Democratic Sen. Mark Warner is reviving the Russian collusion narrative just in time for another election



Democratic Sen. Mark Warner (Va.), was one of the leading exponents of the Russian collusion hoax. In 2019, for instance, he claimed, "There's no one that could factually say there's not plenty of evidence of collaboration or communications between Trump Organization and Russians."

Special counsels Robert Mueller and John Durham ultimately proved him wrong, revealing there was no substantive evidence of Russian collusion in the 2016 election.

Subsequent analysis revealed that to the extent there was foreign interference, it was likely inconsequential — not including the foreign-sourced Steele dossier collected for the Clinton campaign, which Democrats used to great effect. For instance, the Washington Post, whose journalists were awarded for peddling the debunked "Russia hoax" narrative, admitted that so-called Russian trolls "had no measurable impact in changing minds or influencing voter behavior" ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

Before Durham could take some of the wind out of Warner's sails, the senator claimed ahead of the 2020 election, "the Russians who attacked us in 2016 are still attacking us."

The Virginia senator is apparently at it again, pre-emptively characterizing Nigel Farage's gains in Britain's July 4 election as the Kremlin's preferred outcome. According to Politico, Farage's Reform U.K. party could pick up as many as 17 seats in the British Parliament, including five from the Conservatives.

The Telegraph reported Tuesday that while Warner admitted that U.S. intelligence agencies "have not seen much [Russian] activity" around the British election, he has suggested "the chances are, as we saw in the past, this activity ramps up dramatically the closer it gets to the election."

According to the Telegraph, Warner "singled out Nigel Farage as he described Vladimir Putin's potential efforts to exploit different attitudes among British politicians towards defending Kyiv's frontlines."

Conservative party establishmentarians like Rishi Sunak, Boris Johnson, and Liz Truss are reportedly in agreement that Ukraine can succeed militarily so long as it keeps receiving weapons and funding.

Farage, alternatively, recently said, "I'm not saying we shouldn't support Ukraine at all. Not for one minute. But at the end of the day most wars end in negotiation and I fear, if we don't find some way of at least sitting down and talking, that we're going to finish up with a war that goes on for year after year after year."

Warner apparently regards a difference of opinion amongst British politicians on the country's foreign policy — in this case, regarding a negotiated end to the war in Ukraine — as position capture by Russia.

"Clearly, Russia does not like the fact that the UK has been as stalwart as they have been in terms of defense on Ukraine," said Warner. "It clearly meets Putin's plans if he can lessen the British or the Americans' resolve for supporting Ukraine, he can save some money on his tanks, guns, ships and planes if he can diminish support."

In a recent BBC interview, which has been grossly mischaracterized by the English press, Farage noted that Putin has "gone from prime minister, to president, he's a clever political operator. He kills journalists. I don't like him as a human being in any way at all."

"You can recognize the fact that some people are good at what they do even if they have evil intent," continued Farage.

When asked what he'd say to Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy if in a position of influence, Farage said, "I'd say to Zelensky, 'Look, the West have been supporting you, they will go on supporting you, but the percentage of your young manhood that you're losing is so bad, isn't it time we at least tried to have a negotiation?' He couldn’t say no."

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Talking head laughs in Buttigieg's face after he glosses over the Biden admin's epic failure



Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was recently asked about one of his boss' unrealistic green schemes, namely the installation of electric vehicle charging stations across the country. His answer prompted CBS' Margaret Brennan to laugh in his face.

Apparently keen to keep the laughs coming, Buttigieg subsequently blamed airline turbulence on climate change.

Only 499,992 to go

Ahead of the 2020 election, then-candidate Joe Biden promised the American people in four debates and during his CNN town hall interview that he would build half a million new charging stations across the nation if elected.

After taking the White House, Biden reiterated his promise, stating in November 2021, "We're going to build out the first-ever national network of charging stations all across the country — over 500,000 of them. ... So you'll be able to go across the whole darn country, from East Coast to West Coast, just like you'd stop at a gas station now. These charging stations will be available."

