‘Former Pfizer Vice President Mike Yeadon discusses his thoughts as to why the lockdown was a mistake, and why the government strategies to manage the pandemic are only making things worse.’
Education
Where are the moderate Muslims? In Britain ‘There was much rejoicing among Britain’s Islamists last week when the thinktank and campaigning organisation Quilliam announced that it was closing. The Islamists were pleased because for the 14 years since its founding Quilliam has been the most prominent Muslim-run organisation arguing for a progressive, non-Islamist Islam.
The exact reasons why Quilliam has shut down are not clear. The co-founder, Maajid Nawaz, has blamed the difficulties of sustaining a non-profit in the era of Covid. Perhaps it is that, or perhaps it is something else. The group never had an easy ride. But the fact that it didn’t, and that so many prominent British Muslims are celebrating its demise, points to a problem worth noting.
I was there in 2007 when Quilliam started. Like a lot of other people, I had spent some years wondering precisely where the reforming Muslims — even the ‘moderate Muslims’ — actually were. After 9/11, 7/7, the Danish cartoons and much more, our country was still going through the early-learning stages regarding Islam. Every time a terrorist attack happened we were assured that Islam was a religion of peace. But when some prominent Muslim organisation was brought forth to reassure us, all too often they tended to be nutters themselves.
Generally, after every attack they would condemn the attack. But they always had a ‘but’. They might condemn the killing of cartoonists but say that blasphemy was a very serious matter in Islam and that this was something the non-believers had to realise. They tended to condemn the destruction of the World Trade Center, but were by no means against terror if it was aimed against Israel. When they condemned the 7/7 bombings they would go straight on to denouncing British foreign policy and warning of ‘Islamophobic’ backlashes. The cumulative effect felt by a lot of us was that Islam had bigger problems than many people were willing to admit.Very few British Muslims feel represented by the communal groups who seek to speak in their name
In time our societal understanding grew more informed. For instance, it became evident that the Muslim community (like almost every other community) had a problem with its self-elected ‘representatives’. Ordinary Muslims had no more desire to presume to ‘speak for’ or ‘lead’ their fellow religionists than any healthy gay person wants to have anything to do with Stonewall. But there was another problem too: the Islamists had spent years organising and the good guys had not.
For instance, while the radicals of Jamaat-e-Islami don’t do very well in Pakistani politics, they have done well in Pakistani diaspora politics in the UK, dominating a number of the groups that like to present themselves as representative. Very few British Muslims feel that they are represented to government by the communal groups who seek to speak in their name. And in truth those communal groups have done an enormous disservice not just to British Muslims but to Britain as a whole.
In 2014 a scandal erupted over a number of state schools in Birmingham that had been taken over by Islamists. Former Met deputy assistant commissioner Peter Clarke’s investigation was detailed and troubling. Individuals involved in the education of these local children were found to be churning out a diet of conspiracist thinking (not least about terror attacks), hostility to the society and ‘a constant undercurrent of anti-western sentiment’.
Yet even now you don’t read much about the Trojan Horse affair because Britain’s hardline organisations and prominent individuals from the House of Lords down spent so much energy pouring slurry over the story. For exposing the conspiracies Peter Clarke and anybody else who expressed concern about the scandal was dismissed as a conspiracy theorist, an Islamophobe and more. To my recollection, among all the UK’s major Muslim organisations, only one accepted that the problem was real and expressed concern at what was found. That organisation was Quilliam.
It was the same with issue after issue. Quilliam was the only Muslim group that didn’t come out with condemnations only to build up to a ‘but’. Three years ago Quilliam produced a report into the ‘grooming gangs’ question — the polite term for the mass rape of thousands of children in towns across England. Because the perpetrators appeared to be disproportionately of Muslim background, Quilliam did a great service in not only addressing the issue but doing so from a Muslim direction. This suggested to Muslims and non-Muslims alike that there were Muslims in this country willing to stand up to these problems, not simply sweep them under the rug and condemn people who’d noticed them.
