Statistics on March 19, 2020,  prior to CDC changing rules for reporting Covid19 deaths.

Thomas T. Siler, M.D. makes the case in his American Thinker article Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

How deadly is the SARS-COV-2 virus? Part of the equation depends on accurately determining just who has died from COVID-19 infection. It turns out that, thanks to changes the Centers for Disease Control (“CDC”) made to its rules, along with Congressional incentives, America’s COVID-19 counts are almost certainly inaccurate.

America counts COVID-19 deaths differently from other countries. According to Dr. Deborah Birx, speaking at the start of the pandemic, “if someone dies with COVID-19, we are counting that as a COVID-19 death.”

However, we must acknowledge that there is a difference between dying from COVID-19 and dying with COVID-19. This is a familiar uncertainty for doctors during the winter flu season.

In most states, 40-60% of the people dying of SARS-COV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, are elderly persons with multiple medical problems who live in nursing homes. A portion of this same cohort dies every year from the seasonal influenza virus. When that happens, did the flu kill them or their cancer, heart failure, strokes, or liver problems? Doctors use their best judgment to fill out the death certificate correctly, but they do not categorize all of them as “flu” deaths.

According to the CDC, only 6% of those who died with the COVID-19 infection had no other pre-existing health conditions. The other 94% had an average of four medical conditions already affecting their health.

This does not mean that only 6% of these deaths resulted from COVID-19. But it also does not mean that 100% of the deaths among people with other medical conditions should be counted as death from COVID-19 either. If we counted each death that tested positive for flu or had symptoms of flu as an “influenza death,” we would also have hundreds of thousands of flu deaths each year.

When it comes to the flu, though, we don’t tally either the 6% or the 100%. The real answer is in the middle. Applying that same logic to COVID-19 means that conservatively 25-50% of the deaths labeled from COVID-19 more likely died with COVID-19.

According to an October study from the bulletin of Science, Public Health Policy, and the Law, on March 24, 2020, the CDC changed the way it tabulated deaths for the previous 17 years, resulting in inflated COVID-19 death numbers. Moreover, the change affected only deaths relating to COVID-19. Even more surprising, the Federal Register does not mention these changes, so it appears the CDC acted without peer review and oversight by either the Office of Management and Budget or Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, which would violate federal law.

The same article says that, in August, the estimate for COVID-19 deaths under the new system was 161,392. However, if the same data had been tabulated under the old system, the COVID-19 death count would be only 9,684. The fundamental difference was that, no matter the patient’s ultimate cause of death, the new system mandated that COVID-19 must always be the first cause of death, with the other conditions listed as “contributing factors” – the opposite of the old system.

The CDC also made influenza deaths magically vanish for this flu season. The CDC created a new category of death from pneumonia, influenza, and COVID-19 to lump those causes together. This only created confusion about COVID-19 deaths — and please, don’t say that masking and distancing reduced influenza deaths while not reducing COVID-19 deaths. Assuredly, some influenza deaths were lumped into the COVID-19 category this season.

In addition to a different way of counting deaths, Congress passed the CARES Act, authorizing more money for hospitals that had patients with a COVID-19 diagnosis. Perhaps done with good intentions, this incentivized financially pushing the COVID-19 diagnosis to the top of the list so that hospitals can pay for the care they give. This too gives more weight to listing a positive COVID test/diagnosis as the cause of death instead of the patient’s other conditions.

In addition to new ways of counting cases and financial incentives for listing cases, some states have been found to have irregularities in their COVID-19 death count. Washington state’s Freedom Foundation investigated COVID-19 deaths in May 2020 and found that 13% of the listed COVID-19 deaths did not mention COVID-19.

A FOIA request revealed that the Washington Department of Health (“DOH”) agreed in private emails that this was true and promised to change. However, when the Freedom Foundation followed up in December, it again found that 340 deaths out of 2,000 (17%) at the time did not mention SARS-COV-2 or only listed SARS-COV-2 as a contributing cause, not the main cause, of death. Once again, the Freedom Foundation challenged Governor Jay Inslee’s DOH, which agreed to remove 200 deaths from the COVID list. The Freedom Foundation concluded that the DOH was not erring; it was attempting to inflate the death count by 10-15%.