That month, the then-Democrat-controlled Congress passed a corresponding $1 trillion infrastructure package. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and 18 other Republican lawmakers, evidently unswayed by former President Donald Trump's critiques, subsequently helped Democrats pass the measure in the U.S. Senate.

Of the 1,000 billion taxpayer dollars sunk into the bill, $73 billion was designated for updating the nation's electricity grid so it could carry more renewable energy and $7.5 billion to build Biden's promised EV charging stations by 2030.

According to the EV policy analyst group Atlas Public Policy, the funding designated for the rollout should be enough for at least 20,000 charging spots and 5,000 stations.

Now years into the scheme, it appears increasingly unlikely that Biden's costly promise will materialize.

In March, the Federal Highway Administration confirmed to the Washington Post that only seven of Biden's planned 500,000 EV charging stations were operational, amounting to a total of 38 spots for drivers in Hawaii, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania to charge their vehicles.

Politico noted last year that that a National Renewable Energy Laboratory study estimated the country will need 1.2 million public chargers by 2030 to meet the demand artificially created by the Biden administration's climate agenda and corresponding regulations. As of June 2023, there were roughly 180,000 chargers nationwide.

House Committee on Energy and Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and other Republican lawmakers penned a February letter to Buttigieg and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, expressing concerns that "American taxpayer dollars are being woefully mismanaged."

Over the weekend, Margaret Brennan pressed the issue further in conversation with the Biden DOT secretary on CBS' "Face the Nation."

Laughable

"Let me ask you about a portion of this that I think does fall under your portfolio, and that's the charging stations you mentioned. The Federal Highway Administration says only seven or eight charging stations have been produced with a $7.5 billion investment that taxpayers made back in 2021," said Brennan. "Why isn't that happening more quickly?"

"So the president's goal is to have half a million chargers up by the end of this decade. Now, in order to do a charger, it's more than just plunking a small device into the ground. There's utility work, and this is also really a new category of federal investment."

"But we've been working with each of the 50 states," continued Buttigieg. "Every one of them is getting formula dollars to do this work."

Brennan leaned in and asked, "Seven or eight, though?"

"Again, by 2030: 500,000 chargers," responded Buttigieg.

Brennan laughed at Buttigieg's suggestion, evidently unable to conceal her disbelief in the possibility that another 499,992 chargers could be installed and operational inside the next six years.

"And the very first handful of chargers are now already being physically built. But again, that's the absolute very, very beginning stages of the construction to come," added Buttigieg.

Despite the Biden administration admittedly being at the "very, very beginning stages," it is nevertheless trying to get gas-consuming cars off the streets and replacing them with EVs that will all rely on the handful of existing charging stations.

In March, the administration announced a rule that would limit the amount of exhaust permitted from cars such that by 2032, over half of the new cars need to be so-called zero-emissions vehicles, reported the New York Times.

Keeping it light

While short on satisfactory answers, Buttigieg still had plenty of alarmism to go around.

The DOT secretary told Brennan, "The reality is the effects of climate change are already upon us in terms of our transportation. We've seen that in the form of everything from heat waves that shouldn't statistically even be possible threatening to melt the cables of transit systems in the Pacific Northwest, to hurricane seasons becoming more and more extreme, and indications that turbulence is up by about 15%."

A study published last year in Geophysical Research Letters suggested that clear-air turbulence "is predicted to become more frequent because of climate change," claiming that the strongest category of clear-air turbulence was 55% more frequent in 2020 than in 1979.

Brennan pressed Buttigieg on whether the kind of extreme turbulence experienced last week by Singapore Airlines flight SQ321, which was traveling from London to Singapore, would soon become more common in the United States.

"To be clear, something that extreme is very rare. But turbulence can happen and sometimes it can happen unexpectedly," said Buttigieg. "This is all about making sure that we stay ahead of the curve, keeping aviation as safe as it is."

The "Face the Nation" interview was slapped with a community note on X, noting that National Transportation Safety Board data "shows there is no rising trend in aircraft turbulence incidents."

