and sophisticated in its deployment and execution in the diaspora since 2007, as stated in WikiLeaks cables from former Ambassador Ronald K. McMullen. The Impeccable achievement of the Eritrean revolution under the guidance of ELM, ELF initially and then EPLF, which had a socialist foundational aim after independence, was a threatening example for Africa. Therefore, Eritrea has been a victim of imperialist design and destruction for decades:

-1890-1945-Survived and resisted Italian colonialism without the influence of Italian culture, language, and the racist period of the fascist era.

-1945-1960 Survived and resisted British colonialism objectives in partitioning Eritrea and dividing its people.

-1961-1991 Survived and resisted US/UK/USSR supported Ethiopian colonialism and brutal occupation.

-1991-1998 Peace and transition.

-1998-2000 Survived western supported invasion of Eritrea by Washington backed TPLF just like it did years later in Somalia.

-1998-2018 Survived and resisted Washington aggression and support of the Ethiopian regime aims at state collapse, destabilization, and economic sabotage to make the people revolt and submit.

-2009-2018 Survived debilitating UN sanctions against the state, defense capability, and collective punishment of the people.

The prevailing emergence of neoliberal diaspora activism currently led by Vanessa/OneDaySeyoum is operated on individual issues in a celebrity-like consideration over the community and collective struggle. This is why it is social media-driven with no serious offline popular legitimacy with the Eritrean community, as the aim is not unity but to sow discord, political fragmentation and externalize all of the actual problems in Eritrea. Neoliberal diaspora activism is directed by Twitter likes, metrics and online drama, like the dogpiling of comedian Tiffany Haddish who visited Eritrea on a personal narrative and wanting to publicize her father’s country. It must be understood Tiffany Haddish was viscously targeted, when she was not a political voice at all. Vanessa purposely used the social media bullying of Tiffany to publicize her organization and use that public stunt toward centering her organization and profile.

OneDaySeyoum/Vanessa Tsehaye did not oppose the Susan Rice lobbied sanctions on the state of Eritrea from 2009 to 2018 and was silent on the 18-year war of aggression from Washington backed regime in Addis Ababa. Most of the Gen Z diaspora youths who support her on Twitter are being misled into an imperialist undertaking, filled with superficial campaign and PR with no serious impact on the Eritrean people nor the state. The social media campaign only helps to build the “activists brand” and their profile, it doesn’t materially address the problems of the Eritrean people. They politically exploit the serious problem of Eritrean refugees in Libya to blame the state only, with no mention of the role of imperialism in destabilizing Libya and the aggression on Eritrea. This is likened to being an arsonist at night but performing like firefighters in daylight. What does supporting sanctions, economic/military destabilization of the Eritrean state have to do with advocating for refugees? Additionally, Vanessa gained notoriety and social media capital off Ciham’s misfortune in Eritrea. We must move away from single issues social media campaigns as that itself is liberalism, and truly engage in a high-level approach to supporting the Eritrean people beyond PFDJ by not selling out to imperialism. Advocating for Ciham’s freedom is the right thing to do, but there is no reason to engage in liberalism and align the campaign with Vanessa Tsehaye, who is funded by the Human Rights Foundation. The social media campaign around Ciham and its performative spectacle only benefited the career profile of Vanessa Tsehaye. As Ivan Marovic, one of the founders of Otpor stated: “It’s not cool.  Normal people hate politics . . . but . . . you need normal people if you’re gonna make change.  To do that, you need to make politics sexy.  Make it cool.  Make it hip.  REVOLUTION as a FASHION LINE”

In Defense Of Eritrean Leftist Commentary

“Hide nothing from the masses of our people. Tell no lies. Expose lies whenever they are told. Mask no difficulties, mistakes, failures. Claim no easy victories…”

 

-Amilcar Cabral

Over the years there has been an external push toward a neoliberal flavored type of activism that aims to reverse the legacy of the elder generation of Eritreans with leftist politics and a sense of revolutionary nationalism. The revolutionary nationalism itself is being targeted, although it must be clear that PFDJ has been failing Eritrea and the diaspora to be a vanguard in the same spirit as the true socialist vanguard EPLF. The elder Eritrean generation who were active in the late 1980s and 1990s with revolutionary nationalism, built up the diaspora communities and developed a long-lasting movement to help Eritrea.  The rise of Vanessa/OneDaySeyoum opposes the rich history of the community-owned activism and bottom-up grass-roots that was prevalent in the 1980/90s and early 2000s in the diaspora, originally shaped by the true socialist vanguard EPLF. The neoliberal diaspora activists are running counter to the history of Eritrean organizers, who stood for  solidarity, anti-imperialism, and collective struggle building that united Eritreans and defended the state and revolution.  Unfortunately, Isaias Afewerki and PFDJ have not been able to maintain that legacy and now we have youth who are vulnerable to grifters and counter-revolutionary warfare. The fear of critical leftist narratives against both PFDJ and the pro State Department elements like Vanessa is serious, and the counter-response is to spew ad hominem attacks and discredit any leftist criticism.

For example below, in the past few months, I have been targeted by Vanessa Tsehaye/OneDaySeyoum by spreading misinformation and gaslighting my commentary, dismissing me as a man who is misogynistic, sexist, and targeting Eritrean women for publicly condemning her ties to imperialist hands and her support of the coup in Bolivia. The below tweet of mine is addressing imperialism and Vanessa Tsehaye responded by falsey proclaiming that I’m misogynist:

(By the way, her name was Vanessa Berhe on all articles in the past, Al Jazeera interviews and that was the name I used before she changed her name,  I was not aware she changed her name but I have now updated as to respect her choice)

Is legitimate public criticism of a hyper-visible activist misogynist or sexist? If that is the case I have no problem being self-corrected, but this is motivated with aims to smear my political criticism.

Equally important, the individual’s account associated with Vanessa has sent direct messages to popular black leftists with large followings, by proclaiming with no public independent investigation, that I’m targeting Eritrean women when that is not true. My personal address has been doxxed by one of the vocal members of OneDaySeyoum with threats to do me harm offline, plus other Youtube comments threatening to call my family and publishing the name of my partner. Moreover, the individuals associated with Vanessa Tsehay/OneDaySeyoum have targeted the organization I’m a member of by continuously aiming to send their associates to monitor our activities, and to penetrate and sabotage our efforts. The HOA-PALS(Horn of Africa-Pan Africanist for Liberation and Solidarity is aiming to build an alternative leftist space that is multi-generational,women-led, and LGBTQ+ welcoming. Fallacious claims of me targeting Eritrean women are flawed, considering I am a member of a women-led organization where we have had various internal dialogue on how this was a political hit job to discard my commentary. My commentary is direct, blunt, and has no aim to harm marginalized communities, but to question reactionary elements, whether it is the activists or the cadres of PFDJ or Eritrean officials. I have been blocked by the Eritrean ambassador to Japan for criticizing his anti-Cuba/USSR/Marxist views, I have been blocked by WHO Director, Tedros Adhanom for his time as Foreign Minister under TPLF, I have been blocked by US ambassador in Djibouti, MC Hammer for support Selassie/Menliek and have had more issues with reactionary men in our community than women.

As a cis Eritrean man, I understand the optics of publicly criticizing women and have been doing more to be careful in the language I use, reading Queer Marxist feminist works to better stamp out my internalized patriarchy to do better with my approach, while maintaining the guiding principles of anti-imperialists, and highlighting the problems of Washington foreign policy in the Horn of Africa.

To be a revolutionary Eritrean in the diaspora demands one not be associated with the Washington State Department on the one hand, or uncritically support Isaias Afewerki on the other. There is a transformative approach to transitioning Eritrea beyond Isaias Afewerki and it won’t work by being in collusion with the State Department/Human Rights Watch/Amnesty and activist(OneDaySeyoum). Eritreans have a right to defend the state and we should not be intimidated and gaslighted to work with imperialists and their lackeys. No Eritrean with revolutionary potential believing in our collective struggle is my enemy, whether they operate within PFDJ or in the opposition, as we must maintain a united frontline.

Kwame Ture spoke on the differences between mobilization and organization. He says, mobilization usually leads to reform action, not to revolutionary action.  “Those of us who are revolutionary are not concerned with issues, we are concerned with the system.” Mobilization of the masses on a bigger scale will require radical approaches through organizations focused on collective struggle rather than individual issues and social media spectacles.

The young diaspora Eritrean youths and non-Eritreans drawn by the emotionally targeted propaganda campaign on Twitter are innocent in that they don’t recognize they are being pulled into something dangerous for Eritrea and the region. This sophisticated campaign targets diaspora youths and individuals with large followings, who are unfamiliar with Eritrea.

One can engage in deconstructing the role of imperialism in how Eritrean refugees are displaced in Libya and facing grave threats, without excusing the internal failures of Isias Afewerki to reduce harm and destructive policies . One can be leftists without supporting PFDJ.

People’s class positioning in the diaspora reflects in their politics for the Horn of Africa. Class perspectives and analysis have been buried by diaspora neoliberal oriented activism towards single issues that deflect emotions and spectacles instead of historical analysis and deeper investigation.

Do you want freedom for your people? From what class positioning? We black leftists are duty-bound to be media savvy and well versed in informational warfare targeting Black America and Africa. Oftentimes people with liberal politics don’t understand piercing’ criticism and ideological persuasion. Do we have malicious intent by bringing to light the harmful political positioning of Eritrean elements from the pro-State Department accounts and pro-Isaias Afewerki accounts? No. The intent is to push the conversation to the left away from reactionaries via PFDJ or a few opposition accounts.

We have a problem with the rampant anti-socialist sentiment within the neoliberal Eritrean activist spaces and their continued online surveillance campaign with support of shadowy backers. Eritrean leftists are being targeted and harassed for their critical commentary and views. The Black global left needs to understand that elements like those in this article who want to discredit Eritrean leftist viewpoints and that those leftists who organize online, must be clear to investigate who they interact with and their shadowy associations.

As to discredit the Eritrean leftist position, any defense of the state or revolution is intentionally equated with the support of Isaias Afewerki and his failures. This is how pro-State Department Eritrean activists rationalize demonizing any defense of the state by deflecting to Isias/PFDJ. Defending Bolivia, Venezuela, Iran, China from western aggression does not mean one agrees with the internal politics or head of state just like Eritrea, but we are guided by the principles of anti-imperialism and a non-interventionist line.

In the spirit of Pan Africanism, the Black Radical Tradition, and anti-imperialism, the Eritrean leftist commentary and the Eritrean revolution must be defended beyond hyper-nationalism, neoliberal diaspora activism, and rightward tendencies.

