Category: US

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CCS #16: Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai On How The Carbon Tax Works

(Shiva Ayyadurai, Republican and former Senate Candidate explains how the Carbon tax work.)

(Alternative explanation: Cosmic rays and the sun contribute far greater to climate change than does Carbon Dioxide)

(“Conservative” Garnett Genuis defends Paris Accord)

(UN Green Climate Fund)

(Getting rich off Carbon credits)

The first video explains plainly in the first video how the UN IPCC system works. It is all about generating revenue in order to use in creating climate bonds. The money is acquired through underhanded and deceptive means.

The second video offers a much more plausible explanation for variations in temperature: Cosmic rays and the sun. This half hour video gets into it.

Although Dr. Ayyadurai explains this from an American perspective, the issues are much the same in Canada. As such, it is very related to our situation.

It’s a shame that he ended up losing to Elizabeth Warren in the Senate race. Dr. Ayyadurai would have made a fine Senator. But Pocahontis (or Faux-cahontis) has name recognition and is able to run on that alone.

1. Debunking The Climate Change Scam

CLICK HERE, for #1: major lies that the climate frauds tell.
CLICK HERE, for #2: review of the Paris Accord.
CLICK HERE, for #3: Bill C-97, the GHG Pollution Pricing Act.
CLICK HERE, for #4: in 3-2 decision, Sask. COA allows carbon tax.
CLICK HERE, for #5: controlled opposition to carbon tax.
CLICK HERE, for #6: controlled opposition Cons ==> Supreme Court.
CLICK HERE, for #7: climate bonds pitched as $100T industry.
CLICK HERE, for #8: Joel Wood pitching various pricing options.
CLICK HERE, for #9: Mark Carney and UN climate finance.
CLICK HERE, for #10: Goldman Sachs, Obama, Clinton, Chicago CX.
CLICK HERE, for #11: Coronavirus, Pirbright Inst, Gates, Depopulation.
CLICK HERE, for #12: AOC and the “Green New Deal”.
CLICK HERE, for #13: UN seeks new development financing.
CLICK HERE, for #14: New Development Fund, bait-and-switch.
CLICK HERE, for #15: UN exploring global taxation ideas.

CLICK HERE, for BOLD Like A Leopard Guest Posting.

2. Important Links

CLICK HERE, for the Paris Accord, full text.
CLICK HERE, for the UN Green Climate Fund.
CLICK HERE, for WEF explaining carbon credits and trading.
CLICK HERE, for a Forbes article explaining the carbon credit scheme..

3. Dr. Ayyadurai Video In Point Form

 

  1. (Pre-Carbon tax) Products are made
  2. (Post-Carbon tax) Products are still made. Now taxes charged.
  3. Carbon taxes are paid to UN IPCC, others
  4. UN IPCC issues “Carbon credits”. In essence, this is permission to “pollute”. Never mind that Carbon Dioxide isn’t pollution, but a natural byproduct of combustion, or even breathing. But anyway….
  5. So called “Carbon credits” actually go into the bond market, and allow the UN (and approved others) to use it as an investment vehicle. This is a trillion dollar industry.
  6. Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore once monopolized the market.
  7. UN IPCC used their PR branch (or propaganda arm) to pressure the US into playing ball with the Paris Accord, despite the obvious fraud.
  8. US pressured to create $100B “Green Fund”
  9. “Green Fund” used to bribe 190 other nations into joining Paris Accord, and thus legitimizing the UN scam. Odd wording here
  10. Advisors and NGOs who used US Green Fund money to influence joining of Paris Accord ended up enriching themselves in the process
  11. Scientists “alter” findings to make situation seem worse.
  12. Developing countries allowed to make situation worse. As an example, China puts out 11B tons/year now, and will be able to emit 22B tons in 2030.
  13. After 2030, China will be able to buy “Carbon credits”.
  14. UN paid “influencers” convince their nations to join Paris Accord
  15. Paying $100B to the influencers is pocket change, as the Carbon credit commodities market will generate trillions in the end. A great investment.
  16. This is really about virtue signalling.
  17. Environmental data manipulated to generate support.
  18. No conclusive evidence of temperature rise.
  19. 1st world nations will pay more for everything.
  20. 3rd world will (for years) be exempt.
  21. UN IPCC and allies are only ones who will benefit.
  22. Trump made right decision to pull out of Paris Accord.

Just 12 minutes in this video and Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai completely and thoroughly explained it. These Carbon taxes would end up in the UN, and go into the commodities market, generating trillions of dollars in revenue. The “Green Fund” is just a fund to bribe corrupt officials into playing along. And none of this would do anything to cut pollution.

One small criticism: it would have been nice to point out that Carbon Dioxide is not pollution. It is a naturally occurring compound. If it was reduced to zero, life would stop altogether.

However, in the other video provided, a sound and plausible explanation is offered. It is cosmic rays and solar activity that leads to significant variations in temperatures.

4. The Paris Accord: Articles 2, 4, 9

(Article 2)

1. This Agreement, in enhancing the implementation of the Convention, including its objective, aims to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change, in the context of sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty, including by:

(c) Making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development.

(Article 4)

3. Each Party’s successive nationally determined contribution will represent a progression beyond the Party’s then current nationally determined contribution and reflect its highest possible ambition, reflecting its common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in the light of different national circumstances.

4. Developed country Parties should continue taking the lead by undertaking economy-wide absolute emission reduction targets. Developing country Parties should continue enhancing their mitigation efforts, and are encouraged to move over time towards economy-wide emission reduction or limitation targets in the light of different national circumstances.

5. Support shall be provided to developing country Parties for the implementation of this Article, in accordance with Articles 9, 10 and 11, recognizing that enhanced support for developing country Parties will allow for higher ambition in their actions.

6. The least developed countries and small island developing States may prepare and communicate strategies, plans and actions for low greenhouse gas emissions development reflecting their special circumstances.

(Article 9)

1. Developed country Parties shall provide financial resources to assist developing country Parties with respect to both mitigation and adaptation in continuation of their existing obligations under the Convention.

2. Other Parties are encouraged to provide or continue to provide such support voluntarily.

3. As part of a global effort, developed country Parties should continue to take the lead in mobilizing climate finance from a wide variety of sources, instruments and channels, noting the significant role of public funds, through a variety of actions, including supporting country-driven strategies, and taking into account the needs and priorities of developing country Parties. Such mobilization of climate finance should represent a progression beyond previous efforts.

4. The provision of scaled-up financial resources should aim to achieve a balance between adaptation and mitigation, taking into account country-driven strategies, and the priorities and needs of developing country Parties, especially those that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change and have significant capacity constraints, such as the least developed countries and small island developing States, considering the need for public and grant-based resources for adaptation.

5. Developed country Parties shall biennially communicate indicative quantitative and qualitative information related to paragraphs 1 and 3 of this Article, as applicable, including, as available, projected levels of public financial resources to be provided to developing country Parties. Other Parties providing resources are encouraged to communicate biennially such information on a voluntary basis.

6. The global stock take referred to in Article 14 shall take into account the relevant information provided by developed country Parties and/or Agreement bodies on efforts related to climate finance.

7. Developed country Parties shall provide transparent and consistent information on support for developing country Parties provided and mobilized through public interventions biennially in accordance with the modalities, procedures and guidelines to be adopted by the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to this Agreement, at its first session, as stipulated in Article 13, paragraph 13. Other Parties are encouraged to do so.

8. The Financial Mechanism of the Convention, including its operating entities, shall serve as the financial mechanism of this Agreement.

9. The institutions serving this Agreement, including the operating entities of the Financial Mechanism of the Convention, shall aim to ensure efficient access to financial resources through simplified approval procedures and enhanced readiness support for developing country Parties, in particular for the least developed countries and small island developing States, in the context of their national climate strategies and plans.

These are quotes directly from the Paris Accord. In particular, Article 9 makes it abundantly clear that this is all about “financial flow” and a transfer of wealth from the developed world to the developing world.

Actual environmental changes seem almost to be an afterthought. This is a giant wealth transfer scheme.

5. The Green Climate Fund

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) is a new global fund created to support the efforts of developing countries to respond to the challenge of climate change. GCF helps developing countries limit or reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and adapt to climate change. It seeks to promote a paradigm shift to low-emission and climate-resilient development, taking into account the needs of nations that are particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts.

It was set up by the 194 countries who are parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2010, as part of the Convention’s financial mechanism. It aims to deliver equal amounts of funding to mitigation and adaptation, while being guided by the Convention’s principles and provisions.

When the Paris Agreement was reached in 2015, the Green Climate Fund was given an important role in serving the agreement and supporting the goal of keeping climate change well below 2 degrees Celsius.

Responding to the climate challenge requires collective action from all countries, including by both public and private sectors. Among these concerted efforts, advanced economies have agreed to jointly mobilize significant financial resources. Coming from a variety of sources, these resources address the pressing mitigation and adaptation needs of developing countries.

GCF launched its initial resource mobilization in 2014, and rapidly gathered pledges worth USD 10.3 billion. These funds come mainly from developed countries, but also from some developing countries, regions, and one city (Paris).

GCF’s activities are aligned with the priorities of developing countries through the principle of country ownership, and the Fund has established a direct access modality so that national and sub-national organisations can receive funding directly, rather than only via international intermediaries.

Source is right here.

To reiterate from before: the Paris Agreement isn’t really about reducing greenhouse gases. It is a way of extracting large sums of money from “polluters” in order to finance the UN’s various agendas.

While the website sounds well meaning enough, an important detail is left out: namely the huge profit that will be derived from using these funds. As such, the conflict of interest isn’t being disclosed.

6. A $100 Trillion Industry

This was addressed in a previous article. While the public is roped into supporting the agenda on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, the truth is quite different.

Climate bonds is an industry. It’s an industry that has potential for explosive growth, as long as governments keep pouring money into it.

The climate change agenda has nothing to do with protecting the environment. It is all about the “illusion” of protecting the environment. And money.

