Kevin Pearl

Jan. 27, 2022 (EIRNS)—Over 400 Iowa farmers have filed objections to threats of eminent domain and are opposing and protesting the 1,200-mile carbon-capture pipeline system across five Midwest states to a permanent sequestration site in North Dakota. Three companies, Valero Energy Corporation, BlackRock Global Energy & Power Infrastructure Fund II, and Navigator Energy Services, together, have teamed up with an Ames, Iowa, company, Summit Carbon Solutions, whose senior advisor is Terry Branstad, former Iowa Governor and Ambassador to China. Carbon dioxide has many useful roles in the modern economy, not to mention as plant food, and the infrastructure for CO₂ includes, in some locations, pipelines and storage capacity. However, the three green CO₂ pipeline proposals now rightly contested in the Midwest states, centered in Iowa, are not only not useful; they are crazy and unproductive in the extreme. They should be cancelled immediately. The four companies have CO₂ capture agreements with 31 biofuels plants and 20 fertilizer and ethanol plants, to transport their CO₂ to a destination where it will be sequestered underground. In the course of this, CO₂ burial certificates will be available as carbon credits for sale to other entities needing them, such as in California. This will supposedly benefit farmers by making the ethanol plants “green,” ensuring that their corn will still have a market. Those pushing the scheme say that without it, the ethanol plants may be shut down. Farmers in the dozens of counties that the pipelines would cross are in revolt against the scheme and the whole damn pack of lies. There are three schemes: An Iowa project, Midwest Carbon Express, envisions building 710 miles of pipeline across about one third of Iowa’s 99 counties. A second section would go into Minnesota and Nebraska. A third pipeline would connect the first two pipelines to pipelines passing through South Dakota and finally to North Dakota, where the CO₂ would be stored in underground caverns. All told, the pipes would extend 2,000 miles and cost $6.5 billion. The pipelines would supposedly capture the carbon equivalent of over 25 million cars per year. How would it get paid for? These companies would look to loans, hopefully government-backed, and “green investors”! John Deere & Co. is a “strategic investor,” and many ethanol plants have agreed to help finance this, as they will get added dollars from selling their low-carbon footprints. California currently pays $200 per metric ton for carbon credits and federal tax credits pay $50 per metric ton of carbon sequestered. Ethanol is already wildly inefficient in physical-economic terms. These added incentives would continue to drive the economy towards wasteful processes of low energy-density. Instead of burning corn and sending CO₂ thousands of miles away, use crops for food! The future of power lies in nuclear fusion, not shoveling your dinner into the gas tank. [rlb]

Dec. 23, 2021 (EIRNS)—The EU Commission has proposed a new set of taxes to finance the grants extended by the Next Generation EU Fund to member countries. The new taxes will mostly be “Green Taxes” or “Climate Taxes,” plus a share of the new international corporate tax. The first tax is based on “revenues from emissions trading (ETS); the second draws on the resources generated by the proposed EU carbon border adjustment mechanism; the third is based on the share of residual profits from multinationals that will be re-allocated to EU Member States under the recent OECD/G20 agreement on a re-allocation of taxing rights (”Pillar One“). At cruising speed, in the years 2026-2030, these new sources of revenue are expected to generate, on average, a total of up to €17 billion annually for the EU budget,” says an EU release dated Dec. 22. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_21_7025 The new resources should also finance the Social Climate Fund, the handouts established by the EU to alleviate the “energy poverty” the EU itself has created with its climate folly. This is especially pertinent in view of the proposed extension of the Emissions Trading System covering buildings and road transport. Johannes Hahn, Commissioner in charge of Budget and Administration, said yesterday: “With today’s package, we lay the foundations for the repayment of NextGenerationEU and provide essential support to the Fit for 55 package by putting in place the financing of the Social Climate Fund. With the set of new resources, we, therefore, ensure that the next generation will truly benefit from NextGenerationEU.” In the future, emissions trading will also apply to the maritime sector, auctioning of aviation allowances will increase, and a new system for buildings and road transport will be established. Under the current EU Emissions Trading System, most revenues from the auctioning of emission allowances are transferred to national budgets. Now, the Commission proposes that in the future, 25% of the revenue from EU emissions trading flows into the EU budget. “At cruising speed, revenues for the EU budget are estimated at around €12 billion per year on average over 2026-2030 (€9 billion on average between 2023-2030).” (Both Poland and the Czech Republic have called for abolishing the ETS, which has become a sheer financial derivatives market and is seen as the main cause for energy price increases. Instead, the Potsdam Institute for Climate research, a key center for radiation of climate insanity, has