Civil Defense Perspectives, Vol. 36 #2
The changes that we are seeing at an accelerating pace were envisioned or possibly planned long ago.
The book Covid-19: The Great Reset by World Economics Forum founder Klaus Schwab and Monthly Barometer author Thierry Malloret was published in July 2020. It assesses the implications of this “crucial moment in history” on global economic, societal, geopolitical, environmental, and technological factors, from the macro down to the individual level. The desired outcome is a world that is “more inclusive, more equitable and more respectful of Mother Nature,” the authors write.
They admit that COVID-19 is not an existential threat like the Black Death. Yet it dramatically exacerbates pre-existing dangers. We’re at war with an invisible enemy of all humanity, but we have an unprecedented opportunity to “reimagine our world” —also called “radical rethinking.”
“Climate action failure” is at the center of interdependence (Figure 1, p 25), with a heavy line to “extreme weather.” Global and national governance failure are prominent nodes. Weapons of mass destruction are on the periphery in tiny print. A “siloed” approach to problems will not work to connect all the dots.
A tremendous blow to GDP is anticipated, but this is an opportunity to think about what is really important: a “fairer, greener” world instead of economic growth [and prosperity].
In the post-COVID era, these visionaries imagine a “massive wealth redistribution from the rich to the poor and from capital to labour,” and the death knell for already waning neoliberalism. This concept they define as favoring “competition over solidarity, creative destruction over government intervention, and economic growth over social welfare.”
The Trilemma
The “globalization trilemma” presented by Harvard economist Dani Rodrik suggests that economic globalization, political democracy, and the nation state are mutually irreconcilable: only two can co-exist. The rise of nationalism makes the retreat of globalism inevitable. Some pushback was beginning before COVID-19 by “national security hawks,” say Schwab and Malleret, acknowledging U.S. concern that 97% of our antibiotics are supplied by China. Reversing the trend to globalization, by erecting barriers to trade and finance, is a “sombre scenario.”
Global governance has been “enfeebled” and under-funded, and needs to be strengthened. “Put bluntly, we live in a world in which nobody is really in charge.”
Schwab and Malloret blame COVID spread on “a vacuum in global governance, exacerbated by the strained relations between the US and China.” They do not mention China’s role in concealing (or creating) the initial outbreak. The World Health Organization (WHO) is admittedly imperfect but “infinitely preferable to a non-existent one.” They cite a “compelling” tweet by Bill Gates: “The world needs @ WHO more than ever.”
Regarding China/U.S. rivalry, there is no “right” or “wrong” view, but like in quantum mechanics, there are co-existing realities. As to who will come out “on top,” these authors take the “no winner” view. The pandemic will collapse the world order—and collapse the trilemma to universal submission?
Dress Rehearsal?
The pandemic gives us a foretaste of what a full-fledged climate crisis could entail from an economic standpoint, these authors state. They worry that the pain from COVID lockdowns might weaken resolve to combat “global warming” and other environmental problems. “Enlightened leadership” is needed to get people accustomed to a “sustainable” [impoverished] lifestyle.
COVID has “acted as a dramatic eye-opener to the public at large on the severity of the risks related to environmental degradation and climate change.” Perhaps people will now be open to pious moralizing about self-restraint and inequality. New dilemmas are posed to which answers would have been obvious before: should one ignore a confinement order to help a friend or family member [or abandon him]?
The Great Reset agenda was already in motion before COVID, writes Schwab in a 2021 book with Peter Vaughan, head of Chairman’s Communications at the Global Economic Forum, Stakeholder Capitalism: A Global Economy that Works for Progress, People and Planet. Such a system would work for “values”—the good of all and the Planet, instead of for shareholders. Stakeholder values address the “gender pay gap,” the “diversity” of the workforce, greenhouse gas emissions, and the amount paid in taxes globally. Economic and ethical advisors include #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, and the heroic and inspiring Greta Thunberg, who was invited to speak to the billionaires gathered at Davos and is extensively quoted in the book. Instead of derailing the agenda as had been feared, COVID seems to have boosted it. And as CO2 emissions came to a near standstill in many places for a few months, the Planet’s atmosphere got a slight break, and the climate tipping point was delayed for a few months.
The crisis is “like a world war,” proclaims The Globe and Mail. It’s time for rationing. Mandatory allocation is the only way to assure “Fair Shares for All” (https://tinyurl.com/3a4cuhmf).
Will the World Economic Forum Rule?
In his speech at the centenary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping spoke of only one international entity: China’s neocolonial One Belt, One Road initiative. While praising international cooperation, he apparently means on China’s terms, as he immediately pivots to the need to fight for China’s “national dream” and “national rejuvenation.” This involves removing threats to “territorial integrity”—Xi mentioned Macau, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. The Party must “accelerate the modernization of national defense” because of the “irrefutable truth that it must command the gun.” Not once did Xi mention COVID-19 (https://tinyurl.com/2n3cuss). But China is also weaponizing biotechnology (https://tinyurl.com/68zr4yvr).
The Islamist regimes in Afghanistan, on China’s western border (https://tinyurl.com/drrvyzpr), and in soon-to-be-nuclear Iran, are unlikely to be friendly either to Schwab or Xi.
Will the U.S., the last bastion of freedom, resist? The outcome is uncertain. But it is clear that the Great Reset, or the ambition of would-be hegemons, is about totalitarian rule.
Can freedom return when the “war” is over? Will epidemic disease and bad weather ever be vanquished?