Once again the response was clear. Every Islamist and Islamist-sympathising group and individual in the UK lammed into Quilliam. It was accused of being ‘far right’ or aiding the ‘far right’, just as it had spent years being accused of ‘Islamophobia’.
It is interesting, this disproportionate vitriol targeted not just at reformers but at real prominent moderates within Islam. The hatred and venom aimed at Nawaz and his colleagues has been exceptional. They have literally had to fear for their lives. And the hatred has far outweighed any aimed at Islamist groups operating in Britain. Certainly the moderates have got far more flak than the Hamas leaders living here. Or the Jamaat types and other backward tribalists who populate the discourse and occasionally the airwaves. And why should that be?
For two decades now, that has been perhaps the most suggestive question. Outside a school in Batley in recent weeks some Muslims have been organising to intimidate a teacher, his family, bosses and colleagues. Will there be campaigns against them? Will the ‘mainstream’ Muslim organisations do anything to de-escalate the problem? As always they will pretend to be brokers between people who can’t be negotiated with and the state.
I don’t say this with any glee, but anybody who put their chips on Islamic reformation or moderate Islam saving everyone should think on the demise of Quilliam. Some of this country’s best citizens, who happened also to be Muslims, gave Islamic reform a good shot here. But it was they — and not their critics — who as a result became the principal target. Not a good sign. Not a good sign at all.’https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/what-the-demise-of-quilliam-teaches-us-about-britain-and-Islam
The following is adapted from a lecture delivered at Hillsdale College on March 30, 2021.
‘Critical race theory is fast becoming America’s new institutional orthodoxy. Yet most Americans have never heard of it—and of those who have, many don’t understand it. It’s time for this to change. We need to know what it is so we can know how to fight it.
In explaining critical race theory, it helps to begin with a brief history of Marxism. Originally, the Marxist Left built its political program on the theory of class conflict. Marx believed that the primary characteristic of industrial societies was the imbalance of power between capitalists and workers. The solution to that imbalance, according to Marx, was revolution: the workers would eventually gain consciousness of their plight, seize the means of production, overthrow the capitalist class, and usher in a new socialist society.
During the 20th century, a number of regimes underwent Marxist-style revolutions, and each ended in disaster. Socialist governments in the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, Cuba, and elsewhere racked up a body count of nearly 100 million of their own people. They are remembered for their gulags, show trials, executions, and mass starvations. In practice, Marx’s ideas unleashed man’s darkest brutalities.
By the mid-1960s, Marxist intellectuals in the West had begun to acknowledge these failures. They recoiled at revelations of Soviet atrocities and came to realize that workers’ revolutions would never occur in Western Europe or the United States, where there were large middle classes and rapidly improving standards of living. Americans in particular had never developed a sense of class consciousness or class division. Most Americans believed in the American dream—the idea that they could transcend their origins through education, hard work, and good citizenship.
But rather than abandon their Leftist political project, Marxist scholars in the West simply adapted their revolutionary theory to the social and racial unrest of the 1960s. Abandoning Marx’s economic dialectic of capitalists and workers, they substituted race for class and sought to create a revolutionary coalition of the dispossessed based on racial and ethnic categories.
Fortunately, the early proponents of this revolutionary coalition in the U.S. lost out in the 1960s to the civil rights movement, which sought instead the fulfillment of the American promise of freedom and equality under the law. Americans preferred the idea of improving their country to that of overthrowing it. The vision of Martin Luther King, Jr., President Johnson’s pursuit of the Great Society, and the restoration of law and order promised by President Nixon in his 1968 campaign defined the post-1960s American political consensus.
But the radical Left has proved resilient and enduring—which is where critical race theory comes in.
WHAT IT IS
Critical race theory is an academic discipline, formulated in the 1990s, built on the intellectual framework of identity-based Marxism. Relegated for many years to universities and obscure academic journals, over the past decade it has increasingly become the default ideology in our public institutions. It has been injected into government agencies, public school systems, teacher training programs, and corporate human resources departments in the form of diversity training programs, human resources modules, public policy frameworks, and school curricula.