insisted that derivatives are all well and good.) Through the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, a tariff on imports with CO₂-footprint, there will be “a carbon price on imports, corresponding to what would have been paid, had the goods been produced in the EU. This mechanism will apply to a targeted selection of sectors and is fully consistent with WTO rules,” the release says. The Commission wants 75% of the revenues generated by this carbon border adjustment mechanism, estimated at around 1 billion euro on average over 2026-2030. Of the revenues from the International Corporate Tax, which now are reallocated to member states, the Commission wants to have 15%. “Pending the finalization of the agreement, revenues for the EU budget could amount to roughly between €2.5 and €4 billion per year.” That is not the end of it: the Commission will present a proposal for a second basket of new own resources by the end of 2023. The new taxes would bring between 15.5 and 17 billion Euro per year in the vaults of the EU Commission. The proposal shall now go to the European Parliament for scrutiny and eventually to the EU Council of heads of state and government for final approval. [ccc]

Dec. 21, 2021 (EIRNS)—This is an extended version of an article appearing in issue No. 51 of the EIR Strategic Alert Service weekly newsletter. On Dec. 13, Russia vetoed a UNSC resolution on “climate security” which would have been the first step in establishing a global climate police. India also voted against while China abstained. In motivating the vote, Russian UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said that the resolution would have empowered the UNSC with assessments and decisions that belong to scientists and that blaming climate change for all problems would have whitewashed responsibility for underdevelopment, wars, and terrorism.The draft resolution was introduced by Niger and Ireland after a two-month period of discussions at the UN, including an open debate at the UNSC Dec. 9 that focused on the situation in the Sahel. Typically, the drying out of Lake Chad has provoked a fertile ground for terrorist recruitment, but nobody in that debate said that a solution to the crisis in the Sahel is there: the famous Transaqua water-transfer scheme from the Congo basin, a project that was approved by all member countries of the Lake Chad Basin Commission but since than has stalled.The debate at the UNSC makes it clear that at least three nuclear powers, and even some African countries, oppose such a solution. Instead, social conflicts, migration, and terrorism are given as inevitable consequences of climate change, and they can only be managed through outside military intervention. Correctly, Ambassador Nebenzia said that Russia is against “establishing a new track of UNSC activities that asserts a generic automatic link between climate change and international security, thus turning a scientific and socio-economic problem into a political issue. Draft resolution’s provisions that suggest making this link the”central component" of UN conflict prevention strategies and mandates of peacekeeping and special political missions are fraught with a wide range of consequences." “What a graceful idea it was to blame greenhouse gas emissions, as well as the Sun and the Moon, for everything, while also shifting the responsibility to the developing states themselves,” the ambassador said. Making fun of those countries that adopt such ideas, Nebenzia quoted the great Russian poet Alexander Puskin who, in a poem about a person who was very much in love, has him saying: “Ah, it is easy to deceive me!… I long to be deceived myself!” “Perhaps, many of the countries in need who look forward to receiving donors’ assistance have a somewhat elevated image of their prospective saviors,” he said. As we have previously exposed, the plan of the British-centered oligarchy is to use military power to enforce climate policies and prevent development (see SAS 40/20). The discussion at the UNSC in the last two months, as Niger and Ireland were preparing their draft resolution, has been accompanied by discussions and recommendations at George Soros’s International Crisis Group. https://www.crisisgroup.org/global/can-un-security-council-agree-climate-security-resolution The issue was addressed in a side event at the Glasgow COP26 entitled “Climate, Peace and Stability: Weathering Risk Through COP and Beyond” on Nov. 2. Chaired by Munich Security Conference head Wolfgang Ischinger, the event prominently featured NATO secretary general Stoltenberg and British defense secretary Ben Wallace. “As defense ministers, … we will have to deal with the consequences of a failed climate change policy, if that happens,” Wallace said. “Without security we won’t have the mitigations we want to deliver to take on the effects of climate change and to reduce warming to 1.5 degrees.” NATO countries should develop strong partnerships, sometimes with non-traditional partners, to make sure that they deliver security and resilience around the world… part of the solution is defense going out and [creating] resilience." https://weatheringrisk.org/en/event/climate-peace-and-stability-weathering-risk-through-cop-and-beyond Reflecting on the implication of the Dec. 13 vote, the pro-Greta Thunberg International Peace Institute wrote that “countries that want to see stronger language on climate-related security risks in country-specific resolutions might well face more resistance, and new language on concrete operational action seems less likely in this atmosphere.” [ccc]

