Biomedical. Christine Massey responds to two “freedom” celebrities who have recently posted article pushing virus hugging, and shreds their effort to tiny shreds.
Christine Massey, 6/5/24.
Greetings and Best Wishes,
On May 18, 2024 Michael Palmer, MD and Sucharit Bhakdi, MD published an article titled “Do viruses exist?”. In it, they framed the growing realization that virology is pseudoscience and that no virus has ever been shown to exist as “radical skepticism bordering on nihilism”. Despite 3000+ words and 18 references, they failed to cite valid scientific evidence for even 1 alleged virus (because there is none to cite).
Dr. Tom Cowan has addressed their article at length in his May 29, 2024 webinar, below.
I responded to their article with a private email on May 27, 2024 that has had no response or acknowledgement and that I am now making public. And Drs. Sam and Mark Bailey made some comments about this article in their May 31, 2024 Q & A for paid subscribers. [Video] My May 27, 2024 email, which I have now also posted in the comments under Michael Palmer’s substack post of the “viruses exist” article:
"Hello Michael and Sucharit,
Someone sent me your recent article insisting that "viruses" do exist.
As you know, a massive body of "evidence" exists claiming that we've experienced a deadly worldwide pandemic, and even that humanity has been saved by "safe and effective vaccines", despite that not being true.
Therefore, reliance on stories, assertions, editorials, wikipedia entries, essays, tributes, reviews, pseudoscientific studies, etc. are not an acceptable substitute for valid primary scientific evidence. And yet the former is all you offer as evidence in your defence of virology (and for your claims regarding allegedly pathogenic bacteria).
You've relied on many reification fallacies (i.e. "Virus particles differ considerably in size and shape"), including in the following assertions where you attempted to counter the position of signatories of the Settling The Virus Debate Statement on the use of cell cultures in virology.
• "The particles of many viruses have very characteristic shapes..."
• "There are many biochemical methods for characterizing viral particles, and moreover for establishing that they contain genetic information..."
• "Not all viruses can easily be grown in cell cultures..."
Continually referring to particles as "viruses" doesn't make them so, isn't evidence that they are, and is misleading given the absence of valid, logical evidence. There may be many methods for characterizing submicroscopic particles, but no particle has ever been sequenced, characterized, studied with valid controlled experiments and shown to fit the definition of a "virus".
I cannot take you or anyone else seriously when you try to declare what a "virus" supposedly looks like or what it can and can't do, or when you cite indirect evidence from various tests, when you can't first cite valid, logical, primary scientific evidence showing that a replication-competent intracellular obligate parasite that transmits between hosts and causes disease via natural modes of exposure actually exists. A test cannot be validated without a gold standard (the alleged virus).
You've asserted that: "A good example of such an animal study was published by Theil et al. [10]. It concerned the isolation of a novel virus from gnotobiotic, i.e. otherwise germ-free pigs."
Nothing was "isolated" in this animal torture/sacrifice study or shown to be a "virus". The authors did not conduct any valid scientific experiments designed to test such a hypothesis.
Observing diarrhea in 9 out of 11 pigs that were fed the intestinal contents of other pigs with diarrhea is a far cry from evidence of a "virus" - especially when the study lacks a valid independent variable (purified particles taken from "hosts"), no randomization or blinding is mentioned, and a grand total of 1 pig that was not fed said intestinal contents was kept in an insulator until it was sacrificed by the researchers 24 hours after start of experiment and passed off as "the control".
(Amusingly, the cytopathic effects in cell cultures that are typically and absurdly passed off as "virus isolation" failed to occur in this study.)
Contrary to what you would have your readers believe, the tiny particles shown in an EM image and asserted to be "the virus" were not isolated/purified, they were not characterized, no "genetic material" was shown to come from those specific particles, and they were not studied with valid controlled experiments. They were not shown to be viruses. And there are no "known viruses with similar morphology" to which said particles could be compared.
