21stcenturywire--2020-07-07--By Design, ‘Woke’ America is More Asleep to Injustice Than Ever

While America ’ s “ Woke ” revolution topples statues and hunts down fictional characters at home , corporate America continues to engage in the mass murder and enslavement of blacks abroad .
To drive home just how superficial and empty recent protests in America are and how little besides further division and destruction will become of them – take the fate of two fictional characters recently put in the spotlight by baying activists – PepsiCo ’ s “ Aunt Jemima ” breakfast food brand and Mars Incorporated ’ s “ Uncle Ben ’ s ” rice products .
Both @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” America .
Both fictional characters will now no longer be used .
It might appear like a huge victory for “ woke ” America .
CNN in their article , “ The Aunt Jemima brand , acknowledging its racist past , will be retired , ” would claim : And the London Guardian in their article , “ Uncle Ben ’ s rice firm to scrap brand image of black farmer , ” would claim : While there is no doubt that both fictional characters represented stereotypes and are rooted in America @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” America ’ s belief that somehow this was a priority or some form of victory begs belief .
So does the fact that those opposed to expanding mobs and their “ cancel culture ” have crafted the most anemic counterpoints .
Some claim that the fictional characters were either inspired or portrayed by real African Americans who profited from the branding .
What neither side mentioned was the very real abuses both companies are guilty of – abuses that are both inhumane and rooted in extraordinary , inexcusable , and thus far @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sponsor/Profit From Slavery and Mass Murder Both “ woke ” America as well as those trying to form opposition to it have entirely missed the fact that PepsiCo and Mars Inc. – two multi-billion dollar businesses – are literally engage in modern day slavery to create their products while sponsoring policy think-tanks that have engineered wars targeting African nations , leading to the deaths of tens of thousands and open-air slave markets where black people – today – are sold into bondage .
This would seem to be a much greater transgression against @ @ @ @ @ @ @ company branding and demand much more serious action than merely adjusting marketing strategies – such as demanding boards of directors to resign or full-spectrum , permanent boycotts for these businesses and their many subsidiaries and brands .
Unfortunately for “ woke ” America , fictional characters are a priority taken head-on all while activists blissfully munch on chocolate bars made by cocoa harvested by African slave labor and sip on drinks made by a corporation who sponsors US wars abroad in which blacks are mass murdered and enslaved .
Your Mars Inc. Chocolate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chocolate snacks like 3 Musketeers , Snickers , Mars , and Milky Way bars , the chocolate you ate most likely came from a developing nation with dismal working conditions and in many cases , child and slave labor .
Mars Inc. along with Nestle , Hersey , and many other chocolate companies , source cocoa from Africa and specically the nations of Cote d ’ Ivoire and Ghana .
A Washington Post article published just last year titled , “ Cocoa ’ s child laborers , ” would note : Black children @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for wages bordering slavery to produce cocoa Mars Inc. knowingly uses in its products – and makes billions of dollars off of – seems like a much bigger issue than what is undoubtedly offensive labeling practiced by Mars Inc. through its “ Uncle Ben ’ s ” brand .
Indicative of the carefully controlled nature of ongoing protests is how the Washington Post has reported on Mars Inc. ’ s genuinely offensive , even criminal predation on black labor in Africa in the past as well as Mars Inc. ’ s offensive branding @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the two in its most recent reporting – thus artfully avoiding a genuinely “ woke ” readership and any genuine damage real protests and boycotts would have on Mars Inc. and other corporations whose interests Washington Post regularly serves as a voice for .
Big-Biz like PepsiCo and Mars Inc. are an Affront to All Mars Inc. – alongside PepsiCo , Nestle , and Hersey – was also involved in funding anti-labeling campaigns to prevent legislation from passing that would force food manufacturers to inform consumers their products contained genetically modified organisms ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hide dangerous ingredients from consumers endangers everyone ’ s health – black and white , left and right .
Mars Inc. , PepsiCo , and others defend such campaigning , claiming that such legislation would be “ costly ” – as would ensuring all of their ingredients are ethically procured and free of child and/or slave labor .
Yet Mars Inc. , PepsiCo , and others are multi-billion dollar businesses .
The Mars family which owns Mars Inc. consists mostly of family members who are billionaires – not mere millionaires – but billionaires @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ensuring their sprawling 82,000 acre ranches have enough water and that they receive the most lenient penalties when crashing their Porsche SUV ’ s into vans carrying families .
Mars Inc. and other multi-billion dollar businesses can afford to do better , simply at the cost of being slightly less well-off billionaires or perhaps even being demoted to millionaires – yet they simply and deliberately choose to profit off the backs of poorly informed consumers at home and exploited/enslaved labor abroad .
If what Mars Inc. and PepsiCo contributed too was only limited @ @ @ @ @ @ @ using slave labor abroad it would be bad enough .
And if America ’ s “ woke revolution ” was serious about justice , Mars Inc. and PepsiCo would be on the chopping block for much more than their crude , racist marketing , and would have more demanded of them .
But that is not all Mars Inc. and PepsiCo are contributing to .
Sponsoring Warmongering and Mass Murder in Africa ( and everywhere else ) Both PepsiCo and Mars Inc. are sponsors of policy think tanks like the Brookings Institution whose @ @ @ @ @ @ @ churn out the blueprints for US wars which are then rubber stamped by the US Congress and sold to the public by the corporate media .
Even as recently as Brooking Institution ’ s 2019 annual report ( PDF ) both companies – PepsiCo and Mars Inc. – are listed as sponsors as were both companies in 2011 ( PDF ) .
Brookings and its corporate-sponsored staff worked diligently in 2011 to help sell the US military intervention in the North African nation of Libya .
It was a key institution involved in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ R2P ” or the “ responsibility to protect ” used as flimsy cover for a long-planned US desire to effect regime change in Libya .
As early as February 2011 , the Brookings Institution published articles and papers like , “ United States Must Take Lead on Libya , ” in which Brookings “ Senior Fellows ” – funded by the likes of PepsiCo and Mars Inc. – made the nascent calls for US military intervention that would eventually lead to the US arming militants openly and carrying out air strikes across the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ militants in eastern Libya – a hotbed for racism and extremism and the epicenters of Al Qaeda in the country – as well as provided roving bands of armed gangs air support as they swept the nation .
When Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi was violently swept from power later that year , the estimated 2.5 million Africans from across the continent he took in , providing housing and living wages to , found themselves being hunted by US-backed militants .
REAL RACISM : US and NATO-backed ‘ rebels ’ in Libya unleashed a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ To explain the blatant and explosive racism that predictably swept Libya in the wake of the US-backed war , articles like the CS Monitor ’ s “ How Qaddafi helped fuel fury toward Africans in Libya , ” would claim : In other words – the CS Monitor and the Western “ experts ” it cited claim Qaddafi “ fueled fury toward Africans ” by merely spending resources to help them .
It is an oblique attempt to justify the racism-driven genocide US-backed militants carried out during their “ victory lap ” in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were either driven out of the country , across the Mediterranean and into Europe to face hardship and racism there or either mass murdered in Libya or rounded up and enslaved .
The Western media – partners with institutions like Brookings – denied this at first – or attempted to excuse it like the CS Monitor – but eventually covered the fallout US military intervention in Libya and its long-planned regime change agenda triggered .
Reuters in their article , “ African workers live in fear after Gaddafi overthrow , ” would admit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Libya migrant ‘ slave market ’ footage sparks outrage , ” would admit : While these media sources covered the fallout of the 2011 US military intervention , they were careful not to link the fallout directly to the intervention .
The US war against Libya was a humanitarian catastrophe deliberately engineered by Western think tanks funded by big-business like PepsiCo , Mars Inc. , and many others , rubber stamped by politicians in Washington – both Democrat and Republican – and eagerly sold to the public by the corporate media .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Brookings “ Senior Fellow ” Shadi Hamid in a piece published on Brookings ’ site titled , “ Everyone says the Libya intervention was a failure .
They ’ re wrong , ” would remain insistent in defending the US-led war and the decimated , racist , and dysfunctional Libya left in its wake .
He argues that if the US didn ’ t intervene , Qaddafi would have successfully eliminated the racist extremists in eastern Libya and particularly in Benghazi who would eventually carry out genocide against Libya ’ s black population @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this or who actually was based in Benghazi and instead refers to them merely as “ protesters.
” Thus , PepsiCo and Mars Inc. – alongside oil corporations and weapons manufacturers – are funding an institution that not only engineers and eagerly promotes wars , they fund an institution that is utterly unapologetic about the calamity these wars cause – including wars like in Libya ending tragically for 2.5 million black Africans .
“ Woke ” America needs to be conscious enough to recognize the true injustice underpinning American society .
It is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and online around the globe rail against “ Aunt Jemima ” and “ Uncle Ben ’ s ” many activists are eagerly enjoying many of the other products produced by and profiting PepsiCo and Mars Inc. – oblivious to the fact that the ingredients are procured through child and slave labor in Africa and the profits are directed into promoting wars that leave blacks abroad dead , displaced , or enslaved .
And as long as this is the case , nothing of any genuine substance will ever change in America or across @ @ @ @ @ @ @ justice is what Americans – all Americans – want , they need to truly wake up to this fact first .
*** Author Tony Cartalucci , Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher , writer and special contributor to 21st Century Wire .
See more of his work at Tony ’ s archive .
Over the last decade , his work has been published on a number of popular news and analysis websites , and also on the online magazine “ New Eastern Outlook ” .
Also , you can follow him on VK here .