In Minnesota in December 2020, lawmakers Mary Farmer and Dr. Scott Jensen conducted a state audit of COVID-19 deaths, eventually sifting through 2,800 death certificates. They found that 800 patients (almost 30%) did not have SARS-COV-2 listed as a cause for death. They have appealed to their state for changes and asked for a national audit of COVID-19 deaths. It is unclear at this point how many states have this problem, but we need a national audit of COVID-19 death reporting.

In sum, due to a very liberal description of a “COVID death,” financial incentives, CDC rule changes and, apparently, outright deception or incompetence from some government agencies, America has inflated the death rate due to SARS-CoV-2. Our mainstream media has also been complicit in trying to maximize fear and panic by failing to investigate and reporting only one side to the story.

This strong bias has led to some egregious examples such as gunshot wounds and suicides being called a “COVID-19 death.” This dishonesty undermines public confidence in how the pandemic was managed.

Using different rules for COVID-19 deaths versus deaths from other infections makes it hard to compare its mortality rates to those in previous pandemics or deaths from other infectious diseases, such as the flu. It seems clear, though, that the COVID-19 pandemic is not as severe as other pandemics. Dr. Marty Makary, a Johns Hopkins physician, estimated that the COVID-19 infection fatality rate is 0.23% which is close to a bad influenza season.

It’s true that the COVID-19 infection is a real threat to the elderly with other medical conditions (e.g., diabetes, obesity, etc.) and this group must be protected. Still, parts of our government and media seem to have made a concerted effort to make the SARS-COV-2 pandemic appear more deadly than it actually is. While America’s Frontline Doctors, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, and a handful of other groups have been calling attention to these issues, the medical profession has mostly been silent.

If the CDC ceases to be a reliable source for health data, some of our state governments manipulate data, and the major media outlets have no interest in investigating and reporting the truth, how long will the American people go along with this medical tyranny of lockdowns, masking, social distancing, and financial ruin? We know who needs to be protected and we know how to do it. The time is now to let the rest of our population return to normal life.

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May 12, 2021 

On April 29th, Germany’s Constitutional Court ruled that the country’s 2019 Climate Protection Act is in part unconstitutional and the judges ordered the legislature to draw up clearer reduction targets for greenhouse gas emissions for the period after 2030, and to do so by the end of next year.

Image: Bundesverfassungsgericht.

The judges ruled that the 2019 Act is too lax and that it thus denies the younger generations a humane future!

The complaint was originally filed by a group of nine mostly young people, who were supported by several environmental associations, including Friends of the Earth Germany (BUND) and Fridays for Future. They criticized the 2019 law, saying it did not go far enough to limit climate change. and thus it violated their fundamental right to a humane future. Surprisingly, the Court ruled in their favor.

And not surprisingly, environmental groups and climate activists cheered the German Constitutional Court’s ruling.

“Doomsday Judges”

Meanwhile, there’s been lots of backlash coming from the other direction since. Some are calling the Constitutional Court’s ruling unconstitutional.  For example, Jan Grossarth wrote an excellent article German news daily WELT on May 5, 2021, titled “The Doomsday Judges of  Karlsruhe”.

Frightening objective

At the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE), Dr. Günter Keil commented on WELT’s article by Grossarth who concluded the that the Court’s ruling is “a devastating verdict” with a frightening objective: “The re-education of the population to a supposedly climate-friendly lifestyle” and with it “coercive measures required to achieve this”

Court ignored intense scientific dispute

EIKE’s Dr. Keil also criticized that the Federal Constitutional Court used as a basis only a single “opinion of the German Council of Experts on the Environment (SRU). Nothing else.”

The Court ignored that the science behind climate change is still very much in dispute.

Ignored there is no consensus

Here Keil mentions, for example, the great number of scientists who refute the idea there’s a climate emergency and that young people face an inhumane future. For example:

• The World Climate Declaration by 700 scientists and experts titled “There is no Climate Emergency’ of October 18, 2019.
• The “Global Anthropogenic Warming Petition” by more than 90 Italian scientists of July 19, 2019.
• The petition of Prof. Richard Lindzen and 300 eminent persons of February 27, 2017 to President Trump that led to the denunciation of the Paris Climate Agreement.
• The Heiligenroth Climate Manifesto of September 15, 2007 with 342 signatures.
• The petition from “Scientists from around the world” to the EU administration – from 300 independent climate scientists and professionals.
• The letter from 200 scientists of August 12, 2009 to UN Secretary General Ban-Ki-Moon.