Some of my colleagues and I call this misleading use of imaging "the point and declare method", and people around the world are becoming aware of this inanity.
As men who consider themselves scientists, I'm surprised you're not embarrassed to cite such a study. Nine of the 12 animals in this ridiculous study were sacrificed 15 - 48 hours after "inoculation" and there isn't a shred of scientific evidence to be gleaned from it.
I also can't take seriously your comments about a supposed "false dichotomy" (germ vs. terrain) when you haven't acknowledged the view, or ruled out the possibility, that "germs" (the ones that actually exist) are the result rather than the cause of dis-ease in a body and always play a beneficial role. Said view is in direct opposition to the claims of germ hypothesis adherents, even though both acknowledge that compromised bodies are more likely to end up with a so-called "infection".
Fyi, we're well aware that according to the "virus" hypothesis "viruses" can't grow in a pure culture. The need for purified samples (to be sequenced, characterized and studied with valid controlled experiments) and the overall logic of the postulates remains. Historical context doesn't change anything because logic doesn't change over time. It's just easier to bamboozle people who have already accepted "germ" dogma.
You have failed to disclose to your readers the details of a typical cell culture used by virologists to fake-isolate imaginary "viruses", even though your 5th heading is "What does it mean to isolate a virus?"
I challenge you to walk your readers through a typical "virus isolation" study, for example A pneumonia outbreak associated with a new coronavirus of probable bat origin that supposedly describes the "isolation" of "SARS-COV-2" as performed by Peng Zhou et al., and try explaining to them how this study adheres to the scientific method with valid independent and dependent variables and a valid mode of exposure, starting from the point of sample collection and storage and preparation of the cell lines.
If you're not able to see the problems with this study, I suggest you need a time-out and would benefit from a strong dose of Baileys, starting with A Farewell to Virology (film version here).
You've asserted that: "While direct isolation is often used in the initial characterization of a novel virus, the use of cell cultures greatly facilitates the sensitive and speedy routine detection of viruses that are already known” and: "Has the SARS-CoV-2 virus ever been isolated? Yes, it has been—numerous times."
I challenge you to cite a study wherein any alleged "virus" was found in the bodily fluid/tissue/excrement of a so-called "host" and actually isolated (purified), sequenced, characterized and shown to cause the relevant illness. I literally have hundreds of freedom of information responses from >220 institutions in 40 countries on my website and in zero cases has any institution been able to cite a study describing actual isolation/purification of an alleged virus.
The so-called "solid study" (of n = 9 patients with mild symptoms and involving the infamous Christian Drosten) that you list as your 16th reference describes the typical cytopathic effects in a monkey kidney cell culture contaminated with calf serum and toxic-to-kidneys amphotericin B, etc., passed off as "virus isolation" (supplementary methods). A completely unnatural procedure that tells us nothing whatsoever about what goes on in a living body or why anyone got sick, lacking a valid independent variable or dependent variable, and without even a pretense of controls.
You asserted that "the artificial nature of SARS-CoV-2 can be convincingly demonstrated based on nothing more than the nucleotide sequence of its genome [11]", without citing valid evidence of "SARS-COV-2" to begin with. No amount of analysis of a made-up computer "genome" that has never been shown to have a physical counterpart could tell us anything at all about an alleged "virus".
Regarding your assertion that "It is also possible to buy samples of the purified virus from the American Type Culture Collection", I challenge you to back up that claim by showing that any "isolate" sold by ATCC or any other supplier actually consists of purified particles and that said particles were actually shown to be a "virus". Please see my response >2 years ago Steve Kirsch's same claim re ATCC.
I don't know why it's still necessary to point these things out >4 years into this hoax.
Regards,
Christine “
Note: this newsletter has been sent to 200+ people who work for “the state”, lamestream media, etc. at Canada, Isle of Man, England and the U.S., so they cannot claim they don’t know.
For truth, freedom and sanity,
Christine
My comment at the page.
