Thursday, March 16, 2023



Greta Thunberg is yet another false prophet

Environmental activist Greta Thunberg has deleted a 2018 tweet saying that climate change would 'wipe out humanity' unless the world ceased using fossil fuels by 2023.

The Swedish campaigner had tweeted an article by gritpost.com detailing Harvard University professor James Anderson's warning that humanity would cease to exist if use of fossil fuels was not stopped within five years.

Thunberg's now erased post stated: 'A top climate scientist is warning that climate change will wipe out all of humanity unless we stop using fossil fuels over the next five years.'

The article on gritpost.com - whose website no longer exists - quoted Anderson, an atmospheric chemistry expert, where he argued there would be 'essentially zero' ice left in the Arctic by 2022.

It is unknown when exactly the tweet was deleted, but it was captured by internet archive Wayback Machine last week on March 7, just before 10pm.

The WayBack Machine also captured some of the replies to Thunberg five years on from the tweet. One user asked: 'It's been five years GT, what's up?'

Another wrote: 'Is this the afterlife? I thought it'd be... better.' A third wrote: 'Why are we still here?'

Many high-profile conservatives have been quick to taunt the environmentalist over the apparent gaff - something Thunberg is not averse to after past run-ins with Andrew Tate and Donald Trump.

Charlie Kirk, the founder of right-wing group Turning Point USA tweeted: 'One of the best headlines of the year so far... 'Greta Thunberg deletes 2018 tweet saying world will end in 2023 after world does not end.''

Conservative film maker Dinesh D'Souza also tweeted: 'Climate Radical Greta Thunberg Caught Red Handed: Deletes 2018 Tweet That Says World Will End Without Action by 2023.'

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Antarctic Sea Ice: ‘The beginning of the end!’ – again

There is a small recent dip but nothing dramatic

The great sleeping giant that is Antarctica that — apart from the Antarctic Peninsula — refuses to respond to global warming may just have begun to stir, and the implications are, well, apocalyptic.

According to CNN “Antarctic sea ice hits record lows again. Scientists wonder if it’s “the beginning of the end.” CNN also reports that, “90% of ice around Antarctica has disappeared in less than a decade.”

CNN are not the only media outlets to report on this years’ record low sea ice around Antarctica in apocalyptic terms, other media extremists are available. For Sky News it’s the accelerating melt of polar regions. For the BBC “There is now less sea-ice surrounding the Antarctic continent than at any time since we began using satellites to measure it in the late 1970s.” All this is technically true, but misleading. When it’s put into context one sees a different picture.

So let’s have a look at the actual satellite data of Antarctic sea ice collected monthly since 1979. The NSIDC gives two data sets for what it calls i) sea ice extent, and ii) sea ice area. So let’s examine both of them.

The first graphs is sea ice area, the second sea ice extent.

From the empirical data it is evident that there is hardly any change of sea ice over the 44-year time span. Since 2016 there is a dip with possibly more variability (of which more later), and the lowest month (February) does show a record low, but by hardly anything (and also look at the data for 1992). Does this actual data look like the beginning of the end to you? Where is CNN’s 90% loss or Sky News acceleration?

Antarctic sea ice evolution has no significant trends along the whole period, but a volume drop is observed since 2016. Some scientists say there was a rapid decline in 2015/16, and record minima because believing that this ice loss marks an abrupt transition from a high to a low ice state that cannot be explained by year-to-year variability. Such a change is possibly associated with a long-term variability arising from ice–ocean feedbacks. Some evidence for this is that the transition was preceded by an increasing upper Southern Ocean density stratification, and an accumulation of heat at the subsurface; suggesting a decoupling of the surface from the subsurface ocean. In 2015/16, the upper ocean density stratification in the ice-covered region suddenly weakened, leading to a release of heat from the subsurface, contributing to the sea ice decline during winter. Perhaps this is a significant change in the coupled circumpolar ice–ocean system. Time will tell.

One could say that this prime example of science miscommunication is the fault of the NSIDC scientists and their comments posted on their website which were taken by journalists, and repeated without analysis or true context. So much of science journalism these days consists of “turning around” a press release.