By
Tony Cartalucci
21st Century Wire
While America’s “Woke” revolution topples statues and hunts down fictional characters at home, corporate America continues to engage in the mass murder and enslavement of blacks abroad.
To drive home just how superficial and empty recent protests in America are and how little besides further division and destruction will become of them – take the fate of two fictional characters recently put in the spotlight by baying activists – PepsiCo’s “Aunt Jemima” breakfast food brand and Mars Incorporated’s “Uncle Ben’s” rice products.
Both came into the crosshairs of “woke” America. Both fictional characters will now no longer be used.
It might appear like a huge victory for “woke” America.
CNN in their article, “The Aunt Jemima brand, acknowledging its racist past, will be retired,” would claim:
Quaker Oats is retiring the more than 130-year-old Aunt Jemima brand and logo, acknowledging its origins are based on a racial stereotype.
“As we work to make progress toward racial equality through several initiatives, we also must take a hard look at our portfolio of brands and ensure they reflect our values and meet our consumers’ expectations,” the Pepsi-owned company said in a statement provided to CNN Business.
And the London Guardian in their article, “Uncle Ben’s rice firm to scrap brand image of black farmer,” would claim:
The rice company Uncle Ben’s is to scrap the image of a black farmer the brand has used since the 1940s and could change its name, as companies react to growing concerns over racial bias and injustice.
The parent company, Mars, said Uncle Ben was a fictional character whose name was first used in 1946 as a reference to an African American Texan rice farmer.
While there is no doubt that both fictional characters represented stereotypes and are rooted in America’s racist past – “woke” America’s belief that somehow this was a priority or some form of victory begs belief. So does the fact that those opposed to expanding mobs and their “cancel culture” have crafted the most anemic counterpoints.
Some claim that the fictional characters were either inspired or portrayed by real African Americans who profited from the branding.
What neither side mentioned was the very real abuses both companies are guilty of – abuses that are both inhumane and rooted in extraordinary, inexcusable, and thus far utterly unaddressed racism.
PepsiCo and Mars Sponsor/Profit From Slavery and Mass Murder
Both “woke” America as well as those trying to form opposition to it have entirely missed the fact that PepsiCo and Mars Inc. – two multi-billion dollar businesses – are literally engage in modern day slavery to create their products while sponsoring policy think-tanks that have engineered wars targeting African nations, leading to the deaths of tens of thousands and open-air slave markets where black people – today – are sold into bondage.
This would seem to be a much greater transgression against black people than their crude depictions in company branding and demand much more serious action than merely adjusting marketing strategies – such as demanding boards of directors to resign or full-spectrum, permanent boycotts for these businesses and their many subsidiaries and brands.
Unfortunately for “woke” America, fictional characters are a priority taken head-on all while activists blissfully munch on chocolate bars made by cocoa harvested by African slave labor and sip on drinks made by a corporation who sponsors US wars abroad in which blacks are mass murdered and enslaved.
Your Mars Inc. Chocolate Comes from Slave Labor
If you enjoy chocolate snacks like 3 Musketeers, Snickers, Mars, and Milky Way bars, the chocolate you ate most likely came from a developing nation with dismal working conditions and in many cases, child and slave labor.
Mars Inc. along with Nestle, Hersey, and many other chocolate companies, source cocoa from Africa and specically the nations of Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana.
A Washington Post article published just last year titled, “Cocoa’s child laborers,” would note:
Mars, Nestlé and Hershey pledged nearly two decades ago to stop using cocoa harvested by children. Yet much of the chocolate you buy still starts with child labor.
The article elaborated, noting:
About two-thirds of the world’s cocoa supply comes from West Africa where, according to a 2015 U.S. Labor Department report, more than 2 million children were engaged in dangerous labor in cocoa-growing regions.
When asked this spring, representatives of some of the biggest and best-known brands — Hershey, Mars and Nestlé — could not guarantee that any of their chocolates were produced without child labor.
Black children used as labor and under conditions and for wages bordering slavery to produce cocoa Mars Inc. knowingly uses in its products – and makes billions of dollars off of – seems like a much bigger issue than what is undoubtedly offensive labeling practiced by Mars Inc. through its “Uncle Ben’s” brand.
Indicative of the carefully controlled nature of ongoing protests is how the Washington Post has reported on Mars Inc.’s genuinely offensive, even criminal predation on black labor in Africa in the past as well as Mars Inc.’s offensive branding more recently, but failed to link the two in its most recent reporting – thus artfully avoiding a genuinely “woke” readership and any genuine damage real protests and boycotts would have on Mars Inc. and other corporations whose interests Washington Post regularly serves as a voice for.
Big-Biz like PepsiCo and Mars Inc. are an Affront to All
Mars Inc. – alongside PepsiCo, Nestle, and Hersey – was also involved in funding anti-labeling campaigns to prevent legislation from passing that would force food manufacturers to inform consumers their products contained genetically modified organisms (GMO).
Corporations spending money to hide dangerous ingredients from consumers endangers everyone’s health – black and white, left and right.
Mars Inc., PepsiCo, and others defend such campaigning, claiming that such legislation would be “costly” – as would ensuring all of their ingredients are ethically procured and free of child and/or slave labor.
Yet Mars Inc., PepsiCo, and others are multi-billion dollar businesses. The Mars family which owns Mars Inc. consists mostly of family members who are billionaires – not mere millionaires – but billionaires.
Their daily “concerns” include ensuring their sprawling 82,000 acre ranches have enough water and that they receive the most lenient penalties when crashing their Porsche SUV’s into vans carrying families.
Mars Inc. and other multi-billion dollar businesses can afford to do better, simply at the cost of being slightly less well-off billionaires or perhaps even being demoted to millionaires – yet they simply and deliberately choose to profit off the backs of poorly informed consumers at home and exploited/enslaved labor abroad.
If what Mars Inc. and PepsiCo contributed too was only limited to cultivating ignorant consumers at home and using slave labor abroad it would be bad enough. And if America’s “woke revolution” was serious about justice, Mars Inc. and PepsiCo would be on the chopping block for much more than their crude, racist marketing, and would have more demanded of them.
But that is not all Mars Inc. and PepsiCo are contributing to.
Sponsoring Warmongering and Mass Murder in Africa (and everywhere else)
Both PepsiCo and Mars Inc. are sponsors of policy think tanks like the Brookings Institution whose “scholars” and “fellows” churn out the blueprints for US wars which are then rubber stamped by the US Congress and sold to the public by the corporate media.
Even as recently as Brooking Institution’s 2019 annual report (PDF) both companies – PepsiCo and Mars Inc. – are listed as sponsors as were both companies in 2011 (PDF).
Brookings and its corporate-sponsored staff worked diligently in 2011 to help sell the US military intervention in the North African nation of Libya. It was a key institution involved in creating and spreading the notion of “R2P” or the “responsibility to protect” used as flimsy cover for a long-planned US desire to effect regime change in Libya.
As early as February 2011, the Brookings Institution published articles and papers like, “United States Must Take Lead on Libya,” in which Brookings “Senior Fellows” – funded by the likes of PepsiCo and Mars Inc. – made the nascent calls for US military intervention that would eventually lead to the US arming militants openly and carrying out air strikes across the nation.
Indeed, the US armed militants in eastern Libya – a hotbed for racism and extremism and the epicenters of Al Qaeda in the country – as well as provided roving bands of armed gangs air support as they swept the nation.
When Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi was violently swept from power later that year, the estimated 2.5 million Africans from across the continent he took in, providing housing and living wages to, found themselves being hunted by US-backed militants.
REAL RACISM: US and NATO-backed ‘rebels’ in Libya unleashed a brutal new regime targeting Black Africans.
To explain the blatant and explosive racism that predictably swept Libya in the wake of the US-backed war, articles like the CS Monitor’s “How Qaddafi helped fuel fury toward Africans in Libya,” would claim:
Many experts – and African migrant workers themselves – say the animosity stems from anti-African racism found throughout the Arab world. But some say the anger has been made much worse by Mr. Qaddafi’s moves to buy the loyalty of black Libyans from the south of the country as well as his decades-long efforts to build Africa-wide patronage networks at great cost to the country’s Arab majority.
In other words – the CS Monitor and the Western “experts” it cited claim Qaddafi “fueled fury toward Africans” by merely spending resources to help them. It is an oblique attempt to justify the racism-driven genocide US-backed militants carried out during their “victory lap” in Libya.
Black Africans living in Libya were either driven out of the country, across the Mediterranean and into Europe to face hardship and racism there or either mass murdered in Libya or rounded up and enslaved.
The Western media – partners with institutions like Brookings – denied this at first – or attempted to excuse it like the CS Monitor – but eventually covered the fallout US military intervention in Libya and its long-planned regime change agenda triggered.
Reuters in their article, “African workers live in fear after Gaddafi overthrow,” would admit:
Tens of thousands of foreign workers have fled Libya since the armed revolt against Gaddafi’s 42-year-rule began in February, with Africans afraid they have become targets for fighters who accuse them of being mercenaries for Gaddafi.
This antipathy appears to have spread to all Africans, leaving them vulnerable to attacks, robbery and other abuse by the gun-toting, mostly young, fighters who ousted Gaddafi.
Identity cards of nationals from Chad, Niger, Mali, Sudan and other African states have been found on the bodies of gunmen who anti-Gaddafi fighters say were paid to confront them.
The BBC in its article, “Libya migrant ‘slave market’ footage sparks outrage,” would admit:
Migrants trying to reach Europe have spoken of being held by smugglers and forced to work for little or no money.
The footage released by CNN appears to show youths from Niger and other sub-Saharan countries being sold to buyers for about $400 (£300) at undisclosed locations in Libya.
While these media sources covered the fallout of the 2011 US military intervention, they were careful not to link the fallout directly to the intervention.
The US war against Libya was a humanitarian catastrophe deliberately engineered by Western think tanks funded by big-business like PepsiCo, Mars Inc., and many others, rubber stamped by politicians in Washington – both Democrat and Republican – and eagerly sold to the public by the corporate media.
And even as recently as 2016, Brookings “Senior Fellow” Shadi Hamid in a piece published on Brookings’ site titled, “Everyone says the Libya intervention was a failure. They’re wrong,” would remain insistent in defending the US-led war and the decimated, racist, and dysfunctional Libya left in its wake.
He argues that if the US didn’t intervene, Qaddafi would have successfully eliminated the racist extremists in eastern Libya and particularly in Benghazi who would eventually carry out genocide against Libya’s black population. Hamid simply omits any mention of this or who actually was based in Benghazi and instead refers to them merely as “protesters.”
Thus, PepsiCo and Mars Inc. – alongside oil corporations and weapons manufacturers – are funding an institution that not only engineers and eagerly promotes wars, they fund an institution that is utterly unapologetic about the calamity these wars cause – including wars like in Libya ending tragically for 2.5 million black Africans.
“Woke” America needs to be conscious enough to recognize the true injustice underpinning American society. It is very likely that as protesters in America and online around the globe rail against “Aunt Jemima” and “Uncle Ben’s” many activists are eagerly enjoying many of the other products produced by and profiting PepsiCo and Mars Inc. – oblivious to the fact that the ingredients are procured through child and slave labor in Africa and the profits are directed into promoting wars that leave blacks abroad dead, displaced, or enslaved.
And as long as this is the case, nothing of any genuine substance will ever change in America or across the wider Western World.
If real justice is what Americans – all Americans – want, they need to truly wake up to this fact first.
***
Author Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher, writer and special contributor to 21st Century Wire. See more of his work at Tony’s archive. Over the last decade, his work has been published on a number of popular news and analysis websites, and also on the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”. Also, you can follow him on VK here.
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21stcenturywire--2020-07-07--Green Policy Expert Admits: ‘Sorry, But I Cried Wolf on Climate Change’

