Author: Ron Clutz

Beware Covid Tyrants Pivot Without Apology

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Thomas Harrington advises not to be misled by officials apparently lifting some covid restrictions.  The behavior is insincere posturing, offering a temporary reprieve in order to retain emergency powers against citizens’ freedoms.  His article at The Brownstone is The Limited Hangout of the Mandaters.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Yesterday, a number of important Democratic governors lifted mask mandates in their states. Almost to a one, they cited the changes wrought by the fast moving and relatively mild omicron variant of the SARS-CV2 virus as the prime reason for the change.

What none of them did was admit what “the Science” has shown for at least two decades, and has been clear through the last two years to anyone doing a modicum of independent research on the subject: masks have never been shown to fundamentally alter the spread of respiratory viruses within the general population.

What they did say almost to a one, like their counterparts in Great Britain, Denmark and other countries now dismantling previous Covid restrictions, was that the return to normality was greatly facilitated by the uptake of vaccines in the populations they currently govern.

Nearly a half century ago, a man named Ron Ziegler held the position now occupied by Jen Psaki. Like all presidential spokespeople before and since he was a serial dissembler.

But back then there were still a few journalists at the presidential court and beyond willing to do their jobs. And when one day in the midst of the Watergate scandal he used the passive voice construction “mistakes were made” in an attempt to explain away obvious breaches of honesty and ethics committed quite actively by the Nixon Administration, he was roundly mocked by the press corps.

Sadly, however, as I have argued elsewhere, this type of non-apology apology, which caused a scandal then, has become ubiquitous across our social landscape. And that’s a shame.

Why?

Because real apologies and expressions of accountability are important. Without them, neither the apologizer nor the aggrieved party ever experiences what the ancient Greeks considered a cardinal element in human development and human relations: catharsis.

This is especially so in the case of government entities. Without admissions of guilt, the assumptions and premises undergirding failed policies remain intact, lying fallow until such time as the government entity in question feels it opportune to deploy them again in the service of another misguided crusade.

This is what is currently occurring with the Covid hawks who have violated our fundamental rights time and again over the last two years.

These enemies of human dignity and freedom now realize that many of their former supporters among the citizenry feel exhausted, and in many cases, flat out deceived.

At the same time, however, they do not want to permanently relinquish the powerful repressive tools they have acquired during the two-year state of exception.

The answer?

One part of it, already mentioned, is the moderated limited hangout operation now being conducted regarding the use of masks in public. By relaxing these strictures while in no way addressing the fundamental fallacies upon which the masking policies were based, they ensure that mask mandates can be brought back when and if they deem it necessary to do so.

The second part, which is far more pernicious and consequential, is the effort to push a proposition that is at best quite tenuous in light of what actual scientific studies are currently revealing about vaccine efficacy: that without widespread injection uptake the virus would have never receded, and we would have thus never have gotten into a position to recover our freedoms.

Note the underlying logic here. We are not getting our freedoms back because they intrinsically belong to us and were unjustly stolen. We are getting them back because an important plurality of us have done what the “experts” and the “authorities” coerced us into doing.

With this approach there is no catharsis or healing, and certainly no acquisition of new wisdom and knowledge. What there is, is a sly reification of the infantilizing and anti-democratic ways of thinking that have predominated in our policy-making class throughout the pandemic.

Though many people, laboring under the mortal fear of being branded with the weaponized term of “conspiracy theorist,” are reluctant to admit it, the central concern of policy-makers throughout the pandemic has not been the health of our communities, but rather gaining enhanced control over where we go and what we put into our bodies.

There is nothing more central to the idea and practice of freedom than bodily autonomy. It is the basal freedom from which all others are derived. Without it—as the history of slavery starkly reminds us—all other liberties are comparatively ornamental.

For this reason, we must vigorously oppose this organized attempt to present the vaccines, which have been delivered to millions under rather severe coercion, as a great, if not the greatest, hero of the pandemic film.

My Comments

Stark examples are playing in Canada’s federal and provincial capitals.  The Mayor of Ottawa falsely declares an emergency, and swiftly it becomes illegal to provide food or fuel to mandate protesters  and people are arrested and/or fined. The Premier of Quebec announces he will loosen restrictions in coming days, while also tabling legislation to make vaccine passports permanent.  The truckers are not fooled, as witnessed by their clarifying demands that these mandates must go away now and forever.

There is a Supreme Court case which must be decided in citizens’ favor:  Can a public official, local, provincial or federal rule out constitutional individual opinions, rights and freedoms by simply declaring an emergency?

Footnote:  Top 12 Fake Apologies from PsychCentral

I am sorry if . . .

This is a conditional apology. It falls short of a full apology by suggesting only that something might have happened.

I am sorry that you . . .

This is a blame-shifting apology. It is no apology at all. Rather, it puts the onus on you as the problem.

I am sorry but . . .

This excuse-making apology does nothing to heal the wounds caused.

I was just . . .

This is a justifying apology. It seeks to argue that hurtful behavior was okay because it was harmless or for a good cause.

I have already . . .

This deja-vu apology cheapens whatever is said by implying that there is nothing left to apologize for.

I regret . . .

This sidestepping apology equates regret with apologizing. There is no ownership.

I know I . . .

This whitewashing apology is an effort to minimize what happened without owning any hurtful effects on you or others. The whitewash may seem self-effacing but on its own it contains no apology.

You know I . . .

This nothing-to-apologize-for apology tries to talk you out of your feelings or imply that you shouldnt be upset.

I will apologize if . . .

This pay-to-play apology is not a clean, freely offered apology. Rather, you have to pay to get it.

I guess I . . .

This is a phantom apology. It hints at the need for an apology, but never gives one.

X told me to apologize . . .

This is a not-my-apology apology. The person is saying he or she is apologizing only because someone else suggested it. The implication is that it would have never happened otherwise.

Fine! I’m sorry, okay!

This is a bullying apology. Either in words or tone you are given a grudging I’m sorry but it doesn’t feel like an apology. It may even feel like a threat.

Faux apologies such as these 12 seek to avoid responsibility, make excuses, shift blame, downplay what was done, invalidate or confuse the hurt or offended person, or move on prematurely.

A true apology, by contrast, has most or all of the following characteristics:

♦ Is freely offered without conditions or minimizing what was done
♦ Conveys that the person apologizing understands and cares about the hurt persons experience and feelings
♦ Conveys remorse
♦ Offers a commitment to avoid repeating the hurtful behavior
♦ Offers to make amends or provide restitution if appropriate

An authentic apology starts with listening. If you seek to apologize, you first need to hear what happened from the other person’s point of view and how it affected them.