 

[Filmon Zerai is an independent blogger with commentary on the Horn of Africa & global politics. His views have appeared on @ajstream, @Radio702, @bbc, @SputnikInt, @blkagendareport]

The Great Reset: The Final Assault on the Living Planet [It’s Not a Social Dilemma – It’s the Calculated Destruction of the Social, Part III]

November 28, 2020

By Cory Morningstar

 

Part three. This is the final segment of a three-part investigative series. [Part 1] [Part 2]

 

Artificial intelligence, Automation – & Cyberwarfare

 

Announced at the Global Inclusive Growth Summit on October 21, 2019, the Imperative 21 RESET campaign was launched to the public on September 13, 2020. A front campaign of The Business Roundtable, the six founding coalition partners are The B Team, JUST Capital, B Lab, Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose (CECP), Inclusive Capitalism and Conscious Capitalism. [Further reading: The Business Roundtable/CURT a Systematic Destruction of Labor]

 

“It’s an unprecedented coalition of business networks that have come together to raise our ambition. Not just to help our individual CEOs succeed,  we’ll do that for sure. But to actually bring their voices together to help shift culture. So that the pushback on the BRT [Business Roundtable] from different business publications or other people within the business community lessens. So there’s less of a headwind culturally for this type of leadership.”

 

— Jay Coen Gilbert, co-founder of B Lab and B Corporations [Source]

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is described as, “systems that combine sophisticated hardware and software with elaborate databases and knowledge-based processing models to demonstrate characteristics of effective human decision making.” [Source] The World Economic Forum recognizes AI as “the engine of the Fourth Industrial Revolution”. [Source] AI as applied/ utilized by social media platforms is trained with an objective and exploitative function: target users with ads for maximum ad revenue, by highlighting the newsfeed ensuring users remain on the platform for as many hours, minutes and seconds as possible. This function is highlighted by The Social Dilemma, while, ultimately, the sole function of every corporation, that of increasing revenues and maximizing profits – ad infinitum, is kept opaque.

Any technology that has power can be corrupted. In this respect, AI is perhaps the most dangerous. Hacking (PC, mobiles, viruses) is accomplished by injecting code – code that can be then detected. Deep learning, referred to as artificial intelligence, is a giant array of numbers. The AI models are self-modifying on a continuous basis, thus, it is unknown how hacking AI can – or will – be aptly detected. [Source: October 5, 2018, The Artificial Intelligence Race and the New World, Order, Council on Foreign Relations – The Malcolm and Carolyn Wiener Lecture on Science and Technology]. “Imagine tens of millions of numbers in the deep learning algorithm that’s updating itself anyway, because it’s getting more data, retraining itself. Some bad people just tweak a few numbers and all of a sudden, it might be out of control.” [Source] Meaning, for example, a hacker may succeed in turning autonomous vehicles into autonomous weapons that kill people en masse. Imagine fully autonomous nuclear weapons or autonomous nuclear power plants, the hacking of which – or malfunction of – could result in the annihilation of an entire nation, or the entire planet.

Here again, it is more important what both The Social Dilemma and the Center for Humane Technology do not divulge, rather than what they do. The Fourth Industrial Revolution cannot come into fruition without the 5G infrastructure that will run the Internet of Things. “Smart” cities must be understood within the context of global policing and the military industrial complex. Cybersecurity will be the battle space of the 21st century.

“The potential for nuclear escalation in a conventional conflict with autonomous systems is compounded by the way that autonomous systems could enable adopters to fight faster than those operating non-autonomous systems do at present… A military force that is heavily invested in AI could essentially enable faster operations by autonomous systems relative to remotely-piloted or inhabited systems. Some Chinese scholars have hypothesized that this trend could result in a “battlefield singularity,” in which the pace of action on the battlefield eclipses the speed of human decision-making.” [Source]

Remarks to the Association of the U.S. Army Annual Convention, October 4, 2016, as Delivered by Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work, Washington, D.C.:

Q:  “You didn’t mention about autonomous systems. In light of the third off-set strategy, what is your thinking about letting in the future autonomous systems make lethality decisions without a human in the loop?”

 

A:  “I purposely didn’t talk a lot about the technology behind the third off-set because in a audience like this, you get that the most important thing is the operational concepts and the organizational constructs that employ that technology. But let me state this, state it this way.  There will be some instances where operations are happening at machine speeds and we will have to rely upon A.I. and autonomy to actually fight.” [Source]

Automation bias is when humans effectively surrender their judgment to machines:

“Of particular concern in the design of intelligent decision support systems is the human tendency toward automation bias, which occurs when a human decision maker disregards or does not search for contradictory information in light of a computer-generated solution which is accepted as correct. Operators are likely to turn over decision processes to automation as much as possible due to a cognitive conservation phenomenon and teams of people, as well as individuals, are susceptible to automation bias.” [Further reading: Automation Bias in Intelligent Time Critical Decision Support System, AIAA 1st Intelligent Systems Technical Conference, 20-22 September, 2004]

To fully comprehend this risk, a cognitive conservation phenomenon, one must contemplate the Stanislav Petrov incident.  In 1983, the satellite-based Soviet Oko nuclear early warning system detected that an intercontinental ballistic nuclear missile had been launched by the United States. The automated system reported, with the “highest” confidence, that a U.S. missile strike was underway. Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov, on duty, was responsible for alerting his Soviet superiors of the attack. The siren sounded while a large screen instructed “launch” in bold red letters. The siren continued to sound as the computer identified a secondary, third, fourth and fifth missile launch, changing its instruction from “launch” to “missile strike.” Doubting the accuracy of the computer system, Petrov did not react with counter missiles, later explaining “I had a funny feeling in my gut”. He resisted falling victim to automation bias and reported a system malfunction to his superiors, rather than responding with a counter strike. Rather than launching a nuclear war. Rather than ceding his own judgment to a machine. If this had of been a fully autonomous system, as desired by global technocrats, the counter strike would have been automatic, likely unimpeded by human intervention.

[In his own words: Ex-Soviet officer Stanislav Petrov reported a possible 1983 US missile launch as a false alarm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7EmLf4Xlq0]

In 2003, U.S. army investigators found that automation bias was pervasive within the “Patriot community”, which espoused a culture of “trusting the system without question”. “Patriot operators” exhibited an “unwarranted and uncritical trust in automation. In essence, control responsibility [was] ceded to the machine.” [Source]

“The more a country fears that, in a world without using autonomous systems, its ability to retaliate to a nuclear strike would be at risk, the more attractive autonomous systems may appear.”

 

— A Stable Nuclear Future? The Impact of Autonomous Systems and Artificial Intelligence, December 2019

6G promises increased bio-cybernetic identity (identity critical service architecture, sensing based machine learning, distribution of trust) and cyber security. Now consider activity that is deemed criminal by larger society. Rather than obtaining physical keys and/or passwords to acquire access, one will require biometric access. That is, heads (face recognition), eyes (retina scanning), and/or hands.

The AI arms race between China and the US is already well underway (with China having launched its blockchain in April 2020, for global commercial use). The idea that regulation and safeguards cab be applied to AI, ensuring both privacy and data are protected, borders on the edge of a collective psychosis. Such are the lies we tell ourselves in order to sleep at night.

“The Fourth Industrial Revolution and Its Impact on Occupational Health and Safety, Worker’s Compensation and Labor Conditions”, September, 2019:

“In FIR [fourth industrial revolution], nonstandard employment will be common. As a result, it is difficult to receive OHS services and compensation. Excessive trust in new technologies can lead to large-scale or new forms of accidents. Global business networks will cause destruction of workers’ biorhythms, some cancers, overwork, and task complexity. The social disconnection because of an independent work will be a risk for worker’s mental health. The union bonds will weaken, and it will be difficult to apply standardized OHS regulations to multinational enterprises.”

The Unfinished Network includes Ashoka, Aspen Institute, Ford Foundation, For Freedoms, Georgetown University, Imperative 21, the Max Steinbeck Charitable Trust, McCourt, Mil M2, PolicyLink, and The Shed.

Tristan Harris, co-founder, The Center for Humane Technology. ” By tapping into the power of communities, creative media and new technology, Unfinished connects thought leaders, culture shapers, policy makers and innovators to provoke ideas, elevate unheard voices and pursue collaborations for greater impact. Unfinished is headquartered in New York City and its network partners span the world.” [Source]

Rather than a collective demand from the citizenry to terminate the foray into unchartered territory, fully recognized as extremely dangerous and high-risk by those pushing the technologies forward, a discourse is manufactured. Fearing global opposition, the public is safely re-routed and encouraged to, “demand” a future that respects “humane technology”, with adherence to the precautionary principle, kept both out of sight and out of mind. In public relations, this is referred to as “crisis management”. That is, getting ahead of a crisis – monitoring, controlling and shaping public perception at all times. The wish for a “humane technology” is one that will not come true.

Smash the Smartphone

As of July 2020, there were over 290 million Facebook users in India. With 2.6 billion monthly active users, 98% of active Facebook users access the platform via mobile, with over 90% of Facebook’s ad revenues coming in via the device. [Source] Mobile advertising has become the lion’s share of Facebook’s total advertising revenue in recent years, growing from a mere 11% in 2012 to a whopping 92 percent in 2018. This translates to over 50 billion U.S. dollars in annual mobile ad revenues.” [Source]

 

In the fiscal quarter ending March 31, 2020, 98% of Facebook’s revenue was generated through advertising. The social network’s global mobile sponsored stories account for approximately half of this advertising revenue – while approximately 50% of Apple’s revenue came from a single device, the iPhone. [Source] [Source]

Facebook revenues at a glance:

-Approximately 2.7 billion monthly active users

-98% of Facebook users access the platform via mobile

-Over 90% of ad revenues are earned via mobile

-98% of revenue was generated through advertising in 2020

-The network’s global mobile sponsored stories account for approximately half of the advertising revenue

Harris is quick to point out that, “The solution isn’t abstinence, the solution is connection.” [Thrive Global interview with Tristan Harris, April 9, 2017] Yet, nothing could be further from the truth. The solution isn’t connection – via the mobile, the solution is abstinence.

More than just abstaining, the solution has to be for everyone who owns a smartphone to trash it – never looking back. It is fact that “the fourth industrial revolution [“Great Reset”] flows through a mobile”. [Source] The smartphone is the conduit. Although the smartphone is the key to unlocking future nightmares, it’s also very much a double-edged sword. In the same way it serves to uphold the Fourth Industrial Revolution architecture, unveiled to the public as the “Great Reset”, without the smartphone, this very foundation would collapse like a house of cards. The truth is, if no one purchased smartphones, they would give them away in cereal boxes.

But this window is closing.

