RANT: "YODEL AY HEE HOO!"

WELL, IT’S THAT SEASON again, when snow falls heavy and thick upon the land, and mountain slopes are peppered with the colourful outfits of skiers, and when the buzz of snowmobiles once more echoes through the valleys, and frosty breaths of determined snow-shoers are etched in the cold, clear air above the winding trails and white-draped woods. It’s when tales of wintry adventures are shared over mulled wine by blazing fireplaces and…oh. I’m sorry. Did you think I was talking about the start to winter’s festivities here in our brave, northern lands? My bad.  No, dear reader, I’m referring to the fact that Davos season is upon us once more.

YES, it’s that annual confab of our betters, when high-flying billionaires  (116 will attend) and the lesser-monied, along with CEOs, muckety-mucks of all sorts, politicians from around the world, representatives from civil (and not-so-civil!) society, along with assorted disrupters and influencers, pundits and prophets, sports and entertainment icons, hangers-on in all shapes and sizes and, of course, cadres of fawning, carefully-vetted media.

They’re all converging for a week of schmoozing and circle-jerk seminars at the luxurious Swiss alpine resort of Davos. It’s there the favoured mingle and swap tales from the previous year’s adventures upon the high seas of finance and politics. Some may even swap bodily fluids! Who knows!!? Anything goes. At Davos.

 

“Despite the shrinking number of political leaders^*, this year’s attendance list is rich in top managers. Among 2,700 participants in the official WEF sessions, “we’re likely to surpass the old record from 2020 with 600 global CEOs – including 1,500 C-suite level overall,” according to WEF head of digital and marketing, George Schmitt.” (RT) 

 

AND DON'T FORGET all those jet-setting billionaires! The conference, hosted again this year by the ever tone-deaf Klaus Schwab, has as its 2023 agenda for world domination a meaty menu of speeches and seminars with such compelling titles as: “The Clear and Present Danger of Disinformation”, “In the Face of Fragility: Central Bank Digital Currencies”, “Philanthropy:A Catalyst for the Protection of Our Planet”, and one that’s sure to catch everyone’s eye—“One Hundred Days to Outrace the  Next Pandemic.” ⁺

IN HERR SCHWAB’S SPEECH to begin the festivities, he called upon world leaders and “stakeholders” to look for ways to coordinate their activities more fully, and to "work together on the interconnected issues of energy, climate, and nature" with a "[s]pecial emphasis" on "gender and geographical diversity", during the coming year, in line with the WEF's new theme: “Cooperation in a Fragmented World.” (thepostmillennial) He stressed the need for leaders to tackle difficult social and economic challenges now and to lay the groundwork for ecologically sustainably societies by the end of the decade. A worthy enough set of goals, it seems:

 

“We see the manifold political, economic, and social forces creating increased fragmentation on a global and national level. To address the root causes of this erosion of trust, we need to reinforce cooperation between the government and business sectors, creating the conditions for a strong and durable recovery. At the same time there must be the recognition that economic development needs to be made more resilient, more sustainable and nobody should be left behind.” (Klaus Schwab)

 

SOUNDS GOOD! Where do I sign up? Except...do we really think these wealthy schmos are there for our benefit? Why do the rich and famous, along with politicians, business leaders, NGOs, etc., mingle together at this secluded mountain retreat like horny cousins at a barn dance? Well, one reason is to promote their latest pet project: how to maximize profits as they skim and scam their way through the “green energy treasure troves initiatives being put together by many of the world’s governments. Throughout the collective West, truckloads of money are being hoovered up from taxpayers or just printed (why not?), and the denizens of Davos are keen to get their hands on as much of the moolah as they can.

 

IN HIS OPENING ADDRESS, Schwab tripped over his tongue, as he so often does, when calling on the forum's attendees to “master the future”, an unfortunate phrase replete, as it is, with imagery of jackboots and armies on the march, and not the best look, these days.  But, with Green New Deals coming online everywhere (regardless of whether they’ll actually work), their implementation and mediation plans are promoted at Davos during its week-long series of lectures, as well as in workshops and ongoing “training” programs that I’ve discussed in an earlier post, here. Thus, the hope is for a cadre of well-trained, “globalist”¹ politicians, CEOs and others, all  influenced by ideas picked up from their time at Davos, who will return home and set common legislative agendas, allocating billions of dollars in their budgets for giant wind and solar farms or, as in another example, passing punative legislation limiting farmers’ use of artificial fertilizers (to reduce nitrous oxide emissions), all in a bid to achieve wildly unrealistic “zero carbon” targets. And their 'to-do' list for other green tasks is a long one, indeed.

