In the Race for 'Climate Leadership,' Everyone's a Loser | Opinion

Last year, Joe Biden campaigned on the promise that America would lead the world in the fight against climate change. At home, his climate plan in the Build Back Better bill is stalled in the Senate, and his election pledge to legislate a net-zero enforcement mechanism by the end of his first term has gone nowhere. Aspirations to climate leadership are faring little better in Europe. In April, Germany's constitutional court ruled that its 2050 net-zero target was so distant that it violated the freedoms of young people.

So, along with Sweden, Germany became the first country to legislate a 2045 net-zero target. Yet the new German government's net-zero plan, as outlined in the coalition agreement, may as well have been designed to worsen Europe's current energy crisis and sink its largest and most successful economy. Notes energy expert Lucian Pugliaresi, Germany's energy policy initiatives «will not be sufficient to meet demand for electricity in Germany in 2030». That means higher natural gas prices across northern Europe, and a continent more dependent for its energy on a dangerous geopolitical rival.

Planet Earth Is Healthier Than Ever, Thanks to Global Warming

Green planet: tropical rainforests have produced more growth in response to rising carbon dioxide. (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/Flickr, CC BY 2.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)

 

China claims it aims to reduce CO2 emissions when in fact it aims for the opposite. The planet’s ecology is thriving thanks to carbon dioxide, despite first world policies that are undermining it. The ironic benefactors in this story are countries of the third world, led by China, whose emissions are doing the most to green the planet. As noted in a 2018 Nature study that tracked the changes from 1982 to 2016, although Earth lost some tree cover where forests became farmlands, especially in Brazil and other South American countries, those losses were far exceeded by new forests.

Harvard Study Explodes Myths About ‘Vaccines’ Stopping the Spread – But It’s Even Worse Than That

 

A Harvard study of 68 nations and 2,947 counties in the United States published in the European Journal of Epidemiology is shattering the argument that the mRNA therapeutic drugs being marketed as «vaccines» do anything significantly to stop the spread of Covid-19. The Harvard researcher who co-authored the study, S. Subramanian of the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, teamed up with Canadian researcher Akhil Kumar to perform the research.

Derek Burney: The irrational, woke left stifles health care and is ruining higher education

Healthcare workers get ready to prone a 47-year-old woman who has COVID-19 and is intubated on a ventilator in the intensive care unit at Toronto's Humber River Hospital on Tuesday, April 13, 2021. PHOTO BY NATHAN DENETTE/THE CANADIAN PRESS

 

Why do we Canadians accept mediocrity as the standard for health care and higher education, two bedrocks for a successful democracy? Both are jurisdictionally provincial, but they should be matters of national concern. On health care, we seem mesmerized by the illusion of universality, smug in the assumption that our system is at least better than that of the U. Political leaders shy away from fundamental changes to a service that is 60 years old as if genuine reform represented a political third rail. arguably has the best and most innovative hospital system in the world and many of the previous inequities are being addressed through Obamacare and expansions of Medicare and Medicaid that will provide more individual choice and more timely responses. A portion of private medical care may violate sensibilities about equity, but the element of competition does demonstrably improve the standard of care.

Colleges Have a Guy Problem

Getty / The Atlantic

 

A recent viral news story reported that a generation of young men is abandoning college. This is the largest female-male gender gap in the history of higher education, and it’s getting wider. This particular gender gap hasn’t been breaking news for about 40 years. But the imbalance reveals a genuine shift in how men participate in education, the economy, and society.

Conrad Black: The West has crumbled in the face of a belligerent Russia and China

A group of naval vessels from Russia and China conduct a joint maritime military patrol in the waters of the Pacific Ocean. PHOTO BY RUSSIAN DEFENCE MINISTRY/HANDOUT VIA REUTERS

 

There has been no clear statement from NATO or the United States or any serious source over what response there might be to direct Russian aggression against Ukraine, or Chinese aggression against Taiwan

The increasing shambles in post-Trump great power relations is best illustrated by the Russian threat against Ukraine and the Chinese threat against Taiwan. The United States is in a continuous meltdown of sane government, which will only be resolved when the present administration and its allies in Congress have been decisively evicted. Western Europe is in a deepening torpor, most accurately represented by the addled condition of Germany, which is still trying to assemble a government almost two months after the last election. Apart from some of the countries recently emancipated from the joys of Russian Cold War domination, in Europe, Britain and France are the only countries acting like serious powers.