In the 2030 6G era, “smart phones are likely to be replaced by pervasive XR experiences through lightweight glasses”. [“Virtual (VR)11, 12 augmented (AR)13, and mixed reality (MR) technologies are merging into XR, which encompasses wearable displays and interaction mechanisms that create and maintain perceptual illusions.”] [Source: 6G Research Visions 1, September 2019]

“In the most advanced countries, today’s digital consumers (using PCs and smartphones) will likely become tomorrow’s augmented customers, adopting emerging technologies such as AI (via smart speakers) and immersive reality.”

 

— The Mobile Economy 2019, GSMA Intelligence, [Source]

It is critical to note that a vast majority of internet users (91%) now use mobile devices exclusively to go online. [Source] This is significant for a couple of reasons. First of all, this sheds much light on the ever devolving critical thinking skills by those in the West most impacted and captured by the mobile phone. Detailed information, required for in-depth critical thinking, is largely impossible to decipher and analyze using a tiny mobile device.

One should know full well by now that the success of corporate products with names preceded by the word smart – are hinged on the hope that the “consumer”, or targeted demographic, is vacuous. Anything “smart” serves capital first and foremost. Humans have survived successfully for millennia without mobiles. All we require for our survival is healthy food, clean water, clean sanitation, and shelter. And as social animals, we seek physical community, companionship, joy, and love.

The Internet Society, The United Nations & The World Economic Forum

On September 25, 2018, the Internet Society (ISOC), situated in the US and Switzerland, partnered with Facebook to expand internet connectivity in Africa. [Source] Since then, IXP [internet exchange points] workshops have been held in Morocco, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Togo, Lesotho, Burundi, Mauritius, Guinea, Benin and Chad. [Source] Internet Society partners include Access Now (a tentacle of Avaaz) [1] and Center for Democracy & Technology. The Board of Directors, serving as the Center for Democracy & Technology’s governing body, includes Julie Brill,Corporate Vice President & Deputy General Counsel, Microsoft and Philippa Scarlett, Former Deputy Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, The White House. Advisory council members include affiliates of the Charles Koch Institute, RAND Corporation, Walmart, Facebook, Twentieth Century Fox, Amazon, MasterCard and Verizon. [Full list]

The Center was founded in 1992 by internet pioneers Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn. Widely referred to the “Fathers of the Internet,” Cerf and Kahn co-designed the TCP/IP protocols and the architecture of the Internet”, with both having held executive positions at DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). Cerf serves as Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google since October 2005 with a focus on the future of tech in areas such as artificial intelligence. Since 2010, Cerf has served as a Commissioner for the UN Broadband Commission for Digital Development while Kahn serves as chairman, CEO and president of the Corporation for National Research Initiatives. Cerf also serves as member of the UN High Level Panel on Digital Cooperation, and was present at the launch of the Panel’s first report, “The Age of Digital Interdependence” released on June 10, 2019. [Source]

The Internet Society “is leading and facilitating the multi-round meetings for the Stakeholders Dialogue to collect, compile, and submit the inputs of the worldwide professionals and experts for future governance of the Internet.”

“I used to think it was a funny joke to say [that] the thing I worry about is 100,000 refrigerators attacking [the] Bank of America. That’s not a joke anymore.”

 

— Vint Cerf, 2020

In January 2019, the UN High Level Panel on Digital Cooperation convened. Created at the behest of the UN Secretary-General the year prior, such a high-level panel is rare, with only around 20 having been convened in the UN’s 70-year history. The 20-strong panel is co-chaired by Jack Ma, founder of Aliba, member of the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum, Foundation Board of World Economic Forum Global Shapers Community, Member of the Board of Trustees, World Economic Forum, Global Board of Directors, The Nature Conservancy, co-founder and board of the Breakthrough Energy Ventures (with a focus on nuclear), and Melinda Gates:

“In his appeal to a UN panel of experts led by philanthropist Melinda Gates and Alibaba founder Jack Ma, Secretary-General António Guterres called on its members to reflect on the risks and benefits of our digital age – the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution. ‘We need new thinking and innovative ideas to harness the benefits and manage the risks of this digital age,’ he said via video-link, while urging the High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation to reflect on how technology could accelerate the 2030 Agenda on sustainable development.”

 

Serving the 20-throng panel is “His Excellency” Mohammad Al Gergawi, the United Arab Emirates’ Minister of Cabinet Affairs and The Future, Chairman of the UAE Council for the Fourth Industrial Revolution; Fadi Chehadé, partner at ABRY in Boston, a private equity firm, and advisory board member with the World Economic Forum’s Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution; Dr. Cathy Mulligan is a Visiting Research Fellow at Imperial College Centre for Cryptocurrency Research and Engineering, a Senior Research Associate at University College London in Blockchain and a Fellow and Expert Member of the World Economic Forum’s Blockchain Council; Marina Kolesnik, co-founder of internet ventures and Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum. [Full list]

“Growing opportunities created by the application of digital technologies are paralleled by stark abuses and unintended consequences. Digital dividends co-exist with digital divides. And, as technological change has accelerated, the mechanisms for cooperation and governance of this landscape have failed to keep pace.”

 

— June 10, 2019, “The Age of Digital Interdependence” — Report of the High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation

At this same time, the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace meeting took place where a more candid, somber and cautionary tone presided, with the UN’s Fabrizio Hochschild, Assistant Secretary-General for Strategic Coordination, remarking:

“After years of unbridled optimism – justified optimism – surrounding the development of digital technologies of cyberspace, we now have come to the sober realization that those positive developments carry downsides.

 

We’re at the point of asking ourselves, will emerging technologies contribute to peace overall or will they undermine it? Will they generally further access to sustainable development or will they further inequality? Will they facilitate respect for human rights or will they provide new tools to those who wish to contain or violate the realization of human rights?

 

Some 30 States have the capacity to defend themselves and those capacities are daily being built up. But where does that leave the other 163 countries that don’t have such a capacity, or the financial means, or political means to defend themselves?” [Source]

The high-level panel chaired by Gates and Ma has proposed three models: a Digital Commons Architecture (DCA), a Distributed Co-Governance Architecture (CoGov) (voluntary solutions rather than legal instruments), and a reformed Internet Governance Forum (IGF+) (enhances and extends the IGF established in 2005). The proposed “Digital Commons Architecture” would aim to synergise efforts by governments, civil society and businesses to ensure digital technologies promote the SDGs under the pretext of addressing risks of social harm, in addition to developing certification schemes for high-risk technologies such as “autonomous intelligent systems” operated by artificial intelligence (AI). [Source: The Age of Digital Interdependence Report of the UN Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation, June 10, 2019] AI and cybersecurity certification schemes represent another lucrative emerging market, with billion dollar certification schemes having served to greenwash, thus secure, the continued plunder of the planet since the early 1990s. Such schemes can serve as a key apparatus in providing and/or maintaining the required social license to operate.  [The EU cybersecurity certification framework]

“Think of personal data as the digital record of “everything a person makes and does online and in the world.”

 

– Personal Data: The Emergence of a New Asset Class, World Economic Forum, January 2011

The panel also placed an emphasis on Blockchain. In 2017, the United Nation’s World Food Programme (WFP) piloted the “Building Blocks” project in Sindh, Pakistan, employing the Ethereum Blockchain to distribute aid and test biometrics. This program falls under SDG #2, “zero hunger” (an emerging market in the poverty economy), and #17, partnerships. Following the test-run with 100 citizens, the second phase was then rolled out in Jordan at two refugee camps. This phase commenced with 10,000 refugees, then scaled to 100,000. The next phase is to increase the refugee participants to 500,000. Whereas in the Pakistan pilot, smartphones were used for the transactions, the Jordan project switched over to a private blockchain – with eye-scanning hardware to confirm the identity of those receiving aid. Refugees received a debit in the form of a “virtual wallet” –  to be spent exclusively within the giant WFP-contracted supermarkets (“hypermarkets”). Checkout would be authorized via the IrisGuard “EyePay”.

 

“Syrian refugees receive foodstuff through the iris scan service launched by the World Food Program at Tazweed centre in the Al-Zaatari refugee camp, in Mafraq, Jordan, near the border with Syria, November 23, 2016.” Reuters/Muhammad Hamed [Source]

The first major testing ground, the Zaatari Refugee Camp, encloses 80,000 displaced citizens (150,000 in 2013) – with nearly 60%  of the displaced (55.8%, January 2020) under 17 years of age. Overseen by 44-45 organizations such as USAID, UKAID and NGOs including Oxfam, ACTED and IRD, Zaatari [2] is now referred to as one of the many growing permanent settlements: thousands of acres of land, holding tens of thousands of displaced people, enclosed within barbed wire fence perimeters, contained by police and military. Today, these open prisons, created by imperialist aggression against targeted sovereign states, are being redesigned and redefined as “liveable cities” and “smart cities. In 2014, it was reported that Zaatari costs approx. a half million dollars per day to run (with half a million pieces of bread and 4.2m litres of water distributed daily.) The second testing ground, the Azraq Camp (holds roughly 40,000 displaced peoples in 2020) would result in 100,000 blockchain transactions (totaling 1 million dollars) and retina scans. The WFP has a record of every transaction – with data as a new asset class. These transactions and iris scans will remain on the blockchains utilized (both public and private) – for eternity. In this video overview, the imperial destabilization and attempted annihilation of Syria is framed as a “civil war”, while the data harvesting itself is framed as privilege. Building Blocks is growing and set to expand.[Source][Source] [Source][Source] Jordan remains the second largest refugee host per capita worldwide with 650,000 – 750,000 displaced peoples. [Source]

The World Food Programme has three foundation partnerships: the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation. Corporate supporters include PepsiCo, MasterCard, and Unilever. [Corporate Partners]

“Personal data is the new oil of the Internet and the new currency of the digital world.”

 

— Meglena Kuneva, European Consumer Commissioner, March 2009, Personal Data

On June 11, 2020, UN Secretary-General Guterres announced the issuance of his report, Roadmap for Digital Cooperation, “on the impact of rapid technological change on the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and targets”. High Level Speakers included: Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, Klaus Schwab, Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum, Ajay Banga, Chief Executive Officer, MasterCard, Nick Read, Chief Executive Officer, Vodafone Group, Fekitamoeloa Katoa ‘Utolkamanu, High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries, and Small Island Developing States (UN-OHRLLS), “Baroness” Joanna Shields OBE, Chief Executive Officer, BenevolentAI, and Andrew Sullivan, President and Chief Executive Officer, Internet Society. [Source]

June 11, 2020, The State of the Digital World Today / Roadmap for Digital Cooperation, Klaus Schwab:

“Since the onset of Corona Virus, internet usage has increased by 70%, the use of communication apps has increased by 300%, and virtual collaboration tools by 600 percent. And some video streaming services have grown twenty fold.”