Why Ivermectin Was Disappeared

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Henry F. Smith Jr., MD explains at American Thinker Why Ivermectin was Disappeared.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

Case #1

It’s a common occurrence in winter. A patient calls a primary physician to report a nonproductive cough, slight hoarseness, muscle aches, and a low-grade fever. The physician, and likely the patient, realize that this is almost certainly a viral upper respiratory infection. If the patient were in the office, the physician may test for a streptococcal bacterial infection, but it will likely be negative.

This is probably an infection with a rhinovirus, adenovirus, or endemic coronavirus. Despite this, the afflicted patient will happily proceed to the pharmacy to pick up their prescription for an antibiotic. The patient will feel as though the physician was proactive, something the doctor certainly understands.

This prescription, however, will be of no value to the patient and may actually cause issues. Yet pharmacies in the U.S. see this type of prescription thousands of times a day.

It occurs despite the fact that physicians are constantly reminded that gratuitous antibiotic prescriptions come with side effects and can lead to antibiotic resistance. Beyond that, there is no tangible resistance to this practice from the medical establishment or healthcare authorities.

Case #2

Now let’s imagine another patient calls in. This patient also has a dry cough scratchy throat, muscle aches, and a low-grade fever. Only this patient had a COVID test kit at home and tested positive. The physician wants to prescribe a medication with no risk of bacterial resistance and a very benign side-effect profile. He’s read lots of literature to suggest it will be helpful. There are a significant number of double-blind studies showing it to be effective in the treatment of SARS Co-V2. It has been used in multiple countries with excellent results. Except, in this case, the physician will find it impossible to prescribe that medication. It will be impossible because that medication is Ivermectin. And somehow it has been removed from the market.

Not only has this FDA-approved, Nobel prize-winning drug been made unavailable, if a physician were to prescribe it, or advocate it as therapy, they are threatened with the potential loss of their medical license, their hospital affiliations, and their board certification.

Case #3

It gets even more ironic. I’ve noticed that some physicians are prescribing a very common antibiotic called azithromycin for their COVID patients. It is well understood that for COVID-19 when taken alone, it is of no value. There is absolutely no data to show efficacy in COVID-19. It has the same potential problems, as when it is prescribed for other viral infections. Yet the practice goes on, again unimpeded.

Let’s go one step further. Levofloxacin is another antibiotic, introduced in 1996. It was unusual in that it can treat a broad variety of infections, even those that are severe but can be given orally. Because of this, it was overutilized, threatening to create drug resistance.

In 2016, the FDA issued a black box warning because of several severe side effects including tendon rupture, peripheral nerve damage, for them and psychosis. Since then its usage has waned.

The drug was proposed as a treatment for COVID early in the pandemic but proved to have limited antiviral activity.

Case #4

So I posed this hypothetical to several pharmacist friends: If a physician called in a prescription for azithromycin, or even levofloxacin, and gave the diagnosis of COVID-19, would they fill the prescription? The answer was yes, as there would be nothing to prevent it.  So, in other words, a physician is permitted to prescribe useless antibiotics, even those with serious adverse reactions according to the FDA for COVID-19 infection.

If, as apparently the FDA believes, ivermectin is similarly useless but benign, why is it alone being blocked?

Doing the Math

Let’s do some mathematics. As of this writing, there are roughly 890,000 deaths recorded in the United States related to COVID-19. I think most people understand that a lot of these deaths are not due to the virus but from other comorbid conditions. The CDC has long stated that the number of deaths from COVID where there was no comorbid condition (In other words, healthy people who died from COVID) is roughly 7% of the total (65,000). In several meta-analyses, Ivermectin was shown to be roughly 65% effective at preventing serious disease and/or death. So, in the best-case scenario for them, our public health organizations, by suppressing Ivermectin, may be responsible for roughly 40,000 deaths.

In fact, the vast majority of people who actually died from COVID had multiple comorbid conditions, so that number could be much higher.

I need to acknowledge that prescribing antibiotics for viral infections is something that the primary caregivers struggle with. Patients expect them to do something when they’re sick. They don’t appreciate being told to go home and take acetaminophen. Some may never come back and seek care elsewhere.

Yet patients have accepted that exact recipe for dealing with COVID-19, a disease they perceive may actually kill them.

So what’s the difference between prescriptions written for an anti-bacterial, versus Ivermectin, which is an anti-parasitic agent, for a viral infection? Both primarily target infectious agents other than viruses. If anything, even it was futile therapy, Ivermectin is safer than the antibiotics discussed. Yet it is the only medication that has been effectively banned

Given all this, I think it’s easy to suspect that the FDA, the NIH, and the CDC actually understand the potential benefits of Ivermectin and other repurposed drugs. But they also realize that these medications threaten the profits of the pharmaceutical industry with which they are financially entwined.

Case #5

What makes this even more infuriating is the government’s warm embrace of two new antiviral medications, Pfizer’s Paxlovid, and Merck’s Molnupivinir. These drugs have exactly one company-sponsored study each to vouch for their efficacy. Merck’s drug, by its own testing, is only 39% effective in reducing severe disease and/or death. There are no long-term safety data for either medication.

Yet both have received emergency use authorization, and have suddenly popped up on government-approved treatment protocols.

As I look towards the end of my career, I’ve seen a lot of profit-oriented behavior by pharmaceutical companies. I think of the me-too drugs, molecules that are only slightly different than their now off-patent predecessors aggressively marketed to physicians. I’ve seen pharmaceutical reps actually reimburse physicians for a certain number of prescriptions written for their medications. I’ve seen manipulation of the rules regarding inhaled medications to maintain their patents long after they would have expired.

But if they actively suppressed the adoption of useful medications during a pandemic, then this is beyond the pale. It would suggest a total collapse of any morality or sense of responsibility within the pharmaceutical industry and their partners in the regulatory agencies.

I hope that someday, our investigatory agencies can push past the vast political power these companies have acquired through their burgeoning profits, and find out the truth.

I’m not optimistic.

Henry F Smith Jr. MD FCCP practices Pulmonary and Sleep Medicine in Northeastern Pennsylvania.

No Global Warming, Chilly January Land and Sea

Posted on by Ron Clutz

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The post below updates the UAH record of air temperatures over land and ocean.  But as an overview consider how recent rapid cooling has now completely overcome the warming from the last 3 El Ninos (1998, 2010 and 2016).  The UAH record shows that the effects of the last one were gone as of April 2021, again in November, 2021 and now in January 2022. (UAH baseline is now 1991-2020).

For reference I added an overlay of CO2 annual concentrations as measured at Mauna Loa.  While temperatures fluctuated up and down ending flat, CO2 went up steadily by ~55 ppm, a 15% increase.