7. Carbon Credit Profiteering

Gore and Blood, the former chief of Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM), co-founded London-based GIM in 2004. Between 2008 and 2011 the company had raised profits of nearly $218 million from institutions and wealthy investors. By 2008 Gore was able to put $35 million into hedge funds and private partnerships through the Capricorn Investment Group, a Palo Alto company founded by his Canadian billionaire buddy Jeffrey Skoll, the first president of EBay Inc. It was Skoll’s Participant Media that produced Gore’s feverishly frightening 2006 horror film, “An Inconvenient Truth”.

Still, the U.S. Government Accounting Office can’t figure out what benefits taxpayers are getting from those many billions of dollars spent each year on policies that are purportedly aimed at addressing climate change. A May 2011 GAO report noted that while annual federal funding for such activities has been increasing substantially, there is a lack of shared understanding of strategic priorities among the various responsible agency officials. This assessment agrees with the conclusions of a 2008 Congressional Research Service analysis which found no “overarching policy goal for climate change that guides the programs funded or the priorities among programs.“

As noted in the Forbes article, Al Gore has been able to become extremely wealthy with this scheme. Huge sums of money are taken as “Carbon taxes” and then plowed into the climate bonds industry.

While this hunger for Carbon taxes is spun as necessary for the planet, too little attention is paid to the profiteering that goes on behind it. It is difficult to take these pleas seriously when there is such a compelling profit motive.

And as the Government has noted, it’s very unclear what — if anything — taxpayers are actually getting in return for their money. It also isn’t obvious what goals or direction these programs are actually working towards.

The answer is very simple: the people running the scam want it to stay operational as long as possible. The goal is money, not ideology.

This is just one article. A quick internet search will reveal more details and examples of cashing in on this “environmental” agenda.

Either we tax countries for continuing to “pollute”, or we force them to shut down significant parts of their economy. Since the latter can’t happen without dropping the standard of living, it becomes necessary to pay up.

It’s like the mafia, except disguised as environmentalism.

8. Various UN Taxation Schemes

(A) New Development Financing: Carbon Tax Alone Could Generate $250/year, 2012
(B) UN: “Int’l Tax” To Raise $400B, 2012
(C) Paris Accord “Financial Flows”, 2015
(D) Addis Ababa, Financing Devel’t, 2015
(E) Green Financing, Sust Develop, 2016
(F) Leverage African Pension Plans, 2017
(G) Finance 2030 SDG, $5-7T Needed, 2018
(H) From Billions To Trillions, 2018
(I) Sustainable Financing Report, 2019
(J) UN Enviro Program, Finance Initiative
(K) Capital Development Finance

A few of these have been addressed in other articles. Please visit the “Climate Change Scam” section on the righthand toolbar.

This should alarm people. The UN is regularly coming up with new and innovative taxation methods. This is only a handful of them.

The Paris Accord is hardly an isolated cause.

9. Closing Thoughts On Subject

Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai is right regarding his explanation of the Paris Accord. It is an elaborate scam. While billions are pumped into climate funds, that is not the whole story. Those billions are then used to entice other nations to join the Paris Accord, thus giving it more legitimacy. The final goal is the trillions that can be gained later.

Furthermore, his explanation that cosmic radiation and solar activity play a greater role in fluctuating temperatures seems to make sense.

The Paris Accord has nothing to do with improving the environment either. All of its “mitigation” strategies are just talk. The Agreement is about generating large transfers of wealth on a continuous basis. Read the Agreement, in particular Article #9. The text leaves no doubt that money is the driving force behind it.

Climate bonds, and related “investments” are a huge industry, worth perhaps $100 trillion. This is the reason behind it all. So much opportunity. But the Carbon taxes (and other related fees), are entirely based on false pretenses.

The real losers are consumers and taxpayers, particularly from the developed world. These Carbon taxes (or “price on pollution” as claimed in Canada) will be used to funding for the UN IPCC and select allies to enrich themselves.

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Pensions #2: Social Security Unable To Fully Pay Obligations By 2034

(Social Security Administration)

(2019 Annual Report to Congress)

(Signatories to the 2019 report)

1. Pensions, Benefits, Worker Entitlements

The public is often unaware of what is happening with their pensions and other social benefits. Often, changes are made with little to no input from the people who are directly impacted by it. Where exactly are the pension funds being held, and is it secure? Unfortunate, but we need to constantly be on top of these things.

2. Important Links

On the American situation:
CLICK HERE, for the 2019 Annual Report to Congress.

CLICK HERE, for an interesting powerpoint on liability calculation.
CLICK HERE, for a 2018 paper: UNFUNDED OBLIGATION AND TRANSITION COSTS FOR THE OASDI PROGRAM
CLICK HERE, for the Brookings Institute & privatization.

3. Side Note On Signatories

Although unrelated to the long term problems with the Social Security program, it is worth pointing out — as a side note — some scandals with 2 people involved. Steve Mnuchin, is long suspected or corruption, and Alex Acosta was the Prosecutor who previously let Jeffrey Epstein off on child sex charges.

4. Open-Group v.s. Closed Group Valuation


From this presentation. The author makes the assumption that “open-group valuation” should be used for public pensions such as Social Security, while private pensions should rely on “closed-group valuation” methods of accounting.

The difference is this:
Open-group valuation principles mean that a pension is solvent and in good shape as long as it’s current assets and payouts are able to keep up with the demands of retirees at the moment. It doesn’t require that the pension plan be fully funded. The reasoning is there is a “social contract”, and that the Government can raise more money (tax more) to cover the shortfalls.

Closed-group valuation principles require that “all” liabilities be taken into account. The is a far more accurate method, as payments from all workers are considered, if those who won’t retire for decades. The rationale is that private companies could go bankrupt at any time, and need to take the actual amounts into account.

For obvious reasons, the closed-group valuation method is a far more accurate approach in calculating the health of pension plans. It forces “all” assets and liabilities to be disclosed.

To be fair, it is a valid point that private pension funds cannot exactly just “take more money” to cover their shortfalls. Still, the open-group approach is very misleading.

5. The Approach Explained in 2018 Paper

1. Introduction In calculating the unfunded obligation of the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program, we include the entire cost of paying scheduled benefits in full and on time, even after trust fund reserves are depleted. However, when the trust fund reserves are depleted, current law limits expenditures to the amount of continuing income received by the fund. Thus, the measures of unfunded obligation represent the shortfall of financial resources scheduled under current law to cover the cost associated with timely payment of scheduled benefits for the period.

The unfunded obligation for any program must be defined on the basis of the intended funding method for the program. Because the OASDI program is financed on essentially a current-cost or pay-as-you-go basis, the open group unfunded obligation measure is appropriate. Programs that are intended to be essentially fully advance-funded require the use of other measures, reflecting a closed group perspective, to assess their unfunded obligation (or liability). However, these closed group measures are more accurately described as theoretical measures of “transition cost” for the OASDI program. Estimates of the unfunded obligation vary depending on the valuation period and the assumptions used. Transition cost measures also vary depending on which plan participants are included.

(See this source.) This paper explains that the open-group valuation method is appropriate because people will always be paying into it. While this is a valid point, it doesn’t take away from the growing amount of unfunded liabilities.

In fact, it helps to conceal just how much the program owes and still is obligated to pay out. The only way this works is with an infinitely growing population, and ever growing contributions.

Basically, a giant Ponzi scheme, where participation is mandatory, under threat of arrest and detention.

6. Quotes From 2019 Report

In 2018 At the end of 2018, the OASDI program was providing benefit payments1 to about 63 million people: 47 million retired workers and dependents of retired workers, 6 million survivors of deceased workers, and 10 million disabled workers and dependents of disabled workers. During the year, an estimated 176 million people had earnings covered by Social Security and paid payroll taxes on those earnings. The total cost of the program in 2018 was $1,000 billion. Total income was $1,003 billion, which consisted of $920 billion in non-interest income and $83 billion in interest earnings. Asset reserves held in special issue U.S. Treasury securities grew from $2,892 billion at the beginning of the year to $2,895 billion at the end of the year.

Short-Range Results Under the Trustees’ intermediate assumptions, Social Security’s total cost is projected to be less than its total income in 2019 and higher than its total income in 2020 and all later years. Social Security’s cost has exceeded its non-interest income since 2010. For 2019, program cost is projected to be less than total income by about $1 billion and exceed non-interest income by about $81 billion.

This information is from the overview (Page 2). it states that on paper, the revenue generated (both from employee deductions and from interest/dividends generated was slightly higher than the payments it distributed.

On paper, this seems fine. However, getting to the “long-range results” it tells a different story. However, it still relies on the “open-group valuation” method.

The projected OASDI annual cost rate increases from 13.91 percent of taxable payroll for 2019 to 16.62 percent for 2040 and to 17.47 percent for 2093, a level that is 4.11 percent of taxable payroll more than the projected income rate (the ratio of non-interest income to taxable payroll) for 2093. For last year’s report, the Trustees estimated the OASDI cost for 2093 at 17.72 percent, or 4.36 percent of payroll more than the annual income rate for that year. Expressed in relation to the projected gross domestic product (GDP), OASDI cost generally rises from 4.9 percent of GDP for 2019 to about 5.9 percent by 2039, then declines to 5.8percent by 2052, and then generally increases to 6.0 percent by 2093.

For the 75-year projection period, the actuarial deficit is 2.78 percent of taxable payroll, decreased from 2.84percent of taxable payroll in last year’s report. The closely-related open-group unfunded obligation for OASDI over the 75-year period is 2.61 percent of taxable payroll, decreased from 2.68 percent of payroll in last year’s report. The open-group unfunded obligation for OASDI over the 75-year period is $13.9 trillion in present value and is $0.7 trillion more than the measured level of $13.2 trillion a year ago. If the assumptions, methods, starting values, and the law had all remained unchanged, the actuarial deficit would have increased to 2.90 percent of taxable payroll, and the unfunded obligation would have risen to about 2.74 percent of taxable payroll and $13.7 trillion in present value due to the change in the valuation date.