Schwab goes on to point out that this increase is only true for those connected to the internet. And that 30 years after the invention of the world wide web (1989) by Timothy John Berners-Lee, global internet users comprise just 53% of the world population. To accelerate the goal of internet access and consumption by every human being on Earth, the World Economic Forum has developed a joint action plan with the ITU, the World Bank, GSMA and industry partners. The plan seeks immediate acceleration of private public partnerships in 170 countries with a focus on digital infrastructure, user expansion, digital identity and digital payment systems and currencies. Schwab: “This fast-track partnership is deeply encouraging. A number of our partners have highlighted that we have made more progress in the last four months than in the last ten years.” [June 10, 2020]

“It is clear so the COVID-19 crisis is a watershed moment for digital infrastructure and services. Digital is the fabric of our post-covid lives. We will continue to rely on technology more and more. Unless we rapidly tackle the challenge to bring high quality universal internet access to all we will not be able to build inclusive economies or achieve our system.”

 

— World Economic Forum founder and CEO Klaus Schwab, June 10, 2020

Data Centers: A Hyperscale Tsunami of Renewable Energy Consumption is Underway

“It has recently been discovered that data-intensive algorithms, such as at-scale machine learning training algorithms, are much more energy-intensive than was previously assumed.”

— The Hyperconnected World of 2030–2040, 2019 [Source]

 

“The international data corporation estimates that 152,000 new devices will be connecting to the internet every minute by 2025.”

 

“This will become completely unsustainable by 2040.”

 

— Anders Andrae, Senior Expert of Energy Efficiency, Emission Reduction, Sustainability and Life Cycle Assessment, Huawei Technologies, Sweden

Disconnected from the natural world, Western academia, sciences et al., continue to assign names to technology belonging to the very things being lost or systematically destroyed: “walled garden” (“a closed ecosystem in which all the operations are controlled by the ecosystem operator” i.e. Facebook and Google), “walled gardens of things” (constraint), “spiderweb of things” (transformation), “asteroid belt of things” (collapse), islands of things (growth), data center server “farms”, the internet and digital “ecosystems”, “apple”, Amazon, the “cloud”, “pollinators”. The list is endless.

“Behind the peaceful image of a white cumulus is a less poetic reality, that of data centres composed of thousands of servers that not only need plenty of energy to run, back up and store your files, but also air conditioning, 24 hours a day.”

 

— What Colour is the Cloud, June 21, 2019

The Social Dilemma, the Center for Humane Technology, and society at large, may speak of climate change, yet what is not addressed, in addition to militarism being a key driver of climate change, is the growing energy demand of information communications technology (ICT) which includes traditional data centers (server farms), network services, and hyperscale data centers. There is growing alarm over the energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions belonging to the exponential growth of the ICT industry. Of particular concern are the hyperscale data centers which are owned and operated by corporations Microsoft, Google, and Apple, etc. [“Hyperscale refers to the capability of an IT [information technology] system or architecture to scale exponentially and rapidly to respond to demand that is increasingly heavily.”][Source] There are now over 8 million data centers littering the planet, with 541 hyper scale data centers worldwide. At present, there are currently 176 more hyper scale data centers in development.

In 2017, data superseded oil, becoming the world’s most valuable commodity.

Often described as the “cloud”  – successfully conjuring up a comforting perception that nothing exists beyond your device or laptop) – servers exist in real-world data centres. Information technology spending on data center systems worldwide in 2020 alone is estimated at USD 208 billion. [Source] On January, 15, 2020, Technavio released a report stating “hyperscalers” have invested approximately USD 200 billion in capacity expansion and opening of new data centers. For just a moment, contemplate the fact that those who promise an illusory “stakeholder capitalism” will spend billions to house data, while the subjugated and vulnerable remain homeless.

“We are using an immense amount of energy to drive this data revolution. It has real implications for our climate.”

 

— Jane Kearns, environment and technology expert, MaRS Discovery District, Toronto

The sheer magnitude and size of hyperscale data centers place enormous power demands upon global energy resources. Cisco estimates that by 2021, traffic within hyperscale data centers will have quadrupled, with hyperscale data centers accounting for approx. 55% of all data center traffic. [Source] At the local level, hyperscale data centres embody colossal electricity demand loads, adding pressure to electricity grids which are often already operating under duress. This is especially true for smaller or impoverished countries. Ireland is forecasting that 30% of their entire national grid will be earmarked for data center power consumption by 2028. One only needs to reflect upon the sheer enormity of these facilities proliferating the globe, to recognize the dire ecological impacts and consequences that lie ahead – upon an already plundered and decimated landscape and biosphere.

To ignore the ecological impact behind the exponential growth of ICT (information and communications technology), infrastructure, paramount for the Fourth Industrial Revolution to materialize, is in itself, a deliberate sleight of hand. A hypocritical genre of climate denialism practised and perfected by self-identifying liberals and progressives. At a moment’s notice, this faux left can be assembled on cue by those that preside over the non-profit industrial complex.

2017: Construction on the USD 1 billion 970,000-square-foot hyperscale Facebook data center. The 328-acre site became operational in 2019. At present, Facebook has 12 hyperscale data centers, nine in the U.S. and three in international markets amounting to nearly 15 million square feet of data center space completed or under construction, with several million more feet in the planning stages. [Source]

ICT (Information and Communications Technology)

Today the ICT industry represents the largest growing consumer of energy on the planet, with greenhouse gas emissions on par, or, more likely, far in excess of aviation. Depending on scope, in 2020 ICT accounts for up to 8% of the total global electricity. [Source] At the current rate of growth, approximately 9% each year (2018), the total electricity consumption of ICTs is projected to require 20% of the world’s electricity by 2025, and 30% all energy produced by 2030. [Source]

As concerns over data center energy consumption mount, obtaining the required data in order to ascertain the level of ecological damage resulting from the data centers becomes even more difficult. As criticisms of the industry grow, the global energy demands by data centers are being deliberately skewed downwards. Downward estimates are able to withstand scrutiny, due to the simple fact that there are no nationally reported statistics for data centers – and no global records. In a global corporatocracy, where hyper centers are privately owned by Facebook, Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft, et al., it is of little surprise that the tremendous energy consumed within these vast infrastructures is kept deliberately obscure. [3]

In 2010 there was a broad consensus that worldwide, data centers consumed approximately 194 TWh (terawatt-hours of electricity) of energy, representing about 1% of total demand. This is on par with the entire energy consumption of Iran that same year. [Source] In 2017, the EIA repeated this number for the year 2014: “Data centres worldwide consumed around 194 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity in 2014, or about 1% of total demand. Although data centre workload is forecast to triple by 2020, related energy demand is expected to grow by only 3% thanks to continued efficiency gains.” In 2018, the figure for global energy consumption by data centers was said to have increased to 205 TWh. [“A 6% rise in power use with data-center computing growing by 550%”] [Source]

Today we can reflect on the past decade. Data centers have undergone “a ten-fold increase in traffic with a 25-fold jump in worldwide storage.” [Source] Yet, in 2020, data center consumption continues to be largely cited as approximately 200 TWh per year – (1% of global electricity consumption).

In 2011 Emerson Network Power stated that there were 509,147 data centers worldwide, taking up 285.8 million square feet of space – the equivalent of 5,955 football fields.

Again, reflect upon the annual cited consumption of data centers over the ten year time frame: 194 TWh in 2010, and ten years later, in 2020, 200 TWh. The estimate of 1% global energy consumption is referred to for both 2010 and 2020 – despite adding, roughly, 7.5 million data centres.

The 200 TWh of energy consumption per year claim (that remains flat) claim is further challenged by the European Union’s own research that concluded European data centers consumed 130 TWh in 2017, a 25% increase from 2014 (104 TWh), while Greenpeace reported China’s data industry to amount to 160 TWh in 2018. Together, these two figures alone suggest an annual total of 290 TWh. [Source] Further, consider that the consumption does not remain flat in the EU, despite having the newest, therefore most efficient, data centers.

In 2015, Siemens reported the global power demand for data centers as 416.2 TWh (far exceeding the UK’s total consumption, approximately 300 TWh).

Adding an additional 100 TWh to the 290 TWh cited above (the EU and China), in 2016, a Berkeley laboratory report for the US government estimated that the country’s data centres could require over 100 TWh of electricity a year by 2020, the rough equivalent of 10 large nuclear power stations. [Source] In 2017, data centers in the US alone used more than 90 TWh, the rough equivalent of 34 coal-powered plants generating 500 megawatts of power each. [Source]

2015 graphic, Siemens

In 2017, Hewlett Packard cites the energy consumption by data centers worldwide at 400 TWh:

2017 Hewlett Packard Presentation [Source]

While in 2018, “Nature”, Bloomberg, IEA, etc., continued to promote 200 TWh.

 

 

On January 6, 2020, the Uptime Institute assessed the global consumption of data centers as high as 500 TWh per annum. [Bashroush & Lawrence, 2020]. For some added perspective, 500 TWh is the equivalent of 50 large nuclear power stations:

“It seems likely that the annual consumption of energy by data centers is somewhere between 400 terawatt-hours (TWh) and 500 TWh, depending on what is counted as a data center. To put things in perspective in terms of demand, research by Uptime Institute Intelligence shows that every time an image is posted on Instagram by the Portuguese soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo (who at the time of writing has the highest number of followers on the platform), his more than 195 million followers consume nearly 30 megawatt-hours (MWh) of energy to view it.”

 

— Beyond PUE: Tackling IT’s wasted terawatts, Uptime Institute Intelligence report, Jan 6, 2020

The most dire assessments on the growing magnitude of energy consumed by communications technology and data centers comes from Anders Andrae, senior researcher at Huawei Technologies in Sweden. At the October 2017 Nordic Digital Business Summit Andrae forecast that communications technology may account for more than 20 percent of global energy consumption (20.7%) by 2025, accounting for 5.5% of the world’s total carbon emissions. These numbers represented the expected case scenario taking into account future energy efficiencies.

In respect to growing the exponential growth of data centers, Andrae cautions that data center energy consumption could increase a staggering 15-fold by 2030, amounting to roughly 11% of the global demand.

[p. 18, Andrae, Anders, 2017/10/05, Total Consumer Power Consumption Forecast]

In Andrae’s worst-case scenario, it is suggested that communication technologies could use as much as 51% of global electricity in 2030. In this scenario, “CT [communication technologies] electricity usage could contribute up to 23% of the globally released greenhouse gas emissions in 2030”.

[Annual electricity efficiency (EE) improvements were calculated at 15% (best), 10% (expected), and 5% (worst). From 2022, for EE only, 5% is assumed possible for all scenarios as the authors expect it will become more difficult to improve the electricity efficiency via Moore’s Law.] [p. 28, Andrae, A.S.G.; Edler, T. On Global Electricity Usage of Communication Technology: Trends to 2030. Challenges 2015, 6, 117-157.]