Furthermore, going back to previous warmings prior to the satellite record shows that the entire rise of 0.8C since 1947 is due to oceanic, not human activity.

gmt-warming-events

The animation is an update of a previous analysis from Dr. Murry Salby.  These graphs use Hadcrut4 and include the 2016 El Nino warming event.  The exhibit shows since 1947 GMT warmed by 0.8 C, from 13.9 to 14.7, as estimated by Hadcrut4.  This resulted from three natural warming events involving ocean cycles. The most recent rise 2013-16 lifted temperatures by 0.2C.  Previously the 1997-98 El Nino produced a plateau increase of 0.4C.  Before that, a rise from 1977-81 added 0.2C to start the warming since 1947.

Importantly, the theory of human-caused global warming asserts that increasing CO2 in the atmosphere changes the baseline and causes systemic warming in our climate.  On the contrary, all of the warming since 1947 was episodic, coming from three brief events associated with oceanic cycles. 

Update August 3, 2021

Chris Schoeneveld has produced a similar graph to the animation above, with a temperature series combining HadCRUT4 and UAH6. H/T WUWT

image-8

 

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See Also Worst Threat: Greenhouse Gas or Quiet Sun?

January Update Chilly Ocean and Land Air Temps 

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With apologies to Paul Revere, this post is on the lookout for cooler weather with an eye on both the Land and the Sea.  While you will hear a lot about 2020-21 temperatures matching 2016 as the highest ever, that spin ignores how fast is the cooling setting in.  The UAH data analyzed below shows that warming from the last El Nino is now fully dissipated with chilly temperatures setting in all regions.  Last month both land and ocean cooled further.

UAH has updated their tlt (temperatures in lower troposphere) dataset for January 2022.  Previously I have done posts on their reading of ocean air temps as a prelude to updated records from HadSST3 (still not updated from October). So I have separately posted on SSTs using HadSST4 2021 Ends with Cooler Ocean Temps  This month also has a separate graph of land air temps because the comparisons and contrasts are interesting as we contemplate possible cooling in coming months and years. Sometimes air temps over land diverge from ocean air changes, and last month showed air over land dropping slightly while ocean air rose.

Note:  UAH has shifted their baseline from 1981-2010 to 1991-2020 beginning with January 2021.  In the charts below, the trends and fluctuations remain the same but the anomaly values change with the baseline reference shift.

Presently sea surface temperatures (SST) are the best available indicator of heat content gained or lost from earth’s climate system.  Enthalpy is the thermodynamic term for total heat content in a system, and humidity differences in air parcels affect enthalpy.  Measuring water temperature directly avoids distorted impressions from air measurements.  In addition, ocean covers 71% of the planet surface and thus dominates surface temperature estimates.  Eventually we will likely have reliable means of recording water temperatures at depth.

Recently, Dr. Ole Humlum reported from his research that air temperatures lag 2-3 months behind changes in SST.  Thus the cooling oceans now portend cooling land air temperatures to follow.  He also observed that changes in CO2 atmospheric concentrations lag behind SST by 11-12 months.  This latter point is addressed in a previous post Who to Blame for Rising CO2?

After a change in priorities, updates to HadSST4 now appear more promptly.  For comparison we can also look at lower troposphere temperatures (TLT) from UAHv6 which are now posted for January.  The temperature record is derived from microwave sounding units (MSU) on board satellites like the one pictured above. Recently there was a change in UAH processing of satellite drift corrections, including dropping one platform which can no longer be corrected. The graphs below are taken from the new and current dataset.

The UAH dataset includes temperature results for air above the oceans, and thus should be most comparable to the SSTs. There is the additional feature that ocean air temps avoid Urban Heat Islands (UHI).  The graph below shows monthly anomalies for ocean temps since January 2015.

Note 2020 was warmed mainly by a spike in February in all regions, and secondarily by an October spike in NH alone. In 2021, SH and the Tropics both pulled the Global anomaly down to a new low in April. Then SH and Tropics upward spikes, along with NH warming brought Global temps to a peak in October.  That warmth was gone as November 2021 ocean temps plummeted everywhere. Note the sharp drop in the Tropics the last 3 months, and NH erasing its upward bump in December. 01/2022 closely resembles 01/2015.

Land Air Temperatures Tracking Downward in Seesaw Pattern

We sometimes overlook that in climate temperature records, while the oceans are measured directly with SSTs, land temps are measured only indirectly.  The land temperature records at surface stations sample air temps at 2 meters above ground.  UAH gives tlt anomalies for air over land separately from ocean air temps.  The graph updated for January is below.

Here we have fresh evidence of the greater volatility of the Land temperatures, along with extraordinary departures by SH land.  Land temps are dominated by NH with a 2020 spike in February, followed by cooling down to July and a second spike in November.  Note the mid-year spikes in SH winter months.  In December 2020 all of that was wiped out. Then 2021 followed a similar pattern with NH spiking in January, then dropping before rising in the summer to peak in October 2021. As with the ocean air temps, all that was erased in November with a sharp cooling everywhere. Land temps dropped sharply the last three months, even more than did the Oceans.  Note 01/2022 Global and NH land are much cooler than 01/2015.

The Bigger Picture UAH Global Since 1995

The chart shows monthly anomalies starting 01/1995 to present.  The average anomaly is 0.04, since this period is the same as the new baseline, lacking only the first 4 years. 1995 was chosen as an ENSO neutral year.  The graph shows the 1998 El Nino after which the mean resumed, and again after the smaller 2010 event. The 2016 El Nino matched 1998 peak and in addition NH after effects lasted longer, followed by the NH warming 2019-20.   A small upward bump in 2021 has been reversed with temps now returning again to the mean.

TLTs include mixing above the oceans and probably some influence from nearby more volatile land temps.  Clearly NH and Global land temps have been dropping in a seesaw pattern, nearly 1C lower than the 2016 peak.  Since the ocean has 1000 times the heat capacity as the atmosphere, that cooling is a significant driving force.  TLT measures started the recent cooling later than SSTs from HadSST3, but are now showing the same pattern.  It seems obvious that despite the three El Ninos, their warming has not persisted, and without them it would probably have cooled since 1995.  Of course, the future has not yet been written.

 

No Emergency in Ottawa to Blame on Truckers

Posted on by Ron Clutz

An article posted at the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms is No basis for “state of emergency” declared by Ottawa Mayor.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

OTTAWA: The Justice Centre today challenged Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson over his accusation that peacefully protesting truckers are “a danger of major proportions that could result in serious harm to persons or substantial damage to property.”

Mayor Watson has not divulged publicly what facts he might rely on to justify his assessment of truckers as posing “a danger of major proportions,” in light of their law-abiding behaviour since arriving in Ottawa more than one week ago.