Jeffrey Strahl, Lockdown Times, 6/6/24.. Liked by Christine Massey FOIs
Excellent letter, Christine. Palmer and Bhakdi are hiding behind their credentials and "respectability." They resent being flushed out, shown to be shallow.
And, keeping the virus paradigm alive results in stuff like globalist health entities and mainstream media trying to push fears of a new pandemic, this time Avian Flu, as predicted by a bunch of us, including Christine Massey.
The Latest “Bird Flu” Death is “Covid” All Over Again, Kit Knightly, 6/6/24.
If this keeps going, we're gonna need a lot more "bird flu" stock images. Yesterday, the mainstream media widely reported that a new strain of Bird Flu had claimed its first victim, a 59-year-old man from Mexico. The big news here is that the strain allegedly responsible, H5N2, had allegedly never before been detected in humans.
Everyone from CNN to the BBC to Sky News to ABC went with a headline along these lines: "First confirmed human case of bird flu H5N2 has died, says World Health Organisation” The UK’s I newspaper skipped straight to asking the important questions: “Is bird flu present in the UK and should I be worried?” Of course, none of the MSM interrogated the situation any further than copy-pasting WHO press releases. But, for anyone who followed the early development of the Covid “pandemic”, the details of the supposed “bird flu” death sound eerily familiar.
For example, the patient was already seriously ill with kidney disease and type-2 diabetes. In fact he had been bedridden for three weeks prior to the onset of his “acute symptoms” of bird flu. Further, the diagnosis of Bird Flu was only “confirmed” post-mortem by PCR testing. The death reportedly occurred on April 24th, and yet is only making the headlines now. The report also volunteers that the man had “no history of exposure to poultry or other animals”
. …which rather begs the question: So why was he tested for Bird Flu at all? More specifically, why were they testing him for a strain of Bird Flu that had supposedly never infected a human being before, let alone killed one? Are they just testing everyone for Bird Flu just in case? Because that’s another Covid thing. Whether or not they were doing that before, they’re probably going to start doing it now, since the WHO’s recommendations following this case include “strengthening routine surveillance”, which essentially means testing more.
North of the border, a new report published today claims good old-fashioned H5N1 bird flu has killed “dozens” of dairy cows across the US, before noting in the small print that the cows “either died or were slaughtered“. Making it possible, or even likely, that none of them died of “bird flu” at all. Which, again, sounds very familiar.
Meanwhile, former White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Deborah Birx has appeared on TV to spew some more Covid-era craziness. First, she was talked up the need to detect “asymptomatic” bird flu in humans – a classic Covid hallmark. She followed that up by suggesting we should be testing every cow in America once a week. Seriously:
For reference, there are around 40 million cows in the US. If they were to test them all with a PCR test every week, and – for the sake of argument – the test has just a 0.1% false positive rate, you’re looking at creating 40,000 phantom bird flu cases a week… and thus having to cull potentially millions of cows a year for nothing. Which is obviously insane if your goal is to monitor and prevent disease, but absolutely ideal if you’re trying to stop people eating meat. …It’s all starting to feel somewhat inevitable, isn’t it?
Comments by me and others.
Jeffrey Strahl
Jun 7, 2024 12:24 AM
Keep the virus myth and the reputation of virology and contagion theory alive, and you will see them being used over and over again, meaning we have to deal anew with each Op as it gets implemented.
Christine Massey called attention to the coming push of the Avian Flu threat several weeks ago.
Hugo Chavez
Jun 6, 2024 10:38 PM
The Mexican Health Secretary has announced that the death wasn’t caused by bird flu:
See here.
He recommended taking the WHO’s information “with prudence” because “it’s not precise” (which sounds like a very diplomatic way of saying don’t believe their bullshit.)
He added that “there’s no reason to avoid eating chicken or chicken products”, or for “being worried about this.”