“The Federal Constitutional Court itself inadvertently criticized its own ignorance of the well-known massive scientific criticism of the CO2 theory with its sentence in its ruling: ‘If there is scientific uncertainty about environmentally relevant causal relationships, the Constitutional Law Article 20a imposes a special duty of extra care on the legislature.’ This court apparently feels it does not need to observe that due diligence,” Keil comments at EIKE.

Keil continues:

There is unmistakable evidence of ongoing massive criticism of the doomsday theory, which makes it very clear: There is no consensus on this issue – only hard confrontation. And even a consensus would not be enough: Proof would still be lacking – and that by experiment repeatable by third parties. This very contentious debate )necessary and usual in science) now has a rather long history and its harshness so obvious that actually nobody can act clueless about it.

However, the court ignored all critical statements from the international scientific community and chose only the assessments of the SRU as the basis for its judgment. An incomprehensible, but also very significant omission. It is undoubtedly a deliberately wrong judgment, which is capable of causing immense damage to the country and especially to the future generations addressed. Now the Federal Constitutional Court would actually have to take care of the constitutional protection.

What would now be necessary is the dismissal of all court members. Preferably with the face-saving Japanese method of getting rid of failures in higher positions by appointing them – while continuing to pay them good salaries – as breakfast directors in subordinate authorities.”

German judges now have taken it upon themselves to rule on science and to form future policy. They need go back to interpreting and upholding the existing laws.

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May 12, 2021 

Even after the massive sea ice loss expected by midcentury, the polar jet stream will only weaken by tiny amounts—at most only 10% of its natural swings.

Every time severe winter weather strikes the United States or Europe, reporters are fond of saying that global warming may be to blame. The paradox goes like this: As Arctic sea ice melts and the polar atmosphere warms, the swirling winds that confine cold Arctic air weaken, letting it spill farther south. But this idea, popularized a decade ago, has long faced skepticism from many atmospheric scientists, who found the proposed linkage unconvincing and saw little evidence of it in simulations of the climate.

Now, the most comprehensive modeling investigation into this link has delivered the heaviest blow yet: Even after the massive sea ice loss expected by midcentury, the polar jet stream will only weaken by tiny amounts—at most only 10% of its natural swings. And in today’s world, the influence of ice loss on winter weather is negligible, says James Screen, a climate scientist at the University of Exeter and co-leader of the investigation, which presented its results last month at the annual meeting of the European Geosciences Union. “To say the loss of sea ice has an effect over a particular extreme event, or even over the last 20 years, is a stretch.”

Full story

see also:

The chief scientist at the Met Office has called an urgent meeting to discuss the effects of climate change, saying the melting of the arctic may be causing the UK’s recent spate of perishing weather.

The reduction in Arctic sea ice caused by climate change is playing a role in the UK’s recent colder and drier winter weather, according to the Met Office.

The post Landmark study casts doubt on controversial theory linking melting Arctic to severe winter weather appeared first on The Global Warming Policy Forum.

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May 12, 2021 at 01:25PM

The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) has been the keeper of U.S. wildfire data for decades, tracking both the number of wildfires and acreage burned all the way back to 1926. After making the entire dataset public for decades, now, in a blatant act of cherry picking, NIFC “disappeared” a portion of it, and only show data from 1983. You can see it here.

Fortunately, the Internet never forgets, and the entire dataset is preserved on the Internet Wayback Machine. Data prior to 1983 shows that U.S. wildfires were far worse 100 years ago, both in frequency and total acreage burned, than they are now, 100 years of modest warming later.

By disappearing all data prior to 1983, which just happens to be the lowest point in the dataset for the number of fires, NIFC data now show a positive slope of worsening wildfire aligning with increased global temperature. This truncated data set is perfect for claiming “climate change is making wildfire worse,” but flawed because it lacks the context of the full data set. See figure 1 below for a before and after comparison of what the NIFC data looks like when you plot it.

The full data set shows wildfires were far worse in the past.

In June 2011 when this data was first made publicly available by the NIFC, the agency said,

“Figures prior to 1983 may be revised as NICC verifies historical data.”

In December 2017, I published an article, titled “Is climate change REALLY the culprit causing California’s wildfires?, pointing out the federal government’s own data showed wildfires had declined significantly since the early 1900s, which undermined claims being made by the media that climate change was making wildfires more frequent and severe. Curiously, between January 14 and March 7 of 2018, shortly after this article appeared, NFIC added a new caveat on its data page stating:

The National Interagency Coordination Center at NIFC compiles annual wildland fire statistics for federal and state agencies. This information is provided through Situation Reports, which have been in use for several decades. Prior to 1983, sources of these figures are not known, or cannot be confirmed, and were not derived from the current situation reporting process. As a result the figures prior to 1983 should not be compared to later data.