 

ANOTHER PERENNIAL FAVOURITE at the WEF is promoting digital passports. Remember those from that pandemic we had, way back when? Of course you do. Well, the idea for their use hasn’t gone away. They remain wet dreams for the likes of former Labour Prime Minister (of Great Britain) Tony Blair, who was a speaker at this year’s Davos event where he emphasized:

 

…the importance of “technology and digital infrastructure” and data collection for surveilling the status of the vaccinated and unvaccinated. “You need the data,” Blair said. “You need to know who’s been vaccinated and who hasn’t been. Some of the vaccines that will come on down the line will be multiple. There’ll be multiple shots. So, you’ve got to have, the reasons to do with the healthcare more generally, but certainly, for a pandemic or for…vaccines, you’ve got to have a proper digital infrastructure, and many countries don’t have that. In fact, most countries don’t have that.” (reclaimthenet.org)

 

TONY’S NGO, The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change  (no delusions of grandeur here!), has called for digital IDs and mandatory vaccine passports, and during his Davos talk he assured everyone that the increased surveillance we would have to live with in the coming digital age he envisions (well...except for everyone at Davos, of course) "is a price worth paying.” HOWEVER, reclaimthenet.org's Tom Parker expresses concerns  about Sir Tony's jizz dreams, namely that such systems will “reduce individual privacy [and] vaccine passports discriminate against citizens and restrict their access to businesses and services.” But, just like they did during the pandemic, the Davos lords and ladies use fear, not of viruses this time but of climate change, to push forward their agenda of top-down government control and mass surveillance systems, obstensively so that we can be super-ready to deal with the next crisis de jour coming our way. But, in reality, it's to introduce and maintain digital control over the Great Unwashed.

IN COMPLACENT CANADA, we've had our share of 'authoritarianism-with-a-smile', with our herd-like compliance around pandemic restrictions and vaccine passports,  and during the "trucker" protests of last year when citizens, protesting peacefully in our nation's capital and elsewhere over said restrictions, had their bank accounts digitally frozen to end their activities. The feds cracked down on the protestors haaard, imposing the Emergencies Act  and tossing  them in jail, rapidement!  Like father, like son! Well done, Mr. T! And welcome to your digital future, folks. Put up and shut up!

IN ANOTHER ARTICLE from reclaimthenet.org, reporter Didi Rankovic notes that the annual WEF gathering:

 

“…has always been a testing ground for some bizarre ideas, which nonetheless serve a purpose: to introduce, and if possible normalize² all kinds of mass surveillance and sometimes extremely privacy-invasive technologies." (reclaimthenet.org)

 

ONE TECHNOLOGY THAT'S A REAL DOOZER is the  so-called "brain monitor" machine being peddled by their designers during one Davos seminar called "Ready for Brain Transparency?" [Italics mine. I went and checked my well-worn copy of 1984 to see if this doublespeak was "doubleplusgood" or  "doubleplusungood". I think it's the second one. Ed.] The device these mad scientists have devised will allow our brains to take over some of the jobs currently done by wearable/portable technologies. For example, just by thinking, we will be able to  type or perform  functions on our computers. Shazam! Magic!  Now we can throw away our remote controls and channel surf just by blinking! (Though I'd rather do it by twitching my nose; it would keep me from picking it.)

 AND THE BRAIN INTERFACE gizmo also allows us to monitor key vectors of our brain activity in real time. So, in case we nod off at work  or if our brains are producing alpha-waves incompatible with completing our assignments in a timely fashion, now our supervisors can monitor and inform us of our brain laxity. Jeeez!  That takes monitoring workers' pee-breaks to a whole new level!

CHECK OUT this short vid, here, to get an idea of what kind of future to expect if these Davosian-wannabes get their way: Just pick your favourite film about future dystopias and multiply it by ten. OF COURSE, we all get a giggle watching their video. It's absurd. But then, how many of us giggled at“vaccine passports” just a few years ago? It shows how quickly we can become "normalized" into accepting life as a sheeple. (Oooh! How shiny! This new technology is safe. It’s convenient. It's efficient. It’s sooo helpful. It protects us and makes our lives happy and secure. How can we ever live without it? Better to ask how can we live with it?)