(Those quotes from page 4) Using the “open-group” method, the unfunded liabilities over 75 years is $13.9 trillion, or adding the equivalent of $185 billion/year. The authors also state a few blunt facts in the conclusion

Conclusion Under the intermediate assumptions, the projected hypothetical combined OASI and DI Trust Fund asset reserves become depleted and unable to pay scheduled benefits in full on a timely basis in 2035. At the time of depletion of these combined reserves, continuing income to the combined trust funds would be sufficient to pay 80 percent of scheduled benefits. The OASI Trust Fund reserves are projected to become depleted in 2034, at which time OASI income would be sufficient to pay 77 percent of OASI scheduled benefits. DI Trust Fund asset reserves are projected to become depleted in 2052, at which time continuing income to the DI Trust Fund would be sufficient to pay 91 percent of DI scheduled benefits.

Lawmakers have a broad continuum of policy options that would close or reduce Social Security’s long-term financing shortfall. Cost estimates for many such policy options are available at www.ssa.gov/OACT/solvency/provisions/

A few points to take away here
(A) Old Age Survivors Insurance (OASI) will become depleted in 2034, and only able to pay 77% of its obligations.
(B) Disability Insurance (DI) will be depleted in 2052, and only able to pay 91% of obligations by then.
(C) Raising deductions taken from employees is necessary.

But this is using open-group valuation methods of accounting. So how much

7. Getting An Answer On Unfunded Liabilities

It has been difficult getting an accurate answer on the true size of the Social Security deficit. Estimates range from $10 trillion to over $100 trillion.

The government cited $13.7 trillion in liabilities using the less accurate “open-group” valuation. Still, that is an awful lot of money, even if it is the full amount.

8. Why Not Reform Or Privatize?

The Brookings Institute explains in this article why efforts to privatize or reform Social Security have so far gone no where. Media scare is not the only reason for this.

Any transition to a private system must overcome a major financial hurdle, however. Social Security has accumulated trillions of dollars in liabilities to workers who are already retired or who will retire soon. To make room for a new private system, policymakers must find funds to pay for these liabilities while still leaving young workers enough money to deposit in new private accounts. This requires scaling back past liabilities – by cutting benefits – or increasing contributions from current workers. Most large-scale privatization plans also involve major new federal borrowing. Consequently, if a balanced budget amendment becomes part of the constitution, it would torpedo any attempt to replace most of Social Security with a private retirement system.

Privatizing Social Security can boost workers’ rate of return by allowing retirement contributions to be invested in private assets, such as stocks, which yield a better return than the present pay-as-you-go retirement system. Returns can be boosted still further if the government borrows on a massive scale to pay for past Social Security liabilities, allowing workers to invest a larger percentage of their pay in high-yielding assets. Exactly the same rate of return can be obtained, however, if the current public system is changed to allow Social Security reserves to be invested in private assets.

The article is blunt about the situation.

The system DEPENDS ON a constant inflow of new money from younger workers in order to stay solvent. If current workers were to start pulling their money from Social Security (and saving or investing elsewhere), the program would be immediately strapped for cash. This means benefits cuts to those receiving it, and higher premiums for those paying into it.

Of course, as workers who remain have to pay higher premiums, they, quite reasonably, will look for other options. This could easily create a snowball effect where more and more people pull their contributions. This will cause the collapse of Social Security.

So it’s not really the “privatization” boogeyman here. It is that the system needs an ever growing pool of new money to pay off retirees.

Yes, it’s a government run Ponzi scheme.

9. Government Pensions Are Ponzi Schemes

As was demonstrated in previous articles, the Canadian Pension Plan has almost a trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities. While claiming to have almost $400 billion in assets, the truth is that the full size of liabilities put it well in the hole.

The U.S. Social Security system faces the same issues, although the scope is worse. Even the open-group accounting method lists $13 trillion in liabilities.

There are efforts to “reform” which include: (a) raising premiums; (b) cutting benefits; and (c) raising the age of retirement. However, this may just be like shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. Futile. As long as a fund depends on paying off retirees with the contributions of workers, it is set up for failure.

Letting workers invest in private funds will hasten the demise, as it would deplete the funds needed to pay off existing retirees.

One has to shake their head. Bernie Madoff ran a Ponzi scheme and was sent to prison. As would any private citizen. But when the government does it, it’s called a social safety net.

Same conclusion as before: Americans are pretty screwed.

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Creative (Climate) Communications — Effectively Marketing Psuedo-Science

No joke. There actually is a book out on how to “effectively communicate” on climate change. Loads of logical fallacies and emotional manipulation.

1. Important Links


(Other articles on climate change scam)
https://canucklaw.ca/the-climate-change-scam-part-1/

CLICK HERE, for the article in the ironically named “Scientific American” journal, authored by Max Boykoff, to promote his book.

CLICK HERE, for link to book sale.

2. Site Promoting Book

Conversations about climate change at the science-policy interface and in our lives have been stuck for some time. This handbook integrates lessons from the social sciences and humanities to more effectively make connections through issues, people, and things that everyday citizens care about. Readers will come away with an enhanced understanding that there is no ‘silver bullet’ to communications about climate change; instead, a ‘silver buckshot’ approach is needed, where strategies effectively reach different audiences in different contexts. This tactic can then significantly improve efforts that seek meaningful, substantive, and sustained responses to contemporary climate challenges. It can also help to effectively recapture a common or middle ground on climate change in the public arena. Readers will come away with ideas on how to harness creativity to better understand what kinds of communications work where, when, why, and under what conditions in the twenty-first century.

Includes strategies that help people have productive conversations about climate change that involve listening and adapting rather than just trying to win an argument
-Bridges sectors and audiences, bringing together important material for undergraduate and graduate courses
-Shows the importance of being creative in communications about climate change in the twenty-first century – many businesses, institutions, and collectives can benefit from this, not just students and academics

Reading through this, you will notice that the topic of additional reading and research never comes up. There is no push to understand other perspectives or review scientific findings.

Instead, the focus is on using sociological and psychological techniques to convert normies to your position, without actually providing evidence. This is all about language and emotional manipulation.

Ironically, there is science involved here. But instead of science relating to researching “climate change”, the research focuses on how to change people’s minds. Seems that the priorities are all backwards.

Item #1: Strategies that help people have productive conversations. Presumably this is ways to insert climate change topics into otherwise normal talks.

Item #2: Cram more of the propaganda into university classes.

Item #3: Be innovative about #1 and #2.

3. The Scientific American Article

From synthesizing this work, I distill these lessons into some important “rules of the road.”
-Be authentic.
-Be aware.
-Be accurate.
-Be imaginative.
-Be bold.
From there, additional features on the road map help to navigate toward resonant and effective communications.
-Find common ground on climate change.
–Emphasize how climate change affects us here and now, in our everyday lives.
-strong>Focus on benefits of climate change engagement.
–Creatively empower people to take meaningful and purposeful action.
–“Smarten up” communications about climate change to match the demands of a 21st-century communications environment.

The first items on this list would only make sense if truth was actually a goal. Be aware and be accurate are good principles.

However, climate change advocates tend to be extremely dismissive of different ideas, opinions, facts and research. A commitment to being accurate would undermine the sense of superiority that many possess.

Find common ground and emphasizing the effects are attempts to emotionally manipulate people by inserting the topic in places where it really doesn’t belong. Indeed, the goal seems to be to make “everything” about climate change. Make it an omnipresent issue.

Lately, climate change has imposed itself on the public sphere. Through extreme events linked to changes in the climate, new scientific reports and studies, and rejuvenated youth movements (along with many other political, economic, scientific, ecological, meteorological and cultural events and issues) climate change has been increasingly difficult to ignore.
.
But you wouldn’t really have picked up on that in the first round of the U.S. Democratic party primary debates that took place in Miami, Florida. As 20 candidates made their case to the American people, it was striking how minimally and shallowly they discussed climate change.

To be fair, in a debate (10 people each over 2 days), there isn’t much chance to give long answers.

However, the author, Max Boykoff, makes the point — and will repeatedly make this point — that everything is connected to climate change. He takes the Anita Sarkessian approach, though not with gender.

Sadly, this illustrates a contradiction we have been living with for some time. That is this: amid extensive research into the causes and consequences of climate change, climate communications—and thus, conversations about climate change in our lives—have remained stuck.

There are many reasons. Among them:
-Climate change is still regularly treated as a single issue. This was clearly on display in the debates, and even during the paltry time devoted to surface-level discussions of climate change.
-There has continued to be inadequate funding provided to support sustained and coordinated social science and humanities research into what constitutes more effective climate communications.
-We have all been short on creativity, and we generally have stuck to ineffective climate communications approaches (e.g. merely scientific ways of knowing) as we muddle along.

Interesting take on the problem. Max Boykoff goes on about how the science is sound, but that we just aren’t making any headway in communicating the solutions.

Yes, climate change is still treated as a single issue (that part is true). The author’s goal is to make it an issue of everything. Again, the Anita Sarkeesian technique.

All the money that we pay in various carbon tax schemes apparently aren’t needed for climate change research. Rather, they are needed to SHARE THE RESULTS of the climate change research.

Boykoff seems to believe that it is the “strictly scientific” approach to sharing research that keeps people from seeing what is before their eyes. Seems condescending.

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p style=”padding:2px 6px 4px 6px; color: #555555; background-color: #eeeeee; border: #dddddd 2px solid”>Yet climate change is a collective action problem that intersects with just about every other area of life. It traverses critical issues such as public health, jobs, education, inequality, poverty, violence, trade, infrastructure, energy, foreign policy and geopolitics. While everyday people clearly have the capacity to care, they reasonably often focus on immediate concerns, such as issues of job security, local school quality, crime and the economy. In recent years, however, it has become more and more clear that these issues are interlinked with climate change.

So, in making these connections, we can more effectively get to the heart of how we live, work, play, find happiness and relax in modern life, shaping our everyday lives, lifestyles, relationships and livelihoods.

Apparently we are too naïve to see the forest for the trees. Ordinary people have lives to live. We don’t spend every waking moment trying to connect aspects of our lives with climate change.

Again the author assumes, with no evidence, that every major aspect of your life is connected to climate change. It must all be pointed out.

Of course, Boykoff will never get into the conflict-if-interest that plagues climate change research. Most of it is funded with a certain outcome expected. Remember, if you aren’t concluding that climate change is a threat to humanity, then you likely won’t be funded anymore. Why keep financing climate research if it isn’t an emergency?