The definition of “emergency” under the Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act is “a situation or an impending situation that constitutes a danger of major proportions that could result in serious harm to persons or substantial damage to property and that is caused by the forces of nature, a disease or other health risk, an accident or an act whether intentional or otherwise;”

“This is a truly disturbing overreach and misuse of emergency powers,” stated lawyer Nicholas Wansbutter.

According to affidavit evidence filed in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, the Freedom Convoy has been working closely with the Ottawa Police Service, the RCMP, and the Parliamentary Protective Service. It was one of the Freedom Convoy truckers who reported to police a property damage offence and an assault, committed by individuals not affiliated with the truckers. Convoy leaders have asked all truckers to refrain from honking their horns between 8:00 p.m. and 8:00 a.m.

One of the witnesses in the court action has stated under oath that truckers and their supporters “are feeding the homeless on Wellington Street and filling their backpacks with food. Truckers have taken a whole trailer full of food to the homeless shelter. Truckers are maintaining the cleanliness of city streets, including picking up discarded masks on the ground, centralized garbage collection, shoveling snow at the War Memorial and the Terry Fox statue, and decorating and providing security for the War Memorial and Terry Fox statue.”

Another witness, an Ottawa resident, swears that “the truckers I have interacted with have, at all times, been friendly, courteous, humble, considerate and peaceful. I have not observed any aggressive or inappropriate behaviours.” He says the truckers are diverse, including Sikhs, Blacks, Aboriginals and others. He has “observed truckers decorating the tomb of the unknown soldier with flowers and guarding it” and has “not seen any violent or threatening behaviour.” He notes that “the truckers do not honk their horns at night. My everyday life has not been disrupted by any noise related to the Freedom Convoy during the day.” He asserts: “My ability to park and to travel in downtown Ottawa, or to and from Parliament Hill has not been impeded by the presence of the truckers.”

Another Ottawa resident, who works for Statistics Canada, describes reality on the ground as follows: “The protesters were peaceful and respectful, I saw no violence or harassment. I was not impeded in any way, and could walk about freely and safely. I did not see any hateful symbols, in fact, I saw an abundance of Canada flags and Quebec flags as well as countless signs calling for freedom and the end of Covid related mandates. I did see some anti-Trudeau flags using harsh language. However, I would describe the scene as a peaceful, pro-freedom demonstration. My everyday life has not been disrupted by any noise related to the downtown demonstrations.”

“There is no factual basis to support the Mayor’s declaration of an emergency,” concludes Mr. Wansbutter.

 

How Covid News is Rigged to Be Untrue

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Ben Bartee writes at Daily Bell COVID Propaganda Roundup.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.  H/T Tyler Durden

How the Biomedical State Maintains the ‘All the Experts Agree’ False Consensus

The latest updates on the “new normal” – chronicling the lies, distortions, and abuses by the ruling class.

We’ve previously explored the mind-numbing “experts say” mantra that the corporate media parrots non-stop. Talking heads incessantly implore the peasant class to “respect the science.”

The purpose is to create a mirage of consensus in order to discourage real journalists or normal people from looking into matters themselves. This tactic is pervasive, but nowhere has it been more widely employed than in the COVID era.

Because, if three key facts were permitted to infect the public consciousness, they would inevitably result in mass upheaval of the ruling class that perches on top of society, feeding on it like vultures:

A.) the original virus almost certainly escaped from a Wuhan lab (if it wasn’t purposely released; let’s not underestimate the hubris of the biomedical state). Worse, that leaky Chinese lab relied on funding from the United States National Institutes of Health (funneled through a “non-profit” called EcoHealth Alliance) to perform dangerous the gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses.

B.) The vaccines (which are actually mRNA gene therapies) do not work to prevent infection as promised and cause extensive side effects that were covered up in the original trials.

C.) The “social distancing” lockdown measures – which plunged untold billions worldwide into poverty, death, and despair – were totally ineffective at preventing the spread of the virus: “Shelter-in-place orders had no detectable health benefits.” Imagine the criminality of all the suffering for no good reason.

At every turn, the “experts” got it wrong.

The biomedical state uses multiple mechanisms to discourage scientists from dissenting from the approved narrative

You’ve heard the talking point ad nauseam: “99% of scientists agree the vaccines are safe and effective.”

First of all, that figure is not vindicated by any actual polling; it’s just an offhand catchphrase.

Second, what happens to scientists who deviate from the “safe and effective” slogan?

♦ Their message will get censored or distorted (or both)
♦ Might lose their professional license
♦ Ostracized by their peers
♦ If they’re a researcher, they’ll risk wrecking their career and losing critical funding from NIH and pharma corps.

JFK Jr. explains:

“As director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Dr. Anthony Fauci dispenses $6.1 billion in annual taxpayer-provided funding for scientific research, allowing him to dictate the subject, content, and outcome of scientific health research across the globe. Fauci uses the financial clout at his disposal to wield extraordinary influence over hospitals, universities, journals, and thousands of influential doctors and scientists—whose careers and institutions he has the power to ruin, advance, or reward.”

And, You’ll get smeared in the corporate media

Exhibit A:
Epidemiologists at Harvard, Stanford, and Oxford – three of the most highly-regarded mainstream institutes of higher learning in the world – authored the Great Barrington Declaration in October 2020.

The gist of the document (which you can read here) is that a COVID Zero policy (the elimination of the SARS-CoV-2) virus in the population is a pipe dream. The social distancing and lockdown orders had devastating effects on public physical and mental health. Those at risk of severe illness or death from infectious disease should be protected while the non-vulnerable (the vast majority of the population) should resume normal life.

Those rational, science-based propositions should have been aired publicly in a healthy national debate.

But, predictably, open debate is not how Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins, NIH Director, do things. Instead of debating the merits of the Barrington Declaration, Collins sent an email to Fauci on Oct 8 (later leaked) that read:

“This proposal from three fringe epidemiologists… seems to be getting a lot of attention – and even a co-signature from Nobel Prize winner Mike Leavitt and Stanford. There needs to be a quick and devastating published takedown of its premises. I don’t think like that on line yet – is it underway?”

Does that sound like the language of a public health servant doing God’s work to protect the people from a deadly virus – or that of a cynical political operative?

Is coordinating a media hitjob on ideological opponents part of the NIH Director’s job description?

More importantly, though, if they can orchestrate a smear campaign against three “fringe” epidemiologists from Harvard, Stanford, and Oxford, what signal does that send to a run-of-the-mill MD in Wisconsin who might be inclined to ask critical questions?

The message is obvious: “shut your mouth or we’ll come for you.”

It doesn’t matter how good the analyst is if the data is fake…

The conclusion will likely be faulty – even if the scientist is immune to the social pressures to conform to the narrative.

We reported previously on Pfizer’s vaxx trial fraud in which the company’s contractor intentionally hid side effects of the drug.