Philip Cross: The government is driving inflation

Bank of Canada building in Ottawa on June 22, 2020. PHOTO BY BLAIR GABLE/REUTERS FILES

 

Governments must work to eliminate their deficits or the upward pressure on interest rates will intensify

Inflation is proving to be more than transitory, reaching an 18-year high of 4.7 per cent last month. Government-created distortions of personal incomes, savings and labour market choices are helping fuel it. These distortions also make inflation harder to forecast, although economists have long struggled to develop a viable theory that forecasts inflation. As a result, many central banks have been slow to react to the price rises.

Rex Murphy: Trudeau and Biden double down on efforts to destroy our economy

U.S. President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau converse at the White House during the North American Leaders' Summit on Nov. 18, 2021. PHOTO BY JONATHAN ERNST/REUTERS

 

Here is a perfect symmetry. Trudeau wants to kill the oil and gas industry.

The Three Amigos?

I beg your pardon.

Is that an appropriate nomenclature for a conclave of the three finest minds in the statesmanship of our present-day world?

Matt Gurney: Only dead Canadians will shock us out of our appalling complacency

In this image from the RCAF’s Twitter account, a Cormorant helicopter rescues civilians from a washed-out highway in British Columbia.

 

He got the job after the last CDS got entangled in the sexual misconduct scandal now roiling the military. Given the attention the Liberals usually give the military, this is not a guarantee. Specifically, he warned that increasingly frequent domestic deployments were interfering with the military's ability to conduct large-scale, multi-unit exercises. In typical Canadian fashion, the general reached for a hockey metaphor to describe why such large exercises are essential, and told the CP, «It’s like a hockey team that would never train, never play on the ice together, and then all of a sudden being thrown into an NHL game and be expected to win».

Protective immunity after recovery from SARS-CoV-2 infection

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is now better controlled in settings with access to fast and reliable testing and highly effective vaccination rollouts. Several studies have found that people who recovered from COVID-19 and tested seropositive for anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies have low rates of SARS-CoV-2 reinfection. There are still looming questions surrounding the strength and duration of such protection compared with that from vaccination.

Opinion: Progressives ruined San Francisco, but at least ‘advocacy’ is thriving

Golden Gate Avenue in San Francisco, shown in April 2020. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

 

In 2018, there were 20,933 calls to San Francisco’s government complaining about human feces. In those years, in clement Miami, the unsheltered population declined 50 percent. Last year in San Francisco, there were 6,275 registered complaints about used hypodermic needles in public places. In 2001, the city gave between $320 and $395 cash per month to the homeless while Oakland, across the Bay, gave $24.

David Frum: Going beyond Vimy

Library and Archives Canada

 

You could learn a lot about Canada’s national psyche from the country’s enduring fascination with the battle of Vimy Ridge, fought 95 years ago this past week. Canadians fought dozens of major battles during the First World War. Vimy fully deserves the honour it carries in the national memory. But the exclusive attention to Vimy obscures other Canadian achievements even more deserving of honour.

McCaughey: New vax science shows mandates unwise

FILE – In this Sept. 14, 2021, file photo, a syringe is prepared with the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at a clinic at the Reading Area Community College in Reading, Pa. Millions of U.S. workers now have a Jan. 4 deadline to get a COVID vaccine. The federal government on Thursday, Nov. 4, 2021 announced new vaccine requirements for workers at companies with more than 100 employees as well as workers at health care facilities that treat Medicare and Medicaid patients.. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

 

The findings prove the foolishness of forcing police and other public employees to get jabbed or lose their pay. And President Joe Biden should retract his order to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to compel large employers to mandate vaccines. The journal reported Thursday that COVID-19 vaccines have «minimal» impact on preventing transmission of the delta strain. Delta is the COVID strain currently causing over 99% of U. Vaccines protect the people getting the shots from serious illness, but they don’t stop the delta variant from spreading to others.