With the Biden administration now in control of NFIC, the agency now says,

“Prior to 1983, the federal wildland fire agencies did not track official wildfire data using current reporting processes. As a result, there is no official data prior to 1983 posted on this site.” 

This attempt to rewrite official United States fire history for political reasons is both wrong and unscientific. NFIC never previously expressed concern its historical data might be invalid, or shouldn’t be used.  NFIC’s data has been relied upon by peer reviewed research papers and news outlets in the United States for decades. Without this data, there is no scale of the severity of the wildfires or method to compare the number of wildfires in the past with the numbers today.

Wildfire data is fairly simple to record and compile: count of the number of fires and the number of acres burned. NFIC’s revision of wildfire history is is essentially labeling every firefighter, every fire captain, every forester, and every smoke jumper who has fought wildfires for decades as being untrustworthy in their assessment and measurement of this critical, yet very simple fire data.

The reason for NFIC erasing wildfire data before 1983 is not transparent at all. NFIC cites no study, provides no scientifically sound methodological reason to not trust the historic data, previously the agency publicized and reference. Indeed, NFIC provides no rationale at all for removing the historic data justifying any claim that it was flawed or incorrect.

If the fact that scientists or bureaucrats have changed the way they track and calculate data over time legitimately justifies throwing out or dismissing every bit of evidence gathered before contemporary processes were followed, there would be no justification for citing past data on temperatures, floods, droughts, hurricanes or demographics and economic data.

The way all of these and other “official” records have been recorded has changed dramatically overtime. Even the way basic temperature is recorded is constantly evolving, from changes in where temperatures are recorded, to how they have been recorded: from a few land based measuring stations and ocean going ship measurements, to weather balloons, satellites, and geostationary ocean buoys. If simply changing the way a class of data is recorded justifies jettisoning all historic data sets, they no one can say with certainty, temperatures have changed over time and a human fingerprint of warming has been detected.

Plotting the entire NIFC dataset (before it was partially disappeared) demonstrates that wildfire and weather patterns have been inextricably linked for decades. Note figure 2 below, combining the number of fires and number of acres burned. See the annotations that I have added.

The NIFC decision to declare data prior to 1983 “unreliable” and removing it is not just hiding important fire history, but cherry picking a data starting point that is the lowest in the entire record to ensure that an upwards trend exists from that point.

The definition of cherry picking is:

Cherry picking, suppressing evidence, or the fallacy of incomplete evidence is the act of pointing to individual cases or data that seem to confirm a particular position while ignoring a significant portion of related and similar cases or data that may contradict that position.

It seems NIFC has caved to political pressure to disappear inconvenient wildfire data. This action is unscientific, dishonest, and likely fraudulent. NIFC is no longer trustworthy as a source of reliable information on wildfires.

The post National Fire Center Disappears ‘Inconvenient’ U.S. Wildfire Data appeared first on Climate Realism.

via Climate Realism

By Anthony Watts -May 12, 2021

National Fire Center Disappears ‘Inconvenient’ U.S. Wildfire Data

See more

By Paul Homewood

h/t stewgreen

Sorry if it’s a bit off topic, but this apology from the BBC shows just how shoddy much of their reporting is.

As I recall, it was Laura Kuenssberg who run the libellous report in the first place.

As we often find with corrections concerning climate stories, very few people get to see the apology. Meanwhile, the original fake story has gone round the world and back. Surely in a blatantly biased case such as this, Kuenssberg should be severly reprimanded?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/helpandfeedback/corrections_clarifications/

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May 12, 2021 

Sven and Beatrix von Storch among others are sounding the alarm about the elitist plot to install a “new world order” using the so-called “climate emergency” as the pretext.  Sven recently put out a video, and Beatrix explained what is the plan and why it must be resisted by reasonable and freedom-loving people in her article The Tyranny of Davos: What is the Agenda of the Great Reset?  Excerpts below in italics with my bolds.  And later on a backgrounder describing this new brand of class warfare.

Every year, the captains of industry, finance and politics meet at Davos: This year, World Economic Forum head Klaus Schwab wrote a book entitled “COVID-19: The Great Reset”, laying out a comprehensive agenda for an “accelerated system change“ under cover of the COVID crisis.