The reported COVID fatality rate was dramatically over-counted by the governing authorities.

Hospitals counted fatal motorcycle accidents as COVID deaths merely because the victim tested positive for the virus before succumbing to his injuries.

CDC Director Refuses to Answer: Dying ‘With COVID’ vs Dying ‘From COVID

Even the corporate media has been forced to confront the obvious rouse.

Via Newsweek:

“‘When asked by Fox News anchor Bret Baier if there was a breakdown of how many of the 836,000 deaths in the U.S. were ‘from COVID’ or ‘with COVID,’ Walensky gave a non-committal answer.”

Notice that Baier asked about the alleged 836,000 deaths over the course of the two-year pandemic. Walensky, in a bid to avoid answering, finds a lame excusing by pivoting to the Omicron death count, which is barely weeks old.

Do you think that the average “expert” — a college professor teaching public health at a mid-size state school, or an epidemiologist researching Ebola or some other totally unrelated pathogen – has the time, resources, or personal dedication to parse the CDC’s COVID bullshit from the veritas?

Or are they just going to follow the lead of the “expert” higher up on the food chain?

Is the average scientist human or superhuman?

The above is how the “consensus”-rigging game is played, and why you should never again place a modicum of trust in the rotten biomedical establishment, nor the scientists who vocally support it.

See Also Escape from Covid in 2022

 

 

 

Blame Canada’s Politicians for Trucker Protests

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Supporters arrive at Parliament Hill for the Freedom Truck Convoy to protest against Covid-19 vaccine mandates and restrictions in Ottawa, Canada, on January 29, 2022. – Hundreds of truckers drove their giant rigs into the Canadian capital Ottawa on Saturday as part of a self-titled “Freedom Convoy” to protest vaccine mandates required to cross the US border. LARS HAGBERG / AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Raheem Kassam points the finger in the right direction in his Newsweek article Canada’s Politicians Only Have Themselves to Blame for Trucker Protests.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

If the prime minister of a North African or Middle Eastern nation was forced into hiding by a protest occupying his capital city, Dick Cheney and Hillary Clinton would materialize from thin air to call for U.S.-backed regime change.

“Government Loses Popular Support,” newspaper headlines would blare, amid calls for sanctions, State Department-NGO initiatives and the inevitable “nation-building” exercises.

Justin Trudeau can rest easy, however.

No such song and dance routine is in store for America’s northerly neighbor despite thousands of protesting truckers in Ottawa sending the prime minister underground. While imagining intervention in America’s northerly neighbor rightly seems risible, it does bring President George W. Bush’s “soft bigotry of low expectations” to mind. We expect Canadians can handle their own affairs. Those Arab Spring nations of yesteryear obviously needed the Western man’s help, though.

But increasingly, it appears Canadian politicians are not actually demonstrating an ability to manage their own affairs, nor to bring logic or rationality to this scenario, brought about by some of the most restrictive COVID-19 policies in the world.

Nor, until now, has it appeared they cared when anyone raised objections to those policies.

Only when thousands of truckers replete with their 18-wheel freedom-fighting machines descended on Ottawa did the Canadian government begin to acknowledge the existence of dissenters in their midst. This very fact is the political casus belli for the protesters on Parliament Hill. It is also why they shouldn’t leave until some very concrete demands are both met and kept. There should be a prolonged presence of truckers in Canada’s capital.

It appears to be the only language Trudeau’s government understands.

Were it not for a compliant national media willing to almost exclusively echo the claims of the government, the situation could have already resolved itself with a hasty Trudeau exit from office.

Canada’s broadcasters have focused their attention on the appearance of two flags—one Nazi, one Confederate—at protests over the past week. The culprits remain as elusive as the January 6th pipe bomber, though their presence has allowed the government to paint tens of thousands as extremists, racists or worse.

According to the CBC, “there’s concern that Russian actors could be continuing to fuel things as the protest grows, and perhaps even instigating it from the outset.”

[Note:  Journalists showed great imagination in making the leap linking the convoy to Putin.  No such creativity was applied to finding the identity of a person, the only one in the crowd wearing a mask, only one who waved a swastika.  I’ll do the media lackeys’ work for them:  It was someone who knew the act served the interests of the leftist media and government, so most likely Antifa or a wannabe.]

Even when acting Conservative Party leader Candice Bergen (no, not that one) tasked the government with offering an olive branch and reaching a resolution to the impasse on Parliament Hill, Trudeau’s stand-in, Chrystia Freeland, pivoted to blanket statements condemning the swastika, as if such condemnation were even necessary in the Canadian parliamentary chamber circa 2022.

Bergen rightly riposted, “That, I’m afraid, is classic gaslighting.”

It’s an appropriate characterization of the Canadian government’s approach thus far. A prime minister in hiding, a national capital in counter-lockdown, and the government’s most critical concern is the freshly unfolded flag of a defunct foreign navy that existed almost 200 years ago and 1600 miles away.

Meanwhile, the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta are bucking the national trend, announcing an end to COVID-related restrictions. It’s quick progress for an actual peaceful protest that has yet to cause billions of dollars in damages, injure or kill any cops or seek anything but constitutionally guaranteed liberties.

It is of course a back-handed compliment to right-populism that the antagonistic shrieks are less, “Oh my God, what are they doing?” and more, “Oh my God what might they secretly believe in?” It’s also a sign that there is a long road ahead, as politicians and the media attempt to ascribe ulterior motives to the protesters’ actions.

Like France’s gilets jaunes, Canada’s “freedom convoy” may find itself entrenched against its own establishment for some time, and they might just inspire American counterparts.

Yes, the old communist call of “workers of the world, unite!” may have been successfully appropriated by the political Right. The next line isn’t, “No, not like that!” but, truer to what Marx originally expressed, “You have nothing to lose but your chains.”

In other words, keep on truckin’.

For your weekend funnies see Uh Oh Canada

 

 

The Media War On Canadian Truckers

Posted on by Ron Clutz

James Bovard writes at his blog Is Freedom Public Enemy Number One? Excerpts in italics with my bolds.  H/T Tyler Durden

The denigration of the Canadian trucker protest convoy exemplifies how freedom is now the biggest villain of the Covid-19 pandemic. A Washington Post cartoonist portrayed the trucker convoy as “fascism” incarnate while another Post column derided the “toxic ‘Freedom Convoy.’” Anyone who resists any government command is apparently now a public enemy.

The trucker protest was spurred by the Canadian government’s sweeping Covid vaccine mandate. Many truckers believe the risks of the vaccine outweighs the benefit and, more importantly, that they have the right to control their own bodies. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared on Monday, “There is no place in our country for threats, violence or hatred.” Except for the hatred Trudeau whips up by denouncing vaccine mandate opponents as “racist” and “misogynistic.” And except for the “threats” and “violence” used by government enforcement agents to compel submission to any pandemic decree issued by Trudeau or other politicians.