There are a series of euphemisms deployed by its supporters to describe critical race theory, including “equity,” “social justice,” “diversity and inclusion,” and “culturally responsive teaching.” Critical race theorists, masters of language construction, realize that “neo-Marxism” would be a hard sell. Equity, on the other hand, sounds non-threatening and is easily confused with the American principle of equality. But the distinction is vast and important. Indeed, equality—the principle proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, defended in the Civil War, and codified into law with the 14th and 15th Amendments, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965—is explicitly rejected by critical race theorists. To them, equality represents “mere nondiscrimination” and provides “camouflage” for white supremacy, patriarchy, and oppression.
In contrast to equality, equity as defined and promoted by critical race theorists is little more than reformulated Marxism. In the name of equity, UCLA Law Professor and critical race theorist Cheryl Harris has proposed suspending private property rights, seizing land and wealth and redistributing them along racial lines. Critical race guru Ibram X. Kendi, who directs the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University, has proposed the creation of a federal Department of Antiracism. This department would be independent of (i.e., unaccountable to) the elected branches of government, and would have the power to nullify, veto, or abolish any law at any level of government and curtail the speech of political leaders and others who are deemed insufficiently “antiracist.”
One practical result of the creation of such a department would be the overthrow of capitalism, since according to Kendi, “In order to truly be antiracist, you also have to truly be anti-capitalist.” In other words, identity is the means and Marxism is the end.
An equity-based form of government would mean the end not only of private property, but also of individual rights, equality under the law, federalism, and freedom of speech. These would be replaced by race-based redistribution of wealth, group-based rights, active discrimination, and omnipotent bureaucratic authority. Historically, the accusation of “anti-Americanism” has been overused. But in this case, it’s not a matter of interpretation—critical race theory prescribes a revolutionary program that would overturn the principles of the Declaration and destroy the remaining structure of the Constitution.
HOW IT WORKS
What does critical race theory look like in practice? Last year, I authored a series of reports focused on critical race theory in the federal government. The FBI was holding workshops on intersectionality theory. The Department of Homeland Security was telling white employees they were committing “microinequities” and had been “socialized into oppressor roles.” The Treasury Department held a training session telling staff members that “virtually all white people contribute to racism” and that they must convert “everyone in the federal government” to the ideology of “antiracism.” And the Sandia National Laboratories, which designs America’s nuclear arsenal, sent white male executives to a three-day reeducation camp, where they were told that “white male culture” was analogous to the “KKK,” “white supremacists,” and “mass killings.” The executives were then forced to renounce their “white male privilege” and write letters of apology to fictitious women and people of color.
This year, I produced another series of reports focused on critical race theory in education. In Cupertino, California, an elementary school forced first-graders to deconstruct their racial and sexual identities, and rank themselves according to their “power and privilege.” In Springfield, Missouri, a middle school forced teachers to locate themselves on an “oppression matrix,” based on the idea that straight, white, English-speaking, Christian males are members of the oppressor class and must atone for their privilege and “covert white supremacy.” In Philadelphia, an elementary school forced fifth-graders to celebrate “Black communism” and simulate a Black Power rally to free 1960s radical Angela Davis from prison, where she had once been held on charges of murder. And in Seattle, the school district told white teachers that they are guilty of “spirit murder” against black children and must “bankrupt [their] privilege in acknowledgement of [their] thieved inheritance.”
I’m just one investigative journalist, but I’ve developed a database of more than 1,000 of these stories. When I say that critical race theory is becoming the operating ideology of our public institutions, it is not an exaggeration—from the universities to bureaucracies to k-12 school systems, critical race theory has permeated the collective intelligence and decision-making process of American government, with no sign of slowing down.