Without a doubt, his point of view reflects World Economic Forum debates and goals shared by large parts of the political and financial elite. These ideas are a grave danger to our liberty and democracy. That’s why I have summed them up in this article. Every citizen should know about them.

The Totalitarian Vision of Davos

Let’s summarize what is meant by the Great Reset:

• The primary goal is a global economic regime under the motto of “global governance” to should replace national democracies. The market economy will be replaced by a managed economy.
• Companies will no longer obey their shareholders, instead being forced to comply with climate and gender policy requirements, due to pressure from the finance industry and aggressive far-left activists. Companies that do not follow suit will be destroyed.
• This cabal between high finance and far-left activists serves to intimidate political opponents and companies that refuse to show “good will”. Distance rules and “social distancing” are to continue even after the crisis. This will spell the destruction of the middle class, catering, retail and the entertainment industry. Big Tech and e-commerce will take their place.
• With the new means of digital surveillance and under the guise of public health, workers will be monitored and their behavior recorded.
• The breakdown in consumer demand in large sections of the population due to the lockdown will be continued, and expanded in order to achieve global climate goals.

This agenda is a grave threat to our civil rights, democracy and the free market economy. It is inherently totalitarian and hostile to freedom.

We have to alert all our citizens to this danger, and use all democratic means to stop it.

Background from previous post 2021 Class Warfare: The Elite vs. The Middle

Edward Ring explains in his essay at American Greatness Why America’s Elites Want to End the Middle Class.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

Feudalism is a viable alternative to tolerating a middle class, especially lucrative to the multinational corporations and globalist billionaires that hide this agenda behind a moral masquerade.

It doesn’t require a conspiracy theorist to suggest these wholesale shifts in American culture are not happening by accident. Nor are they solely the result of nefarious intent, at least not among everyone occupying the highest rungs of power and influence in America. What motivates members of the American elite, billionaires and corporate boards alike, to approve of these radical changes?

Unsustainable Prosperity for Me, But Not for Thee?

One answer comes down to this: They believe the lifestyle of the American middle class is not sustainable, because the planet does not have the carrying capacity to extend an American level of consumption to everyone in the world. By dividing and confusing the American people, while wielding the moral bludgeons of saving the planet and eliminating racism, policies can be implemented that will break the American middle class and habituate them to expect less.

In the name of saving the planet, for example, new suburbs will become almost impossible to construct. Single-family detached homes with yards will be stigmatized as both unsustainable and racist, and to mitigate these evils, subsidized apartments will replace homes, with rent subsidized occupants. As America’s population grows via mass immigration, the footprint of cities will remain fixed. The politically engineered housing shortage will force increasing numbers of Americans into subsidized housing.

All of this is already happening, but it’s just getting started.
Similar cramdowns will occur with respect to all social amenities that consume resources.

Land is just the primary example, but water, energy, and transportation will all be affected. This new political economy will also depopulate rural areas—through corporate consolidation of farmland as regulations and resource costs drive small operations under and through punitive regulations and insurance burdens driving people out of the “urban-wildland interface.” Outside of major cities, for the most part, the only people left will be extremely wealthy landowners and corporate employees.

Joel Kotkin, who has studied and written about demographics and migrations for years, recently authored The Coming of Neo Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. Of all the shorthand descriptions for the political economy that is coming, feudalism may be the best fit. As Kotkin puts it:

The new class structure resembles that of Medieval times. At the apex of the new order are two classes―a reborn clerical elite, the clerisy, which dominates the upper part of the professional ranks, universities, media and culture, and a new aristocracy led by tech oligarchs with unprecedented wealth and growing control of information. These two classes correspond to the old French First and Second Estates.

Below these two classes lies what was once called the Third Estate. This includes the yeomanry, which is made up largely of small businesspeople, minor property owners, skilled workers and private-sector-oriented professionals. Ascendant for much of modern history, this class is in decline while those below them, the new Serfs, grow in numbers―a vast, expanding property-less population.

Both Kotkin and Hanson assert that the trend towards feudalism can be reversed if people understand what is occurring and react effectively. To that end, it is necessary to understand that behind the obvious benefit these new rules have in service of the elites and their interests, there is a moral pretext. How solid is that pretext, that America’s middle class is not sustainable?