There has been an urgent need to improve communications about climate change at the intersections of science, policy and society. With that in mind, I wrote Creative (Climate) Communications. It is essentially a handbook that bridges sectors and audiences to meet people where they are on this critical 21st-century challenge. In the book I integrate research from the social sciences and humanities that has provided insights into better understanding what communications work, where, when, why and under what conditions.

I also examine how to harness creativity for more effective engagement. I integrate these lessons by assembling what I call features on a “road map” along with “rules of the road.” The guide is then meant to help as researchers and practitioners proceed with both ambition and caution into struggles to effectively address the many issues associated with climate change.

Although Boykoff doesn’t come right out an say it, book is about marketing techniques. What tactics are most persuasive and under what circumstances? People can’t straight up accept “facts and truth”, it needs to be pointed out again and again.

In short, most people are too stupid to see the big picture. Boykoff implies it, but doesn’t not actually state it.

Through this guidance, I seek to help maximize effectiveness and opportunities and minimize mistakes and dead ends in a resource-, energy- and time-constrained environment. In putting this together, I also emphasize that successful and creative climate communications strategies must be tailored to perceived and intended audiences and can be most effective when pursued through relations of trust. And I underscore that context is critical; cultural, political, social, environmental, economic, ideological and psychological conditions matter.

Move away from hard data and facts. Use “soft techniques” to sell it. To once more point out the obvious, everything is connected to climate change.

I also argue that an expanded approach involves processes of listening and adapting rather than winning and argument or talking people into something. Authentically considering other points of view fosters meaningful exchanges and enhances possibilities for finding common ground. Facts established through scientific ways of knowing about climate change are important, but they are not enough. We therefore need to enlarge considerations of how knowledge influences actions, through experiential, emotional, visceral, tactile, tangible, affective and aesthetic ways of learning and knowing about climate change.

Facts aren’t enough. Tell people again and again, that climate change impacts everything. Look for more subtle ways to get your message across.

4. Reflection On This Article


To address the elephant in the room: it is darkly amusing to post in “Scientific American” about scientific methods to convince people to accept pseudo-science about climate change.

Boykoff mentions several times about considering other peoples’ perspectives. But this is hypocritical considering the amount of times “skeptics” or “deniers” are ridiculed or scorned for trying to find out the truth.

Boykoff also neglects any mention or idea that any of the “climate change” findings might be exaggerated or flat out wrong.

It seems the climate-change industry has given up on science, and instead focuses its efforts on trying to market their agenda.

Might be worth buying the book just to do a thorough debunking of it. Understand your enemy after all.

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Guest Post: Sunrise Movement and the Green New Deal

1. Guest Posting Here

This article is not mine, but the creation of a YouTuber and writer who goes by the handle “BOLD Like a Leopard”. Feel free to check out the channel, there is some interesting content on it.

2. Important Links

CLICK HERE, for message from Mark Ruffalo and Bill McKibbons.
CLICK HERE, for Bill Nye suggests jailing climate deniers.
CLICK HERE, for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders wanting to declare “climate emergency”.
CLICK HERE, for the climate emergency declaration.
CLICK HERE, for manifesto “Lead Public Into Emergency Mode”.

CLICK HERE, for AOC’s June 2018 primary.
CLICK HERE, for tweet claiming we can’t afford an economy that is based on use of fossil fuels.
CLICK HERE, for Sunrise Philadelphia calling for a demonstration.
CLICK HERE, for a live tweet.
CLICK HERE, for Malcolm Nance.
CLICK HERE, for Louise Mensch.
CLICK HERE, for Momentum Core Team.
CLICK HERE, for the Momentum trainers.
CLICK HERE, for efforts to establish a “climate debate”.
CLICK HERE, for Saikar Chakrabarti admitting the Green New Deal was about changing the economy, and the environment was just a pretext.

3. Sunrise Movement & Green New Deal

Once the domain of scientific debates and science fiction disaster movies, the subject of climate change and its influence on natural disasters has now become a major topic of contention among the Hollywood jet set, children’s cartoons, and naturally as a result public officials and policy makers. Much of the discussion over climate change has been shrouded in controversy largely due to acrimonious debate over who has the proper professional standing on how severe the crisis is, whether human activity is the main catalyst of current trends, and if or how government policy must be applied to address it. However, the organizing tactics, funding, and structure of the organizations pushing climate change legislation like the Paris Climate Accord and the Green New Deal suggests a larger goal in mind, one that involves a power grab far beyond environmental and industrial emissions policy. The Sunrise Movement is being cited as a fresh youth-infused answer to the fossil fuels industries, and it is being touted by climate change activism patriarch William McKibben as having “cracked the code of the American political system”. This statement is correct, and Sunrise is hacking into the mainframe of American politics, but if McKibben were truthful he would not be omitting his own role in their germination, as well as the intersection of the group with the Boston-based Ayni Institute and its Momentum Community program. The growing stake that these groups have in the political landscape are not a natural outgrowth of a changing public consciousness, but rather one more chess piece in a grand power grab.

We’ll see what happens. . .

In 2016 TV entertainer Bill Nye, host of the children’s show “Bill Nye the Science Guy” speculated that jailing “climate deniers” may be appropriate. “We’ll see what happens. Was it appropriate to jail people from the cigarette industry who insisted that this addictive product was not addictive, and so on?” Nye responded when asked.

Unfortunately, this high handed attitude toward the discussion shows that much of the climate change action side of the argument has despaired of properly making their case against their opponents, the “climate skeptics”. The activists scoff at accusations that they are “alarmists”, but their public statements show that they are ratcheting up statements consistently in order to create a sense of panic that climate trends are sloping toward an apocalyptic event:

  • On July 9 Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced a joint resolution that they wanted Congress to declare a national emergency over climate change.
  • As documented by the Climate Emergency Declaration, there are 740 jurisdictions that have declared a climate emergency including Scotland, Wales, the Republic of Ireland, as well as London and the Australian cities of Sydney and the Australian Capital Territory among others.
  • There is now a group across Europe dedicated to whipping up the public into a climate emergency frenzy known as “Extinction Rebellion”. The movement is led by clinical psychologist Dr. Margaret Klein Salamon (the “Climate Psychologist”) and she published a manifesto called Leading The Public Into Emergency Mode originally in 2016.

Salamon’s manifesto was endorsed by Bill McKibben on the Climate Mobilization website where he is described as the “Movement Leader”.

According to one of its grant donors, the Guerilla Foundation, Extinction Rebellion (XR) was given between $20 and $40 thousand in order to promote “a fundamental change of the UK’s political and economic system to one which maximises well-being and minimises harm”. In the grant description point number 9 figures prominently in their Theory of Change: “Create a distributed organising model based in ‘momentum’ organising and holocracy (training from the Ayni institute / Carlos Saavedra). This is basically a hybrid of mass protest and structure based organising. Much of this is explained in the book This is an Uprising”. The book in question was written by the brothers Mark and Paul Engler, both of them former Occupy Wall Street activists themselves deeply affiliated with the Ayni Institute.

The Shame Game

While at times climate activists engage in rhetorical threats like Nye or grandstanding like Sanders and the other emergency sponsors, the value that they appeal the most to is shame. This is why the United Nations, European Parliament, Swedish Parliament and numerous other bodies have hosted the 16 year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg to speak about climate justice. Speaking about when she will be 75 years old, she asked whether her children would “ask why you didn’t do anything while there was time to act. You say you love your children above all else, and yet you’re stealing their future in front of their very eyes.” Thunberg went on to tearfully decry the 6th mass extinction of species and the acidification of the oceans.

Another statement that Thunberg makes echoes Salamon verbatim:
“Imagine there is a fire in
your house.
What do you do?
What do you think about?”

The idea of using children to shame adults for their poor policy is an understandably ingenious strategy, but it typically yields nothing in terms of policy. In 1982 a ten year old named Samantha Smith wrote to Soviet leader Yuri Andropov to ask him if he was going to vote for a war. Smith’s letter was personally answered by Andropov, and compared her to Tom Sawyer’s friend Becky and invited her to the USSR, where she spent two months as Andropov’s guest on a tour, and she was a “goodwill ambassador” for peace before dying in a plane crash at age 13 in 1985. By then both Andropov and his successor Konstantin Chernenko had both died of old age. Tragic as her story was, Samantha Smith’s story is a footnote in history as there was no major movement behind her personal initiative.

The shame tactic has been mass-produced by the Sunrise Movement in its push to promote the issue of climate change as being an issue of primary concern in the minds of the next generation of youth voters. Sunrise was formed ostensibly by two activists, Varshini Prakash and Sara Blazevic. Both of them are former activists of the Fossil Fuel Student Divestment Network, a campaign by college students to get their colleges to withdraw investments in energy companies. Both of them were involved in student sit-ins at their colleges, Blazevic at Swarthmore in 2015, and Prakash at UMass-Amherst in 2016 where activists were arrested for civil disobedience.

Now they are trying to take the climate change movement to a broader, and younger, forum. But in comments to Energy & Environment News (E&E News) they make it very apparent that their movement is a response to failures of previous groups that they have been active in. In it, their fellow co-founder Evan Weber openly muses about how Sunrise is attempting to compensate for the same flaws that he encountered while he was an activist with Occupy Wall Street. It should be noted that while Prakash and Blazevic are the face of the movement, Weber is listed on its 2016 IRS Form 990 (when it was named US Climate Plan) as the President and Executive Director, and he was listed by the climate action website Grist.orgGrist.org as a former Occupy activist and founder of the US Climate Plan. Weber had also been an activist along with fellow Wesleyan University activist Michael Lichtash for US Climate Plan who traveled to the COP20 Climate Talks in Lima, Peru in 2014. At the time they were already claiming that delaying the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to the US was “a step toward climate justice”. At the time all were in one way or another linked through McKibben’s 350.org organization.