— (@)

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Scientist who contributed to UN climate report touts global virus as final solution for curbing emissions



Bill McGuire, a professor emeritus of earth sciences at University College London and co-director of the New Weather Institute, has long been a climate alarmist. McGuire, whose specialty appears to be volcanoes, contributed to the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 2012 report; scaremongered about the weather on numerous BBC Radio 4 series; wrote a book 16 years ago entitled "Seven Years to Save the Planet"; and now criticizes affordable energy in the pages of the Guardian.

In March, McGuire recommended that Britons "green our towns and cities"; "replac[e] tarmac and concrete with more permeable materials"; "insulate, insulate, insulate"; and paint buildings white. On Friday, the volcanist went farther, recommending against laughing off climate alarmists' prophesies.

It appears McGuire understands his proposals to be foolhardy — that more is needed than white paint and stoicism to save the world from imagined future harms.

Culling the herd

McGuire noted Saturday in since-deleted tweet, "If I am brutally honest, the only realistic way I see emissions falling as fast as they need to, to avoid catastrophic #climate breakdown, is the culling of the human population by a pandemic with a very high fatality rate."

McGuire's "realistic" solution sounds like the yet-to-be-released COVID-19 sequel that fellow alarmists, such as Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the World Health Organization, have warned about in recent months.

At a World Economic Forum event in January, Ghebreyesus discussed Disease X and said, "Anything happening is a matter of when, not if."

The WEF suggested that "Disease X" could "result in 20 times more fatalities than the coronavirus pandemic," reported Newsweek.

McGuire appeared to have an idea of what virus might do the trick, having linked in his "culling" tweet to a Saturday article in the Guardian about the H5N1 strain of influenza, commonly referred to as the bird flu.

The thrust of the linked article was that the bird flu being examined by British scientists might ultimately leap into human beings.

Virologist Paul Digard of the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh is quoted in the artlce as saying, "Now that it seems to be fairly widespread in the cow population in the U.S., that’s a much more direct route where it could transmit to people and gain the adaptations it needs to go pandemic."

The article noted further as if to reassure, "If H5N1 did start spreading among people, the good news is that the world has plenty of recent experience when it comes to rolling out large-scale vaccination programmes. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are two candidate vaccines against a related strain of flu viruses that could be shipped within weeks, if necessary."

Backpedaling

McGuire's suggestion — that the "only realistic way" to get down emissions to desirable levels would be the deaths of millions if not billions of human beings — was not well received. He evidently decided that the way forwad would be to accuse his critics of illiteracy and a collective failure of comprehension.

"I SAID 'THE ONLY WAY I SEE EMISSIONS FALLING AS FAST AS THEY NEED TO,'" McGuire wrote in a subsequent tweet.

"SEEMS LIKE A LOT OF PEOPLE CAN'T READ. I SAID 'THE ONLY WAY I SEE EMISSIONS FALLING AS FAST AS THEY NEED TO...' I DID NOT SAY 'WE NEED A PANDEMIC,'" wrote McGuire. "FFS DON'T READ THINGS INTO A STATEMENT THAT AREN'T THERE[.] I COULD HAVE SAD SOCIETY-BUSTING ASTEROID IMPACT INSTEAD OF PANDEMIC."

HE ONLY SAID THE HUMAN POPULATION NEEDS CULLING WHAT'S THE PROBLEM!?
— (@)

McGuire's first all-caps response to his critics did not go over well, so he tried again hours later, writing, "RIGHT, I AM DELETING THE INITIAL TWEET NOW. NOT BECAUSE I REGRET IT, BUT BECAUSE SO MANY PEOPLE OUT THERE HAVE MISTAKENLY, OR INTENTIONALLY, TAKE IT THE WRONG WAY."

The Virginia Project, a Republican political action committee among the many groups and individuals that blasted McGuire, wrote, "The world understood exactly what you meant, which is that in order to meet the goals of 'climate change' fanatics, a mass extermination of humanity on a global scale is necessary. That is the logical conclusion of 'climate change' advocacy. You just got caught admitting it."

The world understood exactly what you meant, which is that in order to meet the goals of "climate change" fanatics, a mass extermination of humanity on a global scale is necessary.\n\nThat is the logical conclusion of "climate change" advocacy. You just got caught admitting it.
— (@)

Multitudes of other users on X suggested likewise, prompting McGuire to suggest that by a pandemic-driven "culling," he actually meant a drop in economic productivity — the kind that in recent years corresponding with millions of people dying worldwide.