Nov. 28 (EIRNS)—South Africa’s Minister for Resources and Energy Gwede Mantashe, speaking at an African Energy Week conference in Cape Town on Nov. 9, denounced the demand to phase out fossil fuels, and explicitly denounced the cutting off of credit for fossil fuel investment, calling for an Africa-wide financial institution to assure funding for energy development. Although Mantashe did not refute the fake science behind the Malthusians’ demand to curtail carbon emissions, he unmistakably denounced the anti-development intent of the COP26 demands.As reported in South Africa’s FIN24 today, Mantashe said of the demands to curtail fossil fuels: “This is a sign of unsettlement by the rich countries, where we are converted into conduits of ideas of developed economies. Our continent collectively, and her individual countries [are] made to bear the brunt for heavy polluters. We are being pressured, even compelled, to move away from all forms of fossil fuels, including resources such as gas, which have been regarded as key resources for industrialization…. I think Africa must get together to develop a strategy to deal with this reality. Africa must seize the moment, we must indeed position Africa oil and gas at the forefront of global energy growth.” Mantashe insisted that the development of Africa should be piloted by the continent itself, and it should not be “coerced to take missteps,” arguing that the demands were “hollow.” “We’ve noticed with interest that when Britain, when China, when India, when Australia ran into energy crises, they all appealed to coal generation to give them more energy. You will notice that, but when they talk to us they say stop using coal immediately. That is the issue that we must discuss without fear.” The state of affairs in South Africa is indicated by the fact that (1) President Cyril Ramaphosa has not fired Mantashe as a result of the latter’s campaign for Africa to “seize the moment and defend hydrocarbons (and nuclear)”; and (2) there is no big campaign in the press attacking Mantashe, although the press has gone after him in the past as best they could.

Nov. 26 (EIRNS)—Despite the flop at the Glasgow COP26 event and the unfolding energy and inflation crisis, the ECB goes ahead with its “shifting the trillions” agenda. In focus, is the global system of law which should allow suppression of fundamental rights to favor the climate agenda. As keynote speaker at the European Central Bank Legal Conference in Frankfurt this week, ECB Executive Board member Frank Elderson argued for an evolution of fundamental rights into climate rights. A chapter of his speech is “ECB: From Fundamental Rights to Climate Rights.”Elderson mentioned several cases in which courts have ruled against governments and corporations for climate crimes or omissions, to argue that such litigations will increase and will become extraterritorial, asserting, “The protection of the environment as a global right that transcends borders, leads to the assertion of claims with an extraterritorial nature.” In conclusion, “Just as the financial risk implications of climate change place it squarely within the mandates of central banks and supervisors, the fact that climate rights branch off from the tree of fundamental rights places them squarely within the mandates of the courts. I am confident that courts around the world will take inspiration from each other to ensure that climate rights—and I would say environmental rights, too—are being served by our legal system in the same way as any other human right. In this context, I trust that everyone will continue working together—and within their mandate—to develop solid legal foundations to address the challenges of climate change.”

Oct. 19, 2021 (EIRNS)—A new study published in Nature Scientific Reports by researchers, led by Henrik Svensmark and Nir Shaviv, at the Danish National Space Institute at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, suggests that changes in the Sun’s magnetic field strengthen or weaken the effects of cosmic rays, causing an increase or decrease in cloud formation, sufficiently affecting the Earth’s energy budget to affect the climate.Their conclusions put into question all of the IPCC’s contrary assumptions. The IPCC estimated only an average of 0.01 Watts/m^2 between 1750 and 2019, from which they conclude that “the effect of galactic cosmic rays (GCR) on CCN (cloud condensation nuclei) is too weak to have any detectable effect on climate and no robust association was found between GCR and cloudiness. … There is high confidence that GCRs contribute a negligible ERF (effective radiative forcing) over the period 1750 to 2019.” On the other hand, the Svensmark-Shaviv observational data indicate that the Earth absorbs about 1.7 Watts/m^2 additional energy within 4 to 6 days of the cosmic-ray minimum, a result almost two orders of magnitude higher than the IPCC’s! That is much too big a difference to be ignored. This hard data, on top of the resistance by India, China, Russia, and the formerly colonial countries to self-inflicting drastic cuts in cheap, coal-fired electricity production, is not good news for the over-hyped COP26 “climate apocalypse event,” scheduled to start on Hallowe’en.There is high confidence in some quarters, and evidence-based concern in others, that their Bentleys might just turn into pumpkins.