Since the start of this pandemic, many people who boasted of their trust in “science and data” also believed that absolute power would keep them safe. According to their scorecard, anyone who objected to government commands was the equivalent of a heretic who must be condemned if not banished from everyplace except the cemetery. North of the border, Quebec epitomizes this intolerance with its new edict prohibiting unvaccinated individuals from shopping at Costco or Walmart.

The same critics who latch onto any obnoxious behavior by a few wayward Canadian truckers (MSNBC denounced them as a “cult”)’ to condemn freedom are also happy to exonerate any American politician who pointlessly destroyed freedom during the pandemic with bizarre edicts. In December 2020, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti banned all unnecessary “travel, including, without limitation, travel on foot, bicycle, scooter, motorcycle, automobile, or public transit.” The mayor (who was caught violating California mask mandates at the NFC championship game) offered no evidence to justify placing four million residents under house arrest. Governor Ralph Northam dictated that all Virginians must stay indoors from midnight until 5 a.m, with a few narrow exceptions. Federal judge William Stickman IV condemned Pennsylvania’s restrictions:

“Broad population-wide lockdowns are such a dramatic inversion of the concept of liberty in a free society as to be nearly presumptively unconstitutional.”

Preventing politicians from obliterating freedom is now the worst form of tyranny. On Thanksgiving Eve 2020, the Supreme Court struck down Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s edict that limited religious gatherings in New York to ten or fewer people while permitting far more leeway for businesses to operate. The Court declared that Cuomo’s rules were “far more restrictive than any Covid-related regulations that have previously come before the Court… and far more severe than has been shown to be required to prevent the spread of the virus.” An American Civil Liberties Union official fretted that “the freedom to worship… does not include a license to harm others or endanger public health.” Harvard law professor Lawrence Tribe and Cornell professor Michael Dorf warned that the Supreme Court was becoming “a place like Gilead — the theocratic and misogynist country in Margaret Atwood’s dystopian ‘The Handmaid’s Tale.’”

Many progressives talk as if America faces a choice between reckless freedom and paternalism – i.e., submission to a benevolent elite. But regardless of Fauci’s boundless conceit, omniscient officials have yet to come to the rescue. Government agencies have blundered catastrophically since the start of the pandemic.

The Centers for Disease Control bollixed America’s initial response by sending out faulty, contaminated test kits to health agencies that failed to detect the rapidly spreading virus. Governors panicked and shut down schools, resulting in vast losses in learning and widening the achievement gap between affluent and low-income students. The vast majority of small businesses were locked down and thousands were bankrupted in a futile effort to prevent an airborne virus from continuing to spread. Placing scores of millions of people under house arrest led to record-breaking fatalities for drug overdoses and a tidal wave of depression and anxiety. New York City’s covid vaccine passport regime failed to prevent the Big Apple from becoming the hottest spot in the nation for the omicron variant.

President Biden portrayed the vaccines as a magic bullet and falsely promised that people who got injected would not get Covid. The C.D.C. stopped counting “breakthrough” cases of Covid among the fully vaccinated, paving the way for a resurgence of the virus that has now infected more than 70 million Americans. Or maybe 200+ million Americans since C.D.C. previously stated that only one in four cases are diagnosed and reported. Whatever. The Food and Drug Administration is seeking to delay fully disclosing Pfizer’s application for its Covid vaccine approval for 75 years. After Biden issued a mandate that forced hospitals to fire healthy unvaccinated nurses, the CDC said it was OK for hospitals to rely on Covid positive nurses to treat patients – one of the biggest absurdities of the pandemic.

Freedom is not a panacea for every challenge in life. But it is far superior to boundless submission to tinhorn dictators who know far less than they claim. Politicians like Trudeau and Biden who fuel mass rage against any group that does not kowtow to officialdom are sowing seeds of hatred that will proliferate long after the pandemic ends.

In the long run, people have more to fear from politicians than from viruses.

Media War Analysis From Winnipeg Sun

Joe Warmington’s article is Which poll on support for trucker vaccine mandates do you believe? Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

Which poll do you think better reflects the mood of Canada?  The professional one with a select panel of participants or the reaction of tens of thousands on social media?

As the Freedom Convoy 2022 rolls toward Ottawa, a national poll reveals “only one-in-three Canadian’s fully support allowing unvaccinated truckers to cross the US/Canada border.”

A “national survey,” posted Thursday by Maru Public Opinion, indicates just “28%” are for truckers crossing border “without any difficulty in order to deliver food, goods, and other materials to a variety of Canadian destinations.”

Says Maru: “On the other hand, a full majority (72%) of Canadians believe that the borders should be flat out closed to truckers unless they are either fully vaccinated (36%) or, as an alternative middle-ground between the two extremes of being barred or having unfettered access, they show proof of the results of a negative COVID test taken within the previous 72-hours (36%).”

But unlike with most polls, this time there is something to compare it to. For example, while highly-respected Maru’s survey, put out by the company and not paid for by a sponsor, said it polled 1,500 people across the country, a GoFundMe page posted this month has raised more than $6.2 million from more than 80,000 donors.

And a Freedom Convoy 2022 Facebook page — Convoy to Ottawa 2022 — has more than 700,000 followers. Not exactly a “small fringe” group of people, as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau claimed Wednesday.

Trudeau’s harsh words toward this group, and the scrutiny the media has put it under, outweighs vetting other polls typically get.

Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre dealt with that double standard Thursday as he asked reporters “when was the last time the press gallery went through the social media posts of every single person attending a left-wing protest to find and report every crazy comment made” while saying it’s wrong to “disparage the thousands of hard-working, law-abiding and peaceful truckers, who quite frankly have kept all of you alive.”

Some professional polls may show low support for the convoy, but tens of thousands of Canadians, who put their money where their mouths are, may disagree.

Update Feb. 4: 

Canadian truckers protesting COVID-19 rules said they are lawyering up after GoFundMe suspended their fundraising page.  The page surpassed its $10 million goal, but GoFundMe pulled the plug as it investigates the effort for potential violations.

“This fundraiser is currently paused and under review to ensure it complies with our terms of service and applicable laws and regulations,” read a notice at the top of the convoy’s GoFundMe page. “Our team is working 24/7 and doing all we can to protect both organizers and donors. Thank you for your patience.”

The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, a Calgary-based firm, confirmed it is representing the Freedom Convoy 2022 in Ottawa and “has a team of lawyers on the ground providing legal assistance and advice.”

Background  Why the News Is Not the Truth

Peter Vanderwicken wrote:

The U.S. press, like the U.S. government, is a corrupt and troubled institution. Corrupt not so much in the sense that it accepts bribes but in a systemic sense. It fails to do what it claims to do, what it should do, and what society expects it to do.