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Woke, go broke: Vanguard ditches ESG investing

The world’s second largest asset management firm, Vanguard, with $8 trillion AUM, has pulled out of the ESG madness.

This is massive.

I recently pondered the question, ‘Is it possible that we are winning?’ and hailed Novak Djokovic’s Australian Open win as an omen of a turning of the tide in the war against globalism and Klaus Schwab’s Great Reset.

But I also remarked on other more tangible signs of the faltering program of global homogenisation that would see national sovereignty surrendered to world government, and individual freedom sacrificed to the greater good of ‘climate justice’ and ‘DEI’ (diversity, equity, and inclusion) – signs such as Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover (ostensibly to restore free speech to the platform), the fall of Jacinda Ardern (significant, but not to be overstated), the rise of the Freedom Caucus in the US House of Representatives, and the rather lacklustre showing by global elites at this year’s annual World Economic Forum junket in Davos.

These signs and many more suggest that people are waking up to the social engineering, and they don’t like it.

Paul Joseph Watson this week discussed a recent UK poll that showed nearly half of the British public believe LGBTQ+ people and ethnic minorities are over-represented on television (which they are, both in the UK and throughout the West). What’s striking about this is that a previous poll showed British people believed 20 per cent of the UK population was black (it’s actually only 3 per cent) and that 30 per cent was LGBTQ+ (it’s only 3 per cent). This new YouGov poll suggests a recalibration in public perception has occurred.

It now seems people are catching on to the ESG scam too.

ESG (environment, social and corporate governance) is a credit score system for corporations dreamed up at the UN and WEF and enforced by the world’s asset management behemoths such as BlackRock, Vanguard, and Fidelity, just to name the top three. The ESG matrix attempts, by withholding investment capital, to force companies into adopting ‘sustainable’ business practices which benefit not only shareholders, but ‘stakeholders’ also (for stakeholder read: any class of professional victim the establishment wishes to use as a political pawn). These ‘sustainable’ practices include things like carbon offsetting, hiring of ‘minorities’, and enforcing an equal gender split in senior management and on boards of directors.

This is all part of Klaus Schwab’s concept of ‘Stakeholder Capitalism’, which is really just communism rebranded and refitted to benefit those who are already super rich, and it has gained pre-eminence in the past decade. All those TV ads you see that bang-on about ‘sustainability’; those puff pieces in the corporate media about LGBTQ+ Pride; the weird focus on gender, race, and sexual identity in your workplace; the sudden politicisation of your favourite sport … it all comes from ESG.

ESG is what underpins the new religion of Wokeness – it is a centralised, top-down program designed to reorganise the global economy and permanently transform society. Even the credulous sceptics in the culture war, who laugh at me and the rest of the ‘tinfoil hat brigade’, ought to be wary of ESG and the impact it is having on their retirement funds.

ESG has completely dominated almost every aspect of our lives for at least five years. Most people have been largely unaware of its very existence, instead putting the recent tidal wave of identity politics and climate hysteria down to natural grassroots political upheaval; for more on this check out my article The Mistake Everyone Makes About Wokeness.

People are waking up though.

As Terrence Keeley recently reported in the Wall Street Journal, Vanguard CEO Tim Buckley ‘knows that Vanguard can’t promise to be a fiduciary to its clients while also committing to align its assets with the 2050 Net Zero target. Signatories to such initiatives effectively commit to reducing their volume of investments in companies not aligned to the Paris Agreement without ever knowing how much of the global economy will be compliant or investable’.

Finally, some common sense from the financial sector! Buckley’s withdrawal from the $59 trillion Net Zero Asset Managers initiative suggests he’s done with the ESG program as a whole and is an overdue breath of fresh air not only for regular working folk whose life savings and retirements are under threat from this absurd fusion of Marxism and capitalism, but for the world at large for, as noted above, ESG is in everything now.

Delightful though it is to witness the humiliation of the sanctimonious commissars of globalism, we can take small comfort from such news for, as Investment renegade Tom Luongo concedes, it represents nothing more than gang warfare of the most rarefied kind. But as he also points out, the lesser of two evils is always preferable, and I for one would be much more comfortable continuing to live under the yoke of the devil we know, than overhauling the entire system in the image of Klaus Schwab’s glorious Reset.

