Bill Bonner, reckoning today from Poitou, France...
Extreme weather is becoming the new normal. All countries must respond and protect their people from the searing heat, fatal floods, storms, drought and raging fires that result.
~ UN Chief Antonio Guterres
We’re not discussing whether the war in Ukraine is a good thing…or whether we should take sides…or which side to take…
…nor do we know for sure whether or not the planet is heating up…whether it can be controlled…or whether it would be a good idea to try.
Our mission is to try to understand how, why, and wherefore the currents of megapolitics lead us. Deep…silent…apparently irresistible…
… we think we can control where we are going…we think it matters what we think, whether we are for or against...we think the future (we’re talking about the future of our nation, not about our individual futures) is a matter of choice.
You can vote for a change of direction, can’t you? You can come up with reasons why you are right…facts to support your position…and persuade others to change course; isn’t that the way it works?
No, it isn’t. These currents control us; we do not control them. The only proper question is: ‘where are they taking us?’
The last great crusade for the USA was its campaign to make the world safe from terrorism. With the entire world watching, then Secretary of Defense, Colin Powell, provided what was neither a fact nor an idea – but an outright lie. Iraq had ‘weapons of mass destruction,’ said he.
Iraq had no such weapons. And the mass destruction in Iraq was brought in by the US.
And facts? Who wanted those? Brig. Gen. Vince Brooks made it clear that the US Army was not interested:
“It just is not worth trying to characterize by numbers. And, frankly, if we are going to be honorable about our warfare, we are not out there trying to count up bodies.”
Later, US military spokesman Major Brad Leighton sharpened the point:
“We regret when civilians are hurt or killed while coalition forces search to rid Iraq of terrorism.”
We don’t like numbers either. But if your stated goal were to kill terrorists, you’d think you would like to keep track of how many (including women and children) you had snuffed out.
The war on terrorism was a disaster (there are probably more terrorists today than there were 20 years ago). Worse than that; it was a shame. Here’s the latest tally from Brown University:
US post-9/11 wars caused 4.5 million deaths, displaced 38-60 million people, study shows
Nearly a million of the people who lost their lives died in fighting, whereas some 3.6 to 3.7 million were indirect deaths, due to health and economic problems caused by the wars, such as diseases, malnutrition, and destruction of infrastructure.
The scholars estimated that, in the countries studied, there are still today 7.6 million children under age 5 who are suffering from acute malnutrition, meaning they are “not getting enough food, literally wasting to skin and bones, putting these children at greater risk of death”.
Today, terrorists are barely given a nod in the press. Now we have a new crusade. Global warming is on every page…on every pair of lips…and in every business plan.
Here in France, it is cooler than usual. We wear sweaters…and put a quilt on the bed at night. But that is just a ‘fact’…an eyewitness observation. Turn on the news media, and we discover that we must be on a different planet. The seas are no longer hot; they are ‘boiling.’ The desert no longer suffers the summer heat; it is an ‘inferno.’ We have no more hot spells, no more heat waves, no more ‘hazy, hot, and humid’ forecasts. Now, we have the fires of Hell, fanned by five generations of fossil fuel sinners… ready to roast us all to cinders.
Amid all of this end-of-the-world…ism, you were probably surprised to find – in colleague Joel Bowman’s weekend report – that the summer, 2023, so far, has not been particularly hot at all:
Current temperatures across the UK and Ireland are unseasonably cool, according to the Met Office, with London a fresh 66...and Dublin a rainy old 60. Over on the continent, it’s... well, summer. Berlin is 73... Paris 69... Budapest 70... Prague 68... Vienna 62... Florence 84... Moscow 73... Krakow 75...
Of the 50 European capitals, the average temperature today... during the “hottest July on record”... is a searing, sweltering, blood-boiling...
...76.1 fahrenheit.
In the United States, the summer so far (June 1 - July 19, 2023) across the Lower 48 states has seen unspectacularly normal temperatures of a mere +0.07°C above average. Readers along the mid-Atlantic, the Carolinas and the Ohio Valley are no doubt enjoying the relatively unextreme weather. Same for the Pacific Northwest. And the Northeast. And along the Prairies. And the Rockies. Sea to shining sea, as it were... and practically anywhere that is not Phoenix, Arizona... which was virtually uninhabitable before the advent of air conditioning anyway. Death Valley, too, has been pretty hot. Who woulda thunk?
But what about all these “extreme heat waves” we’re hearing about? Perhaps some perspective might come in handy. The folks over at the EPA (the Environmental Protection Agency...that bastion of racist, transphobic, right-wing climate deniers) provide the US Annual Heat Wave Index going back 120+ years.
What the Annual Heat Wave Index shows is that the media is either mistaken…or lying. It turns out, the new normal is the old normal. So far, the summer of 2023 looks much like any other summer. It is hot in Las Vegas…and cool in Dublin.
There were no Weapons of Mass Destruction. But that didn’t stop mass mayhem…as wrought by the US military. There may not be any real facts that support the Global Warming Hypothesis either. But our guess is that that small inconvenience will not prevent the destruction ahead.
Joel’s Note: Thanks to all the dear readers who wrote in with well-wishes after our weekend report from Greece, where fires have indeed been burning. (Thanks to arsonists, as it turns out…) Our family is safe and sound.
Much to the chagrin of “reporters” in the mainstream press, the world did not combust in a fiery apocalypse. Far from it, in fact...
Satellite images show, unequivocally, that global fires have been in steady retreat over the past two decades… reaching their lowest levels on record just last year. (h/t @BjornLomborg)
Our weekend reporting – the Sunday Sesh – is available to BPR members, along with Private Briefings with the BPR team and members of Bill’s extended network, plus Dan and Tom’s twice-weekly research notes, access to the Official BPR Stock Watchlist and plenty more. Find a membership plan that works for you, here…
"These currents control us; we do not control them." So eloquently set out by Leo Tolstoy over 150 years ago in War and Peace. I wish wannabe "great men" / "world saviors" would read or re-read Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace. It might take up a lot of their time but they might be doing less harm while busy with it or even pause to reflect.
Madness is something rare in individuals – but in groups, parties, peoples, ages it is the rule.
-Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (1886)
"These currents control us; we do not control them." So eloquently set out by Leo Tolstoy over 150 years ago in War and Peace. I wish wannabe "great men" / "world saviors" would read or re-read Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace. It might take up a lot of their time but they might be doing less harm while busy with it or even pause to reflect.