Rolls-Royce To Develop Mini Nuke Reactors To Decarbonize Power Grid

Rolls-Royce Group, BNF Resources UK Limited, and Exelon Generation Limited will develop small modular nuclear reactors that will allow the country to meet net-zero commitments. With every passing week, our core thesis set here last December is that nuclear would be widely embraced as a net-zero enabling technology for power grids. SMRs are a much cheaper solution than big nuclear power plants that have been in use for more than half a century. Nuclear power will be at the heart of Britain's strategy to reach net-zero carbon emissions in the coming decades, along with the rest of the world.

Melissa Mbarki: The lowered flag is a mockery to all Canadians, including Indigenous people

Canadian flags fly at half mast on the Peace tower and around the city Monday May 31, 2021 in Ottawa. The flags have been lowered indefinitely to recognize the discovery of children's remains at the former Kamloops Indian Residential school. PHOTO BY ADRIAN WYLD /Canadian Press

 

If reconciliation is what this government wants, let’s get to work. Canada should not be using a national symbol to prove their effort. The flags were lowered on May 30 after 215 unmarked graves were discovered at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia. I am a proud supporter of our veterans who has made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.

Rex Murphy: Trudeau too busy saving the planet to raise the flag

 

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attends an evening reception to mark the opening day of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), in Glasgow, Scotland, Britain November 1, 2021. Alberto Pezzali/Pool via REUTERS PHOTO BY ALBERTO PEZZALI /Reuters

These are superb times for Canada. The country is in a blossoming moment. The ship of state glides on smooth and halcyon waters, and to quote the poet laureate of prime ministerial sycophancy, Seamus O’Regan, «Our Captain, O Captain» Justin Trudeau is the most luminous presence in every meeting of consequence on the international stage. Trudeau is like the Grammys without Beyonce.

Conrad Black: Lowered flags are a symbol of a nation in decline

The flag is seen flying at half-mast over Canada House in London. PHOTO BY @CANADIANUK

 

The most frequent opening conversational gambit that I encountered during the past three very social weeks in the refreshingly mask-free, socially undistanced city of London, was the question of why the Canadian flag on top of Canada House in Trafalgar Square appeared to be permanently at half-mast. I had the heavy duty of conceding that it was part of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau‘s endlessly protracted act of national self-humiliation and confected grief over the history of the white man’s treatment of Indigenous people in Canada over the last 500 years. The many informed people whom I encountered in London could not be described as a broadly based and deeply enthusiastic group of admirers of Justin Trudeau as a leader and clear champion of the Canadian national interest. In general, in my experience, he is seen in Europe, as in the United States, as the chic and dapper bearer of a name well-known in Canada, who deserves the credit due to being a consecutive election winner in a G7 country, but is nevertheless seen as a feckless and rather superficial posturer.

Climate Activists Blow Smoke on Wildfire Fears

 

Editor’s note: As November’s global climate conference in Glasgow draws near, important facts about climate change don’t always make it into the dominant media coverage. We’re here to help. Each Thursday contributor Bjorn Lomborg will provide some important background so readers can have a better understanding of the true effects of climate change and the real costs of climate policy.

Read the original article.

Source: WSJ

BREAKING: Rumble acquires social media site Locals

 

Locals, founded by podcaster and author Dave Rubin in 2019, is a subscription based social media company. «Locals will provide our Rumble users a new way to generate revenue, one that is not influenced by corporate advertisers and special interests. » Locals users will be able to link their profiles to their Rumble accounts and integration should be relatively seamless. «We are excited to see Locals continue our growth and vision as part of Rumble.

Irish Quandary: Who to Blame When Everyone’s Vaxxed?

Listowel/Shutterstock

 

In the Republic of Ireland, however, health officials are running out of people to blame. This has become embarrassingly obvious in County Waterford. As reported in the Irish Times, the nation’s establishment newspaper, two of the three most COVID-infected electoral areas in Ireland are located in the county «with the highest rate of vaccination in the country.» In Waterford, a remarkable 99.7 percent of adults over the age of 18 are fully vaccinated. The Waterford news caught my attention because the first American «Cashills» hail from County Waterford.