Everything Has a ‘Carbon Footprint’
Bitcoin is “an extremely inefficient way of conducting transactions,” stated Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. Bitcoin consumes an inordinate amount of energy—the higher its price, the more energy it consumes. One Bitcoin transaction has the carbon footprint of 700,000 Visa transactions, and its “green unsustainability” may soon constrain it (Monthly Barometer, March 2021, https://tinyurl.com/2tbcxjvj).
Your Carbon Allowance
To keep global warming below 1.5 °C. and save the Planet from catastrophic climate change, Americans need to cut energy use by 90%, according to a team of European researchers led by University of Leeds sustainability researcher Jefim Vogel. They calculate that human needs are sufficiently satisfied when each person has access to the energy equivalent of 7,500 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity per capita annually. Currently, Americans use about 80,000 kWh per capita per year. An “adequate” ration includes 640 sq ft of living space for a family of four, transportation using the equivalent of 16-40 gallons of gasoline per year, and 9 pounds of new clothing. Clothes could be washed 20 times in a year. Everyone over age 10 could have a mobile phone, and each household could have a laptop computer.
Not a single country in the world comes close to decent living standards using only that amount of energy (https://tinyurl.com/eves5duf).
From the Archives: Nuclear Energy
Klaus Schwab and coauthors manage to write two books about the Reset and the need to reduce carbon emissions without mentioning nuclear energy—even though the World Economic Forum states that nuclear technology would enable the world to meet emissions targets.
The prospect of electricity “too cheap to meter” has long been buried under impossible regulations. The late Galen Winsor demolished many myths that still impede this technology: “The Truth about Uranium & Plutonium & Nuclear Power” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bwyU0rsmgI); “What stopped plutonium economy?” (www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VvGw1tkT1Q); and “The Nuclear Scare Scam—Galen Winsor eats uranium to prove it’s “harmless” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWhOn5St3uM). For transcripts, write to janeorientmd@gmail.com.
The late S.S. Penner presented many lectures on energy at Doctors for Disaster Preparedness meetings, including “Nuclear Energy for the Future” in 2005 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUW_wHTcE0g).
China v. U.S. Rivalry
On the Chinese side: Linglong One, the world’s first modular mini-reactor; an artificial sun reaching 20 million °C for 100 seconds; Chang-e Five moon mission; a Mars Rover; Tiangong space station; a 56 qubit computer; the world’s first 100,000-ton deep-sea semi-submersible oil production and storage platform.
On the U.S. side: new Woke mathematics programs (“Watching China: Anatomy of a Suicide,” https://tinyurl.com/k7zjpsph).
Explosive Pollution
To store the energy required to power the vehicles of an all-electric fleet and to back up “renewable” sources (wind and solar), vast numbers of batteries would be required.
Half of global production of new energy vehicles now comes from China. By 2020, China had accumulated 200,000 tons of retired batteries (which had produced about 25 GWh), and the amount will grow to 780,000 tons (about 116 GWh) by 2025. The batteries have a service life of 5 to 8 years.
Batteries contain cobalt, manganese, and nickel. More than 500 micrograms per cubic meter in the air can cause manganese poisoning. Lithium hexafluorophosphate in lithium batteries is easily hydrolyzed in air to produce phosphorus pentafluoride, hydrogen fluoride, and other harmful substances, which is a major threat to soil and water resources. A 20-gram cell phone battery can pollute three standard swimming pools, or 1 square kilometer of land for about 50 years. Batteries can also explode, distributing pollution far and wide. Less than half the retired batteries in China are handled properly (tinyurl.com/yhzfyxpa).
While rare, battery fires are so devastating that underground garages may ban EVs or hybrids (tinyurl.com/4wpc9mw4).
The UK has about 400 battery sites to back up the electric grid. Each is a potential bomb with the energy of many hundreds of tons of TNT. They require effective air conditioning because if just one cell overheats, it can cause thermal runaway, which spreads to neighboring cells. The resulting blazes don’t require oxygen to keep burning and need tens of thousands of gallons of water to extinguish. Temperatures as high as 660 °C have been reached—high enough to melt aluminum (tinyurl.com/2vk52jz5).
Through 2017 the installed battery power in the U.S. had a total energy capacity of less than 1 GWh. By comparison, a single nuclear power plant will produce around 20,000 GWh between refueling times (https://tinyurl.com/c4jd6hdr).
Who Chooses the Official ‘Health Experts’?
The global medical authority is like a pyramid, with WHO at the top. WHO opinion and policy informs the NIH, CDC, schools of public health, and medical societies in the U.S. and their counterparts in countries all over the world.
As Margaret Chan, WHO Director General wrote in 2014, “My budget [is] highly earmarked, so it is driven by what I call donor interests.” The top donors who weave policy at the apex are not countries, but private interests. By 2017, private contributions had grown to more than half the total. The pharmaceutical industry, especially vaccine makers, is primary.
Public health is now coopting medicine. The University of Wisconsin’s medical school is now the School of Medicine and Public Health. Just two voices from there influenced the governor’s stringent COVID policy. According to the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, rated tops in the nation and named for its billionaire donor: “We implement large-scale solutions,” which includes development of “programs” and “interventions” in disaster response, refugee health, human rights, and sustainable practice. Bloomberg’s “Centers and Institutes” include the Bill and Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health and others specific to vaccine development and production. Bloomberg collaborates with the World Economic Forum in promulgating the unanimous views of “certified” experts (https://tinyurl.com/s32anvsu).