The Guru of Green Activism

During the Obama Administration’s tenure, McKibben and 350.org fought doggedly to force the President and his cabinet not to let the pipeline proceed. In 2015 the Nebraska Supreme Court removed legal hurdles to building of the Keystone XL, meaning that it would need approval from several cabinet-level officials including Secretary of State John Kerry, himself a public advocate for climate change action by governments. Until then much of the process had been tied up as conservation and activism groups battled with TransCanada (the builder) in the courts. McKibben was asked if Kerry could salvage his reputation on climate change if he approved the pipeline. According to POLITICO he answered: “No. Keystone’s obviously a keystone,” he said in an email. “Approve that and the rest is happy talk — you can’t cut carbon without cutting carbon.” For months Kerry waffled over the decision while continuing to condemn fossil fuel producers, but in November 2015 he came through for McKibben and denied the pipeline’s permit application. However when Donald Trump was inaugurated as president he approved the Keystone XL pipeline within his first three days by executive order and continues to fight against challenges to it in court.

The issue at hand is not the activism itself, but the veneer of popular will. McKibben has made a long career out of claiming to be the underdog fighting against the corporate fossil fuel industry, and to be sure they are not exactly a sympathetic opponent. There’s also legitimate concern over carbon consumption and its effects on oceans and wetlands leading to extinction of species. He formed 350.org in 2007 based on the notion that 350ppm of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would be the acceptable level in order to mitigate the harmful effects of climate change. However, the standing that McKibben has within the movement is not a result of any professional knowledge or accomplishment, he is in fact a former New Yorker writer who majored in journalism at Harvard. He then wrote The End of Nature in 1989, the book that is considered to have started the climate change movement. However, as Reason observed when reviewing his 2010 follow-up Earth, humans have adapted to the rising sea levels warned about by climate alarmists like McKibben, using the example of Boston which has reclaimed land consistently since 1775 despite rising sea levels. At one point McKibben and others climate alarmists like Jim Hansen used the global warming trends to raise public consciousness about environmental issues. But according to him, that was during a period when they were “naïve”. However, the new tactic of his supporters is to mask the existing climate movement that he began with The End of Nature in 1989 and institutionalized in the 2000s with 350.org through a youth activist group like Sunrise whose events he frequently headlines. As many climate skeptics point out the ability of climate alarmists to excite public attention diminishes when their predictions are not fulfilled, such as when Gore predicted in 2006 that the glaciers of Mt. Kilimanjaro would melt within a decade. Another member of 350.org’s board of directors, Naoimi Klein, has evaded responsibility for advocating for the Green New Deal while also being a long-time apologist for the Chavez regime that made Venezuela’s entire economy dependent on oil exports.

McKibben was also a major activist during the lead-up to COP21, the 2015 climate change conference where the Paris Agreement on Climate Change was drafted. On November 30 he wrote an opinion in Foreign Policy called “The Paris Climate Talks Will Be a Historic Success. And a Historic Disaster. ” Paris He participated in the climate marches occurring during the event, and even headlined with Klein the Pathway to Paris live concert on December 4 along with Radiohead lead vocalist Thom Yorke, Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea and other rock superstars. But by December 13, as the conference had just wrapped up, he claimed that it had fallen short.

“The irony is, an agreement like this adopted at the first climate conference in 1995 might have worked. Even then it wouldn’t have completely stopped global warming, but it would have given us a chance of meeting the 1.5 degree Celsius target that the world notionally agreed on.”

Some on the political left were too jaded to take McKibben seriously, and began to characterize his activism as “greenwashing”. They noted that the agreement did much to boost the profile of the international NGO Avaaz that backed the climate march and other events, but little to accomplish anything. They also made it public that Dow Chemicals, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and even BP had been sponsors the Climate Group that had organized the conferences. What McKibben needed to do was inject some steroids into the movement so as to gain ground on those detractors.

Why “grassroots”?

In the same article claiming Paris had fallen short, McKibben made a statement that demonstrated his intentions going forward: “But what this means is that we need to build the movement even bigger in the coming years, so that the Paris agreement turns into a floor and not a ceiling for action.”

McKibben’s influence is felt deeply largely due to the usefulness of his cause to various statesmen and former politicians. In 2010 he wrote an opinion article for GristGrist claiming that Al Gore was “kicking butt” over climate change. In 2016 he became a backer of Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, and wound up on his five member delegation to the Democratic National Party’s platform writing committee for that year’s election. However this was a summit that led to nowhere as the party continued to accept contributions from the fossil fuel industry. Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton received $967,336 from them during that cycle, leading by far any other Democrat in any elected position. The crusade against fossil fuels had to enter a new phase, and the US Climate Plan (founded in 2014) went through a rebranding becoming Sunrise. Since then they have made several inroads in electoral politics including getting eleven state legislators elected throughout the US, including five in Pennsylvania.

Besides Sanders, the Green New Deal advocates can numerous other candidates for 2020 that have endorsed it or proposed their own versions of it:

  • New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced in December 2018 a city-wide divestment from fossil fuel companies and a lawsuit against them, a measure cheered by McKibben’s 350.org. In March the Mayor named McKibben to the OneNYC Advisory Board. De Blasio’s new city-wide rules targeting energy usage by sky-scrapers were announced in May at Trump Tower.
  • Washington Gov. Jay Inslee has made climate change the centerpiece of his tenure in office and his presidential campaign vowing to commit to a 100% renewable energy system by 2035. This was praised by McKibben on May 3, and on May 30 another McKibben acolyte Elizabeth Kolbert of The New Yorker issued a raving review in Yale 360.
  • One candidate McKibben may be less bullish about is Tom Steyer, an erstwhile donor. In 2016 in the run-up to the election the two sat down for a joint interview on the need to make climate change a signature issue. Steyer’s TomKat Charitable Trust has given generously to 350.org, and at one point the former hedge fund manager and the environmentalist were joined at the hipjoined at the hip in their efforts to support fossil fuel divestment. Steyer’s public image has diminished since 2016 due to his sensationalist efforts to support the impeachment of Donald Trump including funding The Democracy Integrity Project (TDIP).

Not long after the 2018 midterm election Sunrise activists occupied the office of Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi, the incoming Speaker of the House. They also ambushed Sen Diane Feinstein (D-CA) in February. Within a day McKibben had written a response in the New Yorker saying he imagines that Feinstein “would like a do-over of her colloquy”. In the same opinion article, McKibben mentioned Ocasio-Cortez and Greta Thunberg, and claimed that the Green New Deal was hatched by the Sunrise Movement.

But this is untrue, and McKibben knows that. The original Green New Deal was written in 2008 by the New Economics Foundation when many of the Sunrise activists were not even in high school. The authors included Guardian editor Larry Elliott, Andrew Simms of the NEF, Caroline Lucas of the Green Party and others. Another version, the “Global Green New Deal” was adopted by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) in 2008. The American version of the Green New Deal is HR 109 which was introduced by Ocasio-Cortez. No one from Sunrise was involved in drafting it, and if everyone was being above board it would be admitted that there was no coherent “Green New Deal” when it was supported during the 2018 election cycle; so the activists and politicians were endorsing a policy proposal prior to its existence.

Messaging the GND

Does anyone really believe that it was Sunrise activists that wrote the legislation? Even in her own office, Ocasio-Cortez has four staff members, none of whom are members of it. Corbin Trent and Saikat Chakrabarti, her press secretary and chief of staff respectively, are former members of Justice Democrats, but not of Sunrise. The nexus that drives them all together is one of the policy’s most effective and most successful activists, Justice Democrats’ communications director Waleed Shahid who is also a senior leader of the Working Families Party. Based in Philadelphia, Shahid was instrumental in campaigning for the legislative election success in Pennsylvania as well as propelling Ocasio-Cortez to power by focusing on her June 2018 primary.

While McKibben is an overall mastermind of the movement, Shahid is often a point man that issues day to day messages that are often picked up by Ocasio-Cortez and other elected officials regarding climate change, while also directing the defense to the inevitable backlash. A case in point was a June 21 tweet where Ocasio-Cortez claimed that an oil refinery explosion and fire was evidence of an “existential crisis” due to climate change. Up until then very few had made that observation about the accident. However, Shahid had issued a tweet earlier that day claiming that “we can’t afford an economy based on fossil fuels”. Sunrise Philadelphia called for a demonstration within five minutes of Shahid’s tweet. During the confrontation with Sen. Feinstein during the middle of the afternoon on a Friday Shahid was live tweet echoing Sunrise Bay Area’s account in order to hype the event. He issued a total of 23 tweets that day (Feb. 22) regarding the incident, including fighting with delusional mainstream anti-Trump activists Malcolm Nance and Louise Mensch who accused Justice Democrats of uploading the video and using Russian disinformation tactics.

Like the Engler brothers, Shahid was one of the earliest core team members of the Ayni Institute and Momentum Community. Blazevic is also an alumnus of the Ayni Institute, and is a Momentum Trainer along with fellow Sunrise co-founders Will Lawrence and Diyanna Jaye. The derivative of the Momentum training is to create nominally decentralized cells (called “hubs” by Sunrise) that organize on the local level to push a progressive agenda.

But the decentralized organizing is irrelevant when the ideology of Sunrise is not dependent on the membership. The leaders of the movement all come from 350.org, the agenda is set by the ideologues like McKibben and Klein, and the day-to-day messaging is directed by the powers behind the throne like Shahid. Ultimately a green economy is a secondary goal of the movement. So far during the Democratic 2020 primary season, the movement has somewhat successfully lobbied for a “climate debate” between candidates. However, in a moment of surprising candour, Chakrabarti let slip the real truth:

“The interesting thing about the Green New Deal,” he said, “is it wasn’t originally a climate thing at all. Do you guys think of it as a climate thing?” Chakrabarti continued. “Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing.”

So that leads to a concluding question: If McKibben, Salamon, and Klein were portraying the climate crisis as a global emergency on the level of World War II, then why are they pushing a piece of legislation that according to its main legislative advocate was not originally about climate change?

4. Information About The Author

YouTube: BOLD like a Leopard:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqafJgJiTZik1KreMJgy4Eg
Gab.com: https://gab.com/StarScream85
Minds.com: https://www.minds.com/ChefLeopard
BitChute: https://www.bitchute.com/channel/bFrSR277N5TG/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ChefLeopard
For donations: https://www.subscribestar.com/chefleopard

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Fake Refugees Gaming The System, (United Nations v.s. N.G.O.)

(Lauren Southern reports on asylum fraud)

Original video is here.

(Squatting Slav: Lauren won’t talk about “who” is behind it)

Original video is here.