It All Comes Down to Energy

Energy is the prerequisite for economic growth. If you have abundant energy, you can have abundant water, transportation, communications, light, heat, mechanized agriculture, refrigerated medicines; everything. And the cold fact confronting America’s elites is this: For everyone on earth to consume half as much energy as Americans consume, total energy production worldwide would have to more than double.

Can America’s middle class sustain its current lifestyle while consuming half as much energy as it does today? Or is it feasible for energy production in the world not merely to double, but quadruple? And if that can be done, is it possible without paying too high a price in terms of environmental impact? And if it cannot be done, can the American experience, which is to enjoy a lifestyle many times greater than that enjoyed by most of the rest of the people on earth, be justified? And if so, why?

These are tough questions. Unequivocal, simple answers to these questions do not exist. But the conventional answer that motivates America’s elites must nonetheless be challenged, because until it is, they will cloak their consolidation of power and their elimination of America’s middle class in the moral imperatives of saving the planet and eliminating racism.

It may seem illogical to suppose the “systemic racism” canard is more easily disposed of, but that’s only because racism, by design, is the ongoing obsession in American media and politics. Despite this well-engineered obsession, resolute opposition to “anti-racist” racism is growing because it is an obvious lie. Racism, from all sources, still exists. But systemic racism against nonwhites, from every angle you look at it in modern American society, simply does not exist. Politicians, journalists, and academics need to find the courage to explain the facts and turn the tide. It can be done.

Saving the planet, on the other hand, is a moral imperative with ongoing urgency.

This urgency may be divided into two broad categories. The first is the traditional concerns of environmentalists, to preserve wildlife and wilderness, and reduce or eliminate sources of pollution. While environmentalists, especially in the United States, often go way too far in addressing these traditional concerns, these are genuine moral imperatives that must be balanced against the economic needs of civilization. This is an important but manageable debate.

The second, new concern of environmentalists, however, is the “climate emergency.” Grossly overblown, hyped for reasons that are transparently opportunistic, fraught with potential for tyranny and punitively expensive, the “climate emergency,” more than anything else, is the moral justification for destroying the American middle class.

In the name of saving the climate, federal and certain state authorities are restricting fossil fuel development, despite the fact that fossil fuels—coal, oil, and gas—still produce 85 percent of worldwide energy, with nuclear and hydropower making up another 11 percent. If energy production is going to double, which at a minimum it must, how on earth will that be accomplished without fossil fuel? It is impossible.

And the planners who are suppressing fossil fuel development worldwide know it. By creating shortages and raising prices for everything, they intend to reduce median rates of consumption in America to a fraction of what it is today, and render a middle-class lifestyle completely out of reach to the average American.

In doing so, they’ll amass even more wealth for themselves.

The Better Way Forward

There is another path. By focusing on the most likely predictions instead of the most catastrophic, nations can focus on climate resiliency—something which is a good idea anyway—while continuing to develop clean fossil fuel and also continuing to develop leapfrog technologies such as nuclear fusion. The environmental benefit of this approach is tangible and profound: with energy comes prosperity, with prosperity comes lower birthrates. With energy, inviting urban centers are possible, and urbanization takes pressure off wilderness. In both cases, with abundant energy, people voluntarily choose to limit their family size and move to cities.

A moral case for fossil fuels can outweigh the supposedly moral case against fossil fuel. Americans have to be willing to fight that fight, along with every other tyrannical edict attendant to the “climate emergency,” starting with the restrictions on urban expansion and single-family homes.

With adherence to the principles and culture that made America great—competition, private ownership, rule of law, minimizing corruption, and rewarding innovation—America’s middle class can survive and grow. But feudalism is a viable alternative, especially lucrative to the multinational corporations and globalist billionaires who will never call it by that name, hiding instead behind a moral masquerade.

Background from Joel Kotkin Modern Politics Seen as Classes Power Game

See also Unmasking Biden’s Climate Shakedown

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May 12, 2021 

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

According to modelling by University of Sydney and ETH Zürich, scaling back total production and placing a cap on maximum wealth would not only save the planet, it would also allow us all to enjoy shorter working weeks and the financial security of a generous universal basic income.

Climate Change Modeling of “Degrowth” Scenarios – Reduction in GDP, Energy and Material Use 

By UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY MAY 11, 2021

Well-being can be maintained in a degrowth transition.

…

Degrowth focuses on the global North and is defined as an equitable, democratic reduction in energy and material use while maintaining wellbeing. A decline in GDP is accepted as a likely outcome of this transition.