Reworded\n\nEmissions have only fallen at times of major economic shock, due to pandemic or otherwise\n\nA much bigger one is the only way emissions will fall by at least 50% in 66 months - needed to have any chance of dodging dangerous, all pervasive, #climate breakdown
— (@)

McGuire added in a Sunday tweet, "Would love to hear how emissions can be cut by at east 50% in the next 66 months (by 2030) without a major socio-economic shock that slashes economic activity[.] This MUST happen to have any chance of sidestepping dangerous, all-pervasive, climate breakdown."

— (@)

While McGuire appears to have said the quiet part out loud, he is hardly the only Britsh-based climate alarmist to publicly showcase his hostility toward human life in recent months.

Blaze News previously reported that Donnachadh McCarthy, a failed politician involved in Just Stop Oil and one of the leading figures of Extinction Rebellion, went on British television earlier this year to suggest that "there is a moral issue" with having too many children and that families should be limited to one child.

Late last year, scientists at the U.K. Center for Ecology and Hydrology raised the alarm that human breathing is contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, urging "caution in the assumption that emissions from humans are negligible."

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Biden White House considering declaration of a 'national climate emergency' in order to grant itself special powers



The Biden White House is once again entertaining the possibility of conferring itself unprecedented powers to hobble American energy producers and win over leftists, all in the name of changing weather patterns.

Forbes Media chairman Steve Forbes characterized the proposed declaration as a "cowardly way to try to win this election."

Emergency powers then and now

The National Emergencies Act enables the president to activate special powers during a crisis. Since the law went into effect in 1976, it has been invoked scores of times.

When former President Donald Trump was in office, the Brennan Center for Justice, a leftist public policy institute, raised the alarm about the "vast array of obscure presidential powers" the NEA affords presidents in the face of a supposed emergency.

The Brennan Center noted that the emergency powers "cover almost every imaginable subject area, including the military, land use, public health, trade, federal pay schedules, agriculture, transportation, communications, and criminal law."

One statute unlocked following an NEA declaration would enable the president to "suspend a law that prohibits the testing of chemical and biological weapons on unwitting human subjects." Another would allow the president to commandeer radio stations.

Elizabeth Goitein, senior director and expert on presidential emergency powers at the Brennan Center, noted in the Atlantic that "the president is free to use any of them; the National Emergencies Act doesn't require that the powers invoked relate to the nature of the emergency. Even if the crisis at hand is, say, a nationwide crop blight, the president may activate the law that allows the secretary of transportation to requisition any privately owned vessel at sea."

The New York Times noted in 2019 that when it comes to an NEA declaration, it likely doesn't matter if "there is no true emergency" and that as a "matter of legal procedure, facts may be irrelevant."

While leftists, future Biden boosters, and Fox News hosts complained when Trump declared a national emergency to curb illegal immigration and secure the border, some appear less resistant now to an emergency declaration that affords fellow travelers more power.

Fake crisis, real power

In 2022, Biden faced significant pressure from Democratic lawmakers and other radicals to declare a national climate emergency as a means to unilaterally kill federal oil drilling and ramp up so-called clean energy projects.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in July 2022, "The climate emergency is not going to happen tomorrow, but we still have it on the table."

The option is evidently still on the table.

Citing people "familiar with the matter," Bloomberg reported last week that White House officials have renewed discussions about declaring a national climate emergency.

Biden's top advisers would be able to cut back exports of American crude oil just as Iran's oil exports hit a 6-year high and altogether throttle the supply of oil and gas; limit the movement of trains and ships; kill offshore drilling; limit Americans' greenhouse gas emissions; and more.

The Times previously indicated that the regime could also compel domestic industries to produce more renewable energy and transportation technologies and free up taxpayer funds for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to fritter away on supposedly green causes.

Advisers apparently figure the unilateral measure would resonate with "climate-minded voters."

Wrecking the economy

Steve Forbes told Fox Business' "The Evening Edit" Thursday that "you're going to pay for it with an even more troubled economy."