Maxwell
Jun 7, 2024 1:02 AM
How about we put all this crap to rest by debunking the biggest fraud of all- The Spanish Flu. The Spanish Flu story evocatively simmers in the collective conscience. When brought to our attention or when thoughts of it surface, it is always broadcast or thought of as some apocalyptic health disaster caused by some otherworldly and fatal microbe. Debates around the margins are allowed but even those come with an intractable belief in the prevailing narrative.
How many did ‘It’ actually kill? Was it 20 million? Was it 50 million? Where did ‘It’ originate? From a US military base? From France? From China? How exactly did ‘It’ spread so widely and quickly? Did ‘It’ move through the population through train travel? Was ‘It’ spread by massive military movements? What was so unique and deadly about this pathogen? Was ‘It’ enhanced with novel deadly features? Was the ‘antigenic composition’ particularly virulent?
Circa 2024 these types of questions sound all too familiar. What’s not allowed is to question the fundamental assumptions of this earth shaking historical event- even if those assumptions fly in the face of logic. What’s demanded by officialdom is to ignore all other plausible explanations.
What’s emphatically not to be questioned is the very existence of ‘It’. What’s not to be considered is the possibility that this tragedy has been completely mischaracterized.
So if not a unique pathogen that spread like wildfire across the globe what did kill all these people? A look at history books and statistics shows that epidemics always developed where human biological systems had been weakened, primarily due to lack of food and water, poor sanitary conditions, toxic overload and immense social stressors. A look back to 1918 finds a world of unparalleled devastation wrought by WW1.
Is it a stretch to believe that thousands of tons of war chemicals including chlorine gas, phosgene, mustard gas and thirty-odd other chemicals released into the environment during three years of daily explosions would create the conditions that would lead to mass fatalities in both the immediate and long-term? What about the training for chemical warfare and exposure to these chemicals and what type of reactions these men had as a result of this exposure even before landing on the battlefield? What is our government not saying?
Is it such a controversial belief that thousands of tons of explosives used to send millions of pounds of toxic liquids and poisonous gasses into the air across Europe would create an environment that would create mass casualties and mass illness? Is it really revisionist history to ask basic questions about how often the soldiers bathed and changed clothes in order to get the chemical residues off of their bodies? Is it so apocryphal to point out that these chemical residues will remain in the lungs and in the environment for prolonged periods resulting in lethal outcomes?
Wouldn’t it be logical to consider the maritime transportation issues for soldiers, animals and goods during WW1, where soldiers were crammed together on ships with lots of horses and mules in very humid conditions, horrendous sanitary conditions, onerous nutritional deficiencies, limited hygienic repositories for human and animal waste? Wouldn’t these conditions be a guaranteed recipe for respiratory problems? Is it really so far-fetched to suggest that experimental mass injection campaigns done on millions of soldiers might have detrimental, even deadly, impacts for the subjects?
Is it really so fantastical to mention that socially and economically devastated towns and cities in physically devastated areas throughout Europe would create the perfect conditions for disease? Is it seditious to ask how it was that the ‘global pandemic’ ended and the alleged illness “mysteriously” disappeared at the exact same time WW1 ended?
Is it truly unreasonable to suggest that the more likely explanation for the “flu” pandemic in 1918 was war torn countries and people teeming with multiple toxins and pathogens? Is it really unreasonable to suggest that the primary cause of deaths attributable to the Spanish Flu were all things related to WW1 and not some invisible pathogen?
Why it’s important to ask these questions is to have knowledge of the history, get that history right and understand the verifiable origins of the event while understanding who the false narrative serves. They lie about everything and the story of the Spanish Flu is just another of these lies.
And, Russia’s health agency, the hope of so many in the ranks of the “freedom” movement, is pushing ahead on mRNA jabs, claiming that it can develop one for …..cancer.
The serum uses "mRNA technologies like the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines", Gamaleya Center director Alexander Gintsburg told Russian media. Edward Slavsquat, 6/7/24.