…

“We can still satisfy peoples’ needs, maintain employment and reduce inequality with degrowth, which is what distinguishes this pathway from recession,” Mr Keyßer says.

“However, a just, democratic and orderly degrowth transition would involve reducing the gap between the haves and have-nots, with more equitable distribution from affluent nations to nations where human needs are still unmet — something that is yet to be fully explored.”

A ‘degrowth’ society could include:

1. A shorter working week, resulting in reduced unemployment alongside increasing productivity and stable economic output.
2. Universal basic services independent of income, for necessities i.e. food, health care, transport.
3. Limits on maximum income and wealth, enabling a universal basic income to be increased and reducing inequality, rather than increasing inequality as is the current global trend.

…

Read more: https://scitechdaily.com/climate-change-modeling-of-degrowth-scenarios-reduction-in-gdp-energy-and-material-use/

I think it is only fair to give the professors an opportunity to showcase their degrowth theories, by slashing their university funding, so they can demonstrate by example how much happier we would be if we all embraced a permanent reduction in income.

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May 12, 2021 at 12:20PM

Winter weather advisory. Unseasonably cold and snowy weather.

______________

A winter weather advisory was in effect in Colorado Springs until noon Tuesday as wet roadways were expected to be slick, with a chance of snow likely throughout the morning, the National Weather in Pueblo said.

Record-setting May snow

Monday broke the May 10 record amount of snow with a total 1.1 inches of powder measured in Colorado Springs. The record snowfall for May 10 was half an inch in 2006.

Areas near Peterson Air Force Base measured 2.6 inches over the same 24 hours, the weather service said.

Some schools across the region were off to delayed starts due to the unseasonably cold and snowy weather, including schools in Peyton and Pikes Peak BOCES/School of Excellence in Calhan closed Tuesday due to muddy road conditions. The Calhan School District RJ-1 also closed but high schools in the district switched to remote learning Tuesday.

List of closings and delays here

A 60% chance of snow was likely before 11 a.m. with rain and snow possible until 4 p.m., then likely later in the day. Accumulation was not likely to surpass half an inch, the agency said.

Tuesday’s high was not expected to make it beyond 36 degrees, the weather service said.

Rain and snow were likely to continue before 10 p.m. with chances of precipitation around 40% and moisture amounting to less than a tenth of an inch, the agency said.

Overnight temperatures were expected to hit a low of 31 degrees, the agency said.

https://www.outtherecolorado.com/news/colorado-springs-sets-snow-record-with-more-on-the-way/article_91ae46f4-3dbe-58e4-8e09-ef615bd9f713.html

Thanks to Clay Olson for this link

The post Colorado Springs sets snowfall record appeared first on Ice Age Now.

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May 12, 2021 

Why rob banks?  “That’s where the money is.”

Why attack energy?  That’s what drives the economy.

Gas line during Hurricane Sandy

I had to visit three gas stations today to find enough fuel to run an errand for my child and then make a meeting.

The East Coast is experiencing the kind of gas shortages today we usually only see during major hurricanes.  It also reminds those of us old enough to remember, of the long lines and closed pumps we endured during the Carter-era energy crisis.

A Russia-based criminal enterprise named “DarkSide” launched a cyber attack against the Colonial Pipeline Company that led to a shutdown.  The attack was “ransomware;” designed to obstruct operations until the ransom is paid.

The good news is that despite the attack, there is enough supply to restore normal operations.

The bad news is that demand is running far above normal due to media-fueled panic.  As one CFACT board member put it, this is toilet paper 2.0.

The obvious lesson is that we must protect the economy, particularly our energy supply, against cyber attacks.

The more important lesson is to wake up and realize how essential our energy infrastructure is.

The WSJ put it clearly:

This is the world that the climate-change lobby wants. The Biden Administration should be putting money into shoring up cyber vulnerabilities, but instead it’s using the “infrastructure” label to remake the energy economy, squeeze fossil fuels, and make the grid more vulnerable, not less.

President Biden stopped the Keystone XL pipeline. Governor Andrew Cuomo has been blockading all of New England from securing a reliable natural gas supply by refusing to let pipelines pass through New York. This is outrageous, particularly as the wounds are entirely self-inflicted.

America can overcome foreign threats to our energy supply.

Cyber criminals are a menace we can defeat.

Domestic anti-energy zealots pose a far greater threat.

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May 12, 2021