The declaration would "give him the power to stop drilling offshore, stop export of crude, ... delay pipelines and the like — just throttle the whole fossil fuel industry even more than they're doing," said Forbes. "What that only does is wreck the economy. It means higher energy prices."

"Just look at Europe. Germany has two to three times the electricity costs times the electricity costs of the U.S. because of the kind of stuff the Biden administration is doing now. They've learned a hard lesson," continued Forbes. "This administration's throwing it all away, all sensible policies away, as a cheap way, a cowardly way to try to win this election."

Forbes appeared somewhat optimistic, suggesting that most young people "will see through it" and understand the declaration would do them harm as well.

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Watchdog accuses Biden administration of pushing 'misleading and inaccurate claims' in climate report



A nonpartisan government watchdog group has filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Commerce, requesting an investigation into possibly unethical and unscientific practices at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The watchdog is specifically concerned with NOAA's Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters tracking project, also know as the Billions Project, which has kept track of weather-related disasters since 1980. As the name would suggest, the project focuses on disasters that supposedly result in losses of $1 billion or more.

According to Protect the Public's Trust, those behind the Billions Project may be responsible for "scientific integrity violations" as well as "misleading and inaccurate claims about the Project's dataset."

This is especially troubling because the Billions Project is greatly impactful. It has been cited by the U.S. Global Change Research Program as a "climate change indicator"; its data was referenced last year as evidence that "extreme events are becoming more frequent and severe" in the same federal program's "Fifth National Climate Assessment"; and its results have reportedly been cited in nearly 1,000 articles.

Protect the Public's Trust noted in its April 3 letter to NOAA science integrity officer Cynthia Decker and to Roderick Anderson, the acting inspector general of the U.S. DOC, "Though cited as evidence of climate change effects, the Billions Project does not utilize climate data. The Project's dataset only collects and reports economic data about disaster losses."

Since it relies upon economic data, PPT noted that the Billions Project "cannot distinguish the effect of climate change as a factor on disaster losses from the effect of human factors like increases in the vulnerability and exposure of people and wealth to disaster damages due to population and economic growth."

The PPT alleged that the project:

  • employs opaque methods to calculate losses from individual disaster events that "result in drastically higher loss estimates than those reported by other institutions at NOAA";
  • uses "undisclosed non-traditional costs in its calculations [which] can mislead and misinform the public about the relevant scale of the disaster losses reported in the Project's dataset";
  • adds and removes disaster events from the dataset without so much as an explanation;
  • adjusts its loss data "beyond what inflation-adjustments require and does so for unexplained reasons";
  • "'scales up' loss data based on various factors without disclosing the methodology for its calculation or the baseline data"; and
  • appears to use inconsistent calculation methods over time.

The PPT stressed that the "national conversation on climate change and disaster-response should not be tainted by inaccurate, misleading, and self-serving scientific analysis."

"The American public has every right to expect, even demand, that the scientific research funded by their tax dollars is conducted under the most rigorous standards of integrity, transparency, and quality," said PPT director Michael Chamberlain in a statement.

"This is especially true when that research is used to underpin decisions that affect nearly every aspect of their lives — from the cars they drive, to the foods they eat, to how those foods are prepared. Despite the fact the Billions Project is being used to affect precisely these types of decisions, the principles of scientific integrity, transparency, and quality appear to be severely lacking in its work," added Chamberlain.

Just the News reported that the study by Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. referenced in the PPT complaint raised similar concerns earlier this year.

Pielke, an environmental studies professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, underscored in the pre-print of his forthcoming paper that "public claims promoted by NOAA associated with the dataset and its significance are flawed and misleading. ... Similarly flawed are NOAA's claims that increasing annual counts of billion dollar disasters are in part a consequence of human caused climate change."

NOAA responded in January to this line of critique, telling Just the News that "the methodologies of the Billion Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters product are laid out in Smith and Katz, 2013, a peer-reviewed publication, and follow NOAA’s Information Quality and Scientific Integrity Policies."

Chamberlain found the spokesman's response to be "of the 'you'll just have to trust us' variety. While they may call themselves 'scientists,' that's not how science works."