“ On behalf of environmentalists everywhere , I ’ d like to formally apologise for the climate scare we created.
” On behalf of environmentalists everywhere , I would like to formally apologise for the climate scare we created over the past 30 years .
Climate change is happening .
It ’ s just not the end of the world .
It ’ s not even our most serious environmental problem .
I may seem like a strange person to be saying all of this .
I have been a climate activist for 20 years and an environmentalist for 30 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by the US congress to provide objective testimony , and invited by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to serve as a reviewer of its next assessment report , I feel an obligation to apologise for how badly we environmentalists have misled the public .
Here are some facts few people know : ● Humans are not causing a “ sixth mass extinction ” ● The Amazon is not “ the lungs of the world ” ● Climate change is not making natural disasters worse ● Fires have declined 25 per cent around @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of land we use for meat — humankind ’ s biggest use of land — has declined by an area nearly as large as Alaska ● The build-up of wood fuel and more houses near forests , not climate change , explain why there are more , and more dangerous , fires in Australia and California ● Carbon emissions are declining in most rich nations and have been declining in Britain , Germany and France since the mid-1970s ● The Netherlands became rich , not poor , while adapting to life below sea @ @ @ @ @ @ @ food than we need and food surpluses will continue to rise as the world gets hotter ● Habitat loss and the direct killing of wild animals are bigger threats to species than climate change ● Wood fuel is far worse for people and wildlife than fossil fuels , and ● Preventing future pandemics requires more , not less , “ industrial ” agriculture .
I know the above facts will sound like “ climate denialism ” to many people .
But that just shows the power of climate alarmism .
In reality , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ scientific studies , including those conducted by or accepted by the IPCC , the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations , the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and other leading scientific bodies .
Some people will , when they read this , imagine that I ’ m some right-wing anti-environmentalist .
I ’ m not .
At 17 , I lived in Nicaragua to show solidarity with the Sandinista socialist revolution .
At 23 I raised money for Guatemalan women ’ s co-operatives .
In my early 20s I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ small farmers fighting land invasions .
At 26 I helped expose poor conditions at Nike factories in Asia .
I became an environmentalist at 16 when I threw a fundraiser for Rainforest Action Network .
At 27 I helped save the last unprotected ancient redwoods in California .
In my 30s I advocated renewables and successfully helped persuade the Obama administration to invest $ US90bn into them .
Over the past few years I helped save enough nuclear plants from being replaced by fossil fuels to prevent a sharp increase in emissions .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ avoided speaking out against the climate scare .
Partly that ’ s because I was embarrassed .
After all , I am as guilty of alarmism as any other environmentalist .
For years , I referred to climate change as an “ existential ” threat to human civilisation , and called it a “ crisis ” .
The author second from right in Brazil in 1985 ( Picture : Michael Shellenberger ) But mostly I was scared .
I remained quiet about the climate disinformation campaign because I was afraid of losing friends @ @ @ @ @ @ @ summoned the courage to defend climate science from those who misrepresent it I suffered harsh consequences .
And so I mostly stood by and did next to nothing as my fellow environmentalists terrified the public .
I even stood by as people in the White House and many in the media tried to destroy the reputation and career of an outstanding scientist , good man , and friend of mine , Roger Pielke Jr , a lifelong progressive Democrat and environmentalist who testified in favour of carbon regulations .
Why did they do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ disasters aren ’ t getting worse .
But then , last year , things spiralled out of control .
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said : “ The world is going to end in 12 years if we don ’ t address climate change.
” Britain ’ s most high-profile environmental group claimed “ climate change kills children ” .
The world ’ s most influential green journalist , Bill McKibben , called climate change the “ greatest challenge humans have ever faced ” and said it would “ wipe out civilisations ” .
Mainstream journalists @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was “ the lungs of the world ” , and that deforestation was like a nuclear bomb going off .
As a result , half of the people surveyed around the world last year said they thought climate change would make humanity extinct .
And in January , one out of five British children told pollsters they were having nightmares about climate change .
Whether or not you have children you must see how wrong this is .
I admit I may be sensitive because I have a teenage daughter .
After we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But her friends are deeply misinformed and thus , understandably , frightened .
I thus decided I had to speak out .
I knew that writing a few articles wouldn ’ t be enough .
I needed a book to properly lay out all of the evidence .
And so my formal apology for our fearmongering comes in the form of my new book , Apocalypse Never : Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All .
It is based on two decades of research and three decades of environmental activism .
At 400 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Apocalypse Never covers climate change , deforestation , plastic waste , species extinction , industrialisation , meat , nuclear energy , and renewables .
Some highlights from the book : ● Factories and modern farming are the keys to human liberation and environmental progress ● The most important thing for saving the environment is producing more food , particularly meat , on less land ● The most important thing for reducing pollution and emissions is moving from wood to coal to petrol to natural gas to uranium ● 100 per cent renewables @ @ @ @ @ @ @ energy from today ’ s 0.5 per cent to 50 per cent ● We should want cities , farms , and power plants to have higher , not lower , power densities ● Vegetarianism reduces one ’ s emissions by less than 4 per cent ● Greenpeace didn ’ t save the whales — switching from whale oil to petroleum and palm oil did ● “ Free-range ” beef would require 20 times more land and produce 300 per cent more emissions ● Greenpeace dogmatism worsened forest fragmentation of the Amazon , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the Congo produced a backlash that may have resulted in the killing of 250 elephants .
Why were we all so misled ?
In the final three chapters of Apocalypse Never I expose the financial , political and ideological motivations .
Environmental groups have accepted hundreds of millions of dollars from fossil fuel interests .
Groups motivated by anti-humanist beliefs forced the World Bank to stop trying to end poverty and instead make poverty “ sustainable ” .
And status anxiety , depression and hostility to modern civilisation are behind much of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bear myth has been a crucial meme in advancing climate change dogma .
Once you realise just how badly misinformed we have been , often by people with plainly unsavoury motivations , it is hard not to feel duped .
Will Apocalypse Never make any difference ?
There are certainly reasons to doubt it .
The news media have been making apocalyptic pronouncements about climate change since the late 1980s , and do not seem disposed to stop .
The ideology behind environmental alarmism — Malthusianism — has been repeatedly debunked for 200 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ever .
But there are also reasons to believe that environmental alarmism will , if not come to an end , have diminishing cultural power .
The coronavirus pandemic is an actual crisis that puts the climate “ crisis ” into perspective .
Even if you think we have overreacted , COVID-19 has killed nearly 500,000 people and shattered economies around the globe .
Scientific institutions including WHO and IPCC have undermined their credibility through the repeated politicisation of science .
Their future existence and relevance depends on new leadership and serious reform @ @ @ @ @ @ @ media is allowing for a wider range of new and independent voices to outcompete alarmist environmental journalists at legacy publications .
Nations are reverting openly to self-interest and away from Malthusianism and neoliberalism , which is good for nuclear and bad for renewables .
The evidence is overwhelming that our high-energy civilisation is better for people and nature than the low-energy civilisation that climate alarmists would return us to .
Greenpeace didn ’ t save the whales — switching from whale oil to petroleum and palm oil did .
The invitations from IPCC @ @ @ @ @ @ @ openness to new thinking about climate change and the environment .
Another one has been to the response to my book from climate scientists , conservationists and environmental scholars .
“ Apocalypse Never is an extremely important book , ” writes Richard Rhodes , the Pulitzer-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb .
“ This may be the most important book on the environment ever written , ” says one of the fathers of modern climate science , Tom Wigley .
“ We environmentalists condemn those with antithetical views of being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bias , ” wrote the former head of The Nature Conservancy , Steve McCormick .
“ But too often we are guilty of the same .
Shellenberger offers ‘ tough love ’ : a challenge to entrenched orthodoxies and rigid , self-defeating mindsets .
Apocalypse Never serves up occasionally stinging , but always well-crafted , evidence-based points of view that will help develop the ‘ mental muscle ’ we need to envision and design not only a hopeful , but an attainable , future.
” That is all I hoped for in writing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it this far , I hope you ’ ll agree it ’ s perhaps not as strange as it seems that a lifelong environmentalist and progressive felt the need to speak out against the alarmism .
I further hope that you ’ ll accept my apology .
Watch this brief segment where Michael Shellenberger appeared on Sky News with host Chris Kenny : *** Michael Shellenberger is president of Environmental Progress , an independent research and policy organisation .
He is the author of Apocalypse Never : Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All @ @ @ @ @ @ @ article was originally censored by Forbes Magazine , but has since been republished by a number of other outlets including The Australian .