(UN publication on human trafficking)

1. Trafficking, Smuggling, Child Exploitation

CLICK HERE, for TSCE #1: series intro and other listings.
CLICK HERE, for TSCE #2: suing for the right to illegally enter U.S.
CLICK HERE, for TSCE #3: the U.N.’s hypocrisy on sexual abuse.

2. Important Links

(1) https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/11/1024882
(2) http://archive.is/kjMuB
(3) https://www.iom.int/news/iom-monitors-caravans-central-american-migrants-supports-voluntary-returns
(4) http://archive.is/9SCmV
(5) http://csonet.org/index.php?menu=77
(6) http://archive.is/6Oh4z
(7) https://www.unhcr.org/partnerships.html
(8) http://archive.is/dKxll
(9) https://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/71/1
(10) https://canucklaw.ca/new-york-declaration-september-2016-prelude-to-the-global-migration-compact/
(11) https://refugeesmigrants.un.org/sites/default/files/180713_agreed_outcome_global_compact_for_migration.pdf
(12) https://www.unodc.org/documents/human-trafficking/Migrant-Smuggling/Smuggling_of_Migrants_A_Global_Review.pdf
(13) https://www.interpol.int/en/Crimes/People-smuggling
(14) https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/organized-crime/intro/UNTOC.html

3. Advocates Abroad And Ariel Ricker

(Advocates Abroad Homepage)

(Lauren Southern exposing Ariel Ricker on coaching “refugees” to lie).

At least one organization, Advocates Abroad, is openly committing fraud in trying to get bogus “refugees” into Europe. This is done by concocting convincing stories with specific details in hopes of duping refugee agencies.

(From this RT article)

Ariel Ricker, the executive director of Advocates Abroad, a major non-profit NGO which provides legal aid to migrants, has been caught on tape openly discussing how she teaches refugees to lie to border agents. The video was released by Canadian right-wing activist, author and internet personality, Lauren Southern, and will be a part of her new documentary film project ‘Borderless,’ which takes on the European migration crisis.

One method she teaches migrants is to exploit the presumed Christian sympathies of the predominantly Eastern Orthodox Greece by pretending to have been persecuted for being Christian. She even describes telling them how to pray during interviews, ironically because doing so reflects “honesty.”

Advocates Abroad claim the video was selectively edited and manipulated to serve a particular agenda.

4. Other NGO Activities

CLICK HERE, for Advocates Abroad.
CLICK HERE, for smuggling 40 migrants into Italy.
CLICK HERE, for people smuggling into Europe.
CLICK HERE, for NGOs smuggling Muslims into Italy.
CLICK HERE, for “humanitarian” smuggling into Greece.
CLICK HERE, for Soros funded NGOs smuggling ISIS into Europe.

Of course the above links are just a tiny sample.

Interesting that Canada signed the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the Protocols Thereto.

The Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, adopted by General Assembly resolution 55/25, entered into force on 28 January 2004. It deals with the growing problem of organized criminal groups who smuggle migrants, often at high risk to the migrants and at great profit for the offenders. A major achievement of the Protocol was that, for the first time in a global international instrument, a definition of smuggling of migrants was developed and agreed upon. The Protocol aims at preventing and combating the smuggling of migrants, as well as promoting cooperation among States parties, while protecting the rights of smuggled migrants and preventing the worst forms of their exploitation which often characterize the smuggling process.

Canada claims to be against human smuggling. Yet we sign treaties (like the New York Declaration and Global Migration Compact), which facilitate human smuggling.

5. Interpol’s Take On Human Smuggling

For centuries, people have left their homes in search of better lives. In the last decade, the process of globalization has caused an unprecedented amount of migration from the least developed countries of Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe to Western Europe, Australia and North America.

With this, we have seen an increase in the activities of organized criminal networks who facilitate irregular migration. By providing fake identification documents, organizing transport, and bypassing official border controls, criminals are making huge profits.

People smuggling syndicates are run like businesses, drawn by the high profit margins and low risks. They benefit from weak legislation and a relatively low risk of detection, prosecution and arrest compared to other activities of transnational organized crime.

Smuggling networks can be extensive and complex, and can include people who carry out a number of different roles:

A report published jointly by Europol and INTERPOL in May 2016 estimates that more than 90% of the migrants coming to the European Union are facilitated, mostly by members of a criminal network.

Worth pointing out: that while Interpol cites the UN’s policies against human smuggling, it neglects to mention that the UN’s policies around “rights” for illegals go a long way towards incentivizing mass illegal immigration.

It also neglects to point out the underhanded means which host countries have these forced on their populations by politicians.

6. Media Pussyfoots Around Illegal Immigration

(From a CBC article)

“Desperate migrants are choosing ever more dangerous sea routes to Europe and using smaller and less seaworthy boats, causing a sharp increase in drowning deaths, warns the International Organization for Migration.”

“Meanwhile in Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is ratcheting up his attacks on the European Union, calling it a “transport agency” for migrants that hands out funds and “anonymous bank cards” to “terrorists and criminals.”
.
“This is the kind of slippery slope which could again lead to a broken Europe,” Orbán declared today in an interview on Hungarian public radio.

The author of this trash deliberately and repeatedly skirted the main issue here: these hoards of “migrants” trying to get into Europe were doing so ILLEGALLY. Hence places like Hungary have every right to secure their borders.

(From one CBC interview)

“AMT: We all remember the Berlin Wall coming down. In fact it was 30 years ago this year. I’ve got a clip here that I’d like you to hear. These are two Germans talking about what it felt like to stand on top of the Berlin Wall after the crowds started streaming across the border.
.
AMT: Elisabeth Vallet, how did the fall of that iconic wall affect our ideas around the usefulness or function of walls?
.
ELISABETH VALLET: Well actually if you remember in 1989 it opened a almost a hippie era of international relations, where we believed that it was the end of borders me. Maybe even the end of state sovereignty or even the fading sovereignty of the state. We believed that peace would be dominating and that conflicts would be solved by the international community. It actually showed the good the positive aspects of globalization. And we overlooked the negative aspects of globalization. And when 9/11 arrived, it’s as if that negative aspect of globalization showed its face. And that’s when the only solution to that, governments came up with the one only solution which was building border fences, because there is no way to retain globalization, to contain globalization.”

In this garbage, the “expert” compares the Berlin Wall to border walls in general. The Berlin wall was built in the 1960s to keep Germans from fleeing, and in fact kept them prisoner. This is conflated with building walls to stop illegal immigration.

The above are just 2 examples of how media outlets (like the CBC) try to shade and distort the truth by downplaying how serious and criminal these actions actually are. They play to emotion and selectively avoid hard truths.

7. UN Openly Aids And Abets Refugee Fraud

(UN supports ongoing efforts to undermine US/Mexico border)

It involves some serious mental gymnastics to explain how the UN can both:

  1. Support mass, uncontrolled entry into other countries
  2. Oppose circumventing laws to get migrants into other countries

San Jose – The UN Migration Agency, IOM, continues to provide support and assistance to migrants who have joined the migrant caravans crossing Central America and opted to seek asylum in Mexico or return to their countries of origin.

In the Siglo XXI Migratory Station of Tapachula, managed by the National Institute for Migration (INM) of Mexico, IOM and the Mexican Secretary of Foreign Affairs (SRE) have been supplying food and basic hygiene kits to over 1,500 migrants from the caravans seeking asylum in Mexico.

“IOM maintains its position that the human rights and basic needs of all migrants must be respected, regardless of their migratory status,” says Christopher Gascon, IOM Chief of Mission in Mexico. “In coordination with UNHCR we will continue to monitor the situation of the caravan counting on field staff, the Mexican Office of Assistance for Migrants and Refugees (DAPMyR), and partner NGOs, providing information regarding alternatives for regular and safe migration, as well as options for voluntary returns.”

“The caravan phenomenon in Central America is another expression of a migration process that the region has been facing for quite some time,” explains Marcelo Pisani, IOM Regional Director for Central America, North America, and the Caribbean. “It is a mixed migration flow, driven by economic factors, family reunification, violence and the search for international protection, among others.

That’s right. The UN admits that many of these cases are not refugees.

The United Nations willingly aids and abets efforts to overwhelm the US/Mexico border. Even knowing that the bulk of the asylum claims are bogus, the UN sees nothing immoral about perpetrating a fraud. Nor is there anything immoral about the burden dumped on the American public.

What is eerie is how coordinated these “refreshment aid packages” are delivered. Almost as if the UN planned this invasion from the beginning.

8. UN Erasing Borders With New York Declaration (2016) and Global Migration Compact (2018)

The New York Declaration (2016) was covered here previously.

5. We reaffirm the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations. We reaffirm also the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and recall the core international human rights treaties. We reaffirm and will fully protect the human rights of all refugees and migrants, regardless of status; all are rights holders. Our response will demonstrate full respect for international law and international human rights law and, where applicable, international refugee law and international humanitarian law.

49. We commit to strengthening global governance of migration. We therefore warmly support and welcome the agreement to bring the International Organization for Migration, an organization regarded by its Member States as the global lead agency on migration, into a closer legal and working relationship with the United Nations as a related organization. We look forward to the implementation of this agreement, which will assist and protect migrants more comprehensively, help States to address migration issues and promote better coherence between migration and related policy domains.

56. We affirm that children should not be criminalized or subject to punitive measures because of their migration status or that of their parents.

77. We intend to expand the number and range of legal pathways available for refugees to be admitted to or resettled in third countries. In addition to easing the plight of refugees, this has benefits for countries that host large refugee populations and for third countries that receive refugees.

The UN Global Migration Compact (2018) was covered here, and again here. Sorry, but I don’t believe Michelle Rempel’s half-assed “rejection” of the Compact.

OBJECTIVE 5: Enhance availability and flexibility of pathways for regular migration
21. We commit to adapt options and pathways for regular migration in a manner that facilitates labour mobility and decent work reflecting demographic and labour market realities, optimizes education opportunities, upholds the right to family life, and responds to the needs of migrants in a situation of vulnerability, with a view to expanding and diversifying availability of pathways for safe, orderly and regular migration

OBJECTIVE 11: Manage borders in an integrated, secure and coordinated manner
27. We commit to manage our national borders in a coordinated manner, promoting bilateral and regional cooperation, ensuring security for States, communities and migrants, and facilitating safe and regular cross-border movements of people while preventing irregular migration. We further commit to implement border management policies that respect national sovereignty, the rule of law, obligations under international law, human rights of all migrants, regardless of their migration status, and are non-discriminatory, gender-responsive and child-sensitive.