Oct. 7, 2021 (EIRNS)—Klaus Schwab, President of the World Economic Forum (WEF), is activated, along with the full WEF network of billionaires, royals, and mega-cartels, to push their “Metrics” of allowable economic activity, for stakeholders in every aspect of life (business, government, fraternal, religious etc.) to police fellow citizens to stop doing anything that contributes to development for people. Why? Because, Schwab declares, it is a “conundrum” that human development itself hurts the planet. So, stop it. On Jan. 18, 2021, Schwab released his book on this at the WEF Davos Forum, titled, Stakeholder Capitalism: A Global Economy That Works for Progress, People and Planet. On page 154, he spelled out his point. To add stress, he first recounted economic infrastructure development details from Ethiopia, its railroads, agriculture gains, the Grand Renaissance Dam, even renewable energy, and then he insisted that it has to stop. The kind of development being undertaken in Ethiopia “reveals the central conundrum of the combat against climate change. The same force that helps people escape from poverty and lead a decent life is the one that is destroying the livability of our planet for future generations. The emissions that lead to climate change are not just the result of a selfish generation of industrialists or western baby boomers. They are the consequence of the desire to create a better future for oneself.” So, metrics are being worked out by Schwab, the WEF, and the entire green-tyranny apparatus, on what you and your enterprise are allowed or not allowed to do—factory, railroad, farm, civic, religious, or household. The regulations are drawn up in terms of environment, sustainability, and governance (ESG). They are assembled in different taxonomies intended for each nation and locale. Schwab reported on the process on pages 210-215: “ ‘World Economic Forum’s International Business Council,’ led by Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, late last year presented the ‘Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics.’ They measure companies’ progress toward environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals in numbers and thereby allow them to optimize for more than just profits.” (See also, World Economic Forum White Paper, “Measuring Stakeholder Capitalism: Towards Common Metrics and Consistent Reporting of Sustainable Value Creation,” September 2020) Schwab continues: “During the consultation process on the metrics, more than two-thirds of the 140 International Business Council members—including many of the largest companies in the world—supported them too. And all major accounting firms, the so-called Big Four (Deloitte, EY, KPMG, and PwC) even helped develop the metrics. They are committed to helping the metrics become a global standard. In this way, the Stakeholder Capitalism metrics are a major step in turning the idea of stakeholder capitalism into a practical reality. “A widespread adoption of these Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics is realistic and could happen as soon as 2022.” Mega-companies conferring on these ESG Standard Metrics include the Big Techs, and the Big Four—Bank of America, Blackrock, DSM, Philips, and others. Schwab wrote a glowing account of how Big Tech and others have a privileged role in enforcing ESG. “Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and Palantir, and an early outsider investor in Facebook said in the Wall Street Journal 2014: ‘A monopoly like Google is different. Since it doesn’t have to worry about competing with anyone, it has wider latitude to care about its workers, its products and its impact on the wider world. Google’s motto—“Don’t be evil”—is in part a branding ploy, but it is also characteristic of a kind of business that is successful enough to take ethics seriously without jeopardizing its own existence.’ ” Germany is a test case for an all-encompassing ESG metrics taxonomy. In June, a Malthusian Supply Chain Law was enacted, in which the ESG metrics are to apply. An all-Europe ESG Metrics law is being worked on. The EIR Daily Alert issue for Jan. 21, 2021, reported on Klaus Schwab’s Jan. 18 press conference to announce his book, and the WEF activities for the coming 2021 year of events. We revealed: “The WEF briefing said they will hold dozens of events, leading up to their in-person Singapore annual WEF meeting in May, followed by the G7, then the G20, the September UN 2021 Food Systems Summit, the Biodiversity COP15 event, and the November COP26 Climate Change Conference in Glasgow. Schwab pledged ‘a mobilization’ to ‘rebuilding’ and ‘re-setting’ our world.”