An mRNA vaccine that works on all types of cancer has shown promising results in mice, Gamaleya Center director Alexander Gintsburg said in a June 6 interview with Gazeta dot ru. The drug is “being created based on mRNA technologies like the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines”, Gintsburg told the outlet, adding that his institute has its own mRNA platform that doesn’t rely on Western patents. The genetic vaccine will be custom-fit to each individual patient based on the results of tumor biopsies.
When asked about the vaccine’s safety, Gamaleya’s director said that the benefits of mRNA “therapeutic” vaccines outweigh the potential risks—but that the same cannot be said of “preventative” mRNA drugs. [Screen shot] “Preventive vaccines are needed for healthy people, and here mRNA technologies work worse, as they give more side effects. If a person is already sick and fighting cancer, then the benefits of mRNA technology outweigh these side effects,” he claimed.
The vaccine’s development is being supervised at the highest levels of government. According to Gintsburg, Russian President Vladimir Putin approved the project seven months ago and instructed his ministers to provide financing from the budget. The mRNA shot has also received “personal” attention from Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko.
The Gamaleya Center announced in September 2022 that it wanted to create its own mRNA coronavirus vaccine. The Center’s deputy director, Denis Logunov, claimed that the advantage of mRNA technology is that it allows for drugs to be administered on a monthly or even daily basis. He added that mRNA vaccines such as Pfizer or Moderna provide strong immunity after three to four injections. [Screen shots]
In May 2023, Logunov said his institute was developing mRNA “canned food” that could be used to rapidly deploy new vaccines when necessary. Responding to Gintsburg’s interview with Gazeta dot ru,
State Duma Deputy Mikhail Delyagin observed that Gamaleya’s director enjoys total impunity as he needles the Russian public with unproven genetic slurries: "The results of using Gintsburg’s previous vaccine [Sputnik V] on people are a “trade secret” vigilantly protected by the state. Let me remind you that the use of Western vaccines (and Gintsburg talked about their similarity with Russian ones), according to data revealed by Western courts and the media, has already led to the premature death of 3 million people—and people continue to die. When our domestic vaccinators are tired of waiting for the West to declare a new pandemic, they want a new government order for mass experiments on people."
Judging from reactions on Russian social media and internet forums, Delyagin isn’t the only one who is fed up with Gintsburg’s “mass experiments”:[Two screen shots, the second being a blog item from February about Sputnik V]
My comment at the page.
Jeffrey Strahl, Lockdown Times, 6/7/24.
Looking forward to the next miracle from the Gamaleya Center, a vaccine for heart disease. Glory to Putin, glory to Russia, glory to BRICS, Pepe Escober, Scott Ritter, :-)
Thanks, Riley. Quite dismaying how many "freedom" activists in the SF Bay Area believe the likes of Escobar and Ritter and Putin, still stuck in their 1960s framework that any global power opposed to US hegemony is a friend of theirs. It wasn't really true back then, it sure isn't now.
And, i have been very critical of Peggy Hall in the past, and find some of the basics of her overall analysis of the world to be hopelessly flawed, e.g. her embrace of “libertarian economics,” she does great her, calling out another “freedom” movement celebrity, Del Bigtree, who is now fine with jabs if “shown safe."
My friend Christine Massey posted this on her Facebook page.
"Peggy has called out ICAN for supporting proposed legislation to increase confidence to useless, deadly quackcines and allow "mandates" if a quackcine has 1 year of safety data, and for ignoring her communication to them about this and then whining that she did a video about this without contacting them first. Go Peggy!"
BOY, DID I RUFFLE SOME FEATHERS (Re: DEL BIGTREE), The Healthy American (Peggy Hall), 6/3/24. 23 minutes.
WHY is DEL BIGTREE Promoting a "VACCI…
ICAN Legislate: VACCINE CONFIDENCE Bill: [Link].. ICAN financial statement: [Link]
4IR. A very interesting interview with two women of Palestinian background who are active in the campus anti-genocide movement in the UK.
