No Questions!

Climate change, Covid-19, Pentagon spending... the press goes mute on matters of importance...

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Later this week, we’ll be hosting our inaugural BPR Energy Briefing with special guests Byron King and Rick Rule. Paid members will be sent a private Zoom link to join us on Thursday, December 30. As you may know, Bill and Dan have identified energy as a key component of their Trade of the Decade. Markets, they reckon, are out of whack... and likely to get even ‘out-of-whackier.’ But that doesn’t mean there won’t be ways to profit from the coming energy crunch.

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And now, back to Bill...

Bill Bonner, reckoning today from Poitou, France...

This week we are looking at the stories of 2021 that were too big for the newspapers. Stories that were too hot to touch… too controversial to report… too much at odds with the elite narrative to share with the public.

In short, these are the stories that the press ditched. 

Why? Because the mainstream press no longer sees its role as reporting the news… but of shaping it… and using it… on behalf of a broad elite agenda. 

“Journalism is about covering important stories. With a pillow, until they stop moving,” as David Burge quipped years ago. 

Along with the universities, Congress, the White House, the military/industrial/surveillance complex and even many churches, the media believes it has a responsibility not to describe the world as it is… but to create a better one.

And its special role is never to question the agenda… but to push it forward at every opportunity:

 ** Covid is a threat to the nation; people must be vaccinated. Dr. Fauci is a saint.  “Follow the science,” says the press.

** The Pentagon budget must never be questioned. It helps maintain American ‘influence’ overseas.

** The invasion of the Capitol was not just a bunch of yahoos egged on by a fool; it was an attempted coup d’etat.  

** More money-printing, low interest rates and bigger deficits help the economy grow. They do not cause inflation.

** Inflation is caused by ‘supply chain disruptions’ and the coronavirus.

** The George Floyd killing was an expression of ‘white supremacy.’ The killing of the unarmed woman in the Capitol (what was her name?) was ‘protecting our democracy.’  Jeffrey Epstein hung himself.  

**And global climate change? We must stop using fossil fuels. As for how the world’s 7.8 billion people will survive without them, no questions are allowed.

So, today, we’ll ask the questions ourselves...  

What’s the Plan?

The press dutifully and admiringly reported on the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference, to which 38,457 delegates flew from all over the world. 

It noted that the participants had pledged to keep global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees celsius… and that President Biden called climate change an ‘existential’ threat and promised to reduce US carbon dioxide emissions by 50%-52% by 2030.  

You’d think reporters would be curious: how, exactly, can that happen? Is it even possible? At what cost? And if we stop using fossil fuels, what will we use?  

Except for a few uncontacted tribes in the Amazon, every human being on the planet relies on coal, oil, or gas – for their food… their housing… their clothing… everything.

Take it away, and what do they live on? Did the newshounds even wonder? 

Apparently not.  

A Google search turns up plenty of headlines: “To Fight Climate Change, Replace Fossil Fuels,” says one. “End of coal is within sight,” says another. “Nations must drop fossil fuels fast,” said a third

And replace them with what? No one asked.

When you are on a cruise ship and the captain suddenly announces that the ship is to be scuttled, the passengers will have questions. What is the plan? Where are the life rafts?

But the mainstream press took little interest. Life jackets? Who needs them?

Searching for Questions

In another quick Google search, we found scarcely a single instance in which the question was raised. A deeper search, by Alice Friedemann showed that the New York Times approached the subject 16 times in the last five years. Ten of those times, it backed away, dismissing the concern as nothing to worry about. The other times, it allowed readers to recognize the problem… but only as one of many.

Yet it is critical. Before the widespread use of fossil fuels, there were fewer than two billion people on planet earth. More than 5 billion were added, thanks to the greater output made possible by tractors, trucks, electrical generators, ships, chemical fertilizers, plastic packaging, refrigeration… and all the other advances made possible by fossil fuels. Take them away… even gradually… and what happens?

You’d think that would be a question to get the talking heads talking. We learned just before Christmas that more energy was generated from coal in 2021 than at any other time in human history. The International Energy Agency released its Coal 2021 report. It noted that electricity generated from coal would be up by almost 9% in 2021!

Is it the pandemic recovery? Is it China? Or are the reports of coal’s demise greatly exaggerated? And what is it investors should know about energy investments going into 2022? 

We don’t claim to have the answers. But at least we are talking about it. And we’ve invited our old friend Byron King, a Harvard-trained expert on mining and energy to explain the risk to us more fully.  

Byron will give a brief presentation on a Zoom call on Thursday morning, along with our old friend and colleague Rick Rule. Oil, gas, coal, nuclear, energy, strategy, opportunity… everything is on the table. They’ll each give a short presentation and will take questions (time permitting). We hope you’ll be able to join us for the discussion.

Regards,

Bill Bonner

P.S. Paid subscribers can expect to get a short note later today with more information on Thursday’s call. If you’d like to be on the call, you can sign up as a paid subscriber here. We think you’ll find the modest monthly fee more than reasonable. 

We’ll send a Zoom link out before the call. And don’t worry if you can’t make the live call. We’ll record it and make it available, along with a transcription, a few days later.