OBJECTIVE 13: Use immigration detention only as a measure of last resort and work towards alternatives
29. We commit to ensure that any detention in the context of international migration follows due process, is non-arbitrary, based on law, necessity, proportionality and individual assessments, is carried out by authorized officials, and for the shortest possible period of time, irrespective of whether detention occurs at the moment of entry, in transit, or proceedings of return, and regardless of the type of place where the detention occurs. We further commit to prioritize noncustodial alternatives to detention that are in line with international law, and to take a human rights-based approach to any detention of migrants, using detention as a measure of last resort only.

OBJECTIVE 15: Provide access to basic services for migrants
31. We commit to ensure that all migrants, regardless of their migration status, can exercise their human rights through safe access to basic services. We further commit to strengthen migrant inclusive service delivery systems, notwithstanding that nationals and regular migrants may be entitled to more comprehensive service provision, while ensuring that any differential treatment must be based on law, proportionate, pursue a legitimate aim, in accordance with international human rights law.

OBJECTIVE 17(c) Promote independent, objective and quality reporting of media outlets, including internetbased information, including by sensitizing and educating media professionals on migration-related issues and terminology, investing in ethical reporting standards and advertising, and stopping allocation of public funding or material support to media outlets that systematically promote intolerance, xenophobia, racism and other forms of discrimination towards migrants, in full respect for the freedom of the media

The United Nations is fully on board with erasing borders with their mass migration policies. The 2016 and 2018 agreements leave no doubt of that.

Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), or Civil Societies, are involved in bringing large numbers of people from the third world over to the first. Some do it out of guilt or conscience, while others do it for money.

Obvious question: Do these NGOs and the UN work together?

9. Many NGOs (Civil Societies) Work With UN

(NGO Branch Department of Economic and Social Affairs of UN)

(The UN “directly” collaborates with NGOs/Civil Societies)

Faced with many complex challenges in recent years, UNHCR has redoubled its efforts to strengthen its partnerships with UN organizations and NGOs, both international and national, seeking to maximise complementarity and sustainability in its work for refugees and others of concern.

Today, UNHCR works with more than 900 funded, operational and advocacy partners to ensure that the rights and needs of populations of concern are met. UNHCR continues to give high priority to its relations with partners, and strives to strengthen strategic and operational collaboration at global, regional and country levels.

The main goal of the organization’s vast network of partnerships is to ensure better outcomes for persons of concern by combining and leveraging complementary resources and working together in a transparent, respectful and mutually beneficial way. These partnerships also underpin UNHCR’s engagement in inter-agency fora and processes, where mutual understanding and strong alliances help ensure that refugees, IDPs and stateless persons are adequately prioritised.

CLICK HERE, for UN Refugee Partners.

So, how exactly would switching Canada’s reliance on refugee selection be helped here? If NGOs (Civil Societies) directly work with the UN, then is there any real difference?

The UN cites over 900 fully funded partners. Other than possibly decentralizing the process, what is the point here? Is it a policy distinction without a difference?

10. UN Hypocrisy On Human Smuggling

From the UN’s own package on smuggling people:

(Page 8) Salt and Stein suggested treating international migration as a global business that has both legitimate and illegitimate sides. The migration business is conceived as a system of institutionalized networks with complex profit and loss accounts, including a set of institutions, agents and individuals each of which stands to make a commercial gain.

The model conceives trafficking and smuggling as an intermediary part of the global migration business facilitating movement of people between origin and destination countries. The model is divided into three stages: the mobilization and recruitment of migrants; their movement en route; and their insertion and integration into labour markets and host societies in destination countries. Salt and Stein conclude their theory by citing the need to look at immigration controls in a new way, placing sharper focus on the institutions and vested interests involved rather than on the migrants themselves.

Aranowitz puts forward a similar view and claims that smuggling could not have grown to such proportions if it were not supported by powerful market forces. Furthermore, Aranowitz argues that smugglers exhibit entrepreneur-like behaviour and circumvent legal requirements through corruption, deceit and threats. They specialize either in smuggling or in trafficking services, and the profit generated varies accordingly.

Interesting. The UN absolutely does recognize the “business” element of human trafficking, and likens it to any other type of business. It is driven by high demand.

However, the elephant in the room must be pointed out. The UN itself helps to drive such demand with its “one world” policies. By arranging accords (like New York or Global Migration Compact), the UN helps create these conditions. If it becomes mandatory that a host country MUST provide basic services, regardless of legal status, then people will flock to those countries. The UN also tries to facilitate housing and other social services at the expense of taxpayers.

To add insult to injury, these accords limit the ability of host Governments to jail illegals, and attempt to shut down legitimate criticism.

11. Canada’s Aud-G Uncovers Citizenship Fraud

(Rebel Media: Auditor General Michael Ferguson reports)

Citizenship being granted to people:

  • With prior, serious criminal records
  • Who commit crimes after arriving
  • Who are using fake addresses

About the fake addresses, the video talks about 50 people using the same address (as one example) to claim residency.

The Rebel video makes a great point: If this Ministry can’t be bothered to properly follow up on obvious cases of citizenship fraud, how can Canadians expect them to properly screen and select “refugees” for entry into Canada?

From this article.

The report shows that several people and possibly dozens managed to be accepted as Canadian citizens through fraud that went undetected, or through lax controls.

The report noted cases of people with serious criminal records who were accepted as citizens. It also found that between 2008 and 2015, 50 different applicants used the same single address on their citizenship applications during overlapping time periods during which time seven of the applicants became Canadian citizens. It took seven years before the scheme was found during an investigation.

The report also noted that in some 49 similar cases where an address anomaly had been detected, citizenship officials failed to follow-up on 18 of the cases to see if the applicants actually met residency requirements.

The report indicated that citizenship officers did not consistently apply their own standards to identify and deal with suspicious immigration documents including checking travel documents against the department’s database of lost, stolen and fraudulent documents.

12. What About Canada’s “Conservative” Parties?

CLICK HERE, for Conservative Party of Canada policies.
CLICK HERE, for People’s Party on refugees.

Disclaimer: political parties lie all the time, so take this with a grain of salt.

The CPC claims it will focus on “UN selected” refugee claimants, while the PPC claims that “Civil Society Groups” should be making the selections instead. However, this omits several important facts:

  • First, neither party will address the corruption and fraud that goes on both within the UN and with Civil Societies. Finding corruption within the process is a very quick and easy thing to do.
  • Neither will acknowledge that the vast majority of these “refugees” will likely be Islamic, an ideology which is completely incompatible with Western society. There is this MINOR problem of Muslims trying to take over the world.
  • This United Nations v.s. Civil Societies is a false distinction, as many Civil Societies work with the UN.
  • Canadians don’t want, nor were ever asked if they would support hordes of refugees being shipped into Canada.
  • Trudeau and the Liberals are an easy target for criticism for lack of proper screening. However, PPC and CPC fail to indicate how they would properly screen to protect Canadians.
  • Another question they won’t address: will these “refugees” be expected to work and contribute at some point, or will they be permanent welfare cases?

However, it would be fair to point out that Stephen Harper, in 2015, suggested focusing on Christians and Yazidis refugees. This would have been a considerable improvement over importing more Islam (and hence more Islamic violence), into Canada.

13. Little Difference In NGO v.s. UN Selection

Just an opinion, but there doesn’t seem to be much of a difference between the 2 ideas.

Considering how many Civil Societies (NGOs) work with the UN, it seems an exercise in futility to try to separate them.

And given the rampant corruption, and total lack of respect for national sovereignty, BOTH seem like very bad options.

Posted on

Free Trade #3: NAFTA, And The Costs Its Supporters Ignore

(Tucker Carlson on protecting your citizens)

1. Offshoring, Globalization, Free Trade

The other posts on outsourcing/offshoring are available here. It focuses on the hidden costs and trade offs society as a whole has to make. Contrary to what many politicians and figures in the media claim, there are always costs to these kinds of agreement. These include: (a) job losses; (b) wages being driven down; (c) undercutting of local companies; (d) legal action by foreign entities; (e) industries being outsourced; and (f) losses to communities when major employers leave. Don’t believe the lies that these agreements are overwhelmingly beneficial to all.

2. Important Links

(1) https://www.international.gc.ca/trade-agreements-accords-commerciaux/topics-domaines/disp-diff/gov.aspx?lang=eng
(2) ttps://www.state.gov/nafta-investor-state-arbitrations/
(3) http://replacenafta.org/jobs-lost/
(4) https://www.epi.org/publication/webfeatures_snapshots_archive_12102003/
(5) https://www.epi.org/publication/heading_south_u-s-mexico_trade_and_job_displacement_after_nafta1/
(6) https://www.epi.org/blog/naftas-impact-workers/
(7) https://www.epi.org/publication/webfeatures_snapshots_archive_11052003/
(8) https://www.epi.org/publication/the-china-toll-deepens-growth-in-the-bilateral-trade-deficit-between-2001-and-2017-cost-3-4-million-u-s-jobs-with-losses-in-every-state-and-congressional-district/
(9) https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/naftas-economic-impact
(10) https://www.nytimes.com/1992/10/16/us/the-1992-campaign-transcript-of-2d-tv-debate-between-bush-clinton-and-perot.html?pagewanted=all
(11) https://www.politicalresearch.org/2014/10/11/globalization-and-nafta-caused-migration-from-mexico/

3. Lawsuits Against Canada, Chapter 11

Resolved Cases

Company Suit Amount Amount Settled
AbitibiBowater $500M $130M
Centurion Health $160M $0, fees unpaid
Chemtrade $78.6M $0, dismissed
Detroit Int’l Bridge $3.5B $0, dismissed
Dow Agro Sciences $2M $0, withdrew
Ely Lily and Co. $500M $0, dismissed
Ethyl Corp. $201M settled
Mercer International $232M $0, dismissed
Merrill & Ring $50M $0, dismissed
Mesa Power Group $658M $0, dismissed
Mobil Inv. & Murphy Oil $66M $17.3M
Pope & Talbot $500M $527M, USD
S.D. Myers $53M $6.9M,
St. Mary’s VNCA $275M $0, no standing
United Parcel Services $160M $0, dismissed
V.G. Gallo $105M $0, dismissed
Windstream Energy $475M $28M

For these “finished” claims, Canada has had to pay out $709 million, plus a substantial amount in paying its own lawyers. Also, consider the following:
-DowAgro sale, under the terms of the settlement, is still allowed to use its pesticide in Canada.
-Ethyl Corp still allowed to use MMT additive.