Dismantling Zionism: Frontline on the Student Encampments with Palestinian Youth Movement, Palestine Deep Dive, 5/29/24, an hour and eleven minutes.
"Ahmed Alnaouq speaks to Yasmin and Yara, two organisers with Palestinian Youth Movement, about the history of student solidarity with Palestine, the growing student encampment movement and the role of Palestinians in diaspora in dismantling Zionism.”
My comments: I disagree with some of their perspective, including their apparent belief in the “pandemic” narrative and the limited critique of capitalism they provide (though they at least do bring this up as being the key aspect of the context). But some good observations, and good reporting on the extent of the campaign in the UK and elsewhere in the world. Both of the activists are descended from families which originated in the Menashia neighborhood of the city of Yaffa (Arab pronunciation, whose history as a city and a port goes back to Biblical times. It was next to Yaffa that the city of Tel Aviv was established in 1907 as a “Jewish [i.e. Jewish controlled] alternative,” In April 1948, a month before the formal declaration of Israel’s independence, the Irgun militia, headed by Menachem Begin, ethnically cleansed the city, using mortars and explosives to destroy the large majority of residences and force the population of 50,000 to flee southward…. toward Gaza. Begin bragged about this in his 1953 book Ha’Mered (The Rebellion), He was an early leader of the right wing (at times outright fascist) Kherut (Liberty) Party, which morphed into the Likkud Party in the ‘70s. He became prime minister in 1977, conducted the invasion of Lebanon staring in 1982, and largely privatized the nation's formerly weak sauce social democratic structure. I grew up a few blocks from the ruins of Yaffa, still ruins when we left in 1958, then in the ‘70s and ‘80s flattened and turned into a hi0rise forest.
And, Craig McKee on the alarming trend to cast anyone putting forth what are deemed to be “conspiracy theories” to be a danger to society.
Demonization of 'conspiracy theories' now paints speech itself as ‘dangerous’, Craig McKee, 6/6/24.
The tactics evolve but the agenda remains the same. Crush dissent. Silence speech. Discredit those who dare to question. And keep people from figuring out how they are being manipulated into going along with it all. Establishment power – usually working through its propaganda arm, the “mainstream” media – loves to mock “conspiracy theorists.” It takes great delight in accusing them of being paranoid and delusional. The approach is about as subtle as a poke in the eye from one of the Three Stooges.
But the crazier the world gets, and the more often that “conspiracy theorists” get things right (which they do on a regular basis), the less effective this propaganda is. People have started to catch on.
To counter this awakening, the propaganda has had to evolve. In recent years, attacks on dissenters have become more extreme. Now, the idea is to convince people that anyone who dares question establishment power is not only mentally unstable but also “dangerous.” Merely questioning the activities of the powerful and their institutions is painted as being a threat to democracy, national security, and even human life.
The rhetoric becomes more insane every day. And the only way we can combat it is to see through it and to expose the psychological conditioning being used to justify restrictions on speech. The current “woke” agenda (including critical race theory and gender ideology) and the accompanying cancel culture are being used to increase contempt for free speech.
The disingenuous push to stop “hate speech” is just one more tactic being employed to convince the public that we must accept limits on what we say. And once we do, then the grip of control can be steadily tightened. The real trick of this kind of psyop is to make the public demand more authoritarian control over what all of us do and think. Those who are fooled not only accept more censorship, more surveillance, and more propaganda, they clamor for it.[SNIP]……
Ending this segment and this edition, forget about energy transition while the global system remains what it is.
We need another kind of transformation more than ever. The Honest Sorcerer, 6/3/24.