With Vanguard now joining this interesting alliance, the cracks in the edifice are really beginning to show. Like Jamie Dimon, we must not conflate Buckley’s reticence with some latent form of heroic populism or love for the little man. Vanguard is apparently jumping ship for selfish reasons, but I believe it is not without regard for popular sentiment.

Consider Buckley’s stated reasons for getting out of ESG: ‘Our research indicates that ESG investing does not have any advantage over broad-based investing.’ He’s saying that he can’t fulfil his fiduciary responsibilities within this framework. Well, Tim, that should have been perfectly obvious to you from the start.

When I first heard about ESG, I knew immediately that the ludicrous ideological tenets it espoused would have virtually zero correlation with profitability. If I, a lowly copywriter and aspiring novelist knew this, then surely the CEO of the world’s second largest asset manager knew it.

By all means, Tim Buckley is getting his company out of ESG for practical, fiduciary reasons – get Woke, go broke – but why has it taken this long? I suspect there’s another reason he’s pulling out. I suspect he’s seen the writing on the wall. I suspect that the rising tide of public consciousness around ESG and all its offshoots is making him nervous.

Much like we’re now seeing major institutions distance themselves from the lockdowns and the masks and the vaccine mandates as the truth begins to seep out, the big financial fish are starting to question the wisdom of going all in on this radical new agenda.

I suspect Tim Buckley wants to take a step back and see which way the wind blows for the next couple of years. Because the fact is, people are waking up. The word is out, thanks in no small part to people like US Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy (he breaks the issue down succinctly in these two short clips from Timcast IRL: here and here) and, as always, the oddball Boomers who run the world have underestimated the power of the internet – it’s small wonder, most of them probably still think we get our news from CNBC like they do.

Just this last week I received my annual client satisfaction survey from my asset management company (the New Zealand government forces us to save for retirement but does not allow us to manage our own funds, as is possible here in Australia, so I still have a portion of my retirement savings under institutional management back home).

One of the questions was: ‘Did you know that we consider ESG when investing your money?’

I had been anticipating this question, as they asked it last year as well, only back then I was less impassioned about the whole thing and merely told them I thought ESG was corporate communism. This time I let them have it with both barrels.

‘You are mismanaging my money,’ I told them. ‘You are in dereliction of your fiduciary responsibility and when this whole sorry scam is finally exposed, you will be held accountable.’

I wonder, has Tim Buckley been receiving similar feedback from Vanguard’s customer satisfaction surveys?

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"Red Alert" for 900,000 car workers in Germany as EU plans to ban combustion engine

The Bosch works council and the IG Metall union are reacting to the EU decision to phase out combustion engines from 2035 and are announcing a works meeting at ten locations in Germany. There is fear of massive job cuts, Bamberg's works council chairman, Mario Gutmann, told the "Bayerischer Rundfunk".

Many employees are also worried about the possible relocation of production facilities abroad. Gutmann warned that parts for combustion engines are manufactured in Germany which are unusable after the EU ban from 2035 at the latest.

Two thirds of the approximately 6,300 employees in Bamberg are currently concentrating solely on the production of parts for combustion engines.

Martin Feder from the IG Metall union issued a "red alert" and warned: "The future of industrial production is in danger." This is not only felt at Bosch, but applies to many companies. 900,000 employees are currently involved “directly and indirectly” in the production of combustion engines in Germany.

Feder cites the actions of the car manufacturer Ford as a cautionary tale. Almost 2,300 jobs are to be cut in Cologne and Aachen. Meanwhile, Ford is already building a new factory in the US that will cost several billion dollars. Ford soon wants to produce batteries for electric cars there.

Thanks to subsidies and tax breaks, the USA and China are particularly strong promoters of production in their own countries. The head of the Bamberg works council, Gutmann, warned about the resulting de-industrialization in Germany.

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My other blogs. Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...


Sorry but Greta is the more famous but she is not the false prophet, she is a stooge of the false prophet and it is the real prophet whom she quoted who deserves to be castigated.