This is a revolutionary change. When originally established, these government institutions were presented as neutral, technocratic, and oriented towards broadly-held perceptions of the public good. Today, under the increasing sway of critical race theory and related ideologies, they are being turned against the American people. This isn’t limited to the permanent bureaucracy in Washington, D.C., but is true as well of institutions in the states, even in red states, and it is spreading to county public health departments, small Midwestern school districts, and more. This ideology will not stop until it has devoured all of our institutions.
FUTILE RESISTANCE
Thus far, attempts to halt the encroachment of critical race theory have been ineffective. There are a number of reasons for this.
First, too many Americans have developed an acute fear of speaking up about social and political issues, especially those involving race. According to a recent Gallup poll, 77 percent of conservatives are afraid to share their political beliefs publicly. Worried about getting mobbed on social media, fired from their jobs, or worse, they remain quiet, largely ceding the public debate to those pushing these anti-American ideologies. Consequently, the institutions themselves become monocultures: dogmatic, suspicious, and hostile to a diversity of opinion. Conservatives in both the federal government and public school systems have told me that their “equity and inclusion” departments serve as political offices, searching for and stamping out any dissent from the official orthodoxy.
Second, critical race theorists have constructed their argument like a mousetrap. Disagreement with their program becomes irrefutable evidence of a dissenter’s “white fragility,” “unconscious bias,” or “internalized white supremacy.” I’ve seen this projection of false consciousness on their opponents play out dozens of times in my reporting. Diversity trainers will make an outrageous claim—such as “all whites are intrinsically oppressors” or “white teachers are guilty of spirit murdering black children”—and then when confronted with disagreement, they adopt a patronizing tone and explain that participants who feel “defensiveness” or “anger” are reacting out of guilt and shame. Dissenters are instructed to remain silent, “lean into the discomfort,” and accept their “complicity in white supremacy.”
Third, Americans across the political spectrum have failed to separate the premise of critical race theory from its conclusion. Its premise—that American history includes slavery and other injustices, and that we should examine and learn from that history—is undeniable. But its revolutionary conclusion—that America was founded on and defined by racism and that our founding principles, our Constitution, and our way of life should be overthrown—does not rightly, much less necessarily, follow.
Fourth and finally, the writers and activists who have had the courage to speak out against critical race theory have tended to address it on the theoretical level, pointing out the theory’s logical contradictions and dishonest account of history. These criticisms are worthy and good, but they move the debate into the academic realm, which is friendly terrain for proponents of critical race theory. They fail to force defenders of this revolutionary ideology to defend the practical consequences of their ideas in the realm of politics.
POLITICAL ENGAGEMENT
No longer simply an academic matter, critical race theory has become a tool of political power. To borrow a phrase from the Marxist theoretician Antonio Gramsci, it is fast achieving “cultural hegemony” in America’s public institutions. More and more, it is driving the vast machinery of the state and society. If we want to succeed in opposing it, we must address it politically at every level.
Critical race theorists must be confronted with and forced to speak to the facts. Do they support public schools separating first-graders into groups of “oppressors” and “oppressed”? Do they support mandatory curricula teaching that “all white people play a part in perpetuating systemic racism”? Do they support public schools instructing white parents to become “white traitors” and advocate for “white abolition”? Do they want those who work in government to be required to undergo this kind of reeducation? How about managers and workers in corporate America? How about the men and women in our military? How about every one of us?
There are three parts to a successful strategy to defeat the forces of critical race theory: governmental action, grassroots mobilization, and an appeal to principle.
We already see examples of governmental action. Last year, one of my reports led President Trump to issue an executive order banning critical race theory-based training programs in the federal government. President Biden rescinded this order on his first day in office, but it provides a model for governors and municipal leaders to follow. This year, several state legislatures have introduced bills to achieve the same goal: preventing public institutions from conducting programs that stereotype, scapegoat, or demean people on the basis of race. And I have organized a coalition of attorneys to file lawsuits against schools and government agencies that impose critical race theory-based programs on grounds of the First Amendment (which protects citizens from compelled speech), the Fourteenth Amendment (which provides equal protection under the law), and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (which prohibits public institutions from discriminating on the basis of race).