There is still a widespread belief that it is possible to transition away from fossil fuels, a myth which is contradicted by an ever growing body of evidence. Not that the previous model — based on coal, oil and gas — was even a slight bit more sustainable: we are talking about finite resources after all. However, the “energy transition” was a far more easier sell, than admitting that we have reached the end of growth, and that a long winding road back to a much simpler life is what awaits. Meanwhile, the real crisis (climate change), has proved to be a far more complex topic than what could be “tackled” by turning a few coal fired power plants off, and wishing for the magic unicorn of the Hydrogen economy to materialize… Where did it all go wrong? What kind of transition is possible then?
Let’s start by making a simple statement first: There has been no energy transition ever taking place in human history. Neither in the 19th century, when coal came into the picture, nor in the 20th with the advent of nuclear, or in the 21st, for that matter, with the widespread adoption of wind and solar. As the term implies, it would’ve required us to abandon a viable energy source in favour of another, ramping down the old one in advantage of the new. That would’ve meant leaving vast reserves of the old energy source out there, untapped. That has never happened, and never will, for a simple reason: the Maximum Power Principle.
The MPP posits that complex systems (like the human economy) tend to evolve in ways that maximize their power intake or energy throughput. Which means, that as long as there is a viable energy source out there, we will not stop using it: It has to run out first, or become otherwise unavailable for us. (And as the history of climate conferences show, that pretty much seems to be the case with fossil fuels.) In a nutshell: no, there is no such thing as an “energy transition” — only addition to the existing mix.
The second thing which needs to be stated here, is that energy efficiency is not a solution for two reasons. First, it too violates the Maximum Power Principle — and thus puts the entity reducing its overall energy intake into a major disadvantage; effectively allowing other entities to outcompete it. Since we are living in a competitive environment, where the weak gets eaten/occupied/robbed/colonized/etc. this cannot allowed to happen. As a result energy saved by efficiency measures will always be used up in other ways (usually by increasing economic output). And while we could debate how this is a bad thing from a moral standpoint, this is the world we live in. Just take a look at the chart below:
The other reason, why energy efficiency cannot possibly save the day (not even in a benign, cooperative environment) is the Jevons-paradox, put forward by an English economist William Stanley Jevons in 1865. The phenomenon named after him occurs when technological progress increases the efficiency with which a resource (like coal) is used, but the falling cost of use induces increases in demand. Likewise, if you were to give up coal use in favour of “renewables” all it would achieve is to make coal much cheaper elsewhere, and thereby drive up its use. The same goes for gasoline (vs electric cars) or any other form of energy saving. Unless an energy source gets physically banned worldwide, or becomes less available due to depletion, its consumption cannot be expected to fall — no matter how detrimental its use proves to be on the long run.
Now, with these two factors in mind take a look at the first chart above. Have you noticed the plateauing (or the taper off) of fossil fuels: first coal, then oil, and as of late: natural gas? Was there any ban on their use globally? No? Then why did they stopped growing? Due to the energy transition — which never was — or perhaps because of energy efficiency measures [sic]? Or maybe, because we have arrived at hard limits to their extraction? Take a minute to ponder on that.[SNIP]…..
As the massive bout of surplus energy provided by ancient carbon slowly recedes into memory, we will increasingly need to make do without this much technology. At the same time, we must also face the consequences of releasing so much carbon and other pollutants into the atmosphere, and adapt to our rapidly changing environment — or abandon places where human life is no longer possible. Instead of investing in futile attempts made at replacing the irreplaceable, or trying to put the Genie back into the bottle, we should be building out an alternative, resilient, local, low-tech, low-energy society; restoring ecosystems and figuring out a new living arrangement with the natural world as we go.
With our population also peaking and declining due to falling birth rates, will we use this slight reprieve to make such an “Ecotechnic”, truly renewable and regenerative way of life happen? Or will we double down on a green technutopia violating all the laws of thermodynamics and all what we know about how complex systems work…? Let’s face it: this unsustainable civilization is beyond repair. It needs hospicing before it’s put to rest, not another day on life support powered by green magic, and fairy tales of an “energy transition” — which never was. Until next time, - B