The news media and the government are entwined in a vicious circle of mutual manipulation, mythmaking, and self-interest. Journalists need crises to dramatize news, and government officials need to appear to be responding to crises. Too often, the crises are not really crises but joint fabrications. The two institutions have become so ensnared in a symbiotic web of lies that the news media are unable to tell the public what is true and the government is unable to govern effectively. That is the thesis advanced by Paul H. Weaver, a former political scientist (at Harvard University), journalist (at Fortune magazine), and corporate communications executive (at Ford Motor Company), in his provocative analysis entitled News and the Culture of Lying: How Journalism Really Works.

The news media and the government have created a charade that serves their own interests but misleads the public. Officials oblige the media’s need for drama by fabricating crises and stage-managing their responses, thereby enhancing their own prestige and power. Journalists dutifully report those fabrications. Both parties know the articles are self-aggrandizing manipulations and fail to inform the public about the more complex but boring issues of government policy and activity.

What has emerged, Weaver argues, is a culture of lying. “The culture of lying,” he writes, “is the discourse and behavior of officials seeking to enlist the powers of journalism in support of their goals, and of journalists seeking to co-opt public and private officials into their efforts to find and cover stories of crisis and emergency response. It is the medium through which we Americans conduct most of our public business (and a lot of our private business) these days.” The result, he says, is a distortion of the constitutional role of government into an institution that must continually resolve or appear to resolve crises; it functions in “a new and powerful permanent emergency mode of operation.”

Wary of making decisions based on opinion or belief, the U.S. public has come to rely on facts, data, surveys, and presumably scientific studies. People are increasingly reluctant to believe any assertion that is not supported by statistical research. Yet, Crossen writes, “more and more of the information we use to buy, elect, advise, acquit and heal has been created not to expand our knowledge but to sell a product or advance a cause.”

A growing industry has thus developed to create the research to legitimize policy positions or marketing objectives. Public policy debates now commonly revolve around competing estimates of cost, effectiveness, or risk, rather than around the intrinsic merits of a proposal. Much of the health care debate raged around differing estimates of the numbers of citizens without health coverage and the costs of the various proposals to cover them. When President Bill Clinton promised Congress that he would rely on the forecasts of federal spending and deficits of the Congressional Budget Office rather than on those of the executive branch’s Office of Management and Budget, the representatives and senators cheered; they consider the CBO’s forecasts to be more favorable to Congress’s spending proclivities than those of the more cautious OMB.

Concocted or inaccurate surveys and studies taint our perceptions of what is true, and they distort public policy debates. Crossen concurs with Weaver that the media’s desire for drama encourages the distortion and corruption of public decision making. “The media are willing victims of bad information, and increasingly they are producers of it. They take information from self-interested parties and add to it another layer of self-interest—the desire to sell information.”

A press driven by drama and crises creates a government driven by response to crises. Such an “emergency government can’t govern,” Weaver concludes. “Not only does public support for emergency policies evaporate the minute they’re in place and the crisis passes, but officials acting in the emergency mode can’t make meaningful public policies. According to the classic textbook definition, government is the authoritative allocation of values, and emergency government doesn’t authoritatively allocate values.”

Footnote:

If you read the excerpts or followed the link, you will have realized this knowledge was published in the Harvard Business Review May-June 1995.

Climate Initiatives

New England Energy Inflation Self-Imposed

Quote | Posted on by Ron Clutz

LNG tanker in Boston harbor. Pipelines from Pennsylvania would fix this. MEDIANEWS GROUP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Christopher Helman writes at Forbes  Why Is New England Paying The Equivalent Of $180 Oil For Natural Gas? Excerpts in italics with my  bolds and some added images.

Yesterday New Englanders had reason to feel a little more … European than usual. that’s because according to Department of Energy data they were paying a spot price of $30.5 per million British thermal units for natural gas.

This is an absurd price, in line with what Europeans, facing their worst energy crisis in a generation, have been suffering in recent months. To put it in context, $30.5 per mmBtu is the equivalent of paying $180 for a barrel of oil (double what it is today), or 20 cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity. In other words: nuts.

Project abandoned in 2017 after New York blocked planning and permit processes.

How much are Bostonians getting shafted on natural gas? By comparison, the spot price of gas on the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana yesterday was $5.50 per mmBtu (the energy equivalent of about $33/bbl oil). This price spread is exceptionally wide, nearly unprecedented.

But it’s easily explained — by the perennially misguided energy policy in New England.

Just 200 miles to the south, beneath western Pennsylvania, lay the nation’s biggest gas field — the Marcellus shale. From practically nothing 15 years ago, the Marcellus now provides roughly a third of America’s gas supply, more than 30 billion cubic feet per day. America’s shale gas fracking boom is the primary reason why the nation has been able to dramatically switch away from dirtier coal, and cut overall carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 20% — more than any other leading economy.

Project abandoned in April 2016

But very little Marcellus gas flows to New England, because NIMBYs and their politicians have blocked construction of pipelines. Yet the region still relies on cleaner-burning gas to fuel power plants. Over the weekend, when New England was walloped by snow, its power grid was running 37% natural gas, 22% oil, 22% nuclear, 11% renewables, 6% hydro power, and less than 1% coal. (See current mix here.)

Electrical power resource mix from ISO-New England

And yet how does New England get its gas? Nearly all of it comes by ship, in giant insulated tankers carrying -260 degree condensed liquefied natural gas, most of which dock at the Everett LNG regasification terminal in Boston harbor, owned by Exelon Generation.

Where’s that gas come from? Despite more than $50 billion of recent investment into LNG liquefaction plants in Texas and Louisiana, you won’t find any American freedom gas being delivered into Boston. Instead, because of a law called the Jones Act (which requires ships carrying goods from one U.S. port to another to be U.S. owned and flagged), the gas that lands in Boston has historically been sourced from fields in Trinidad & Tobago, Norway, and Russia.

Which is why New England is now paying through the nose for gas. Or rather, they are paying the international price — in line with LNG spot prices in Tokyo, Shanghai, and Europe.

Is it reasonable that New England’s natural gas price depends on decisions made in Europe to shut down nuclear power plants, turn off the flows from giant fields like Holland’s Groningen, and rely on Gazprom to maintain flows from Russia? Of course not. But without more pipelines from the Marcellus (or solar panels and wind turbines covering every hillside), this is the reality, this is how New England ends up burning oil to generate a fifth of its wintertime electricity.

If you live in the northeast how can you personally arbitrage this market madness? Make sure you fill up heating oil tanks in the off-season, chop your own firewood, and buy shares in natural gas producers and exporters. 