 

WHILE I DO THINK THAT DAVOS as a place where the world’s movers and shakers go to be seen and heard has had its day and that it will fade into irrelevancy in the coming years, nevertheless the kinds of systems, programs, policies, etc. that are beneficial to wealthy elites will continue to be developed and ginned up, if not amid the Swiss Alps, then someplace else. 

I WISH I could be as nonplussed as is billionaire Elon Musk about Davos and similar covens of the all-too-wealthy. But, I do like his tweet about why he didn’t attend this year's gathering: 

"My reason for declining the Davos invitation was not because 

I thought they were engaged in diabolical scheming, 

but because it sounded boring af lol." (Elon Musk)

 

 

Cheers, Jake

 

___________________________________________________

[Davos was held January 16-20. I’m behind in my blog writing schedule. Sorry about that! Ed.]

 

* It must be said that FEWER POLITICIANS than in previous years are attending. Perhaps it’s because elections are looming in their respective countries and more of this generation’s crop of world leaders have been caught with their flies down and slips showing, so they’ve decided to keep a lower profile this year and pass on the confab. Some commentators have even suggested that Davos is losing it’s shine, that it’s becoming less relevant. Perhaps the hoi poloi are starting to notice all the contrails from private jets in the skies above the snowy resort. And such scrutiny might prove unwelcome to the one-percenters gathered there. Maybe? Dunno. WHILE the high-altitude conference is less peopled with politicos than in the past, Canadians will be happy to know that our intrepid Finance Minister, Christina Freeland (an alum of the WEF’s Young Global Leaders’ programme and a member of the forum’s Board of Trustees) will attend. My goodness! Our live-wire FM and NATO chief wannabe schmoozes with the best of them. You GO, Girl!

THERE were some ne’er-do-well politicians attending. There was a HEART-STOPPING plenary-session speech, albeit virtual, from the éminence grise of geo-politics, Henry Kissinger, former US Secretary of State and founding member of the WEF who’s kept his cold, dead hand in the game all this time (he’s ninety-nine!), while the effervescent Klaus Schwab got things started with his usual opening address that's always meant to tickle the tender bits of the attending billionaires and sundry hangers-on. 

Of course, no conglomeration of the world’s movers and shakers is complete without an appearance from Time magazine’s Man Person of the Year and Ukraine’s favourite autocrat, Volodymir (“Yak-Yak”) Zelensky, who seems to make his forgettable speeches, virtual and otherwise, at the drop of a hat. Mrs. Z was there, in person, cap in hand, like her hubby. 

Luxembourg’s PM also attended but no one cared. 

 

+ Note that one of the panellists for the seminar: “One Hundred Days to Outrace the Next Pandemic” is Albert (“Trust me”) Bourla, CEO of Pfizer! You can’t make this shit up!

 

1. THE TORONTO SUN'S Lorrie Goldstein defines “globalist”, and what to expect from them, here. Both Justin Trudeau and Christina Freeland participated in the WEF’s Young Global Leaders program in the past, as did NDP leader Jagmeet Singh and other members from Canadian political and financial elites. How much of the Davos Kool-Aid have they drunk and how much will we be forced to drink?

 

2. CONSIDER, IN ANOTHER SETTING, a similar tactic: Weaponry to Ukraine. It starts with small armaments, kit for soldiers, small bore artillery, etc. Then newspapers and media outlets begin to yak about the need for bigger weapons. After a while, lo and behold those are sent. Then more discussions, etc., this time about missiles and drones, with more debates in government legislatures and in the media. Eventually, they're sent to Ukraine, as well. Most recently, it’s debates around tanks and who will send them, how many and so on. Now Germany will send a dozen or so "Leopard 2s ". (Baaaad optics by-the-way, what with that WWII invasion thingie not soon forgotten by the Russians.) Thus, support for the Kiev regime grows  out of all proportion. Now, there's yak-yak in the newspapers and among talking heads in the MSM calling for NATO countries to send jet fighters! 

POINT IS: All the debates, articles and constant pandering for war coming from Western media outlets and from think tanks, and hard-liners in government—on and on—all this noise and babble serves to “normalize”, to ratchet up, what earlier had seemed absolutely nutso and downright dangerous. What’s next, “tactical” nukes?  All this fear mongering around Ukraine losing the war and this is  somehow an “existential” threat to us is a mug's game. We keep screeching that something needs to be done right away to defeat the evil Russians! AND JUST LIKE the overweening cries of Armageddon heard during the pandemic years, today's cries for an ever-escalating war may well rob us of our reason (if they haven't already) and make us act in ways that are truly dangerous. Common sense, honesty, and cooler heads must prevail.