Oct. 7, 2021 (EIRNS)—Klaus Schwab, President of the World Economic Forum (WEF), is activated, along with the full WEF network of billionaires, royals, and mega-cartels, to push their “Metrics” of allowable economic activity, for stakeholders in every aspect of life (business, government, fraternal, religious etc.) to police fellow citizens to stop doing anything that contributes to development for people. Why? Because, Schwab declares, it is a “conundrum” that human development itself hurts the planet. So, stop it.In January, 2021, Schwab issued his book on this at the WEF Davos Forum, titled, Stakeholder Capitalism—A Global Economy That Works for Progress, People and the Planet. On page 154, he spelled out his point. To add stress, he first recounted economic infrastructure development details from Ethiopia—railroads, agriculture gains, the Grand Renaissance Dam, even renewable energy, and then he said that this has to stop. This kind of development being undertaken in Ethiopia, “reveals the central conundrum of the combat against climate change. The same force that helps people escape from poverty and lead a decent life is the one that is destroying the livability of our planet for future generations. The emissions that lead to climate change are not just the result of a selfish generation of industrialists or western baby boomers. They are the consequence of the desire to create a better future for oneself.” So, metrics are being worked out by Schwab, the WEF, and the entire green-tyranny apparatus, on what you and your enterprise are allowed, or not allowed, to do—factory, railroad, farm, civic, religious, household, and so on. The regulations are drawn up in terms of ESG—environment, sustainability, and governance. They are assembled in different taxonomies intended for each nation and locale. Schwab reported on the whole process in his book, pages 210-215: “World Economic Forum’s International Business Council,” led by Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, late last year presented the ‘Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics.’ They measure companies’ progress toward environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals in numbers and thereby allow them to optimize for more than just profits." ( See: “Measuring Stakeholder Capitalism,” White Paper, World Economic Forum, October 2020) “ During the consultation process on the metrics, more than two-thirds of the 140 international Business Council members—including many of the largest companies in the world—supported them too. And all major accounting firms, the so-called Big Four ( Deloitte, EY, KPMG, and PwC) even helped develop the metrics. They are committed to helping the metrics become a global standard. In this way , the Stakeholder Capitalism metrics are a major step in turning the idea of stakeholder capitalism into a practical reality." “A widespread adoption of these Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics is realistic and could happen as soon as 2022.” Mega-companies conferring on these ESG Standard Metrics include the Big Techs, and the Big Four—Bank of America, Blackrock, DSM, Philips, and others. Schwab wrote in his book, a glowing account of how Big Tech and others have a privileged role in enforcing ESG. "Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and Palantier, and an early outsider investor in Facebook said in The Wall Street Journal 2014: ’A monopoly like Google is different. Since it doesn’t have to worry about competing with anyone, it has wider latitude to care about its workers, its products and its impact on the wider world. “‘Google’s motto—don’t be evil—is in part a branding ploy, but it is also characteristic of a kind of business that is successful enough to take ethics seriously without jeopardizing its own existence.’” Germany is a test case for an all-encompassing ESG metrics taxonomy. In June, a Malthusian Supply Chain Law was enacted, in which the ESG metrics are to apply. (See article on this by co-author Andrea Andromidas, in Neue Solidarität.) An all-Europe ESG Metrics law is being worked on. The EIR Alert reported Jan. 18, 2021, on Klaus Schwab’s press conference to announce his book, and the WEF activities for the coming 2021 year of events. "Their huge PR view is that they will hold dozens of events, leading up to their in-person Singapore annual WEF meeting in May, followed by the G-7, then the G-20, the September UN World Food Systems Summit, the Biodiversity COP15 event [October 11-15], and the Fall COP-26 in Glasgow. Schwab pledged ‘a mobilization’ to ‘rebuilding’ and ‘re-setting’ our world. https://www.weforum.org/events/the-davos-agenda-2021/sessions/virtual-press-conference-on-the-davos-agenda-2021