See also Payback Upon Climate Grasshoppers

 

Arctic Ice Maxing in January

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Previous posts reported how Arctic ice was growing faster than average as well as last year.  Remarkably, several regions have already exceeded their maximum ice extents last March, and overall, Arctic ice is 98% of 2021 maximum with six weeks of freezing season remaining.

The animation shows ice growing the second half of January, notably reaching 1.32M km2 in Baffin Bay, right center, exceeding 2021 max.  Greenland Sea, center top, added 144k km2 to reach 710k km2, also greater than last year’s max.  And at bottom left Bering Sea reached 741k km2, 116% of last years max.

This year began with a surplus and ended January still 230k km2 higher.  The gap over 2021 is 465k km2, nearly half a Wadham. SII dipped and then rose to match MASIE before a drop yesterday.

Region 2022031 Day 31 Average 2022-Ave. 2021031 2022-2021
 (0) Northern_Hemisphere 14599079 14368396 230683 14133494 465586
 (1) Beaufort_Sea 1070776 1070282 494 1070689 87
 (2) Chukchi_Sea 966006 965968 38 966006 0
 (3) East_Siberian_Sea 1087137 1087049 89 1087120 17
 (4) Laptev_Sea 897827 897821 6 897827 0
 (5) Kara_Sea 934844 917081 17763 934952 -108
 (6) Barents_Sea 695583 572672 122910 690363 5220
 (7) Greenland_Sea 724418 594443 129976 621098 103321
 (8) Baffin_Bay_Gulf_of_St._Lawrence 1322799 1336538 -13738 1008582 314217
 (9) Canadian_Archipelago 854685 853253 1433 854597 88
 (10) Hudson_Bay 1260903 1260753 151 1260471 432
 (11) Central_Arctic 3226420 3210376 16045 3203312 23108
 (12) Bering_Sea 741202 650072 91130 545486 195717
 (13) Baltic_Sea 62895 64264 -1369 52787 10108
 (14) Sea_of_Okhotsk 720277 826161 -105884 900121 -179843

The table shows that surpluses in Barents, Greenland and Bering seas more than offset a deficit to average in Okhotsk.  In the latter case, ice has finally begun to build up toward a normal extent for this period. With an overall extent of 14.6M km2, prospects are good for maxing higher than 15M km2 by mid March.

 

It’s Energy Will Make or Break the World Now

Posted on by Ron Clutz

Ayaan Hirsi Ali explains how Energy has become the first and foremost world public concern in her Spectator article Energy is the most important issue in the world.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Gas prices are climbing, Russia is building pipelines, yet we’re focused instead on appeasing climate activists

One issue more than any other will dominate airtime and influence policy in 2022: energy. Americans are seeing the highest prices at the pump in seven years. Since Biden took office, average gas prices are up by more than $1 a gallon. In November, gas prices in Mono County, California hit more than $6 per gallon, forcing some residents to drive to Nevada (where gas taxes are lower) to buy fuel.

The price of natural gas in the US is at its highest in seven years, and up more than 180 percent in the last year alone. In Europe, the situation is even worse.

Europe’s gas reserves are at record lows. In Germany, which already had the EU’s highest energy prices, bills are up 30 percent in a year. If the European winter is harsh, supplies for heating homes and businesses may have to be rationed.

Domestic energy is a foreign policy issue. The threat of a Russian attack on Ukraine was one of the factors driving gas prices up in late 2021. In December, Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s foreign minister, warned that if Russia invaded Ukraine, the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany “could not come into service.” That would mean serious shortfalls in Germany’s energy supply this winter, as Germany is dependent on Russian natural gas. Germany’s economic affairs minister, Robert Habeck, now calls Germany’s assent to Nord Stream 2 a “geopolitical mistake.” Days before Christmas, Russia reversed flows on Yamal, another pipeline to Germany. European energy prices reached new peaks. Russia claimed the reversal had no “political implications.”

Europe is splitting over nuclear power as the answer to secure supplies of green energy. France pushed to classify nuclear energy as “sustainable,” a move that would unlock billions of euros in state aid and private investment, earmarked for green energy. An EU proposal was recently put forward to do just that — despite opposition from Germany, which threw its lot in with Nord Stream 2 and Putin’s natural gas under Angela Merkel.

And don’t forget Iran. Its march toward acquiring nuclear arms creates severe vulnerabilities for the US and its allies — especially Israel, but also the oil-rich Gulf states. China continues to underwrite the regime in Tehran by purchasing Iranian oil and evading and ignoring US sanctions.

Energy will determine elections in Europe and the US in 2022 and beyond. It will determine foreign policy decisions. It will be an overarching and enduring theme for years to come. But energy has always been part of the conversation. What makes this year different? Wasn’t there an even bigger energy crisis in the 1970s?

The answer to both those questions is this: unlike in the past, our current energy crisis derives from our own mistakes. We’ve put all of our eggs into the basket of renewable energy, but its promise has been oversold. The costs of solar and wind power generation may have fallen, but they cannot provide stable energy sources because of fluctuations in the weather. That tends to reduce the overall efficiency of power grids.

The green movement also underestimates the true costs of renewable energy. As Michael Shellenberger explains, a wind farm requires 370 times more land than a nuclear plant does. If we shift away from nuclear energy and toward renewables as Joe Biden’s climate plan proposes, the impact on America’s natural environments would be devastating. Yet the Biden administration remains committed to renewables as a “green” solution.

After Angela Merkel phased out nuclear plants almost entirely, Germans now pay the highest energy costs in Europe, not least because a renewables surcharge of 20 percent is added to their bills. The various European and British decisions to ban fracking have had similar effects on the cost of heating a home. The effect of opposition in the US will be no different.

Fracking played a key part in the US’s transition from coal to natural gas, which led to significant reductions in American emissions of carbon dioxide. But some Democratic-run states are attempting to ban fracking entirely through legislation and, as in California, denying permits. Shale oil production barely grew in 2021, and we are unlikely to see a fracking revival in the near future. A return to energy dependence on other countries is becoming unavoidable. We’ve seen this already: in November, Biden appealed to OPEC to increase production.

Americans and Europeans have become so focused on appeasing climate activists that they’ve forgotten the importance of power — in the sense of geopolitics, not kilowatts. While the West was debating ways to reduce emissions at the UN’s COP26 summit in Glasgow, Russia and China didn’t even bother to show up. While we fall over ourselves to acclaim Greta Thunberg, Russia builds strategic gas pipelines and China builds coal-burning power stations.

The politics of energy will impact the lives of everyone this year, the poor especially. To avoid a new self-inflicted energy crisis, unlike in the 1970s — the West must reassess the costs of the “green transition.” We need a strategy that generates power efficiently, and without handing geopolitical power to our strategic rivals.