On the grassroots level, a multiracial and bipartisan coalition is emerging to do battle against critical race theory. Parents are mobilizing against racially divisive curricula in public schools and employees are increasingly speaking out against Orwellian reeducation in the workplace. When they see what is happening, Americans are naturally outraged that critical race theory promotes three ideas—race essentialism, collective guilt, and neo-segregation—which violate the basic principles of equality and justice. Anecdotally, many Chinese-Americans have told me that having survived the Cultural Revolution in their former country, they refuse to let the same thing happen here.
In terms of principles, we need to employ our own moral language rather than allow ourselves to be confined by the categories of critical race theory. For example, we often find ourselves debating “diversity.” Diversity as most of us understand it is generally good, all things being equal, but it is of secondary value. We should be talking about and aiming at excellence, a common standard that challenges people of all backgrounds to achieve their potential. On the scale of desirable ends, excellence beats diversity every time.
Similarly, in addition to pointing out the dishonesty of the historical narrative on which critical race theory is predicated, we must promote the true story of America—a story that is honest about injustices in American history, but that places them in the context of our nation’s high ideals and the progress we have made towards realizing them. Genuine American history is rich with stories of achievements and sacrifices that will move the hearts of Americans—in stark contrast to the grim and pessimistic narrative pressed by critical race theorists.
Above all, we must have courage—the fundamental virtue required in our time. Courage to stand and speak the truth. Courage to withstand epithets. Courage to face the mob. Courage to shrug off the scorn of the elites. When enough of us overcome the fear that currently prevents so many from speaking out, the hold of critical race theory will begin to slip. And courage begets courage. It’s easy to stop a lone dissenter; it’s much harder to stop 10, 20, 100, 1,000, 1,000,000, or more who stand up together for the principles of America.
Truth and justice are on our side. If we can muster the courage, we will win.’https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/critical-race-theory-fight/?utm_campaign=imprimis&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=121792381&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9MbG_CCSTOxYtkWZIAJ6rPkKi91EAgHQcSl9wvcQk7Duk9NL0XocHqKLjJPQq52cC63XkDVbJoesoZn8_BAitcX85Vog&utm_content=121790319&utm_source=hs_email
“And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight.” (Acts 20:7)
‘Given the fact that everything about God’s Word was specifically inspired by its Author, it is appropriate that this important phrase, “the first day of the week,” occurs exactly eight times in the Bible. The first six of these (Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:2, 9; Luke 24:1; John 20:1, 19) all stress the fact that it was on this day that the greatest event in history (since the creation) had taken place. The creation of the universe had taken place on the first day of the week, and now its Creator had conquered sin and death itself on that day. In the Bible, of course, the number “seven” represents completeness, so “eight” represents a new beginning—a new creation, a resurrection.
The last two references tell us just how the early Christians remembered this day. Our text verse tells us this was a day on which the disciples assembled together, had a preaching service, and then “broke bread.” This was not a special assembly called just for Paul, for he had already been waiting there six days (see the previous verse). This was about 25 years after the resurrection itself, and the Jewish believers were evidently still observing the seventh day as a rest day, but then they also observed the first day of the week as the time to commemorate the Lord’s death in “breaking of bread” to celebrate His resurrection and especially to hear the preaching of His Word. The final reference tells us one other vital thing they did: “Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him” (1 Corinthians 16:2). The first day of the week should always be a time of remembering Him in these joyful ways, for He is our living Lord and Savior.’https://www.icr.org/article/12705/?utm_source=phplist9341&utm_medium=email&utm_content=HTML&utm_campaign=April+18+-+The+First+Day+of+the+Week
Have you received the jab? I was scheduled for the jab on April 14 but canceled it because I am not sure of its effectiveness. Whether, I am right or wrong it is interesting that ‘Some 5,800 Americans have contracted COVID-19 despite being fully vaccinated against the virus that causes it, federal officials said April 15.
The Americans contracted the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, which causes COVID-19, despite getting both doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, or the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told The Epoch Times via email.