 

 

WEBSITES OF INTEREST:

https://reclaimthenet.org/tony-blair-wef-wto-digital-infrastructure-vaccination-status/

https://www.rt.com/business/569930-world-economic-forum-davos/

https://thepostmillennial.com/5000-swiss-army-soldiers-deployed-to-davos-to-protect-world-economic-forum

 

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RANT: WHOSE WORLD IS IT, ANYWAY?

 

THE UN-sponsored Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) of which there have been fifteen, including the most recent last December in Montreal (COP15-CBD), were established to “safeguard plant and animal species and ensure natural resources are used sustainably. The pact was first agreed at the Earth Summit in Brazil in 1992 and [was] ratified by 196 nations.” (Zurich)

AT COP15, almost the entirety of the world’s nations* signed off on the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, establishing four “goals” and 25 “targets” for signatories to adopt and meet by 2030. Of course, the framework’s agreement is non-binding and mostly aspirational, like most climate deals have been since the first Earth Summit but those who fail to achieve this year's targets will be sent to the naughty corner with a severe knuckle rapping!  Nevertheless, there have been a variety of international agreements on climate change and biological sustainability made during the last several decades, some of significant importance,including the well-known Montreal Protocol for protecting the earth’s ozone layer (1987), the above-mentioned 1992 Earth Summit, the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (2003), the Aichi Biodiversity Targets (2010), and the Paris Climate Accords (2016) to name a few. Not surprisingly (and unfortunately), most fell, and continue to fall, well short of their stated goals and implementation targets. 

 

ADOPTING COLLECTIVE ACTION on a global scale to combat and mitigate climate change and protecting the biosphere is a bit like herding cats—reaching the goal line seems next to impossible.¹ Or, perhaps we're more like a pack of greyhounds chasing that mechanical bunny around the track, never quite catching up to it no matter how fast we run.      

 

“At COP15, nations adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) agreeing to conserve and manage at least 30 percent of the world’s lands, inland waters, coastal areas, and oceans. With emphasis on areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem functioning and services. Currently only 17 percent and 10 percent of the world’s terrestrial and marine areas respectively are under protection.” (Zurich)²

 

And the GBF warns, in summary:

 

“Without…action, there will be a further acceleration in the global rate of species extinction, which is already at least tens to hundreds of times higher than it has averaged over the past 10 million years.” (pdf. Draft GBF-2022.)

 

    "CHARGE! There's TAR in them thAR hills!"

At the Montreal conference, PM TRUDEAU announced an 800-million-dollar plan to “set aside” 30% of Canada’s lands and waters, working in conjunction with indigenous populations. Question: Is that 30% of the land and 30% of the water or thirty percent of the total? Or some combination? I’m not sure, but I’ll be nice and assume it’s both. Again, it sounds good. Round numbers always have a nice ring to them and who needs fractions when your kicking for those goal posts?  Sequestering land and water for the future, keeping them pristine, also has a nice ring to it but without governments acting in good faith, with ecologically-sound aims in mind, I suspect such initiatives, here in Canada and abroad, will be chiefly an exercise in green-washing and become mostly a land-grab for Big Agriculture, Big Pharma, bio-tech firms, elite landlords³, etc. And considering how beholding the Liberals (and really all the federal parties) are to fossil fuel companies, except for the Green Party, perhaps, I’m not holding my breath as to how much genuine ecological stewardship will come out of such an initiative. But I'm sure our government will huff and puff and give it the ol' college try! Better hurry, though, before the tar sands swallow up the rest of Alberta!

 

Another point to consider is the critical role indigenous peoples currently play in maintaining sustainable biomes throughout the world. Some studies suggest that up to 80% of the world’s existing biological diversity is managed by only 5% of the world’s population—i.e., indigenous peoples. To remove age-old stewards from their traditional lands and marine ecologies, as the “30x30” GBF initiative would no doubt entail--to what extent is an open question--and replace them with owners and regulators who do not have a vested interest in the long-term health and functioning of such places, is to allow these regions (for the most part, probably) to be exploited, commercialized, financialized, and made “efficient” for the maximizing of profits and power. Well, if that don't beat all! Son, it's clear-cut forests from sea to shining sea!