Resolved Cases

Company Suit Amount Information
Clayton/Bilcon $101M Lost, awaiting damages
Lone Pine Resources $119M Awaiting verdict
Mobile Investments $20M Awaiting verdict
Resolute Forest Products $70M Awaiting verdict
Tennant Energy Ltd $116M Awaiting verdict
Westmorehead Coal $470M Awaiting verdict

Potentially another $896 million

To summarize, Canada has already paid out $709 million in various actions under Chapter 11 of NAFTA (plus the settlement from Ethyl Corp), and may be on the hook for $896 million more. And this doesn’t take legal fees and other court costs into account.

4. Job Losses Resulting From NAFTA

Research has been done on the effects of NAFTA. This released 2003 study, estimates that 879,000 jobs have been lost in the US as a direct result of NAFTA over a decade.

The conclusions were also troubling:

Since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed in 1993, the rise in the U.S. trade deficit with Canada and Mexico through 2002 caused the displacement of production that supported 879,280 U.S. jobs. NAFTA is a free trade and investment agreement that provided investors with a unique set of guarantees designed to stimulate foreign direct investment in Mexico and Canada. It has facilitated the movement of factories from the United States to Canada and Mexico. Most of these jobs were high-wage positions in manufacturing industries.

Proponents of new trade agreements that build on NAFTA, such as the proposed Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA), have frequently claimed that such deals create jobs and raise incomes in the United States. These claims are based only on the positive effects of exports (known as “export effects”), ignoring the negative effects of imports (known as “import effects”). Such arguments are an attempt to hide the costs of new trade deals in order to boost the reported benefits.

The problem with these claims is that they misrepresent the real effects of trade on the U.S. economy: trade both creates and destroys jobs. Increases in U.S. exports tend to create jobs in this country, but increases in imports tend to reduce jobs by displacing goods that otherwise would have been made in the United States by domestic workers. Ignoring imports and counting only exports is like balancing a checkbook by counting only deposits but not withdrawals.

This is blunt and truthful. It is high paying jobs mainly in manufacturing that have been exported in the name of “free trade”, and has harmed the US workforce.

Now, here, is another study, released in 2011, dealing specifically with Mexico and NAFTA.

As of 2010, U.S. trade deficits with Mexico totaling $97.2 billion had displaced 682,900 U.S. jobs. Of those jobs, 116,400 are likely economy-wide job losses because they were displaced between 2007 and 2010, when the U.S. labor market was severely depressed.

There is a cost to these free trade agreements. Jobs are lost domestically when it becomes cheaper to ship them to another country. Often it is manufacturing, one of the better paid jobs, where higher education isn’t needed.

Abstract promises about increased jobs and exports misrepresent the real overall effects of trade on the U.S. economy. Trade both creates and destroys jobs. While exports tend to support domestic employment, imports lead to job displacement: As imports are substituted for domestically produced goods, production that supports domestic jobs falls, displacing existing jobs and preventing new job creation.

Simply out, there are winners and losers in trade deals. Countries win if they export more than they import, and vice versa. While some trade surplus or deficit is inevitable, it is sustained deficits that drain wealth from the country and put people out of work.

While Canada or Mexico may sit smugly and know that they benefit from the trade deal with the US, this must be considered. With ever proposed expansion of free trade and liberalized trade, there is nothing to stop jobs from Canada and/or Mexico from being exported elsewhere.

For example, the US lost 3.4 million jobs to China since 2001. Canada could end up in that situation one day.

5. Free Trade Drives Down Wages

Ross Perot ran for President in 1992. He faced the incumbent, George H.W. Bush (Republican), and Bill Clinton (Democrat). While he came in third, Perot drove home this hard truth about free trade: it drives down wages. It forces Americans to compete for third world wages.

To those of you in the audience who are business people, pretty simple: If you’re paying $12, $13, $14 an hour for factory workers and you can move your factory South of the border, pay a dollar an hour for labor, hire young — let’s assume you’ve been in business for a long time and you’ve got a mature work force — pay a dollar an hour for your labor, have no health care — that’s the most expensive single element in making a car — have no environmental controls, no pollution controls and no retirement, and you don’t care about anything but making money, there will be a giant sucking sound going south.

“Why won’t everybody go South?” They say, “It’d be disruptive.” I said, “For how long?” I finally got them up from 12 to 15 years. And I said, “well, how does it stop being disruptive?” And that is when their jobs come up from a dollar an hour to six dollars an hour, and ours go down to six dollars an hour, and then it’s leveled again. But in the meantime, you’ve wrecked the country with these kinds of deals. We’ve got to cut it out.

Perot is completely right here. It will raise the wages in Mexico, while driving down American wages. And to reiterate, Canadians should not think they are immune from this sort of practice.

The Council on Foreign Relations added:

Debate persists regarding NAFTA’s legacy on employment and wages, with some workers and industries facing painful disruptions as they lose market share due to increased competition, and others gaining from the new market opportunities that were created.

But it is the common worker with a family to provide for who will really feel the pinch. It is cold comfort to be out work and be told “well, it raises trade and GDP”.

6. NAFTA Causes Carnage To Middle Class

Yet another EPI article. This one sums up the problems of NAFTA in very blunt terms.

  1. Job losses
  2. Pushes wages down
  3. Destruction of farms and small businesses
  4. Sets standards for globalization

The article is directly on point.

NAFTA affected U.S. workers in four principal ways. First, it caused the loss of some 700,000 jobs as production moved to Mexico. Most of these losses came in California, Texas, Michigan, and other states where manufacturing is concentrated. To be sure, there were some job gains along the border in service and retail sectors resulting from increased trucking activity, but these gains are small in relation to the loses, and are in lower paying occupations. The vast majority of workers who lost jobs from NAFTA suffered a permanent loss of income.

Second, NAFTA strengthened the ability of U.S. employers to force workers to accept lower wages and benefits. As soon as NAFTA became law, corporate managers began telling their workers that their companies intended to move to Mexico unless the workers lowered the cost of their labor. In the midst of collective bargaining negotiations with unions, some companies would even start loading machinery into trucks that they said were bound for Mexico. The same threats were used to fight union organizing efforts. The message was: “If you vote in a union, we will move south of the border.” With NAFTA, corporations also could more easily blackmail local governments into giving them tax reductions and other subsidies.

Third, the destructive effect of NAFTA on the Mexican agricultural and small business sectors dislocated several million Mexican workers and their families, and was a major cause in the dramatic increase in undocumented workers flowing into the U.S. labor market. This put further downward pressure on U.S. wages, especially in the already lower paying market for less skilled labor.

Fourth, and ultimately most important, NAFTA was the template for rules of the emerging global economy, in which the benefits would flow to capital and the costs to labor. The U.S. governing class—in alliance with the financial elites of its trading partners—applied NAFTA’s principles to the World Trade Organization, to the policies of the World Bank and IMF, and to the deal under which employers of China’s huge supply of low-wage workers were allowed access to U.S. markets in exchange for allowing American multinational corporations the right to invest there.

Who actually benefits from NAFTA, or similar types of deals? Not the workers, who are now forced to compete for third world wages. Not communities, who see major employers pack up and leave for better opportunities.

7. NAFTA Makes Illegal Immigration Problem Worse

NAFTA, however, did not lead to rising incomes and employment in Mexico, and did not decrease the flow of migrants. Instead, it became a source of pressure on Mexicans to migrate. The treaty forced corn grown by Mexican farmers without subsidies to compete in Mexico’s own market with corn from huge U.S. producers, who had been subsidized by the U.S. Agricultural exports to Mexico more than doubled during the NAFTA years, from $4.6 to $9.8 billion annually. Corn imports rose from 2,014,000 to 10,330,000 tons from 1992 to 2008. Mexico imported 30,000 tons of pork in 1995, the year NAFTA took effect. By 2010, pork imports, almost all from the U.S., had grown over 25 times, to 811,000 tons. As a result, pork prices received by Mexican producers dropped 56%

When nations are reduced to “economic zones”, it forces workers to compete against those in other nations for the same piece of the pie. If jobs are eliminated on a massive scale, then the pressure is on to find work. For many Mexicans, it has meant going to the US, often illegally.

Note: this not to condone illegal immigration. However, it becomes more understandable when factors like these are considered.

The “surplus labour” sure helps large employers, and further helps to drive down wages, which of course is the entire point.

8. NAFTA Makes US Trade Deficit Worse

Here is a 2003 study on the trade deficit the US has experienced due to NAFTA.

As mentioned earlier, it is true Canada currently benefits from the US trade deficit. But as free trade expands, Canada (and other nations) could easily find themselves in the same dilemma as the US.

Sustained trade deficits bleed money from a nation.

9. NAFTA Can Override Environmental Protections

Think this is crazy? Consider some of the court action Canada has faced

CLICK HERE, for Ethyl Corp wanting $201M over MMT additive ban.
CLICK HERE, for SD Myers wants $53M for PCB ban.
CLICK HERE, for Pope & Talbot’s $500M softwood lumber suit.
CLICK HERE, for Sun Belt wanting $1.5B-$10B for lost water rights.

10. Is NAFTA Worth The Price?

Yes, it has led to economic growth and more trade. That much is indisputable. But it isn’t fair to omit some of the real costs to engaging in these free trade deals, such as TPP, or FTAA.

  • Litigation over new “rights”
  • Massive job losses
  • Wages driven down
  • Destruction to middle class
  • Increased illegal immigration
  • Unsustainable trade deficits
  • Environmental protections are secondary

But hey, as long as the GDP keeps growing.