By
“On behalf of environmentalists everywhere, I’d like to formally apologise for the climate scare we created.”
IMAGE: Author and environmental policy expert Michael Shellenberger.
By Michael Shellenberger
On behalf of environmentalists everywhere, I would like to formally apologise for the climate scare we created over the past 30 years. Climate change is happening. It’s just not the end of the world. It’s not even our most serious environmental problem.
I may seem like a strange person to be saying all of this. I have been a climate activist for 20 years and an environmentalist for 30.
But as an energy expert asked by the US congress to provide objective testimony, and invited by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to serve as a reviewer of its next assessment report, I feel an obligation to apologise for how badly we environmentalists have misled the public.
Here are some facts few people know:
● Humans are not causing a “sixth mass extinction”
● The Amazon is not “the lungs of the world”
● Climate change is not making natural disasters worse
● Fires have declined 25 per cent around the world since 2003
● The amount of land we use for meat — humankind’s biggest use of land — has declined by an area nearly as large as Alaska
● The build-up of wood fuel and more houses near forests, not climate change, explain why there are more, and more dangerous, fires in Australia and California
● Carbon emissions are declining in most rich nations and have been declining in Britain, Germany and France since the mid-1970s
● The Netherlands became rich, not poor, while adapting to life below sea level
●We produce 25 per cent more food than we need and food surpluses will continue to rise as the world gets hotter
● Habitat loss and the direct killing of wild animals are bigger threats to species than climate change
● Wood fuel is far worse for people and wildlife than fossil fuels, and
● Preventing future pandemics requires more, not less, “industrial” agriculture.
I know the above facts will sound like “climate denialism” to many people. But that just shows the power of climate alarmism. In reality, the above facts come from the best-available scientific studies, including those conducted by or accepted by the IPCC, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and other leading scientific bodies.
Some people will, when they read this, imagine that I’m some right-wing anti-environmentalist. I’m not. At 17, I lived in Nicaragua to show solidarity with the Sandinista socialist revolution. At 23 I raised money for Guatemalan women’s co-operatives. In my early 20s I lived in the semi-Amazon doing research with small farmers fighting land invasions. At 26 I helped expose poor conditions at Nike factories in Asia.
Green beginnings
I became an environmentalist at 16 when I threw a fundraiser for Rainforest Action Network. At 27 I helped save the last unprotected ancient redwoods in California. In my 30s I advocated renewables and successfully helped persuade the Obama administration to invest $US90bn into them. Over the past few years I helped save enough nuclear plants from being replaced by fossil fuels to prevent a sharp increase in emissions.
But until last year, I mostly avoided speaking out against the climate scare. Partly that’s because I was embarrassed. After all, I am as guilty of alarmism as any other environmentalist. For years, I referred to climate change as an “existential” threat to human civilisation, and called it a “crisis”.
The author second from right in Brazil in 1985 (Picture: Michael Shellenberger)
But mostly I was scared. I remained quiet about the climate disinformation campaign because I was afraid of losing friends and funding. The few times I summoned the courage to defend climate science from those who misrepresent it I suffered harsh consequences. And so I mostly stood by and did next to nothing as my fellow environmentalists terrified the public.
I even stood by as people in the White House and many in the media tried to destroy the reputation and career of an outstanding scientist, good man, and friend of mine, Roger Pielke Jr, a lifelong progressive Democrat and environmentalist who testified in favour of carbon regulations. Why did they do that? Because his research proves natural disasters aren’t getting worse. But then, last year, things spiralled out of control. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said: “The world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change.” Britain’s most high-profile environmental group claimed “climate change kills children”.
Turning point
The world’s most influential green journalist, Bill McKibben, called climate change the “greatest challenge humans have ever faced” and said it would “wipe out civilisations”. Mainstream journalists reported, repeatedly, that the Amazon was “the lungs of the world”, and that deforestation was like a nuclear bomb going off.
As a result, half of the people surveyed around the world last year said they thought climate change would make humanity extinct. And in January, one out of five British children told pollsters they were having nightmares about climate change.
Whether or not you have children you must see how wrong this is. I admit I may be sensitive because I have a teenage daughter. After we talked about the science she was reassured. But her friends are deeply misinformed and thus, understandably, frightened.
I thus decided I had to speak out. I knew that writing a few articles wouldn’t be enough. I needed a book to properly lay out all of the evidence. And so my formal apology for our fearmongering comes in the form of my new book, Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All.
It is based on two decades of research and three decades of environmental activism. At 400 pages, with 100 of them endnotes, Apocalypse Never covers climate change, deforestation, plastic waste, species extinction, industrialisation, meat, nuclear energy, and renewables.
Some highlights from the book:
● Factories and modern farming are the keys to human liberation and environmental progress
● The most important thing for saving the environment is producing more food, particularly meat, on less land
● The most important thing for reducing pollution and emissions is moving from wood to coal to petrol to natural gas to uranium
● 100 per cent renewables would require increasing the land used for energy from today’s 0.5 per cent to 50 per cent
● We should want cities, farms, and power plants to have higher, not lower, power densities
● Vegetarianism reduces one’s emissions by less than 4 per cent
● Greenpeace didn’t save the whales — switching from whale oil to petroleum and palm oil did
● “Free-range” beef would require 20 times more land and produce 300 per cent more emissions
● Greenpeace dogmatism worsened forest fragmentation of the Amazon, and
● The colonialist approach to gorilla conservation in the Congo produced a backlash that may have resulted in the killing of 250 elephants.
Why were we all so misled? In the final three chapters of Apocalypse Never I expose the financial, political and ideological motivations. Environmental groups have accepted hundreds of millions of dollars from fossil fuel interests. Groups motivated by anti-humanist beliefs forced the World Bank to stop trying to end poverty and instead make poverty “sustainable”. And status anxiety, depression and hostility to modern civilisation are behind much of the alarmism.
CLIMATISM: The polar bear myth has been a crucial meme in advancing climate change dogma.
Reality bites
Once you realise just how badly misinformed we have been, often by people with plainly unsavoury motivations, it is hard not to feel duped. Will Apocalypse Never make any difference? There are certainly reasons to doubt it. The news media have been making apocalyptic pronouncements about climate change since the late 1980s, and do not seem disposed to stop. The ideology behind environmental alarmism — Malthusianism — has been repeatedly debunked for 200 years and yet is more powerful than ever.
But there are also reasons to believe that environmental alarmism will, if not come to an end, have diminishing cultural power.
A real crisis
The coronavirus pandemic is an actual crisis that puts the climate “crisis” into perspective. Even if you think we have overreacted, COVID-19 has killed nearly 500,000 people and shattered economies around the globe.
Scientific institutions including WHO and IPCC have undermined their credibility through the repeated politicisation of science. Their future existence and relevance depends on new leadership and serious reform. Facts still matter, and social media is allowing for a wider range of new and independent voices to outcompete alarmist environmental journalists at legacy publications.
Nations are reverting openly to self-interest and away from Malthusianism and neoliberalism, which is good for nuclear and bad for renewables.
The evidence is overwhelming that our high-energy civilisation is better for people and nature than the low-energy civilisation that climate alarmists would return us to.
Greenpeace didn’t save the whales — switching from whale oil to petroleum and palm oil did.
The invitations from IPCC and congress are signs of a growing openness to new thinking about climate change and the environment. Another one has been to the response to my book from climate scientists, conservationists and environmental scholars. “Apocalypse Never is an extremely important book,” writes Richard Rhodes, the Pulitzer-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb. “This may be the most important book on the environment ever written,” says one of the fathers of modern climate science, Tom Wigley.
“We environmentalists condemn those with antithetical views of being ignorant of science and susceptible to confirmation bias,” wrote the former head of The Nature Conservancy, Steve McCormick. “But too often we are guilty of the same. Shellenberger offers ‘tough love’: a challenge to entrenched orthodoxies and rigid, self-defeating mindsets. Apocalypse Never serves up occasionally stinging, but always well-crafted, evidence-based points of view that will help develop the ‘mental muscle’ we need to envision and design not only a hopeful, but an attainable, future.”
That is all I hoped for in writing it. If you’ve made it this far, I hope you’ll agree it’s perhaps not as strange as it seems that a lifelong environmentalist and progressive felt the need to speak out against the alarmism. I further hope that you’ll accept my apology.
Watch this brief segment where Michael Shellenberger appeared on Sky News with host Chris Kenny:
***
Michael Shellenberger is president of Environmental Progress, an independent research and policy organisation. He is the author of Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All, published by Harper Collins.
This article was originally censored by Forbes Magazine, but has since been republished by a number of other outlets including The Australian.
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21stcenturywire--2020-07-08--Is the Texas COVID ‘Second Wave’ Fake News?