Of the 5,800 fully vaccinated people who were confirmed as so-called breakthrough cases, nearly 400 required treatment at hospitals and 74 died.
A little over 40 percent of the infections were in people 60 years of age or older, and 65 percent were female. The CDC declined to make a state-by-state breakdown available, though it has developed a national database where state health department investigators can enter, store, and manage data for cases in their jurisdiction.
The figures were for cases through April 13.
More than 78 million people have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 in the United States as of April 15.
“To date, no unexpected patterns have been identified in case demographics or vaccine characteristics,” the CDC stated.
“COVID-19 vaccines are effective, and are a critical tool to bring the pandemic under control. All of the available vaccines have been proven effective at preventing severe illness, hospitalizations, and deaths. However, like is seen with other vaccines, we expect thousands of vaccine breakthrough cases will occur even though the vaccine is working as expected.”
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky stated during a congressional hearing on April 15 that the causes of the breakthrough cases are being probed.
“Some of these breakthroughs are, of course, failure of an immune response in the host. And then some of them we worry might be related to a variant that is circulating. So we’re looking at both,” she said.
The number of cases the CDC has identified does not include people who contracted COVID-19 less than two weeks after their final dose, according to Walensky.
In March, states began reporting numbers for people who had gotten infected despite full vaccination. Epidemiologists in Washington state identified 217 of the cases, five of whom died. In Michigan, 246 of the cases were recorded between Jan. 1 and March 31. Three of those patients died.
Texas, South Carolina, and Oregon are among the other states that have reported more than 100 cases among residents.’https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/5800-fully-vaccinated-americans-have-contracted-covid-19-74-dead-cdc_3777637.html?&utm_source=newsnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-04-15-1&mktids=8e8a707e3d00f4fef5a527c721e13103&est=JzMAJrftaP4izpSwXEL%2FEpJPCZpnDKrJPr2tWroUwvp9DBb6NrxRE%2BWlzU2kgMQ6xw%3D%3D
If anyone SHOULD celebrate FREE SPEECH it would be a law school; Right?! Well, not so fast!
‘SAN DIEGO, Calif., April 13, 2021 — Almost a month after launching a preliminary investigation into law professor Tom Smith’s online comments criticizing the Chinese government, the University of San Diego School of Law is doubling down on its violation of Smith’s expressive rights. In defiance of free speech advocacy efforts by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and others, the law school has now passed the investigation to the university for an official review.
“We have an oppressive institution cracking down on dissent by investigating a professor for criticizing an oppressive government cracking down on dissent,” said Sabrina Conza, FIRE program analyst. “USD’s unconscionable treatment of Smith is a delight for fans of irony and censorship alike.”
On March 10, Smith posted an excerpt from a Wall Street Journal op-ed on his personal blog, along with his own commentary: “If you believe that the coronavirus did not escape from the lab in Wuhan, you have to at least consider that you are an idiot who is swallowing whole a lot [sic] of Chinese cock swaddle.”
After the post prompted cries of racism from student groups, the university opened an investigation into Smith’s reference to “Chinese cock swaddle.” In response to the criticism, Smith updated the post to clarify that he was referring to the Chinese government, not to Chinese people generally.
FIRE defended Smith’s freedom of expression in March with a letter to the university. The university’s general counsel responded, offering only that USD was “reviewing the matter and expeditiously will take action as appropriate.” FIRE sent a second letter on April 1 expressing its disappointment with the tepid response and reminding the university that investigations alone are enough to create an impermissible chilling effect on campus.
“It’s easy to say that you have the right to free speech, but there’s a climate where there’s so much that you risk by exercising that right,” Smith told FIRE. “And it ends up really diminishing academic freedom.”
FIRE received no response to its second letter, but Smith let FIRE know on April 6 that rather than backing down, the university launched an official “review.”
“Against the objections of free speech advocates and all common sense, and in defiance of its own promises to protect extramural expression, USD continues to obsess over Smith’s comments,” said Conza. “The school must immediately end its review so that all faculty can feel free to express themselves and engage in open dialogue.”