“The results shown in Figure 9c imply that the data centers and FAN [Fixed Access Networks] could drive a staggering 66% of the global CT electricity use in 2030, with fixed access Wi-Fi 15% and data centers 26%.” [p. 24, Andrae, A.S.G.; Edler, T. On Global Electricity Usage of Communication Technology: Trends to 2030. Challenges 2015, 6, 117-157.]

[Andrae, Anders, 2017/10/05, Total Consumer Power Consumption Forecast]

In regard to the Internet of Things, Andrae suggests that billions of internet-connected devices alone could produce 3.5% of global emissions within a ten year timeline, growing to 14% of global emissions by 2040. [Source]

And as bleak as these scenarios are (with even the best case scenarios projecting substantial increases in emissions) – the overall situation is much worse for one simple reason: the authors’ reliance on renewable energies as a means of mitigating overall impact (damage):

“However, until 2030, globally-generated renewable electricity is likely to exceed the electricity demand of all networks and data centers.” [Abstract, On Global Electricity Usage of Communication Technology: Trends to 2030]

 

“We believe that CT driven optimization of the electricity systems is a strong trend and a prerequisite for renewable power sources.” [p. 17, On Global Electricity Usage of Communication Technology: Trends to 2030]

 

“However, the trend of using renewable power is strong [157,158] and likely many data centers can be run GHG efficient, even if they do not find ways to reduce the absolute electricity usage.” [p. 17, On Global Electricity Usage of Communication Technology: Trends to 2030]

 

“To mitigate the worst-case scenario for climate change related to CT, the challenges related to introducing renewable electricity need to be overcome.” [p. 27, On Global Electricity Usage of Communication Technology: Trends to 2030]

 

“It seems though that planned power saving measures and innovation will be able to keep the electricity consumption of ICT and the World under control.” [p. 25, 2017, Total Consumer Power Consumption Forecast]

 

“Despite evident risks, it seems though that planned power saving measures and innovation will be able to keep the electricity consumption of ICT and the World under some kind of control.” [p. 2, 2019, Projecting the chiaroscuro of the electricity use of communication and computing from 2018 to 2030]

Yet, when one acknowledges the reality that industrial scale renewable energy is not sustainable – a key premise in modelling the ecological impacts of data centers (minimizing impact) – all such assumptions go straight out the window.

Here we can add that Andrae predicted that data centers on their own could produce 1.9Gt (or 3.2% of the global total) of carbon emissions by 2025. [Source] The DXC Technology white paper published in November, 2016 [Data centers play key role in Reducing GHG emissions] estimated that while consuming approx. 3 percent of global electricity, data centers worldwide already accounted for approximately 2% of total GHG emissions:

“Worldwide, it is estimated that data centers consume about 3 percent of the global electric supply and account for about 2 percent of total GHG emissions. That’s about the same as the entire airline industry. Producing electricity consumed by data centers will result in the release of 100 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) by 2020, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.” [Source]

What becomes lost in discussion, amidst a declared planetary emergency, is the fact that we are adding exponentially to our energy consumption, cancelling out any real emission reductions. The massive growth of data centers that began in the US is now standard in Europe, with hyperscale data centers now expanding into South Asia where average year round temperatures for the humid region hover around 27 degrees Celsius. All while according to studies, approx. 40 percent of the total energy that data centers consume is due to the sensitive cooling [4] requirements of IT technologies. July 9, 2019: “With a projected compound annual growth rate of 13 percent, APAC [Asia Pacific] could eventually surpass the United States and European market.” [Source] In South Asia, a region of deep poverty where 20% of the world’s population reside, 2017 research suggests “that by the end of this century climate change could lead to summer heat waves with levels of heat and humidity that exceed what humans can survive without protection.” [Source]

At the May 2018 Around the World Conference in Canada, Andrae reiterated that ICT infrastructure cannot slow its overall electricity use by 2025, even with most optimistic improvements in data center and network technology. In 2019, Andrae increased his projection: “ICT infrastructure cannot slow its overall electricity use until 2030 and it will use several times more TWh than today. [p. 3, Projecting the chiaroscuro of the electricity use of communication and computing from 2018 to 2030, February, 2019]

Based on the aforementioned information (in addition to that which follows), it is safe to suggest that the energy consumed by data centers worldwide today is an extremely conservative  400-600 TWh – in line with 3-4% of all electricity produced on the planet – and far exceeding the greenhouse gas emissions produced by aviation.

In February 2019, Andrae published an update of his calculations and forecasts presented in 2015. In this study Andrae suggests we may see an increase in the energy demand of data centers worldwide to 1,929 TWh by 2030. For this calculation, Andrae calculated the global energy consumption of data centres in 2018 at 211 TWh. [Andrae, Anders, 2019/02/28, Predictions on the way to 2030 of internet’s electricity use]

On January 2020, CBC News reported that Andrae now expects that the world’s data centers alone will account for a colossal 651 TWh of electricity in the next year:

“Anders Andrae, a researcher at Huawei Technologies Sweden whose estimates are often cited, told CBC News in an email he expects the world’s data centres alone will devour up to 651 terawatt-hours of electricity in the next year. That’s nearly as much electricity as Canada’s entire energy sector produces. And it’s just the beginning.”

 

[Jan 2, 2020, ‘Completely unsustainable’: How streaming and other data demands take a toll on the environment] [International Journal of Green Technology, 2019, Comparison of Several Simplistic High-Level Approaches for Estimating the Global Energy and Electricity Use of ICT Networks and Data Centers, Anders S.G. Andrae]

In 2018, the total amount of electricity generated from the wind industry was 1 263 TWh, with the total from solar industry constituting 562 TWh. [5]

Corporate Damage Control – Hyperscale Greenwash

“We’ll also need vigorous development and deployment of emerging technologies — such as energy storage, advanced nuclear, and carbon capture and storage — that boost the availability of carbonfree energy around the clock.”

 

— Google: Moving toward 24×7 Carbon-Free Energy at Google Data Centers: Progress and Insights, Oct 2018

“Hyperscalers” such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft gloss over the growing concerns over their massive energy consumption by securing renewable-power purchase agreements. With unlimited budgets for public relations campaigns communication strategies, branding, and marketing, the corporate entities heavily publicize commitments to large-scale renewable energy initiatives. “net zero”, and “carbon negative” storytelling. Corporate press releases boast of commitments toward 100 percent renewable energy, as well as the promotion of investments in “*carbon free” energy sources. On September 19 2019, Google, which identifies itself as the “largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in the world”, announced they had made “the biggest corporate purchase of renewable energy in history”. These investments enable Google to declare it matches 100% of its global annual electricity consumption (for all global operations including data centers), through direct purchases of renewable energy. In layman’s terms – this is called offsetting – without mention of the word itself. It is nothing new and not nearly as exciting as Google would have you believe. Referred to as “CO2 colonialism” by indigenous peoples, offsetting is the means to privatize the skies and Earth’s forests while continuing to expand emissions.

[“Each Google facility is connected to its regional power grid just like any other electricity consumer; the power mix in each region usually includes some carbon-free resources (e.g. wind, solar, hydro, nuclear), but also carbon-based resources like coal, natural gas, and oil. * We define carbon-free energy as any type of electricity generation that does not directly emit carbon dioxide. This includes renewable like solar, wind, geothermal, hydropower, and biomass. Nuclear power is also carbon free. In the future, our framework can be extended to other technologies, such as carbon capture and storage, that are yet to be deployed at scale but could enable carbon-free power generation from additional sources.] [Source: Google: Moving toward 24×7 Carbon-Free Energy at Google Data Centers: Progress and Insights, October 2018]

Apple announced in 2018 that all of its facilities worldwide including its data centers are now powered by renewable energy. By saturating the public relations spin with never-ending references to wind and solar, this greenwash is made palatable to the liberal class – the non-profit industrial complex having successfully framed these two technologies as “clean”. The “carbon free” energy sources that do not make the headlines are those most sought by the corporate sector: biomass, nuclear, and capture carbon and storage (CCS).

“Amazon committed to achieve “net zero” emissions by 2040, which means it would need to offset any remaining emissions from its operations through investments in carbon removal projects… Amazon is following in the footsteps of another Seattle-area tech behemoth. Earlier this year, Microsoft announced it would spend $1 billion on “carbon reduction, capture, and removal technologies,” as part of an effort to offset the software company’s emissions across its entire history.”

 

— June 23, 2020, Amazon creates a $2 billion climate fund, as it struggles to cut its own emissions

And despite the fact that “renewable energy” is neither “clean”, nor “green”, nor “emissions free”, as marketed, on September 18 2019, Fortune reported “only 12 percent of Amazon’s Loudoun County data centers and 4.0 percent of Google’s are powered by renewable energy, despite their promise to shift to 100 percent renewable energy”.

Amazon owns nearly half of the cloud market. In July, 2019, it was reported that the annual revenues of Amazon Web Services, had grown to $15.5 billion in the global cloud infrastructure market with revenues of $32.4 billion. Data center industry leaders recognize Amazon Web Services (AWS) as “the invisible foundation of much of the internet.” Microsoft sits at second place, with 15% of the market share. [Source] This same week, Amazon launched a network of new data centers situated in Bahrain, increasing what Amazon cites as “availability zones” to 69 zones across 22 geographic regions, with plans to build nine new zones in Indonesia, Italy and South Africa. Today, Amazon Web Services spans “77 availability zones within 24 geographic regions around the world, and has announced plans for 15 more Availability Zones and 5 more AWS Regions in India, Indonesia, Japan, Spain, and Switzerland.” [Source] Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, is a co-founder of Breakthrough Energy, launched in 2015 (alongside Mission Innovation at COP21 in Paris), with a keen focus on both nuclear and carbon capture and storage technology now being marketed to the public (a key aspect of expanding data center energy consumption). Between March and October, 2020, during the said pandemic, US billionaires saw their “net worth” rise by almost $1 trillion with Bezos on top with a net worth of approx. 200 billion USD. Here we can infer, that the person whose corporation now leads in mass global land degradation, resource use, energy consumption and subsequent greenhouse gas emissions, is also the wealthiest. All while Amazon continues to exploit its workers. All while those in the Global South face literal starvation. This is your new “stakeholder capitalism” as touted by World Economic Forum et al.

On September 14, 2020, Google released its most asinine statement to date: “As of today, we have eliminated Google’s entire carbon legacy (covering all our operational emissions before we became carbon neutral in 2007) through the purchase of high-quality carbon offsets. This means that Google’s lifetime net carbon footprint is now zero. We’re pleased to be the first major company to get this done, today.”