Texas Governor Greg Abbott ( R ) has come under fire for his overly aggressive ‘ second wave ’ lockdown policies .
On July 2nd , Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued an executive order mandating the wearing of face masks across the state , whether indoors or outdoors , when six feet can not be maintained between people .
In the governor ’ s decree , he cited a rise in Covid cases , a rise in test positivity , and a rise in hospitalizations as justification to force people to cover their faces in public .
The move is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ liberties of all Texans .
Abbott may have based his executive order on inaccurate information about a “ rise ” in Covid cases due to the Texas State Department of Health Services changing the definition of what constitutes a “ Covid case.
” Thanks goes to Collin County Judge Chris Hill for blowing the whistle on what appears to be a move in mid-May to redefine what was a “ Covid ” case to open the door to a massive increase – all to match the mainstream media line that a “ second @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In a Commissioners Court hearing for Collin County on May 18th , it was revealed that while previously the determination of a Covid “ case ” was a confirmed test result , the definition was suddenly changed to count “ probable ” cases as “ cases.
” At the same time , the threshold for determining “ probable ” was lowered to a ridiculous level .
As Judge Hill said at that May 18th meeting , “ If you have a subjective fever and you have a headache and you live in Collin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be a probable COVID patient .
It is remarkable how low the standard is now.
” Even worse , once a “ probable ” case was determined based on possibly unrelated subjective criteria , up to 15 people in possible contact with that “ probable ” case were also listed as “ probable cases.
” And “ probable cases ” were considered cases .
Repeat that farce across Texas and is it any wonder there was a “ spike ” in “ cases ” ?
Also , Governor Abbott ’ s claim @ @ @ @ @ @ @ patients was refuted by the Houston hospital directors themselves , who said they were nowhere near actual capacity and in fact were about the same level as they were last year .
The basis for Abbott ’ s unconstitutional “ executive order ” has been shown to be false .
Will he admit his mistake ?
It is encouraging to see so many local and county officials across Texas announcing they will refuse to enforce Governor Abbott ’ s unconstitutional face mask order .
Thankfully the spirit of freedom and love of liberty @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ second wave ” is driven by propaganda .
Across the country , Covid testing increased from about 150,000 to more than 700,000 per day .
You can ’ t drive through Houston without seeing a flurry of signs advertising “ Free Covid test !
Results in 15 minutes !
” Last week Reuters reported that tests shipped around the country by the federal government were contaminated .
Deaths from coronavirus – even the deaths “ with ” coronavirus rather than deaths “ from ” coronavirus – are down more than 90 percent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ decline in deaths continues .
That means we are closer to the “ herd immunity ” that will finally kill this virus .
Yet Governor Abbott and others across the country see this as a reason to lock the country back down .

By
Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) has come under fire for his overly aggressive ‘second wave’ lockdown policies.
Ron Paul Institute
On July 2nd, Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued an executive order mandating the wearing of face masks across the state, whether indoors or outdoors, when six feet cannot be maintained between people. In the governor’s decree, he cited a rise in Covid cases, a rise in test positivity, and a rise in hospitalizations as justification to force people to cover their faces in public.
The move is not only a violation of the civil liberties of all Texans. Abbott may have based his executive order on inaccurate information about a “rise” in Covid cases due to the Texas State Department of Health Services changing the definition of what constitutes a “Covid case.”
Thanks goes to Collin County Judge Chris Hill for blowing the whistle on what appears to be a move in mid-May to redefine what was a “Covid” case to open the door to a massive increase – all to match the mainstream media line that a “second wave” was on the way.
In a Commissioners Court hearing for Collin County on May 18th, it was revealed that while previously the determination of a Covid “case” was a confirmed test result, the definition was suddenly changed to count “probable” cases as “cases.” At the same time, the threshold for determining “probable” was lowered to a ridiculous level.
As Judge Hill said at that May 18th meeting, “If you have a subjective fever and you have a headache and you live in Collin County, you now meet the qualifications to be a probable COVID patient. It is remarkable how low the standard is now.”
Even worse, once a “probable” case was determined based on possibly unrelated subjective criteria, up to 15 people in possible contact with that “probable” case were also listed as “probable cases.” And “probable cases” were considered cases.
Repeat that farce across Texas and is it any wonder there was a “spike” in “cases”?
Also, Governor Abbott’s claim that hospitals were being over-run by Covid patients was refuted by the Houston hospital directors themselves, who said they were nowhere near actual capacity and in fact were about the same level as they were last year.
The basis for Abbott’s unconstitutional “executive order” has been shown to be false. Will he admit his mistake?
It is encouraging to see so many local and county officials across Texas announcing they will refuse to enforce Governor Abbott’s unconstitutional face mask order. Thankfully the spirit of freedom and love of liberty is still alive in Texas.
The “second wave” is driven by propaganda. Across the country, Covid testing increased from about 150,000 to more than 700,000 per day. You can’t drive through Houston without seeing a flurry of signs advertising “Free Covid test! Results in 15 minutes!” Last week Reuters reported that tests shipped around the country by the federal government were contaminated.
Deaths from coronavirus – even the deaths “with” coronavirus rather than deaths “from” coronavirus – are down more than 90 percent since the peak in April. The decline in deaths continues. That means we are closer to the “herd immunity” that will finally kill this virus. Yet Governor Abbott and others across the country see this as a reason to lock the country back down.
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21stcenturywire--2020-07-08--Coleman Hughes: The Moral Case Against Black Lives Matter

Is Black Lives Matter merely a ‘ racial justice ’ advocacy group , or are they pushing a broader political @ @ @ @ @ arguments and the media-driven polemics , what is the true nature of ‘ systemic racism @ @ @ @ @ It ’ s easy to dismiss anyone querying the Black Lives Matter movement as either @ @ @ @ @ — actually racist .
After all , who could object to the truism contained within @ @ @ @ @ are important questions to ask about what the facts show about the scale of ‘ @ @ @ @ @ whether drawing attention to race in such an intense way ultimately advances or hurts Martin @ @ @ @ @ of people being judged “ not by the colour of their skin but but the @ @ @ @ @ Freddie Sayers discusses these timely issues with Manhattan Institute fellow and Contributing Editor of City @ @ @ @ @ Watch :

By
Is Black Lives Matter merely a ‘racial justice’ advocacy group, or are they pushing a broader political agenda? Beyond the emotive arguments and the media-driven polemics, what is the true degree of ‘systemic racism’ in today’s America?
UnHerd reports…
“It’s easy to dismiss anyone querying the Black Lives Matter movement as either pointlessly contrarian or — worse — actually racist. After all, who could object to the truism contained within chosen name? But there are important questions to ask about what the facts show about the scale of ‘systemic racism’, and whether drawing attention to race in such an intense way ultimately advances or hurts Martin Luther King’s vision of people being judged “not by the colour of their skin but but the content of their character.”
Freddie Sayers discusses these timely issues with Manhattan Institute fellow and Contributing Editor of City Journal, Coleman Hughes. Watch:
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21stcenturywire--2020-07-08--Triso: Nuclear ‘Power Balls’ That Could Eliminate Reactor Meltdowns