Blinken Demands UN Security Council Accept Climate Change as Global Security Threat Sept. 24 (EIRNS)—Secretary of State Tony Blinken used his address yesterday at the UN Security Council’s special meeting on climate and security to try to ram down the throats of member nations the argument that the “climate crisis” is the pressing global security issue to be addressed by that body, as it is supposedly the cause of every major problem on the planet. Not all present agreed, as we report further. The day before his speech, on Sept. 22, a “senior State Department official” gave a media briefing explaining why climate change is an appropriate issue to be discussed at the UNSC, since it stokes tensions within and between nations, causes conflict and migrations and is responsible for extreme weather events which destabilize nations. This official could barely contain her enthusiasm when one reporter referred to Haitian migrants at the U.S. border as “environmental refugees.” While getting the UNSC to pass a resolution on climate as a security threat isn’t likely, she admitted, the U.S. wanted to introduce the topic to put it on the UNSC’s “radar screen.” In his remarks yesterday, Blinken emphasized that the climate crisis is the core element of U.S. foreign policy. Extreme weather events underscore the “urgent need” to dramatically reduce emissions, and help others “to do their part,” he said. Among the ways in which he proposed the UNSC could play a vital role, a major one would be to stop the debate over whether the climate crisis should be discussed at the UNSC and ask instead how the UNSC can “leverage its unique powers to tackle the negative impacts of climate on peace and security.” Anywhere in the world where there are threats to peace and security, “you’ll find that climate change is making things less peaceful, less secure.” That’s true in Syria, Mali, Yemen, South Sudan, Ethiopia, etc. he said. Blinken’s punchline was that the only way to deal with this crisis was for the world to accept Malthusian depopulation policies. Rather than view the situation just through the lens of threats posed by the climate crisis, he warned, what’s needed is “immediate, bold actions to build resilience, to adapt to the unavoidable impacts, and move swiftly to a net-zero world.” This, he gravely intoned, is the shared charge of COP26. If the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5° C is to be reached, “every nation will need to bring their highest possible ambitions to the table.” This current situation, Blinken concluded, offers an “unprecedented opportunity” for all nations to embrace fully the zero-growth, zero-people green boondoggle, which he cloaked in the promise to provide greater access to “affordable, clean energy; to build green infrastructure; to create good-paying jobs,” spur long-term economic growth and “improve the lives of people around the world.” (https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-at-un-security-council-meeting-on-climate-and-security/) [crr] Russia and India Object to ‘Climate Security’ Debate at the UN Security Council Sept. 24 (EIRNS)—Secretary of State Tony Blinken’s absurd remarks yesterday pressing the UN Security Council to take up the issue of climate change as the greatest threat to the planet did not go unopposed. “To view conflict in poorer parts of the world through the prism of climate change would only serve to present a lopsided narrative when the reasons for the conflict are to be found elsewhere,” stated an Indian official, according to the Economic Times. Secretary (West) Reenat Sandhu of the Ministry of External Affairs says that viewing conflicts in poorer nations through the prism of climate change is not useful. Climate change is being discussed in a focused way at the UN through a variety of different agencies and mechanisms have been put in place for further action, she stressed. So, “picking one aspect of climate change, namely climate security, and dealing with it in this forum, which is not geared to tackle a multi-faceted problem of this nature, would not be desirable.” In any discussion of the issue of climate and security, she underscored, care must be taken “not to create a parallel climate track. We have to continue on the path of inclusive decision-making.” (https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/india/bringing-climate-security-into-unsc-discourse-has-potential-to-disrupt-nature-of-overall-discussions-india/articleshow/86459647.cms) First Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian UN Mission Dmitry Polyanskiy said the U.S. was trying to “formalize the issue of climate change on the agenda of the Security Council,” and that “we have a question here. How efficient is this in terms of solving [the UNSC’s] existing tasks?” TASS reported him as saying: “We are convinced that persistent attempts to advance climate change to the UN Security Council agenda at all costs as a threat to international peace and security add a totally unnecessary political component to this already complicated and sensitive discussion. This approach may result in lopsided and inefficient proposals from the point of view of the strengthening of stability in the world,” he warned. His complete remarks are posted on the UN Mission website. (https://russiaun.ru/en/news/sc_230921) [crr]

Austrian Greens Charged with Dreaming of Going Back to the Stone Age Aug. 3, 2021 (EIRNS)—The Greens of Austria are stirred up by recent remarks made by the country’s Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, telling them “it would be totally wrong to believe that we could save the climate in the future by asceticism… the only right approach is to rely on innovation and technology.” “I do not share at all the view that our direction should be going back to the Stone Age,” Kurz said, adding that he opposed the continuous lecturing by greenies on what to do, and that he rejected “fantasies that one could somehow live as in the past century.”