 

FINALLY, on the Navdanya International website, ecologist Vandana Shiva provides a critique of the BDF agreement, noting, for example, that the document is not aggressive enough in how it addresses one of the greatest producers of greenhouse gases and despoilers of natural habitats, namely industrial farming. The "30x30" initiative is the show stopper from COP15 and the one given most media coverage, but Vandana has criticisms and remarks about some of the other goals and targets found in the  BDF that are well worth the read. 

 

    Mr. and Mrs. Fucktard in their trophy room.

SO, WE’VE HAD TWO COPS in one year and already we’re looking ahead to next year's twenty-eighth Congress of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP28). So, it's Onward Ho! Don't look back. Heck, why look behind you and be reminded of all the failures piling up?  Next year's climate change conference  will cheekily be held in the oil-drenched petro-state of Dubai. Huh?!? How'd that happen? That’s like holding an AA meeting in a distillery! (Just sayin’.) Better book your plane tickets now and don't forget to buy those mea culpa carbon-offsets and worry beads. The venue for COP16-CBD, which focuses on biodiversity and ecological stewardship is TBA. [They're normally held every two years. Ed.]

WELL, that’s it for now. I’m going to go jump in a snowbank, if I can find one!

 

Cheers, Jake

 ____________________________

 

[Note: The summit was held in Montreal when the city of Kunming had to cancel due to Covid-19 lockdowns. China remained chair of the meeting. Ed.]

 

“BIODIVERSITY, an abbreviation of biological diversity, is the variety of life on Earth, from the tiniest bacteria to the largest mammals. The air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat all rely on it; without plants there would be no oxygen and without bees to pollinate there would be no fruit or nuts.” (The Guardian)

 

AND VINCENT LANDON has a crisp overview: “Biodiversity is vital to life on our planet. It is essentially the life support system for humanity. From our oceans to our forests, nature underpins the world’s food system; provides fresh water; sustains the quality of the air and soils; regulates the climate; provides pollination and pest control; absorbs carbon emissions and reduces the impact of natural hazards. But harm too many of these ecosystems and we risk endangering their ability to provide basic life support services.” (Zurich)

 

 

* TWO COUNTRIES THAT HAVE NOT SIGNED OFF on the COP15 final agreement are the Vatican and the United States.  The Americans maintain an “observer status” at biodiversity summits, refusing to sign any deal “because of concerns about interference with the private sector, the breaching of intellectual property rights, the creation of more environmental regulation and the redistribution of US wealth overseas.” (The Guardian.) [And I have no idea why the Catholic church wouldn't sign the thing! Ed.]

1. “ACHIEVING the targets could be a stretch if previous global efforts to tackle biodiversity loss are anything to go by. In 2002, the Parties to the Convention committed themselves ‘to achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss.’ This failed to materialize. At COP10 in Nagoya, Japan, in 2010, governments agreed on ambitious global goals called the 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets. None of these targets was fully met by the 2020 deadline and biodiversity has further declined over the past decade.” (Zurich)

2. AND, AS I MENTIONED IN AN EARLIER POST, the devil is in the details. Partitioning off 30% of the planet sounds good on paper, but without careful consideration around what activities are to be pursued on the reserves, and who will be allowed to live/work there, critics suggest the natural resources and biological processes found there will instead be open to exploitation, commodification and financialization rather than sustainable and ecologically-sound land/water/air conservation practices.

3. BILL GATES is the largest private landowner in the United States with 269,000 acres in his real-estate portfolio. I’m sure he has good reasons for owning so much land. (He must.) “Farmer Billy!” Kinda rolls right off the tongue, don’t it?

 

CBD-RELATED WEBSITES USED FOR THIS POST:

https://www.zurich.com/en/media/magazine/2022/what-is-cop15-and-how-does-it-differ-to-cop27

https://www.carbonbrief.org/cop15-key-outcomes-agreed-at-the-un-biodiversity-conference-in-montreal/

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/30/what-is-cop15-and-why-does-it-matter-for-all-life-on-earth-aoe

https://www.ctvnews.ca/climate-and-environment/30-by-30-what-s-in-the-cop15-biodiversity-summit-agreement-1.6200657

https://www.commonwealthroundtable.co.uk/general/eye-on-the-commonwealth/cop15-historic-pact-on-biodiversity-or-betrayal-of-indigenous-peoples/#

 

 

 

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