Is nuclear power really a safe alternative to hydrocarbons ?
Is it worth the risk of devastating meltdowns like we saw in Chernobyl , or Fukushima ?
The fact remains that there is an inherent risks involved with all major energy sources , and nuclear power has its drawbacks – from reactor safety , to nuclear waste , and in the various stages of fuel processing .
However , because of its potential to meet base-load requirements to power modern cities , is has always been entertained as one of the leading options in power generation going forward .
While @ @ @ @ @ @ @ available like Thorium nuclear reactors ( both India and China are developing these for future use ) , the much of industry is stuck on a narrow path of technology and adoption .
The limited options have a lot to do with the global cartel that governs this industry whose key component is not necessarily the energy produced by reactors , but the weapons grade plutonium which comes out the other end .
This is central to global power-sharing agreements .
There is a new fuel production method emerging called “ Triso ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a nuclear reactor but without the risk of meltdowns .
The basic idea behind all nuclear power plants is the same : Convert the heat created by nuclear fission into electricity .
There are several ways to do this , but in each case it involves a delicate balancing act between safety and efficiency .
A nuclear reactor works best when the core is really hot , but if it gets too hot it will cause a meltdown and the environment will get poisoned and people may die and it will take @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mess .
The last time this happened was less than a decade ago , when a massive earthquake followed by a series of tsunamis caused a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan .
But a new generation of reactors coming online in the next few years aims to make these kinds of disasters a thing of the past .
Not only will these reactors be smaller and more efficient than current nuclear power plants , but their designers claim they ’ ll be virtually meltdown-proof .
Their secret ?
Millions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in protective shells .
It ’ s called triso fuel , and it ’ s like a radioactive gobstopper .
Triso— short for “ tristructural isotropic ” —fuel is made from a mixture of low enriched uranium and oxygen , and it is surrounded by three alternating layers of graphite and a ceramic called silicon carbide .
Each particle is smaller than a poppy seed , but its layered shell can protect the uranium inside from melting under even the most extreme conditions that could occur in a reactor .
Paul Demkowicz is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Field Development and Qualification Program at Idaho National Laboratory , and a large part of his job is simulating worst-case scenarios for next-generation nuclear reactors .
For the past few years , Demkowicz and his colleagues have been running qualification tests on triso fuel that involve putting them in a reactor and cranking the temperature .
Most nuclear reactors today operate well below 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit , and even the next generation high-temperature reactors will top out at about 2,000 degrees .
But during the INL tests , Demkowicz demonstrated that triso could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Out of 300,000 particles , not a single triso coating failed during the two-week long test .
“ In the new reactor designs , it ’ s basically impossible to exceed these temperatures , because the reactor kind of shuts down as it reaches these high temperatures , ” says Demkowicz .
“ So if you take these reactor designs and combine them with a fuel that can handle the heat , you essentially have an accident-proof reactor.
” In a conventional nuclear reactor , the main line of defense against a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which power plant operators use to control the fission rate in the core .
If things get too hot , they push more rods into the core so the fission rate—and temperature—goes down .
Every operating nuclear reactor in the world is also ensconced in a massive containment structure designed to prevent radioactive material from escaping if something goes wrong .
But with triso fuel , these safety features are redundant , since each particle is effectively wrapped in a control rod .
This opens the door for small reactor designs that wouldn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Now you don ’ t have to go build this large containment vessel that costs hundreds of millions of dollars for a reactor , because the fuel carries its own containment , ” says Joel Duling , the president of the Nuclear Operations Group at BWXT , a company that makes triso fuel and nuclear reactors .
“ So you can have a reactor that fits in a cargo container and still has all the safety features of a traditional commercial reactor.
” Triso fuel has been around since the 1960s , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ didn ’ t have enough energy density to meet the needs of the giant light-water reactors found in most of the world ’ s nuclear power plants .
Yet once the Department of Energy started throwing its support behind companies developing small high-temperature reactors in 2015 with the launch of the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear program , it looked like triso fuel ’ s time had come .
There was just one problem : No one was producing it .
America ’ s nuclear fuel production capacity has been in freefall @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in uranium price and demand .
But in 2003 , BWXT partnered with the Department of Energy to make triso fuel for testing and demonstrated that it could produce the fuel at scale should the demand arise .
At the time , President George W. Bush was promoting an imminent “ nuclear renaissance ” in the United States , but the announcement turned out to be premature .
The renaissance didn ’ t start to materialize for another 15 years , after hundreds of millions in federal funding was injected into a wave @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t until last October that BWXT announced that it was restarting its triso production line to supply fuel to the next generation of high-temperature nuclear reactors that will come online in the next few years .
“ We see a large demand from a wave of new reactors in the not-too-distant future , ” says Duling .
“ By the late ’ 20s and early ’ 30s , triso will take over as the dominant fuel type .
”

By
Is nuclear power really a safe alternative to hydrocarbons? Is it worth the risk of devastating meltdowns like we saw in Chernobyl, or Fukushima?
The fact remains that there are inherent risks involved with all major energy sources, and nuclear power certainly has its drawbacks – from reactor safety, to nuclear waste, to the various stages of fuel processing. However, because of its potential to meet base-load requirements to power modern cities, is has always been entertained as one of the leading options for power generation going forward.
While there have been other promising non-uranium technologies available like Thorium nuclear reactors (both India and China are developing these for future use), still much of industry is stuck on a narrow path of technology and adoption. The limited options have a lot to do with the global cartel that governs this industry and whose crucial component is not necessarily the energy being produced by reactors – but the weapons grade plutonium which comes out the other end. This is a central mechanism for global power-sharing agreements in the current world order.
There is a new fuel production method emerging called “Triso” which promises to deliver all the benefits of a nuclear reactor but without the risk of meltdowns. Will it gain mass adoption?
(Image Source: Breaking Defense)
WIRED reports….
The basic idea behind all nuclear power plants is the same: Convert the heat created by nuclear fission into electricity. There are several ways to do this, but in each case it involves a delicate balancing act between safety and efficiency. A nuclear reactor works best when the core is really hot, but if it gets too hot it will cause a meltdown and the environment will get poisoned and people may die and it will take billions of dollars to clean up the mess.
The last time this happened was less than a decade ago, when a massive earthquake followed by a series of tsunamis caused a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan. But a new generation of reactors coming online in the next few years aims to make these kinds of disasters a thing of the past. Not only will these reactors be smaller and more efficient than current nuclear power plants, but their designers claim they’ll be virtually meltdown-proof. Their secret? Millions of submillimeter-size grains of uranium individually wrapped in protective shells. It’s called triso fuel, and it’s like a radioactive gobstopper.
Triso— short for “tristructural isotropic”—fuel is made from a mixture of low enriched uranium and oxygen, and it is surrounded by three alternating layers of graphite and a ceramic called silicon carbide. Each particle is smaller than a poppy seed, but its layered shell can protect the uranium inside from melting under even the most extreme conditions that could occur in a reactor.
Paul Demkowicz is the director of the Advanced Gas Reactor Field Development and Qualification Program at Idaho National Laboratory, and a large part of his job is simulating worst-case scenarios for next-generation nuclear reactors. For the past few years, Demkowicz and his colleagues have been running qualification tests on triso fuel that involve putting them in a reactor and cranking the temperature. Most nuclear reactors today operate well below 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and even the next generation high-temperature reactors will top out at about 2,000 degrees. But during the INL tests, Demkowicz demonstrated that triso could withstand reactor temperatures over 3,200 degrees Fahrenheit. Out of 300,000 particles, not a single triso coating failed during the two-week long test.
“In the new reactor designs, it’s basically impossible to exceed these temperatures, because the reactor kind of shuts down as it reaches these high temperatures,” says Demkowicz. “So if you take these reactor designs and combine them with a fuel that can handle the heat, you essentially have an accident-proof reactor.”
In a conventional nuclear reactor, the main line of defense against a meltdown is the fuel control rod, which power plant operators use to control the fission rate in the core. If things get too hot, they push more rods into the core so the fission rate—and temperature—goes down. Every operating nuclear reactor in the world is also ensconced in a massive containment structure designed to prevent radioactive material from escaping if something goes wrong.
But with triso fuel, these safety features are redundant, since each particle is effectively wrapped in a control rod. This opens the door for small reactor designs that wouldn’t have been possible before. “Now you don’t have to go build this large containment vessel that costs hundreds of millions of dollars for a reactor, because the fuel carries its own containment,” says Joel Duling, the president of the Nuclear Operations Group at BWXT, a company that makes triso fuel and nuclear reactors. “So you can have a reactor that fits in a cargo container and still has all the safety features of a traditional commercial reactor.”
Triso fuel has been around since the 1960s, but it was expensive to manufacture and didn’t have enough energy density to meet the needs of the giant light-water reactors found in most of the world’s nuclear power plants. Yet once the Department of Energy started throwing its support behind companies developing small high-temperature reactors in 2015 with the launch of the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear program, it looked like triso fuel’s time had come. There was just one problem: No one was producing it.
America’s nuclear fuel production capacity has been in freefall since the mid-1980s, spurred by declines in uranium price and demand. But in 2003, BWXT partnered with the Department of Energy to make triso fuel for testing and demonstrated that it could produce the fuel at scale should the demand arise. At the time, President George W. Bush was promoting an imminent “nuclear renaissance” in the United States, but the announcement turned out to be premature. The renaissance didn’t start to materialize for another 15 years, after hundreds of millions in federal funding was injected into a wave of nuclear startups. And it wasn’t until last October that BWXT announced that it was restarting its triso production line to supply fuel to the next generation of high-temperature nuclear reactors that will come online in the next few years.
“We see a large demand from a wave of new reactors in the not-too-distant future,” says Duling. “By the late ’20s and early ’30s, triso will take over as the dominant fuel type.”
Continue this story at Wired
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21stcenturywire--2020-07-07--2020: A Rough Year for Greta?

2020: A Rough Year for Greta?