Here we must note that “net zero” has nothing to do with zero emissions, that carbon offsets, an instrument of imperialism and colonialism, do nothing to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions – and that Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, are all co-founders of the Breakthrough Energy Coalition (launched in 2015), which houses a $1 billion energy venture fund. Other co-founders of the coalition include aforementioned Jack Ma, and Marc Benioff. Breakthrough’s Mission Innovation, with its focus on nuclear, has partnered with 24 member states in addition to the EU.

“The [Google] white paper also highlights other technologies that could help bridge the gap between renewable power’s inherent intermittency and the consistent needs of its facilities, including “advanced nuclear, enhanced geothermal, low-impact hydro, long-duration storage, green hydrogen, and carbon capture and storage.” These are the same list of technologies that utilities, states and countries with zero-carbon commitments are planning to rely on to reach their goals.”

 

— Sept 14, 2020, Google Pledges 24/7 Carbon-Free Energy by 2030 [Emphasis added]

More to the point – even if renewable energies at scale were in fact a solution (which they are not), effectively replacing fossil fuel energies and lowering greenhouse gas emissions – this newly produced energy is effectively being devoured by the ICT sector. Here we witness the Jevons paradox; the easier it is to consume the product, the greater the increase in consumption. In 2019, coal was the world’s largest source of electricity, representing 35.18% of the total (despite a 3% year-on-year fall), followed by natural gas (23.52%), hydro (16.54%), nuclear (10.52%), wind (5.44%), other fossil fuels (3.47%).  Solar accounted for 2.71%, biomass and waste accounted for 2.24%, with “other renewable” coming in at 0.4%. [Source]

Damage Control by the Non-Profit Industrial Complex

Academia, propped up by media – financed and owned by the ruling class – reacts swiftly in such instances. They are aided by those that worship at the altar of capital. [6] A broad consensus is formed that the growing trepidation surrounding exponential energy use and greenhouse gas emissions – corresponding with an exponential growth of data centers – is unfounded. To counter the concerns they cite rapid efficiency gains, and growth in renewable energies at scale (being built into the assumptions). The more the information generates concern, the greater the response by the gatekeepers. In this particular instance the issue is quickly reframed, utilizing the argument that the massive uptake in energy consumption will result in future efficiencies, or, that the growth is countered by rapid increased efficiencies, adding that cloud providers (such as Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Salesforce, etc.) are rapidly moving to zero emissions sources. A 2008 report produced by the World Wildlife Fund is an example of one such paper cited as a response to Andrae’s bleak assessment: ” A report [May 2008] from the World Wildlife Fund estimated that by 2030 efficiencies from smart devices and systems can potentially reduce CO2 emissions by as much as 8 gigatons, a figure approaching one quarter of total global emissions in 2018.” Here it can be noted that the World Wildlife Fund, which bears responsibility for the displacement and torture of Indigenous and tribal peoples (see the work of Survival International), is leading the charge to financialize nature in partnership with the World Economic Forum and other conservation NGOs.

“One has to search very hard to find a truthful statement from WWF. Lies have become their stock in trade.”

 

—conservation ecologist Dr. Mordecai Ogada

 

“The drivers for more energy use are simply too great to be offset by efficiency gains.”

 

— Jan 2020, Data center energy use goes up and up and up

The “decoupling” of growth and greenhouse gas emissions has become the preferred method of storytelling by global institutions such as UN-WEF et al., reverberated by those serving capital.

Another prime example is the public relations effort at Ericson: “Ericson, ICT and the climate – Have you ever worried how your online activities impact the climate? According to this report, the true impact may be a lot smaller than you think. [Source] The ICT sector’s carbon footprint could be reduced by over 80 percent if all electricity consumed came from renewable energy sources. [p. 3] 50 years – For the carbon emissions of a person making a transatlantic return flight, a smartphone could be used for over 50 years.” [p. 5] [A quick guide to your digital carbon footprint Deconstructing Information and Communication Technology’s carbon emissions, February 2020] In theory, that a smartphone (of obsolete design) could be used for over 50 years, is perhaps true – yet in reality, Westerners with money (and more importantly, access to debt), replace their smartphones with a new one every two years on average.

In addition to the magic trick of 7.5 million data centers coming online – with little to no added impact to global energy consumption or greenhouse gas emissions, is the complete omission of embodied energies and vast “natural resources” (biological communities) extracted (plundered) for the infrastructure. The stunning growth of the data center industry and its increasing demand for energy presents a stark ecological cost to our natural world – with ecosystems already collapsing due to the effects of industrial civilization, driven by the capitalist economic system. It is a tragic irony that this acceleration commences alongside alarm over climate change and protection of biodiversity feigned by the ruling class and industry.

[Source of graphic: Estimating a Data Center’s Electrical Carbon Footprint, White Paper 66, 2010. Note the 10-year life cycle of the data center itself.]

Woke Imperialism

If one considers that the production phase of a smartphone represents 90% of the direct energy consumption – we can safely assume the production required for hyperscale data center technologies, and subsequent impacts of such, are gargantuan.

The “green economy” can only flourish on the foundation of imperialism. Electronic devices are made from rare metals and rare earth elements which can only be extracted and refined using vast amounts of energy. More often than not, these are water-intensive processes. In the process of resource theft, it is those most vulnerable and impoverished who mine the required metals – in countries kept deliberately, and permanently, destabilized by foreign corporate interests and colonial states. Such destabilization and foreign interference will persist until the targeted state becomes depleted of the resource. In addition, land, forests and water become barren toxic wastelands, poisoning all life and the biosphere itself. The “great reset” of the global economy is the rebooting of imperialism and colonization of the Global South.

 

 

Add to this the fact that the Fourth Industrial Revolution architecture, built upon, dependent upon, 5G and 6G communication internet technologies, may very well require more metals than the Earth can provide. As a result, industry has already begun its pursuit of yet another emerging market –  seabed mining, at scale.

And as oligarchs forge ahead with their plans to mine the planet’s oceans as the next terrain for industrial plunder, global tech giants have yet another vision of what the full colonization of oceans may entail. On September 14, 2020 Microsoft announced “underwater data centers are a go” after its researchers retrieved the prototype  sealed capsule of a data center, off the shores of Orkney Islands, Scotland, where it had been submerged in the spring of 2018. [Source] The experiment, Project Natick was the second carried out by Microsoft. The first capsule was submerged off the California coast in 2014.

Energy intensive recycling, on almost every level, has proven to be a spectacular failure – and yet it has morphed into another trillion dollar industry. For this reason, storytelling, to convince the citizenry to believe that recycling will be a key component of mitigating environmental impacts and destruction going forward, will persist.

Added to the aforementioned issues, to which we are collectively blind, or perhaps oblivious to, is the obsolescence by design. In most cases, the life span of a data center is typically 10 years at best. Hyperscale data centers are expected to last between 15 and 20 years. These short life spans are still out of sync with the far faster pace of the internet technologies (IT) that comprise the centers with a vast amount of the components being replaced at a 2-5 year refresh cycle: “Hyperscalers use IT equipment for only a few initial years of its much longer useful life, and for them that’s it. It’s onto the next best CPU, or the next best storage technology.”[Source]

In addition to this accelerating nightmare, coolants for data centers require toxic/hazardous chemicals, while large diesel generators are required for power shortages and outages. Consider that the Apple data center which was planned for Athenry, Co. Galway, Ireland, but scrapped in 2018 would have required 144 large diesel generators as back-up for when there was no wind, or insufficient renewable energy production, to support the power demands. [Source] In addition to diesel generators, battery (lead acid) back-ups are required for power shortages. This leads to another nightmare, now unfolding.

Lithium.

Here we must take into account, the escalating global tensions as power shifts to China. Rare earth metals and minerals are coveted by the world’s most powerful states. Access to these geographical regions, where the metals and minerals are found in abundance, is today a non-negotiable imperative for imperial governments and the transnational corporations they serve.

“A 2018 Bloomberg New Energy Finance report forecasted that Li-ion technology will comprise 40 percent of all data centre backup batteries by 2025, and that in the hyperscale sector, Li-ion will become the predominant battery technology, accounting for 55 percent of UPS [Uninterruptible Power Supply] batteries.” [October 23, 2019]

January 11. 2020: “The uninterruptible power supply (UPS) is the cornerstone of the modern data centre, and is one of the primary culprits of inefficient usage of hardware. Traditional lead-based batteries are becoming increasingly redundant… Huawei’s SmartLi UPS solution answers the call by leveraging the company’s cutting-edge Li-ion battery technology and delivering a ‘reinvention’ of the power supply system for the next generation of data centres… Reliability is further enshrined within the product with its 10-year, 5,000 cycle lifetime.” [Source: The importance of the lithium-ion battery for future data centers]

No further do we need to look, to see the “green energy transition”, as imperialism, quantified, than the November 11, 2019 coup in Bolivia, a country holding vast reserves of Earth’s lithium. (The single largest lithium deposit in the Salar de Uyuni, a salt pan, is so massive, it can be seen from space.)

 

 

On July, 25, 2020, billionaire and SpaceX founder Elon Musk responded to a comment directed toward him on Twitter. The comment read: “You know what wasn’t in the best interest of people? The U.S. government organizing a coup against Evo Morales in Bolivia so you could obtain the lithium there.” Musk responded with “We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.” Evo Morales, the first Indigenous president of Bolivia, overthrown in a coup, responded to Musk, drawing attention to the massacres that resulted from the coup, with a reminder of the Bolivian peoples’ sovereignty and self-determination: “We will always defend our resources!” That Musk is a grotesque human being, yet celebrated in our rapidly devolving Western culture, as a person to be both worshipped and emulated, speaks to our declining ability to even recognize the world’s problems, much less solve them. The Western worldview, which Musk et al. espouse, is founded on white supremacist ideology, an ideology shared by a large component of those that identify as liberal or progressive. Subjected to centuries of conditioning, generation after generation, this racist ideology hums beneath the global, capitalist economic system. A conditioned populace no longer recognizes it.

Further, the global race toward blockchain technology, dependent on the colossal expansion of militarized 5G networks, has already begun. On April 25, 2020, China launched the world’s largest Blockchain network (BSN) as the country rapidly transitions to digital central bank currency, digital wallets, digital identifications, automation, IoT, AI and biometrics at scale. On August 10, 2020, China rolled out its international website with Google and Amazon Web Services listed as cloud service providers. This vast lead in central bank digital currency (CBDC), digitalization and 4IR technologies, is recognized as a major security threat to the US. [Source]

Data centers are the heat engines of the internet. Eight million running 24/7 in order to meet the global demand. A demand now set to expand exponentially under Fourth Industrial Revolution digitalization. The more data produced – the more the storage infrastructures must expand. This growth will be unprecedented.