"Proceed With Caution At Your Own Peril" - Merck's COVID 'Super Drug' Poses Serious Health Risks, Scientists Warn

As it turns out, all the scientists and doctors who insisted that Merck's «revolutionary» COVID drug molnupiravir is extremely safe weren't faithfully adhering to «the science» after all. Because according to a report published Thursday by Barron's, some scientists are worried that the drug - which purportedly cut hospitalizations in half during a study that was cut short - could cause cancer or birth defects. So much for having a «strong safety profile,» as Dr. Scott Gottlieb claimed in an interview on the day Merck first publicized the research. If that were to happen in the cells of a patient being treated with molnupiravir, it could theoretically lead to cancer or birth defects.

Florida Registers Nation’s Lowest COVID Case Numbers

 

A decent human being would understand this data as a cause for celebration, especially for all of the corporate press reporters and pundits who expressed «deep concern» for Florida when its COVID numbers went up earlier this year in tandem with its annual respiratory season. Yet somehow, I am struggling to find these once «very concerned» reporters updating us on the status of Florida. Far from reporting on the decline in cases while Florida remains open and free, the corporate press in the state has now pivoted to entertaining Blue Anon conspiracy theories about DeSantis and his staff. They claim, without evidence, that there is a massive conspiracy to manipulate the data.

Raymond J. de Souza: Government overreach on COVID measures has been about power — not the pandemic

Health bureaucrats, provincial cabinets, judges and officers of parliament — all have been using the COVID-19 pandemic to expand their power, writes Raymond J. de Souza. PHOTO BY PETER J. THOMPSON/NATIONAL POST

 

It's a very ancient infection to which state agents are prone and for which no effective cure has been developed

I have raised the issue of government overreach in relation to vaccine mandates. Respectful readers have asked whether that gives comfort to those who oppose the vaccines themselves. Is favouring vaccination but blanching at punitive vaccine mandates too fine a line? Might it discourage people from getting vaccinated?

A comparison of official Government reports suggest the Fully Vaccinated are developing Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome

Latest UK PHE Vaccine Surveillance Report figures on Covid cases show that doubly vaccinated 40-70-year-olds have lost 40% of their immune system capability compared to unvaccinated people. Their immune systems are deteriorating at around 5% per week. If this continues then 30-50-year-olds will have 100% immune system degradation, zero viral defence by Christmas, and all doubly vaccinated people over 30 will have lost their immune systems by March next year.

3 Environmental Doomsday Myths, Debunked

Image Credit: Pixabay

 

A college student recently wrote the following in a campus newspaper about her climate anxiety

I stay up into the early hours of the morning, Googling some variation of «Is there hope for climate change,» and «Biden climate change plan good?» I fret over every piece of waste I encounter, wondering whether I should trash it or wash it and hope it qualifies for the recycling bin. The anxiety is crippling. Many young people clearly are suffering intense climate anxiety.

The Great Southwest Airlines Rebellion?

Seemingly out of nowhere what appears to be a Southwest Airlines rebellion has taken flight this weekend. According to media reports, scores of pilots and other Southwest employees have coordinated the taking of «sick days» to use them up in advance of a Southwest Airlines mandate to get the jab or lose the job. The Southwest Airlines Pilots Association is suing the airline over the imposed vaccine mandate, bolstering the claim that there is a «sick out» underway among angry Southwest pilots. The mainstream media is doing its best to keep a lid on the expanding rebellion against the vaccine mandates, and Southwest Airlines itself is blaming the cancellations on bad weather and a lack of air traffic controllers.

Antibodies last over a year after COVID-19 infection, according to study

Those who experienced severe infection had higher levels of antibodies.

Most people who have been infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, will carry antibodies for at least a year, according to a recent peer-reviewed study.

Their findings included 96% of subjects still carrying neutralizing antibodies and 66% with the nucleoprotein IgG antibody.

Rex Murphy: The green folly about to unfold in Glasgow could leave you cold

A climate activist from the Extinction Rebellion group blocks London Bridge during a protest on Aug. 31, 2021. The group is promising to bring traffic to a standstill in Glasgow during the COP26 climate conference to be held Oct. 31 to Nov. 12. PHOTO BY JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

 

I would repurpose that in these fall days of 2021 as I read all the news from Europe, of petrol shortages, swiftly rising fuel costs, extreme lineups at British gas stations, brawls breaking out at the pumps, Germany already shuddering at the possibility of a cold winter and not enough heating fuel, half the continent now on a leash to Russia’s Vladimir Putin and his gas line, plus the ever ready sultans of the Middle East musing about either raising prices or cutting supply.