In his inaugural address as president, USD President James Harris said the university can set an example in higher education by playing a “central role as a bastion of free speech and open dialogue in a free and democratic society.”
Though USD is a private institution not bound by the First Amendment, it is required to live up to its promises of free expression.’https://www.thefire.org/a-professor-is-under-investigation-for-criticizing-the-chinese-government-defend-his-rights-with-two-clicks/
You have to hand it to Xi Jinping. The Chinese “president for life” last September schmoozed the royalty of the United Nations with his unexpected pledge that his country aims “to have CO2 emissions peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality (Net Zero) before 2060.”
Xi then urged other nations “to pursue innovative, coordinated, green and open development for all” through rapid deployment of new technologies so as to “achieve a green recovery of the world economy in the post-COVID era and thus create a powerful force driving sustainable development.”
The eloquent sage, confident that the mantle of world leadership was passing from the United States into his hands, concluded his prepared remarks as follows:
“The baton of history has been passed to our generation, and we must make the right choice, a choice worthy of the people’s trust and of our times. Let us join hands to uphold the values of peace, development, equity, justice, democracy, and freedom shared by all of us and build a new type of international relations and a community with a shared future for mankind. Together, we can make the world a better place for everyone.”
And just how is China preparing itself for Net Zero?
The London-based energy and climate research group Ember reports that China generated 53 percent of the world’s total coal-fired power in 2020, a jump of 9 percent from 2015, while adding 38.4 gigawatts (GW) of new coal-fired power installations in 2020 alone. China is also financing billions of dollars’ worth of coal-fired power plants in other “developing” nations.
[It should be noted that in 2020 China also added a record 71.7 GW of wind power and 48.2 GW of solar. And China has set a goal of 70 GW of installed nuclear energy by 2025. But “progress is nowhere near fast enough,” according to Ember power analyst Dave Jones. Jones added that “coal power needs to collapse by 80 percent by 2030 to avoid dangerous levels of warming.” Or so he believes.]
Analysis by the Asia Society Policy Institute and Climate Analytics, as reported in Climate Change News, indicates that to reach the Paris Agreement’s goal of 1.5o C temperature reduction by 2060, China would have to achieve peak CO2 emissions by 2025 and rapidly reduce them thereafter, with a total phaseout of coal-fired power by 2040.
Yet, according to the Renewable Energy Institute, the typical coal-fired power plant has a lifespan of about 40 years. Would China throw away massive investments just to kowtow to the UN? Zhang Shuwei, chief economist for the Draworld Environment Research Center, claims Chinese coal may have to absorb over $300 billion in stranded assets if the nation follows through and undertakes a “cliff fall of coal power generation after 2030.”
But, as the New York Post recently editorialized, China’s betrayal of its commitment to Hong Kong, together with its duplicity regarding the COVID pandemic and its dissembling on treatment of the Uighurs, signals that the Middle Kingdom cannot be trusted to keep its word. The trampling of Hong Kong’s freedoms, the paper argues, demonstrates that there is no point negotiating with the Chinese Communist Party on long-term issues like climate change.
Agence France-Presse reported in March that China’s latest five-year plan increases investment in coal and omits any cap on total energy consumption. Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, compares Xi’s words with China’s deeds, stating that, “The central contradiction between expanding the smokestack economy and promoting green growth appears unresolved.”
Similarly, Japanese journalists also question China’s commitment to the Green economy – in contrast to the “excellent” responses of Japan and its Western allies (despite the fact that new Japanese coal plants in 2020 exceeded retirements and that high-efficiency coal plants are unlikely to disappear soon. [The Japanese in their zeal to single out China ignored the fact that India and many other nations are also beefing up coal mining and power generation.]