Here we can momentarily contemplate the World Economic Forum’s stakeholder capitalism storytelling, best described as a public relations rebranding exercise. Data centers are proliferating, while approximately 1 billion people, after 270 years of industrial revolutions, still have no access to electricity.

5G as Catalyst for Voracious Energy Consumption

The IEA forecasts that data and digital services will result in global internet traffic doubling by 2022. Internet of Things (IoT) connections (“a prevalent system in which people, processes, data, and things connect to the Internet and each other”, Cisco), will triple from 9.1 billion in 2018 to 25 billion in 2025, while global IoT revenue will quadruple to $1.1 trillion (a fourfold increase from 2018). The exponential growth of these devices is driven by “intentional obsolescence”. Mobile subscribers are projected to approach 6 billion by 2025. A projected 79% of all internet users will use smartphones exclusively to access content (up from 60% in 2018). [“In the most advanced countries, today’s digital consumers (using PCs and smartphones) will likely become tomorrow’s augmented customers, adopting emerging technologies such as AI (via smart speakers) and immersive reality.”] [Source: The Mobile Economy 2019, GSMA Intelligence] The exponential growth of digitalization [7], coupled with rapid growth of smartphone and social media users in Asia Pacific, followed by Africa, will drive unprecedented exponential growth in data center and network services.

According to Cisco, 60% of the world’s population will be online by 2022. But that was predicted in 2018 – prior to the COVID-19 “great reset”. By June 11, 2020, online access had reached 53% (Klaus Schwab), and in July 2020 the number of global internet users worldwide was reported as having reached 59% (Statista). That’s a full two years ahead of schedule.

“ICT systems give a non-negligible contribution to world electricity consumption and carbon dioxide (CO 2) footprint. This contribution will sustain since the increased demand for user’ s connectivity and an explosion of traffic volumes necessitate continuous expansion of current ICTs services and deployment of new infrastructures and technologies.”

 

— November 8, 2019, Greener, Energy-Efficient and Sustainable Networks: State-Of-The-Art and New Trends

Of particular concern is the rapid growth of streaming video and gaming. By 2022 traffic from internet video is projected to have doubled from 2019, with online gaming projected to quadruple – amounting to 87% of consumer internet traffic by 2022. [Source] In addition to this dismal reality, emerging fourth industrial revolution technologies (5G, blockchain, virtual reality) will place further demands on our energy consumption, our natural world, and our collective well-being. While reading and contemplating these analyses and resulting data, it is important to bear in mind that these were compiled prior to “COVID-19, The Great Reset“. Recall Schwab, on June 11, 2020, proudly sharing the fact that some video streaming services have already grown twenty fold during this “watershed moment”.

“As blockchain applications become more widespread, understanding and managing their energy-use implications may become increasingly important for energy analysts and policy makers.”

 

— Data Centres and Data Transmission Networks, On track, International Energy Agency, June 1, 2020

Graph: “A recent IDC study claims that by 2025, worldwide data traffic will have grown by 61 percent to 175 zettabytes, with roughly 75 percent of the population having at least one data interaction every 18 seconds.” [Source]

The energy intensive 5G cellular networks serve as the very foundation of the new global architecture, as designed and sought by the ruling class. ICT experts suggest that “thanks to a combination of massive MIMO antennas, legacy networks in multiple bands and the massive proliferation of small cells”, 5G networks will consume three and half times more electricity as present 4G networks. [Source, October 30, 2019] A more recent report by ABI Research forecasts 5G energy consumption to increase by a magnitude of 61 times by the end of this decade:

“By 2028, 5G is expected to overtake LTE [Long-Term Evolution]. By this stage, both 5G NR Radio Access Network (RAN) and SA core network will be fully commercialized. As such, 5G energy consumption is expected to increase by 61x from 2020 to 2030.”

 

— September, 2020, ABI Research, Environmentally Sustainable 5G Deployment: Energy Consumption Analysis and Best Practices

As a tool for deployment of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the World Economic Forum seeks social license by leveraging the biodiversity crisis (caused by these very people, entities and institutions) as a means to obtaining social licence. That feigned concern for the ecology of the planet, and health of all life, quickly reveals itself when one becomes aware of the environmental threats that come with 5G, as well as the associated health risks, to all life forms. Although 403 scientists and doctors (as of September 23, 2020) across the European Union have signed a declaration calling for all 5G roll-out plans to be stopped, such appeals to the EU, and the World Health Organization, have been met with silence. “Listen to the science” and “unite behind the science”, but only when the science serves capital. The 2018 emerging risks report, from the European Commission’s SCHEER (Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks) committee calls attention to the potential effects on wildlife due to increases of electromagnetic radiation.

Worse, but par for the course, those tasked with protecting capital, in servitude to the hand that feeds, have deliberately framed very real 5G concerns as “conspiracy theory“, in a calculated effort to roll out 5G with as little dissent as possible.

“The overall energy and emission impacts of 5G are still uncertain.”

 

— Data Centres and Data Transmission Networks, On track, International Energy Agency, June 1, 2020

 

“The data streamed by an autonomous car would completely fill an average laptop’s 240GB hard drive in less than a minute.” [Source]

 

“5G will prompt Energy Consumption to Grow by staggering 160% in 10 years” [Source]

 

Automation at scale, artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning, 3D printing, blockchain, crypto currencies, autonomous vehicles, virtual and augmented reality, Internet of Things (IoT), Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), precision agriculture, gene editing, robotics, “smart” cities: the list is endless and ever expanding as the world’s most powerful technocrats lead the transition from bricks to mortar, to an online, digitalized fourth industrial revolution education for our children, fourth industrial revolution healthcare (ehealth, digital medicine) and an automated global workforce. With this digitalization, comes the merger of human with machine: augmentation and neuro-technological brain enhancements. Cybersecurity will be the battle space of the 21st century. Emerging technologies that drive militarism, including Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS), drone targeting, and hypersonic weapons are predicted to become the norm, further dividing and destroying.

“Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk said on Tuesday that electricity consumption will double if the world’s car fleets are electrified, increasing the need to expand nuclear, solar, geothermal and wind energy generating sources.” — Reuters  [8]

A permissioned blockchain ‘ecosystem’ “is the key infrastructure-of-infrastructures that allows the vertical integration of cloud computing, 5G communications, industrial IOT, AI and big data, with fintech and other application-level services overlayed on the stack”. [Source] 5G broadband is the instrumental network that transports the data – with data centers as the heat engines. Together, they create a digital technosphere, purposely eroding our physical biosphere, coupled with a coming ecological nightmare which will be unprecedented in scale. All under the guise of climate mitigation and the protection of biodiversity.

The following is an excerpt from the article “The World in 2030. Hyper-connected and Hyper-fragmented”, authored by Mark Leonard, Director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, and past Chairman of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Geo-economics:

“Connectivity can cause conflict… Rather than creating a harmonious global village, we increasingly recognise that the very same forces that have brought people together and broken down boundaries between peoples and nations are leading to nationalism, protectionism, and a desire for control. The world of 2030 will therefore likely be more closely bound together than at any time in history, but also one where political fragmentation is at an all-time high. It will be a world in which connections between people and countries become instrumentalised and weaponised… The Digital Revolution has brought people together in a single connected web and is going to lead to further fragmentation of societies…

 

Migration and the movement of people will be weaponised and will also be the defining topic for politics, even more so than already now and both in countries which are scared for their existence due to demographic changes and countries that are experiencing migration influxes. Moreover, international law and institutions will grow increasingly weaponised: the idea of lawfare, using the norms and processes of these institutions to damage the opponent, is going to be a very well-known concept. We thought of law and institutions as a constraint on competition and a way of regulating our relations in the past. They will now become a core means and field for competition at the same time.” [Source]

To further demonstrate the illusory concern over the biodiversity crisis, being leveraged with COVID-19, by the World Economic Forum et al., as a means of ushering in the “great reset” as rapidly as possible, satellites are already being launched into space that will support the 5G and 6G networks, connecting  trillions of devices. On November 11, 2019 SpaceX’s Starlink broadband network, owned by Elon Musk, rocketed 60 satellites into orbit. This followed a launch of 60 SpaceX satellites launched in May 2019. By February 2020, SpaceX had launched five batches of 60 Starlink satellites into orbit – with a long-term goal of 30,000.

But Musk is far from alone in his quest to dominate the sky. There are 57,000 satellites planned through 2029. “When there are 50,000 satellites in the sky, ‘you’ll see the sky crawling,’ says Tony Tyson, a University of California Davis astronomer and physicist. ‘Every square degree will have something crawling in it.'” In addition, unregulated rocket launch emissions will further impact the global atmosphere while adding enormous quantities of space debris. [Source] While “corona” serves to distract a global populace, a virus Klaus Schwab describes as “mild” in his book COVID-19 The Great Reset, one thing is clear – billionaires are the most dangerous virus of all.

“Soon, Earth may be blanketed by tens of thousands of satellites, and they’ll greatly outnumber the approximately 9,000 stars that are visible to an unaided human eye.”

 

— January 29, 2020, The night sky is increasingly dystopian

The absolute lack of regard for the subsequent harm that this will inflict upon nocturnal sentient animals and fauna is beyond pathological. The arrogance is blatant, astounding, and unequivocal. In addition to physiological harm, this new and unprecedented form of light pollution will disrupt navigation and migration patterns that have evolved within animals, birds, and insects, over millennia.”The rhythm of life is orchestrated by the natural diurnal patterns of light and dark, so disruption to these patterns impacts the ecological dynamics.” [The Hague]

The Dire Ecological Impacts & Consequences that Lie Ahead

Here it is imperative to note the consolidation of power happening in real time. World Economic Forum founder and CEO Klaus Schwab refers to this consolidation as a new global architecture; the new global governance. The following dates of are of paramount significance. On May 18, 2018, the World Bank partners with the United Nations. On June 13, 2019, the World Economic Forum partners with the United Nations. On March 11, 2020, the World Economic Forum partners with the World Health Organization (a UN body) launching the COVID Action Platform, a coalition of 200 of the world’s most powerful corporations. This number would quickly swell to over 700. On this same day, March 11, 2020, the WHO declares COVID-19 a pandemic. The UN-WEF partnership firmly positions Word Economic Forum at the helm of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs, also referred to as the Global Goals), which they are frothing at the mouth to implement. This is not because they care about poverty, biodiversity, the climate, or world hunger. Marketed with holistic language, dressed with beautiful images of brown smiling children, SDGs represent the new poverty economy (impact investing/social impact bonds) and emerging markets. Children as human capital data to be commodified on blockchain linking behaviour to benefits. Coercion has been repackaged as empowerment. The human population to be controlled via digital identity systems tied to cashless benefit payments within the context of a militarized 5G, IoT, and an augmented reality environment. A world where every function of nature is monetized, to be bought, sold and traded on Wall Street.