One Ring to Rule Us All: A Global Digital Fiat Currency

 

We’ve written extensively about the “war on cash.” In a nutshell, governments would love to do away with cash in order to better track and control their citizens. There have been numerous moves closer to a cashless society in recent years, from capping ATM withdrawals to doing away with large-denomination bills. Last year, China launched a digital yuan pilot program and the US has floated moving toward a digital dollar.

The Postpandemic World Is One of Widespread Dependence on Government

The state is making people dependent on it, both as means for control and as an outcome of many policies intended to provide relief. We have seen a lot of fear and dependence in this pandemic. Fear has been the message that has propelled types of repressive policies that were not possible before. Not only were people locked down, but society and therefore practically the whole economy was forcefully paused.

The problem here is that there is no «Pause button» for the economy. It may sound easy for politicians, who have no conception of how the real world works. But you cannot simply pause a business. If you have ever run a business you know that being an entrepreneur is not a steady state but a changing process.

Biden Budget Must Be Measured in Human Suffering | Opinion

By the numbers, the $3.5 trillion Biden budget is dizzying. If that weren't staggering enough, the president's budget places a nearly $70 trillion burden on the shoulders of American taxpayers over the next decade. Nearly $5.5 trillion would be diverted from the private sector to new government spending over the next 10 years, according to one analysis, the economy could mean a $3 trillion loss in economic output over the next decade, during which time workers' paychecks would drop $1.6 trillion.

Climate Change Committee misled Parliament about the cost of Net Zero

 

London, 26 September – The Sunday Telegraph reports today that Parliament was misled into supporting Net Zero plans to decarbonise the economy. The Climate Change Committee told MPs that British households and businesses would face only a modest cost for reaching Net Zero emissions in 2050, but analysis of their financial models by the Global Warming Policy Forum shows that key assumptions were not credible even at the time the report was published.

OPINION: Canada is slipping in terms of economic freedom

PHOTO BY FILE PHOTO /Getty Images

 

Canada, after decades as one of the top-10 economically freest places on earth, has fallen into the teens for two years running, according to the just-released 2021 Economic Freedom of the World report, raising concerns about a long-term trend away from freedom. Canada dropped to 14th in the new report based on 2019 data, the most recent available, down slightly from 13th the previous year. In all previous years, dating back to the first measurement in 1970, Canada was in the top 10. As recently as 2014, Canada ranked 6th.

Study: COVID recovery gave Israelis longer-lasting Delta defense than vaccines

 

Hadassah Ein Kerem team members wearing safety gear as they work in the hospital's coronavirus ward, on August 25, 2021. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

The variant was 27 times more likely to break through Pfizer protection from January-February and cause symptoms than it was to penetrate natural immunity from the same period

Is the Delta variant really more than twice as transmissible as the original strain of the virus?

 The Delta variant, which was first detected in India in October and has recently been spreading very quickly in many regions of the world, is widely believed to be more than twice as transmissible as the original strain of the virus. In this post, I start by explaining what people mean when they say that a variant is more transmissible than another, which leads me to make a distinction between a transmissibility advantage and a transmission advantage. In fact, by looking at French data beyond Delta’s initial expansion, I show that, as it became the dominant strain in France, Delta’s transmission advantage collapsed rapidly. Finally, I propose a theory that can explain why Delta’s transmission advantage was initially very high before collapsing, just as Alpha’s before it.

Dr Makary: CDC guidance on Chickenpox vaccine exposes agency's contradictory COVID messaging

 Marty Makary on Tuesday accused the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of "cherry-picking" data and manipulating public health guidance surrounding vaccines and natural immunity to support a political narrative. Travis noted that the CDC's guidance on COVID-19 is inconsistent with their vaccine recommendations for other contagious viruses. The current guidance for the Chickenpox, for example, does not encourage those who have contracted it to vaccinate themselves against the virus. "CDC recommends two doses of chickenpox vaccine for children, adolescents, and adults who have never had chickenpox," the official website reads.