The Billions Project concluded in its last annual report that there were 28 weather and climate disasters in 2023, "surpassing the previous record of 22 in 2020, tallying a price tag of at least $92.9 billion. The project claims that the U.S. has sustained 378 weather and climate disasters each resulting in at least $1 billion in damages or costs since 1980. These allegedly add up to $2.69 trillion.

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UK researchers raise alarm that humans are contributing to 'global warming' — by breathing



Climate alarmists prone to hyperventilating over the weather might be a part of the supposed problem they otherwise seek to remedy with statist interventions, unreliable energy alternatives, and a healthy diet of bugs, according to a new government-funded study out of Britain.

Scientists at the U.K. Center for Ecology and Hydrology have raised the alarm that human breathing is contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, urging "caution in the assumption that emissions from humans are negligible."

While their conclusion might ultimately be seized upon by depopulationists, it appears the researchers may have instead been seeking an argument for a change in diet.

The peer-reviewed study published Wednesday in the Public Library of Science's journal PLOS One investigated greenhouse gas emissions of methane and nitrous oxide in human breath, which allegedly "contribute to global warming."

The study gave away the plot early on, taking up the potential impact of food choices on gastric exhaust.

The researchers, led by Nicholas Cowan, indicated the factors that affect the human emissions of these gases are not well understood, suggesting further that "the impacts of an aging population and shifting diets is still relatively uncertain."

"Converting from high meat and protein content diets to higher fibre vegetarian options to mitigate emissions of greenhouse gases from meat production potentially results in higher production of gases in the human gut, and an element of pollution swapping could occur," they wrote, likely to vegetarian climate alarmists' dismay.

Despite their interest in the link between diet and emissions, the researchers indicated they could not establish any trends or correlation on the basis of 328 breath samples collected from 104 human test subjects whose age, sex, dietary preference, and smoking habits were recorded.

In the way of conclusions, they did establish that women were slightly more orally methanic than their male counterparts and that older test subjects were gassier than their younger peers.

Methane was found in the breath of 31% of the test subjects, identified as "methane producers" or MPs. Methane production was higher in the older age cohorts. Whereas 40% of those in the 30 and older group were classified as MPs, only 25% of those under 30 were similarly classed methane producers. Women were found more likely (38%) to be MPs than men (25%).

The researchers contextualized their findings with a seeming international hierarchy of breathy emitters, noting that the "highest proportion of MPs was found in African populations with up to 84%. Proportions of MPs in Western populations vary from 25% to 62%, while in Asian populations (such as Japanese) it can be as low as 15%."

Despite their subjects' exhaust, the researchers conceded that emissions of methane and nitrous oxide "account for only 0.05% and 0.1% of the total emissions in the UK national greenhouse gas inventories, respectively."

Cowan clarified these percentages do not pertain to national emissions on the whole, but rather to these specific gases — meaning they are even more negligible in the grand scheme, reported the Daily Mail.

Apparently keen to shore up their concern in the face of these tiny numbers, the researchers stressed that they did not factor farts into their analysis, noting, "We represent only the lowest possible emission from humans, and the true value of our own bodily emissions are likely significantly higher as a species."

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Climate scientist admits to leaving 'out the full truth' about wildfire causes in order to get published in top scientific journal, reveals the tricks other alarmists play to get ahead



The esteemed scientific journal Nature published a scholarly article last week about alleged empirical relationships between supposedly man-made climate change and wildfire growth risks, quantified using machine learning. While the article advanced the usual conclusions about climate change predisposing certain regions — in this case, California — to wildfire conditions, the lead author then did something quite unusual.

Patrick T. Brown, lecturer at Johns Hopkins University and co-director of the Climate and Energy Team at the Breakthrough Institute, publicly admitted Tuesday that, like other scientists keen to have their work published, he "left out the full truth" in order to push "a narrative [he] knew the editors would like."

Brown's admission and corresponding explanation appear to suggest that those keen to "follow the science" may oftentimes be left filling their heads with alarmist agitprop rather than meaningful insights into the workings of the natural world.