 

Fourth revolution technologies, in particular 5G and the ICT, fall under the SDG #9: “Build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialization and foster innovation”; 9c: “significantly increase access to ICT and strive to provide universal and affordable access to Internet in the LDCs (least-developed countries) by 2020”. These are central to the goals of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). A critical component toward the full implementation of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (“Industry 4.0”) is digitalization. In the EU, 4.0 digitalization is being rolled out under the EU Green Deal in service to Klaus Schwab.

“Around $6 trillion a year will need to be invested to deliver the SDGs, most of it in emerging markets.”

 

— At Last… Climate Consensus on the Magic Mountain, February 3, 2020, SYSTEMIQ

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is a term largely accredited to Schwab. He describes it as being “characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital and biological spheres.” The World Economic Forum website adds that it will impact “all disciplines, economies and industries, and even challenging ideas about what it means to be human.” [Source] One may question why collectively, we would accept an architecture that will further destroy the natural world – to become only further disconnected from our natural world. A world that will be further devastated by the very global architecture purported to save it.

“Once we can access people’s thoughts and people’s emotions, we have to create a space that enables people to think freely, to think divergent and creative thoughts.  And in a society where people fear having those thoughts, the likihood of being able to enjoy progress is significantly diminished.” [The Fourth Industrial Revolution | Full Version, World Economic Forum, April 13, 2016]

 

“The very idea of humans being some sort of natural concept is really going to change. Our bodies will be so high–tech, we won’t be able to really distinguish between what is natural and what is artificial”

 

— The Fourth Industrial Revolution | Full Version, World Economic Forum, April 13, 2016

In closing this segment, we can juxtapose Andrae’s suggestion that communications technology may account for more than 20% of global energy consumption by 2025, with this observation articulated by The Guardian’s John Vidal back in 2017: “The industry has encouraged the idea that the digital transformation of economies and large scale energy efficiencies will slash global emissions by 20% or more.”

Thus, the power elite intend to crush the informal sectors and whole societies in the Global South – and across the world, in order to usher fourth industrial revolution digitalization, utilizing COVID-19 as the catalyst. Under the guise of protecting the biosphere and mitigating climate change, the “Great Reset”, decades in the making, has been foisted upon us by the ruling class. The new global architecture masks its intentions with illusory concern over ecological crises that they created. That they accelerate. To “slash global emissions by 20% or more” by rolling out an infrastructure that may well translate to 23% of all global emissions by 2030. At the cost of further plundering the Earth. At the cost of a growing, collective mental duress.

 

This depraved psychosis only makes sense when one understands that “action on climate” is not about mitigating climate change. Rather, it serves as an opportunity to “reset” capitalism as it teetered on the verge of collapse with global debt having reached a staggering 253 trillion dollars. [The global debt has since ballooned to a whopping 272 trillion dollars.] We are embarking on an inescapable and irreversible technological enslavement.

“Who survives? Amazon, Netflix, Google, Comcast, Facebook, et al. Those who control the screens control the world. It is a new morning in hell.”

 

— John Steppling, Morning in Hell, October 7, 2020

The more that states, industries, institutions, platforms and devices rely on data and internet interconnectivity to function, the more our global energy consumption will soar.

Assessing “the silicon footprint, [and the] environmental impact of hyperconnected technologies”, the Institute for the Future concludes, “These facts considered together increase the probability that the net environmental impact of a hyperconnected world will be negative.” [The Hyperconnected World of 2030–2040; made possible by the support of the Office of Director of National Intelligence; IFTF convened a team of technology experts and researchers to look at the future of the hyperconnected world in a day-long workshop in 2019.]

The ruling classes intend to assign monetary value to nature, global in scale. The monetization of “social and human capital” will follow. This would entail the greatest transformation to the economic system in modern history. “Natural capital” valuation is expected to replace GDP (Gross Domestic Product) with nature to be bought, sold and traded on Wall Street. This, coupled with “protected areas” that would further displace Indigenous peoples. In addition to data as the new oil, classifying nature as an asset class represents a global corporate coup of the commons. With capitalism having reached its limits, and physical labour now disposable, to be replaced by automation/robotics, data and nature represent new and untapped emerging markets. Utilizing the very real fact that nature is vital to all life, we are told to believe that it can only be valued properly by humans if monetized (i.e. “natural capital” and “payments for ecosystem services”). Yet consider this: In just a few months the World Health Organization (partnering with the World Economic Forum on March 13, 2020), and the United Nations (partnering with the World Economic Forum on June 11, 2019) – in unison with the sycophant institutions, academia, sciences, media and NGOs that serve them. et al. – effectively utilized cognitive sciences, psychology, conformity and fear, to convince an entire global population that masks must be worn in order to save lives. In this same way, if they truly desired to convince a population that it is critical to protect nature against development, industry, privatization, corporate capture and monetization – as nature is vital to all life, and should be respected as such, they could easily do so. They do not – because it is they, primarily, who are wholly responsible for the bulk of the plunder they wish to continue. The global decimation of nature, from which they build and retain their fortunes and status.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution has caused and will continue to cause mass upheaval, displacement, severe impacts, and untold suffering to the peasantry, Indigenous, working class and those belonging to the informal economy. The middle class will not be spared. Yet this depraved new global architecture, dangerous to life, human, sentient and biological, is pushed forward despite advanced knowledge of foretold tragedy – solely for the pursuit of money, profits and power. It is this very fact that shows us unequivocally and irrevocably that promises for a just transition, green deals, new deals, build back better schemes, are nothing but empty, hollow assurances, void of intent. These are the lies they tell. Promises and assertions that are nothing more than alibis.

Western and ruling class ideologies have played a crucial and cruel role in the violent transformation of the peoples, ecosystems and biosphere. The Fourth Industrial Revolution represents the most violent transformation of all. For as long as the ruling class is allowed to exist, social and environmental justice remain pipe dreams.

The ruling class has weaponized the power of both fear and conformity against us. That Covid-19 is the catalyst to usher in a new global architecture, that is the 4IR, is not conjecture, not “conspiracy theory“, but a fact. Full compliance is the goal. A physical transformation away from our physical world, towards a full embracing of an artificial, digital, virtual world, is being engineered, right before our very eyes. The social engineering of a collective consciousness. Social license is being harvested to reset the capitalist system – under the guise of a climate emergency and saving the planet. This we know: the planet will not be saved by those that have destroyed it.

 

 

End Notes:

[1] The September 11, 2020 article “The Social Dilemma Wants You to Delete Facebook”, is somewhat disingenuous, with the film’s emphasis on deleting notifications, rather than the social media platform. Yet what is of interest, and on the mark, is the reference to a TED Talk by Eli Pariser explaining “filter bubbles are the result of internet platforms’ race to feed users the information that will keep them coming back.” Pariser should know – as a co-founder of both Avaaz and Upworthy – with cofounder Chris Hughes of Facebook.

[2] “The sprawling camp, which is divided into 12 districts across 13 square kilometres, is surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by police and military. Refugees cannot leave without permission. If they want to move to a city elsewhere in the country, they need a Jordanian sponsor guaranteeing financial support – a condition that leaves many stuck in the camp.” [Source] [3] Gov.UK: “We asked our hosting providers, Amazon Web Services, UKCloud and Carrenza, to tell us how much electricity we use, and how much CO2 we produce. Only one of our providers, UKCloud, agreed to give us data about our electricity usage. For Amazon and Carrenza, we made a guess about the amount of electricity we use, assuming a percentage of our monthly bill. In addition, neither Amazon nor Google currently shares information about how much CO2 their data centres produce.” [Source] [4] “Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the International Energy Agency (IEA), and Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) have concluded that room air conditioners alone — the typical window and split units used in most homes — are set to account for over 130 gigatons (GT) of CO2 emissions between now and 2050. That would account for 20–40% of the world’s remaining “carbon budget” (the most we can emit while still keeping global warming to less than 2?C above pre-industrial levels — the goal set at the Paris Climate Conference in 2015).” [Source] “If room air conditioners have a massive emission, then it is hard to imagine the immense emissions that is occurring on the industrial scale.”

[5] In 2018, the total amount of electricity generated from renewables was 6 586 TWh. Renewable hydro accounted for about 63% of this (4 149 TWh), followed by wind energy (1 263 TWh), solar energy (562 TWh), bioenergy (523 TWh), geothermal energy (88 TWh) and marine energy (1 TWh). [Source: IRENA – Renewable energy highlights, July 1, 2020] [6] “But data centers are rapidly becoming more energy efficient, and new research suggests there’s no longer a close link between more cloud computing and more energy use. A report published Thursday in Science credits the progress to better management, more efficient hardware and the rise of “hyperscale” data centers created by tech giants…The data-center industry’s 20% annual improvement in energy intensity dwarfs all other major parts of the economy. The power used today by data centers, 1% of the global total, is roughly the same as it was in 2010… This new research is the first major attempt to compile a bottom-up view of data-center energy use in a decade. Researchers based their work on reports published by Cisco Systems, Inc., Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the International Energy Agency, among other sources.” [Source] [7] The Cisco Annual Internet Report, 2018-2023 predicts that by 2023, there will be 299.1 billion global mobile application downloads, up from 194 billion global mobile application downloads in 2018. By 2023, there will be 29.3 billion global devices and connections (3.6 devices and connections per capita), up from 18.4 billion devices and connections in 2018 (2.4 devices and connections per capita). Similarly, Gartner forecasts that 14.2 billion connected things will be in use in 2019, and that the total will reach 25 billion by 2021, producing immense volume of data. [Source] [8] Quote added on December 4, 2020 after initial publication. [Source] Full quote as follows: “Total electricity power consumption obviously will increase. I mean when everything, when all transport goes electric, or road transport going electric, it will approximately double the electricity usage, um total electricity usage. Like I said, because most of its at night, [charging batteries], that doesn’t mean a doubling of the power plant. But we will need to increase the amount of solar and wind, geothermal, hydro, [and] nuclear, I think is fine. Like I said, in order to solve the needs of electric vehicles.” — AxelSpringer Award Talk with Questions from other CEOs, December 1, 2020 [Source]

 

[Cory Morningstar is an independent investigative journalist, writer and environmental activist, focusing on global ecological collapse and political analysis of the non-profit industrial complex. She resides in Canada. Her recent writings can be found on Wrong Kind of Green, The Art of Annihilation, Internationalist 360, Tortilla con Sal, and Counterpunch. Her writing has also been published by Bolivia Rising and Cambio, the official newspaper of the Plurinational State of Bolivia. You can follow her on twitter @elleprovocateur]