The tea leaves are beginning to turn out .
This may well be the year in which the climate change movement begins to go off the rails .
It started off great , as elites and climatists descended on Davos to press home what looked to be the final mile in ramming through the adoption of some form of global Green New Deal by year ’ s end .
Their secret weapon , a Swedish teen , was primed , locked and loaded .
Their cause was then handed another gift in the Coronavirus lockdowns .
Climate campaigners were over @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and boasted with claims of lower CO2 levels due the economic shutdown .
In just two months , COVID lockdown policies had achieved what climate campaigners had been working for years to realize .
Or so they thought .
It was later revealed that lockdowns had little or no impact on overall CO2 concentration .
But since when did a little science get in the way of an apocalyptic juggernaut .
But something strange happened on the way to Wuhan .
One of the key components of the intergovernmental fear campaign to promote @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Initially , these were referred to as “ The Science ” by cock-sure politicians and public health officials .
The press quickly fell in line with this groupthink .
Any dissenters were roundly attacked and deplatformed .
As their mission crept on , it became clear that these models were ever only masquerading as ‘ science ’ .
The fictional doomsday scenarios being created by technocrats were then snapped up by the mainstream media , and then used them to hound political officials into implementing a one-size-fits-all centralized policy of de-industrialization and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s no coincidence that this is exactly what climatists and Green New Deal campaigners have been hoping for .
Prior to COVID , few dared to publicly challenge the intellectual primacy of computer modelling , especially in the field of climate science .
Skeptics were simply told , “ Shut up !
They are experts !
” Only , it turns out the skeptics were right .
It was regarded as infallible , even though just like Neil Ferguson and Imperial College ’ s erroneous modelling of pandemics – these glorified SIM City @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The fall-out in both the UK and US over these wild computer-generated predictions that were used by governments to adopt lockdown policies has also exposed these crude devices as pseudo-science used to paint an unlikely Armageddon .
Now , a scorned public is starting to question the assumed authority of computer modelling .
People are beginning to look more cautiously at climate modellers from the IPCC , and serial data masseuses like Michael Mann – all of whom are being questioned with renewed skepticism .
No doubt , this will continue to erode @ @ @ @ @ @ @ climate dogma which has enjoyed its place on the throne of consensus reality ever since Al Gore released his now discredited documentary film An Inconvenient Truth in 2005 .
Adding more insult to injury , this year also saw the release of Michael Moore ’ s documentary Planet of Humans which completely destroyed the the received green wisdom regarding stalwart solutions for ‘ green ’ energy being touted by environmental activists over the last 30 years .
For their blasphemy , both Moore and director Jeff Gibbs were branded heretics by the progressive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rank on the green new gospel .
This incident was then followed by the release of the new book , Apocalypse Never : Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All , by green policy expert Michael Shellenberg .
The book quickly shot up to number # 3 top seller on Amazon and has since drawn fire from activists who claim that like Moore , the author has stabbed the climate movement in the back by revealing some of the trade secrets of green activism .
But Shellenberger is merely pointed out the obvious – @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sixth mass extinction , ” that climate change is not making natural disasters worse , and that CO2 emissions are actually plateaued in most developed nations .
For this , he has been mercilessly attacked by climate clerics .
And that brings us back to Generation X , Y , Z ’ s ( and liberal Boomers too ) latter day Joan of Arch , the mercurial Swede , Greta Thunberg .
Before coronavirus , her stock was riding high – halfway into a glorious gap year and transatlantic carbon-neutral sailing excursion , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Summit in Spain , and then on to the World Economic Forum in Davos , Switzerland , where she rubbed elbows with Charles , the Prince of Wales .
At Davos , it was clear that Greta ’ s physical appearance had changed .
She had lost a lot of weight in a very short space of time – a far cry from her jovial , bouncy self .
This was a new mini-adult , a darker and much more cynical Greta .
Clearly , the miles , the media , and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And her disdain for the great and the good was manifest .
Watch : From there , she would have been looking forward to a spring season meant to culminate in a series of youth ‘ climate actions ’ spanning into summer , maybe an appearance at Glasonbury festival next to some super group , and then leading towards COP26 in Glasgow this November .
That was the plan .
But unfortunately , with the west ’ s student body all but grounded at home by a new more impressive Project Fear @ @ @ @ @ @ @ any of her legions of angry adolescents .
Now donning masks and plastic visors , the youth have other more pressing issues to contend with ; omnipresent fears of the plague , school closures , oppressive social distancing regimes , and mass unemployment – all of which will trump fears that sea levels might rise a few meters in 200 years time .
Even COP26 might end up being done on Zoom due to COVID concerns .
Greta ’ s gravitas doesn ’ t translate as well in desktop avatar form .
As @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hardcore climatists reading this , we ’ re sorry , that ’ s just where things are at now .
But Greta is very sharp customer , and will eventually cop on to the game .
She has already begun hitting out at slovenly world leaders – who she claims have been using her to “ look good.
” And she ’ s not wrong either .
Certainly , turnabout is fair play , but we should point out that Greta was a minor through her mercurial rise to fame , therefore , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ actor Svante Thunberg and mother and opera singer Malena Ernman – who have allowed their daughter to be used as a glorified mascot for political parties , multiple globalist organizations , NGOs and corporate media consortiums .
In a recent interview on Swedish radio during the COVID crisis , she accused German chancellor , Angela Merkel , of using her for cheap “ selfie ” at a UN event in New York .
“ Presidents , prime ministers , kings and princesses came and wanted to talk to me , ” said Greta @ @ @ @ @ @ @ saw the chance that they could take a photo with me for their Instagram account .
Then the hashtag # savetheplanet … They can post it on social media and it makes them look good , it makes them seem like they care.
” Her handlers should take heed : she ’ s getting more savvy .
For those who have actually followed her story , you will know that from day one , Greta Thunberg ’ s supposed ‘ grassroots ’ rise was a well-financed and carefully choreographed public relations campaign , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , security and a gaggle of support staff .
As time progresses , and as holes in the climate narrative begin to expand , it ’ s increasingly likely that Greta herself , now 17 years old , will realize the extent of the financialized operation in which she been used like a tool to wind-up and set in motion .
At that point , she will be a full-fledged adult , and thus harder to manage by her handlers working to ferry around selling the New Green Economy .
Sooner or later @ @ @ @ @ @ @ childhood , and then forge her own path as a free-thinking adult .
By that time , the wheels may have already fallen off the climate change bandwagon .
The information berm has now burst .
With each passing month , you will see more green realists going off script .
More Moore ’ s , and more Shellenberger ’ s .
But that doesn ’ t mean it will stop .
If COVID showed us anything , it ’ s globalists organizations and their cadres in government are determined to advance their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Fourth Industrial Revolution and UBI utopia .
Shades of Huxley ’ s Brave New World .
That ’ s no exaggeration .
US Presidential Election beckons , and there ’ s more at stake than ever .
Many believe a Trump victory could set the climate change agenda back a further ten years .
So in terms of expediting this agenda , 2020 is really a do or die year .
*** This OpEd article was submitted by the editorial team at 21WIRE .