Zeroing in on climate science in particular, Brown stressed that it "has become less about understanding the complexities of the world and more about serving as a kind of Cassandra, urgently warning the public about the dangers of climate change. However understandable this instinct may be, it distorts a great deal of climate science research, misinforms the public, and most importantly, makes practical solutions more difficult to achieve."

Brown noted on X after the publication of his article, "I am very proud of this research overall. But I want to talk about how molding research presentations for high-profile journals can reduce its usefulness & actually mislead the public."

The climate scientist flatly admitted in a polished version of his revelations in Bari Weiss' Free Press, "I wanted the research to be published in the highest profile venue possible. ... When I had previously attempted to deviate from the formula, my papers were rejected out of hand by the editors of distinguished journals, and I had to settle for less prestigious outlets. To put it another way, I sacrificed contributing the most valuable knowledge for society in order for the research to be compatible with the confirmation bias of the editors and reviewers of the journals I was targeting"

The climate scientist explained in his scholarly piece how he had elected not to "quantify" the most impactful factors behind the causes and exacerbation of wildfires, namely poor forest management and human ignitions.

Citing scientific analysis published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America years before climate alarmism hit its latest fever pitch, Brown retroactively underscored that over 80% of wildfires in the U.S. are started by human beings.

Just as with the hundreds of wildfires that ravaged northern Spain earlier this year, arsonists are believed to be responsible for the Greek wildfires that have killed at least 20 people. Seventy-nine arson suspects had been arrested in connection with the wildfires as of Aug. 25, reported the BBC.

ABC news reported Sunday that the largest wildfire in Louisiana history, which has destroyed tens of thousands of acres and has yet to be fully contained, was similarly the result of arson, according to the state's Department of Agriculture and Forestry.

Human ignition is not always the product of eco-terrorists and other such criminal lunatics. Sometimes, it is simply the result of incompetence.

TheBlaze previously detailed reports indicating the wildfires in Maui were most likely the result of the failures of Hawaiian Electric to maintain its equipment, to deal with the known and documented threat of fuel buildup in the form of flammable vegetation, and to pre-emptively shut down its power lines ahead of high-wind warnings.

Brown highlighted various articles concerning the Maui wildfires in various mainstream publications such as Bloomberg and the New York Times, which hyped climate change as a factor over human error and malfeasance.

"So why does the press focus so intently on climate change as the root cause?" wrote Brown. "Perhaps for the same reasons I just did in an academic paper about wildfires in Nature, one of the world's most prestigious journals: it fits a simple storyline that rewards the person telling it."

To reap the reward, the climate researcher knows "his or her work should support the mainstream narrative."

This entails in part that scientists entertain the possibility that expensive and bureaucratic "policies like the Inflation Reduction Act, aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions," might serve as viable remedies contra concrete and practical measures.

The climate scientist also noted a couple other tricks of the trade when it comes to fearmongering over the specter of climate change:

  • downplay meaningful actions that could simultaneously counter the impact of so-called climate change and assuage the public's concerns;
  • "focus on metrics that will generate the most eye-popping numbers" as a means to sensationalize, even if that's at the expense of relevance or actionable information; and
  • "always assess the magnitude of climate change over centuries, even if that timescale is irrelevant to the impact you are studying" — and when doing so, ignore technological and/or societal changes that have taken place over that time.

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'Dark climate change religion': Middle school teacher feeds sixth-graders bugs and climate alarmist propaganda



Utah's Nebo School District seeks to "prepare students to succeed in school and life." Apparently, that preparation now involves eating bugs and developing a dislike of beef.

Fox News Digital reported that a middle school in the district recently provided sixth-grade students with bugs to eat as part of an English assignment concerning the specter of anthropogenic climate change.

What are the details?

Students were instructed to write an essay on March 7 arguing in support of the consumption of insects rather than cows. The assignment's baked-in presumption was that the mass production and consumption of insect-based foods contra beef will impact weather patterns to a lesser extent.

Children involved in this interactive agitprop were reportedly barred from disagreeing with the premise in their essays. Some students were even given extra credit to consume bugs, which the district admitted to sourcing from a commercial site.

Amanda Wright, a mother of one of the students in the class, challenged the school's principal over the assignment, noting it had made her daughter feel uncomfortable.

Wright suggested that the assignment was tantamount to "indoctrination" and part of a concerted effort to evangelize on behalf of a "dark climate change religion."

Following her initial complaint, Wright met with school administrators and recorded the conversation. Alison Hansen, the principal, was recorded saying "the assignment was about finding facts to support" the climate alarmist premise.

"All the evidence has suggested ... that we probably should be eating bugs – it's good for the environment, etc. But I didn't know that that was an offensive topic," said Kim Cutler, a teacher at Spring Canyon Middle School not presently listed on its faculty page.

Wright's daughter similarly captured evidence of climate dogmatism in the classroom.

"How come we can't state our opinion and write that we shouldn't be eating bugs?" asked the sixth-grader.

"Because we don't have any evidence to support it," said Cutler.

In 2019, Swedish researchers warned in the journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution that by rushing into the mass production and consumption of insects, "we risk creating an industry that replaces one environmental problem with another."

Whereas Cutler told Wright's daughter there was no evidence to support not eating bugs, experts at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences suggested there is similarly little evidence to suggest that the mass rearing of insects won't turn out to be calamitous.

"The emerging insects-as-food industry is increasingly promoted as a sustainable alternative to other animal protein production systems. However, the exact nature of its environmental benefits are uncertain because of the overwhelming lack of knowledge concerning almost every aspect of production: from suitable species, their housing and feed requirements, and potential for accidental release," said the researchers.

The researchers added, "If ecological sustainability is to be a hallmark of mass insect rearing for consumption, ecologists need to engage in research related to sustainability criteria that are directly linked to key elements of the development of the industry."

Cutler told the younger Wright, "It's kind of weird that I gave you a topic where there is only one right answer. We don't want to eat bugs and it's gross. But should we be eating bugs? Yeah, because we're killing the world by raising cows and animals. So we need to, not get rid of cows, but like, try to balance our diet so that not so much of our land is being used to raise cows, 'cause it's killing the ozone layer."

When the younger Wright attempted to raise an objection, Cutler said, "There's only one right answer to this essay. And it's that Americans should be eating bugs. Everyone in the world is eating them, it's healthy for the environment and there's just, there's only one right answer."

Fox News Digital indicated that Cutler later explained that the district had pushed bug-eating advocacy in its training.

The district admitted in a statement that extra credit had been offered in exchange for kids eating bugs and noted that upon Wright expressing concern, 'The student was offered another topic of the student’s choice. Remember this particular assignment is about finding facts versus opinions to support writing an argumentative essay."

Bugging out

TheBlaze has previously reported on the joint effort by climate alarmists and technocrats to preclude the masses from consuming real meat as part of a broader campaign to combat the specter of climate change.

The Guardian ran an op-ed in 2018 claiming, "Reducing our meat intake is crucial to avoiding climate breakdown, since food production accounts for about a quarter of all human-related greenhouse gas emissions, and is predicted to rise. In western countries, this means eating 90% less beef and five times as many beans and pulses."

A 2017 review published in the journal Agronomy for Sustainable Development suggested that rather than meat, humans could instead try eating weeds, micro-algae, and bugs.

The World Economic Forum ran an article in February 2022 touting bugs as "an excellent alternative source of protein" and a way to "significantly reduce our carbon footprint." The WEF author went so far as to suggest that insects are "part of a virtuous eco-cycle."

When speaking recently at the WEF, Siemens AG chairman Jim Hagemann similarly called on people to stop eating meat to curb the specter of anthropogenic climate change.

"If a billion people stop eating meat, I tell you, it has a big impact. Not only does it have a big impact on the current food system, but it will also inspire innovation of food systems," Hagemann told a crowd of technocrats in Davos, Switzerland.

Extra to foisting a bug diet on the population, alarmists have recommended lab-grown cancer-based synthetic meat as an alternative to eating real beef.

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The Left’s Climate DELUSIONS Are Costing Us Big-Time | Ep 438

The Left’s Climate DELUSIONS Are Costing Us Big-Time | Ep 438