Other journalists are equally offended at China’s apparent duplicity. Michael Standaert, a China-based free-lancer, wrote in Yale E360, under the headline, “Despite pledges to cut emissions, China Goes on a Coal Spree.” Standaert argued that there is a “real and figurative haze about how strong [China’s] climate ambitions really are and how quickly the country can wean itself from … coal.” [When Mother Jones reposted Standaert’s article, the headline read in part, “China Is Bingeing on Coal.”]
Vox correspondent Lili Pike provides a backstory excuse for China’s seemingly odd behavior. She notes that China’s provinces, who gained authority to approve new power plants in 2014, see new coal plants as a way to boost their GDP and provide jobs. The economic slowdowns linked to COVID provided extra incentives for these provincial plants.
Perhaps Vox thinks that, once the provincial economies are rolling along, they will recognize their bad investments and shutter their coal plants almost immediately. Perhaps pigs will fly.
China’s “slouching towards Net Zero” approach belies the panicked warnings of UN
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who insists “the climate emergency” — the defining crisis of our time — is happening even more quickly than we feared. It “is a race we are losing, but it is a race we can win.”
Guterres made a toothless plea to China last July to stop building new coal plants, but he giddily applauded Xi’s rhetoric in September. Xi has also won praise from mega-billionaire Bill Gates, who in a February 2021 interview with China Daily gushed over China’s “determination” to prioritize the climate and its contributions to carbon reduction.
According to Gates, “It’s great that President Xi is making climate a priority and wants to work with other countries on this…. Without the contributions of China, many of the key ingredients (in fighting climate change) like the batteries and solar power wouldn’t be so affordable.” [We’re on the same team, babee!]
In the real world, not every environmental disaster prediction has come true – actually, hardly any of them have. Paul Ehrlich’s best-seller, The Population Bomb, opened with this frightful bit of “news”:
“The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate.”
Today, we have the wisdom of apparent REM fan Greta Thunberg: “The world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change…. Around 2030 we will be in a position to set off an irreversible chain reaction beyond human control that will lead to the end of our civilization as we know it.” In criticizing China for detaining a young Chinese “climate striker,” Thunberg added, “Billions of people will die, and children will die while parents lose their jobs!”
Stop it, President Xi! You are making her cry!
But perhaps Xi Jinping knows Greta is dead right. Perhaps he knows it is too late to save the planet. So why not just “binge” on coal, keep the peasants happy, and stay in office until the end. Maybe Xi has read the tea leaves, or the astronomical charts, and rightly foresees the second coming of the killer asteroid.
Or maybe he figures that by 2030 the whole world will be under his control.’https://papundits.wordpress.com/2021/04/15/chinas-strange-endorsement-of-net-zero/
Psalm 78:45 “He sent divers sorts of flies among them, which devoured them; and frogs, which destroyed them.”
Borneo is home to some strange creatures. We are familiar with the orangutan, widely considered to be the creature that gave rise to the myth of the Wild Man of Borneo. Another very strange animal from Borneo is the Bornean flat-headed frog (Barbourula kalimantanensis). It is not the flat head that makes it unusual, but rather the fact that it has no lungs. Other internal organs occupy the space where the lungs would normally have been in the 2-inch-long creature, and the result is that the frog is flatter than most other frogs. The frog is able to “breathe” by absorbing air through its skin. Most frogs do this anyway, in addition to using lungs.
Evolutionary scientists have suggested that the flat-headed frog has evolved that way in order to adapt to the cold, rapidly flowing streams in which it lives, to avoid being swept away. But there are other frogs that live in cold, rapidly growing streams. Why have these frogs not similarly evolved lunglessness if this is seen as an evolutionary advantage in Borneo?
It is much more likely that this species is suffering from a congenital disease. A mutation in a tadpole prevented the formation of lungs – a mutation that would be fatal in mammals, reptiles, or birds, but the resulting lungless adult frog has been able to get enough air through its skin. Creationists would suspect that this isolated Bornean population would probably be able to interbreed with related frogs in the Philippines.’https://creationmoments.com/sermons/a-frog-with-no-lungs/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-frog-with-no-lungs&mc_cid=c6758dbcfa&mc_eid=00c1dcff3c