By
The tea leaves are beginning to turn out. This may well be the year in which the climate change movement begins to go off the rails.
It started off great, as elites and climatists descended on Davos to press home what looked to be the final mile in ramming through the adoption of some form of global Green New Deal by year’s end. Their secret weapon, a Swedish teen, was primed, locked and loaded.
Their cause was then handed another gift in the Coronavirus lockdowns. Climate campaigners were over the moon with excitement over the lockdown and boasted with claims of lower CO2 levels due the economic shutdown. In just two months, COVID lockdown policies had achieved what climate campaigners had been working for years to realize. Or so they thought. It was later revealed that lockdowns had little or no impact on overall CO2 concentration. But since when did a little science get in the way of an apocalyptic juggernaut.
But something strange happened on the way to Wuhan.
One of the key components of the intergovernmental fear campaign to promote COVID lockdowns – was dubious computer modelling. Initially, these were referred to as “The Science” by cock-sure politicians and public health officials. The press quickly fell in line with this groupthink. Any dissenters were roundly attacked and deplatformed. As their mission crept on, it became clear that these models were ever only masquerading as ‘science’. The fictional doomsday scenarios being created by technocrats were then snapped up by the mainstream media, and then used them to hound political officials into implementing a one-size-fits-all centralized policy of de-industrialization and mass travel bans. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that this is exactly what climatists and Green New Deal campaigners have been hoping for.
Prior to COVID, few dared to publicly challenge the intellectual primacy of computer modelling, especially in the field of climate science. Skeptics were simply told, “Shut up! They are experts!” Only, it turns out the skeptics were right. It was regarded as infallible, even though just like Neil Ferguson and Imperial College’s erroneous modelling of pandemics – these glorified SIM City simulations were not scientific at all. The fall-out in both the UK and US over these wild computer-generated predictions that were used by governments to adopt lockdown policies has also exposed these crude devices as pseudo-science used to paint an unlikely Armageddon.
Now, a scorned public is starting to question the assumed authority of computer modelling. People are beginning to look more cautiously at climate modellers from the IPCC, and serial data masseuses like Michael Mann – all of whom are being questioned with renewed skepticism. No doubt, this will continue to erode away at the foundations of once sacred climate dogma which has enjoyed its place on the throne of consensus reality ever since Al Gore released his now discredited documentary film An Inconvenient Truth in 2005.
Adding more insult to injury, this year also saw the release of Michael Moore’s documentary Planet of Humans which completely destroyed the the received green wisdom regarding stalwart solutions for ‘green’ energy being touted by environmental activists over the last 30 years. For their blasphemy, both Moore and director Jeff Gibbs were branded heretics by the progressive left and irate green campaigners for breaking rank on the green new gospel.
This incident was then followed by the release of the new book, Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All, by green policy expert Michael Shellenberg. The book quickly shot up to number #3 top seller on Amazon and has since drawn fire from activists who claim that like Moore, the author has stabbed the climate movement in the back by revealing some of the trade secrets of green activism. But Shellenberger is merely pointed out the obvious – that humans are not causing a “sixth mass extinction,” that climate change is not making natural disasters worse, and that CO2 emissions are actually plateaued in most developed nations. For this, he has been mercilessly attacked by climate clerics.
And that brings us back to Generation X, Y, Z’s (and liberal Boomers too) latter day Joan of Arch, the mercurial Swede, Greta Thunberg.
Before coronavirus, her stock was riding high – halfway into a glorious gap year and transatlantic carbon-neutral sailing excursion, leading to an appearance at COP25 Climate Summit in Spain, and then on to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where she rubbed elbows with Charles, the Prince of Wales.
At Davos, it was clear that Greta’s physical appearance had changed. She had lost a lot of weight in a very short space of time – a far cry from her jovial, bouncy self. This was a new mini-adult, a darker and much more cynical Greta. Clearly, the miles, the media, and the green glitterati life was wearing on her. And her disdain for the great and the good was manifest. Watch:
From there, she would have been looking forward to a spring season meant to culminate in a series of youth ‘climate actions’ spanning into summer, maybe an appearance at Glasonbury festival next to some super group, and then leading towards COP26 in Glasgow this November. That was the plan. But unfortunately, with the west’s student body all but grounded at home by a new more impressive Project Fear, Greta could not expect to rally any of her legions of angry adolescents. Now donning masks and plastic visors, the youth have other more pressing issues to contend with; omnipresent fears of the plague, school closures, oppressive social distancing regimes, and mass unemployment – all of which will trump fears that sea levels might rise a few meters in 200 years time. Even COP26 might end up being done on Zoom due to COVID concerns. Greta’s gravitas doesn’t translate as well in desktop avatar form. As painful as that might sound to any hardcore climatists reading this, we’re sorry, that’s just where things are at now.
But Greta is very sharp customer, and will eventually cop on to the game. She has already begun hitting out at slovenly world leaders – who she claims have been using her to “look good.” And she’s not wrong either. Certainly, turnabout is fair play, but we should point out that Greta was a minor through her mercurial rise to fame, therefore, it is her parents, father and actor Svante Thunberg and mother and opera singer Malena Ernman – who have allowed their daughter to be used as a glorified mascot for political parties, multiple globalist organizations, NGOs and corporate media consortiums.
In a recent interview on Swedish radio during the COVID crisis, she accused German chancellor, Angela Merkel, of using her for cheap “selfie” at a UN event in New York.
“Presidents, prime ministers, kings and princesses came and wanted to talk to me,” said Greta.
“They saw me and suddenly saw the chance that they could take a photo with me for their Instagram account. Then the hashtag #savetheplanet … They can post it on social media and it makes them look good, it makes them seem like they care.”
Her handlers should take heed: she’s getting more savvy.
For those who have actually followed her story, you will know that from day one, Greta Thunberg’s supposed ‘grassroots’ rise was a well-financed and carefully choreographed public relations campaign, complete with road managers, script writers, security and a gaggle of support staff.
As time progresses, and as holes in the climate narrative begin to expand, it’s increasingly likely that Greta herself, now 17 years old, will realize the extent of the financialized operation in which she been used like a tool to wind-up and set in motion. At that point, she will be a full-fledged adult, and thus harder to manage by her handlers working to ferry around selling the New Green Economy. Sooner or later, she may want to reclaim her childhood, and then forge her own path as a free-thinking adult. By that time, the wheels may have already fallen off the climate change bandwagon. The information berm has now burst. With each passing month, you will see more green realists going off script. More Moore’s, and more Shellenberger’s.
But that doesn’t mean it will stop. If COVID showed us anything, it’s globalists organizations and their cadres in government are determined to advance their Great Reset agenda in preparation for their Fourth Industrial Revolution and UBI utopia.
Shades of Huxley’s Brave New World. That’s no exaggeration.
US Presidential Election beckons, and there’s more at stake than ever. Many believe a Trump victory could set the climate change agenda back a further ten years.
So in terms of expediting this agenda, 2020 is really a do or die year.
***
This OpEd article was submitted by the editorial team at 21WIRE.
READ MORE CLIMATE NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Climate Files
SUPPORT OUR INDEPENDENT MEDIA PLATFORM – BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV


21stcenturywire--2020-07-08--People Who Wear a Mask in Their Car

People Who Wear a Mask in Their Car

People that wear a mask in their car unfortunately get made fun of by bystanders all the time .
Little @ @ @ @ @ alone in your car during pandemic times is one of the most dangerous activities you @ @ @ @ @ In this video , for the first time ever , people who wear a mask @ @ @ @ @ out .
Watch :

By
JP Sears says…
People that wear a mask in their car unfortunately get made fun of by bystanders all the time. Little do they know that driving alone in your car during pandemic times is one of the most dangerous activities you can take part in.
In this video, for the first time ever, people who wear a mask while driving get to speak out. Watch:
READ MORE COVID NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire COVID Files
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21stcenturywire--2020-07-08--Spying for NATO: Aide to Head of Russian Space Agency Roscosmos Faces Treason Charges

Russian state space agency Roscosmos just found itself in another scandal .
On July 7 , the Russian Federal Security Service ( FSB ) detained Ivan Safronov , a former journalist ( specialised in military affairs ) who works as an aide to the head of Russia ’ s space agency Roscosmos .
He ’ s accused of treason .
The FSB said that Safronov worked for the foreign intelligence service of an unspecified NATO country and had been handing over classified military information .
Roscosmos said that detention of Safronov was not linked to his work with Roscosmos , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Director Dmitry Rogozin .
Safronov joined Roscosmos as a media adviser in May .
He is expected to appear in court later on July 7 .
“ The Federal Security Service detained Ivan Safronov , advisor to the director general of Roscosmos state corporation , in Moscow .
Safronov was performing tasks of one of NATO intelligence services , collecting state confidential data about Russia ’ s military and technical cooperation , defense and security and handing it over to its [ NATO intelligence service ] representative , ” the FSB said .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of state treason against Safronov , which carries 20 years behind bars .
The investigation continues .
Safronov was born in Moscow in 1990 .
He graduated from Moscow ’ s Higher School of Economics in 2010 , obtaining a degree in journalism .
He worked as a special correspondent for Russia ’ s Kommersant and Vedomosti newspapers and was covering military and military-technical cooperation as well as defense and space industries .
In May 2020 , Safronov was appointed advisor to the Roscosmos chief for information policy and was curating a number @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was involved in several scandals regarding the publication of supposedly sensitive data regarding the military industrial cooperation of Russia with other states .
For example , the TASS news agency reported that in 2019 prosecutors wanted to bring a civil case against Kommersant for disclosing an unspecified sensitive data in one of Safronov articles .
The article , which remains unavailable , said that Egypt had signed a deal with Russia to buy more than 20 SU-35 multi-role fighter jets .
Following the publication of the article , US Secretary of State Mike @ @ @ @ @ @ @ went ahead with the purchase .
Safronov claims that he was forced to leave Kommersant after he published an article based on ‘ anonymous sources ’ and speculating that Valentina Matviyenko , the chairwoman of the upper house of parliament , might leave her post .
The speculations appeared to be false and the article was removed .
Taking into account the public approach of the FSB in this case , it ’ s likely that the security service has overwhelming evidence confirming the treason…

By
South Front reports…
Russian state space agency Roscosmos just found itself in another scandal.
On July 7, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) detained Ivan Safronov, a former journalist (specialised in military affairs) who works as an aide to the head of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos. He’s accused of treason.
The FSB said that Safronov worked for the foreign intelligence service of an unspecified NATO country and had been handing over classified military information.
Roscosmos said that detention of Safronov was not linked to his work with Roscosmos, where he is an adviser to General Director Dmitry Rogozin. Safronov joined Roscosmos as a media adviser in May. He is expected to appear in court later on July 7.
“The Federal Security Service detained Ivan Safronov, advisor to the director general of Roscosmos state corporation, in Moscow. Safronov was performing tasks of one of NATO intelligence services, collecting state confidential data about Russia’s military and technical cooperation, defense and security and handing it over to its [NATO intelligence service] representative,” the FSB said.
Prosecution launched criminal proceedings on the count of state treason against Safronov, which carries 20 years behind bars. The investigation continues.
Ivan Safrinov arrested by Russian authorities this week.
The TASS news agency reports:
Safronov was born in Moscow in 1990. He graduated from Moscow’s Higher School of Economics in 2010, obtaining a degree in journalism. He worked as a special correspondent for Russia’s Kommersant and Vedomosti newspapers and was covering military and military-technical cooperation as well as defense and space industries. In May 2020, Safronov was appointed advisor to the Roscosmos chief for information policy and was curating a number of Roscosmos programs. Earlier, Safronov was involved in several scandals regarding the publication of supposedly sensitive data regarding the military industrial cooperation of Russia with other states. For example, the TASS news agency reported that in 2019 prosecutors wanted to bring a civil case against Kommersant for disclosing an unspecified sensitive data in one of Safronov articles. The article, which remains unavailable, said that Egypt had signed a deal with Russia to buy more than 20 SU-35 multi-role fighter jets. Following the publication of the article, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo threatened Egypt with sanctions if it went ahead with the purchase. Safronov claims that he was forced to leave Kommersant after he published an article based on ‘anonymous sources’ and speculating that Valentina Matviyenko, the chairwoman of the upper house of parliament, might leave her post. The speculations appeared to be false and the article was removed. Taking into account the public approach of the FSB in this case, it’s likely that the security service has overwhelming evidence confirming the treason… Read more at South Front READ MORE NATO NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire NATO Files SUPPORT OUR INDEPENDENT MEDIA PLATFORM – BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV