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 https://www.transcend.org/tms/2021/01/for-whom-the-bell-tolls-a-report-on-the-state-of-planet-earth-at-years-end-2020/

For Whom the Bell Tolls: A Report on the State of Planet Earth at Year’s End 2020

In 1624, English poet John Donne penned his famous poem ‘No Man Is an Island’, sublimely evoking the reality of human unity:

‘Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.’ Therefore, he concluded his poem, ‘never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.’

This report does two things.

First, in the hope of generating greater consideration of the human condition and the state of the planet, I have presented in straightforward language and point form, a reasonable summary of the nature and extent of our predicament as well as citing the relevant scientific and/or other evidence that explains each problem in more detail.

And second, the article outlines a powerful series of actions and strategies that individuals as well as community groups, neighborhoods and action groups can take as part of a global effort to restore agency to human individuals as well as to fight to avert human extinction.

Introduction

Tragically, in 2020, the bell tolled for all of humanity, in more ways than one, as we suffered the greatest political, economic, social and environmental upheaval in human history when the global elite initiated its long-planned coup – presented by the World Economic Forum as ‘The Great Reset’ – to take complete control of the entire human population in order to reduce it to techno-slavery in service of elite ends.

See ‘Planned Surveillance and Control by Global Technocrats: A Big-Picture Look at the Current Pandemic Beneficiaries’, ‘Big Brother in Disguise: The Rise of a New, Technological World Order’, ‘Beware the Transhumanists: How “Being Human” is being Re-engineered by the Elite’s Covid-19 Coup’ and watch the interview of Catherine Austin Fitts for the film ‘Planet Lockdown’.

This was done under cover of the threat supposedly posed by a virus – labeled SARS-CoV-2 – which has not been scientifically demonstrated to exist, as a lengthening list of scholars were pointing out throughout the year. See ‘ZERO Evidence that COVID Fulfills Koch’s 4 Germ Theory Postulates – Dr. Andrew Kaufman & Sayer Ji’ and, for the latest explanation, ‘COVID-19: The virus does not exist – it is confirmed!’

Unfortunately but as planned, the elite-directed response to the so-called ‘pandemic’ subsequently declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11 March 2020, caused virtually all national governments to immediately shut down their national economies, imprison their populations in their homes (variously under ‘lockdown’, quarantine and curfew policies) and implement other politically, socially, economically and environmentally destructive practices which are killing millions of people, inflicting enormous suffering on billions more, and accelerating the four primary paths to human extinction: nuclear war, biodiversity collapse, the deployment of 5G and the climate catastrophe. See ‘The Elite’s COVID-19 Coup to Destroy Humanity that is also Fast-Tracking Four Paths to Human Extinction’.

Of course, there are other possible paths to human extinction in the near term, particularly when considered in conjunction with the four threats just mentioned. These include the cascading impacts triggered by destruction of the Amazon rainforest (which is now imminent) particularly given its critical role in the global hydrological cycle, the rapidly spreading radioactive contamination of Earth, and geoengineering for military purposes (which has been occurring for decades and continues).

Far worse, however, is the path to extinction that looms before us when we consider the impact of all seven of these paths in combination with the vast range of other threats noted below.

These interrelated threats have generated a shocking series of ‘points of no return’ (‘tipping points’) that we have already crossed, the mutually reinforcing set of negative feedback loops that we have already triggered (and which we will continue to trigger) which cannot be reversed in the short-term, as well as the ongoing synergistic impact of the various ‘extinction drivers’ (such as ongoing extinctions because dependent species have lost their resource species) we have set in motion and which cannot be halted irrespective of any remedial action we might take. Hence, taking into account all of the above factors, the prospects of averting human extinction are now remote, at best.

One acknowledgment of the depth of our crisis, which takes into account just two variables and preceded declaration of the Covid-19 pandemic precipitating the elite coup putting us on the path to technotyranny, was the fact that the Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was moved to 100 seconds to midnight in January 2020, the closest it has ever been to ‘doomsday’ (and more severe than both the previous year and in 1953 when the Soviet Union first exploded a thermonuclear weapon matching the US capacity and raising the spectre of nuclear war). See ‘It is Now 100 Seconds to Midnight’.

Of course, as implied above, information about the deeper strands of what is taking place and strategies to address these, only have utility in one context. They depend, fundamentally, on how one perceives what is happening and this is shaped by one’s perception of how the world in which we live actually works. If, on the one hand, someone is inclined to perceive the world as it has been traditionally presented via elite agents, then the ‘virus’ is a serious threat to individual lives for the reasons presented by governments and the corporate media and we must respond as directed.

If, on the other hand, someone has a critique of the global elite and the way in which current events are just the latest manoeuver in a centuries-long series of events designed to consolidate elite control at the expense of the rest of us, then it is the deeper agenda behind what is happening that is the focus of attention.

Given that the evidence in support of the latter position is overwhelming, and that the forces arrayed against us are very powerful, humanity faces the greatest challenge to its existence since Homo sapiens first walked the Earth.

So let me identify some of the more crucial backward steps humanity took during 2020 and what we can do about them.

Some Key Lowlights of 2020

1 -As briefly reported above, the global elite implemented its long-planned coup to take complete control of human life in order to eliminate or marginalize a substantial proportion of the population while perverting the identity and will of the rest of us to serve elite ends. While there is significant resistance to this coup, strategic resistance to it in any meaningful form is yet to emerge.

Given that most people have fallen victim to the elite propaganda – see ‘The Psychology of the COVID-19 Coup: The Elite, their Victims and those who Resist’ and ‘Why Do Most People Believe Propaganda and False Flag Attacks?’ – as well as being distracted by sideshows (such as the ‘fight’ over the outcome of the US presidential election: see ‘What to Expect in 2021: Madness, Mayhem, Manipulation and More Tyranny’) and are also not considering the massive ‘collateral damage’ that is taking place under cover of Covid-19, the resistance that is occurring (dismissed, one way or another, by those supporting the elite coup) remains insufficient if humanity is to successfully defend human identity, freedom, dignity and volition and, even more vitally, to avert our own extinction.

As James Corbett noted in a recent video:

‘If you are advocating for lockdowns, you are complicit in tearing families apart. You are complicit in inflicting untold suffering on millions of people around the world. You are complicit in casting the poorest and most vulnerable in our societies into even further grinding poverty. You are complicit in murder.’ Watch ‘What NO ONE is Saying About The Lockdowns’.

To highlight just a few of the severe economic impacts, official responses supposedly to Covid-19 have vastly exacerbated poverty and starvation (leading to millions of deaths), destroyed millions of small businesses, dramatically increased unemployment, enabled a monumental wealth transfer from poor to rich (with the wealth of US billionaires increasing by nearly a trillion dollars during the year, and the world’s 2,189 billionaires – obviously excluding the immensely wealthier Rothschilds and Rockefellers – amassing fortunes totaling around $US10.2 trillion) and is leading to the greatest and most rapid rise in homelessness in world history.

See, for example, ‘WFP chief warns of “hunger pandemic” as Global Food Crises Report launched’, ‘Why Lockdowns Don’t Work and Hurt the Most Vulnerable. Bankruptcies, Poverty, Despair’, ‘US Unemployed Rising, Evictions, Mortgages Crisis Brewing, Small Business Collapsing: Economic Consequences of a 2nd “Mitigation” Bill’, ‘Planned Surveillance and Control by Global Technocrats: A Big-Picture Look at the Current Pandemic Beneficiaries’, ‘Net Worth of US Billionaires Has Soared by $1 Trillion to Total of $4 Trillion Since Pandemic Began’, ‘Riding the storm: Market turbulence accelerates diverging fortunes’ and ‘Windfall profits and deadly risks: How the biggest retail companies are compensating essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic’.

Key threats posed by the elite coup include the fact that, if it comes to pass, the ‘compulsory’ vaccination along with the digital certificate that will go with it will leave us as nothing more than robotized organisms monitored and controlled by the elite’s agents.

For example, Robert F. Kennedy Jr has explained in ‘Gates’ Globalist Vaccine Agenda: A Win-Win for Pharma and Mandatory Vaccination’:

Vaccines, for Bill Gates, are a strategic philanthropy that feed his many vaccine-related businesses (including Microsoft’s ambition to control a global vaccination ID enterprise) and give him dictatorial control of global health policy.

 Gates’ obsession with vaccines seems to be fueled by a conviction to save the world with technology.

But even more importantly, Professor Vandana Shiva has evocatively explained why the world patent granted by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) to Microsoft on 26 March 2020 titled ‘1. WO2020060606 – Cryptocurrency System Using Body Activity Data’, has given Microsoft (that is, Bill Gates) extraordinary power over our lives and is ‘robbing us of our deep humanity’. In essence:

‘The patent is dramatically changing the meaning of being human…. It is redefining us as ‘mines’ for data – robbing us of our autonomy, our sovereignty, and control over our bodies and minds…. It is erasing our humanity – as sovereign, living beings, spiritual, conscious, intelligent beings, making our decisions and choices with wisdom and ethical values about the impacts of our actions on the natural and social world of which we are a part; and to which we are inextricably related. We are being reduced to being ‘users’ of tasks assigned to us by the extractive digital mega machine. A ‘user’ is a consumer without choice in the digital empire. Human creativity and consciousness disappear in the world imagined in #patent060606.’ See ‘My Earth Journey in defence of Biodiversity, Life and Freedom over 5 decades’.

Separately from this, the adverse physical and psychological health impacts of official responses to Covid-19 have been heavily documented as well, including by the United Nations and World Health Organization, despite their complicity in the coup. For example, there has been a dramatic increase in the violence inflicted within the family home, especially by men and women against children – see ‘Why Violence?’ – and by the more usually acknowledged men against women. See ‘UN chief calls for domestic violence “ceasefire” amid “horrifying global surge”’.

In addition, there has been official acknowledgment of the elevated levels and rates of fear (usually labeled ‘stress’ or ‘anxiety’) and the increased levels of loneliness, depression, harmful alcohol and drug use, and self-harm along with suicides – see ‘Mental health and COVID-19’ – although they have been officially underestimated to conceal the true extent of the harm being done which was, of course, planned as part of the strategy to preoccupy the population and weaken resistance to the coup.

In some cases below, I have made reference to how the elite-generated responses to the non-existent virus and fake pandemic have exacerbated existing adverse circumstances and, for example, led to the ‘sitting duck’ murder of indigenous activists trapped in their homes by lockdown restrictions.

2. The global elite, using key elite fora such as the Group of 30, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberg Group and the World Economic Forum, and despite much rhetoric to the contrary, continued to plan, generate and exacerbate the many ongoing wars, deepening exploitation within the global economy, climate and environmental destruction, and the killing and exploitation of fellow human beings in a multitude of contexts, in pursuit of greater elite profit, power and privilege. See, for example, ‘Who Is Really in Control of US Foreign Policy?’, Giants: The Global Power Elite and ‘The Global Elite is Insane Revisited’.

3. International organizations (such as the United Nations, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund) and national governments and corporations used military forces, legal systems, police forces and prison systems – see ‘The Rule of Law: Unjust and Violent’ – around the world to serve the global elite by defending its interests against the bulk of the human population, including those individuals and organizations courageous enough to challenge elite profit, power and privilege who are being killed in record numbers. (See more in point 39 below).

4. $US1.92 trillion was officially spent worldwide on military weapons to kill fellow human beings and other lifeforms, and to destroy the biosphere. This is the highest official (because the figures are taken from ‘open sources’) annual military expenditure ever recorded and the third consecutive year in which an increase occurred. Spending $732 billion, the United States accounted for more than one-third of global military expenditure. See ‘SIPRI Yearbook 2020: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security; Summary’.

In addition to direct military spending, national governments spent billions more on such items as interest on national debt accrued through military expenditure, and medical, hospital, housing and other costs associated with rehabilitation of injured, and support of incapacitated, veterans.

Apart from military spending, weapons transfers worldwide remained high, key weapons control agreements such as that to limit strategic nuclear weapons (‘New START’) were rapidly approaching expiry with attempts to renew them stalled by the US, and there were many other regional and national military conflicts including new ones such as those in Nagorno-Karabakh and Ethiopia. See ‘Fate Of Armenian-Azerbaijani War Is Being Decided In Battle Of Shusha’ and ‘Alarm as Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict becomes internationalised’.

In relation to the military spending of the United States, as noted previously, so out-of-control is this spending that the US government has now spent at least $US21trillion on its military in the past 20 years for which it cannot even account! That’s right, $US1trillion each year above the official US national budget for killing is ‘lost’. See Army General Fund Adjustments Not Adequately Documented or Supported, ‘Has Our Government Spent $21 Trillion Of Our Money Without Telling Us?’ and ‘The Pentagon Can’t Account for $21 Trillion (That’s Not a Typo)’.

There has been no progress reported in accounting for this ‘lost’ expenditure during the past year.

5. Under the direction of the global elite (as explained above), the United States government and its NATO allies continued their perpetual war across the planet wreaking devastation on many countries and regions, particularly in the Middle East and Africa, at staggering cost in terms of civilian and military lives lost, refugees displaced, national heritage destroyed, financial expenditure and environmental damage. See, for example, The United States of War: A Global History of America’s Endless Conflicts, From Columbus to the Islamic State, Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War, Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield, Costs of War and ‘Understanding NATO, Ending War’.

As a result, whether in the US-sponsored and supplied Saudi Arabian war against Yemen where the UNHCR reports ‘Yemen is facing a humanitarian catastrophe…. Civilians bear the brunt of the crisis, with 22.2 million Yemenis now in need of humanitarian assistance’ – see ‘The world cannot afford to let Yemen slip into the abyss’ – the result of the US use of depleted uranium on top of its other extraordinary military destruction of Iraq over the past 30 years – see ‘Depleted Uranium and Radioactive Contamination in Iraq: An Overview’ – the complete dismemberment of Libya as a result of NATO’s bombing of that country and the subsequent assassination of its leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 – see ‘Endless War and Chaos in Libya’ – the systematic killing of children by CIA-trained death squads in Afghanistan as just one feature of the US war on that country – see ‘The CIA’s Afghan Death Squads: A U.S.-Backed Militia That Kills Children May Be America’s Exit Strategy From Its Longest War’ – or the ongoing US occupation of Syrian territory and control of its resources – see ‘Endless US Rape, Occupation and Plunder of Syria’ – the United States and its NATO allies have continued their efforts to destroy entire countries at staggering cost to their populations and environments, not because these countries posed a threat to security outside their borders but in order to maintain geopolitical control and to facilitate the theft of their resources (including oil) at great profit to the global elite. See, for example, ‘Hillary Emails Reveal NATO Killed Gaddafi to Stop Libyan Creation of Gold-Backed Currency’.

Moreover, of course, the perpetually-profitable perpetual war, by definition, has no end. But the elite has no problem frightening most people into supporting its perpetual wars using manufactured excuses that are dutifully promulgated by its corporate media. And, with a gullibly terrified human population disinclined to question authority, this isn’t a problem. See ‘The Disintegrated Mind: The Greatest Threat to Human Survival on Earth’. The same unconvincing formula invariably works each time. For a fuller and insightful explanation of this point, see Edward Curtin’s article ‘The war hoax redux’.

Additional costs associated with war and military spending include the simple fact that by deliberately exaggerating the risk posed by the threat of war, additional expenditure is endlessly ‘justified’ to an unsuspecting and gullible public – see ‘Scary “R” Us: The Exaggerated Threat of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Part 7 of “Elephants in the room” series’ – they impose a staggering cost on the global environment – see ‘The Ecological Impact of Militarism’ – and they destroy human rights and freedoms including, obviously, the right to life of those individuals killed.

Additional dangers associated with perpetual war by the US include the risk of accidental nuclear war, nuclear war triggered by a cyber attack – see ‘Nuclear weapons agency breached amid massive cyber onslaught’ – and ‘simply’ that endless confrontation with, and provocation of, other major powers Russia and China will, one day, explode into a high-tech ‘world’ war. See ‘Trump’s Pernicious Military Legacy: From the Forever Wars to the Cataclysmic Wars’.

6. Not content with the devastating impact of the military violence it is inflicting already, during 2020 the global elite continued to plan and develop ways to cause more destruction in future. This included ongoing work by US military agencies such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), accelerated by initiatives in relation to the elite coup, to advance mind-controlled weapons – see ‘The Government Is Serious About Creating Mind-Controlled Weapons’ – autonomous systems and artificial intelligence technologies that will undermine nuclear deterrence and increase the likelihood of nuclear escalation – see ‘A Stable Nuclear Future? The Impact of Autonomous Systems and Artificial Intelligence’ – and further development by the United States to create its Space Force, a sixth branch of the US military forces, just three manifestations of this. See ‘The Big Push for Nukes in Space’. In addition, DARPA continues to sponsor research on ‘extinction gene drive’ technology for use against an ‘enemy’ race as explained in item 35 below.

In its turn, Russian military advances include development and deployment of a hypersonic weapon that travels at Mach 27 and which makes the US missile defense installations in Europe ‘obsolete’. See ‘Avangard changes everything: What Russia’s hypersonic warhead deployment means for the global arms race’.

And, according to US sources, China now has the largest navy in the world while expanding its arsenal of ground-based conventional ballistic and cruise missiles and planning to double its nuclear arsenal. See ‘Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2020’ and ‘Pentagon Releases Annual China Military Power Report’.

But other initiatives receiving renewed attention – ‘hypervelocity guns, particle beams and laser weapons onboard orbiting battle platforms with onboard nuclear reactors or “super” plutonium systems providing the power for the weapons’ – also enhance the threat that ‘Modern society would go dark’ in the words of Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell. Why? Because ‘any war in space would be the one and only. By destroying satellites in space massive amounts of space debris would be created that would cause a cascading effect and even the billion-dollar International Space Station would likely be broken into tiny bits. So much space junk would be created… that we’d never be able to get a rocket off the planet again because of the minefield of debris orbiting the Earth at 15,000 mph’. See ‘Trump Signs Measure Enabling Establishment of a U.S. Space Force’.

Of course, technological ‘advances’ in weaponry reflect retrograde steps in policy with the US Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC) – which includes 20 B-2 stealth bombers, 76 B-52 bombers and 450 Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles together capable of delivering thousands of nuclear warheads – along with the U.S. Navy’s submarine-launched Trident ballistic missiles, now ‘capable of extinguishing essentially all life on Earth within a matter of hours.’ See ‘The Air Force’s Global Strike Command Is Preparing For A Delivery Of New Nuclear Weapons’.

7. Following the US withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty in 2002 and after withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the ‘Iran nuclear deal’) and the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty (which limited the deployment of intermediate range nuclear weapons) in 2018, the US government further and unilaterally signaled its intention to dismantle the little that remained of attempts during the Cold War and since that time to contain the threat of nuclear war by further acting in violation of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 – see ‘Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies’ and ‘US Weaponizing Space in Bid to Launch Arms Race’ – and demonstrating its disinterest in extending New START: the sole remaining restraint on U.S.-Russian nuclear arsenals that caps deployed offensive strategic nuclear weapons to no more than 1,550 each. See ‘US, Russia Trade Blame for Failed New START Negotiations’. There is some prospect that the incoming US president will seek to renew the treaty which expires on 5 February 2021.

If you are in any doubt regarding the devastating consequences of nuclear war, you will find Professor Steven Starr’s thoughts – see ‘Nuclear Darkness, Global Climate Change and Nuclear Famine: The Deadly Consequences of Nuclear War’ – illuminating. In addition, the description by Lynn Eden in ‘City on Fire’ (based on her book Whole World on Fire: Organizations, Knowledge, and Nuclear Weapons Devastation) is compelling.

8. Another substantial proportion of global private financial wealth – conservatively estimated by the Tax Justice Network in 2010 to already total between $US21 and $US32 trillion – has been invested virtually tax-free through the world’s still-expanding black hole of more than 80 ‘offshore’ tax havens (such as the City of London Corporation, Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Hong Kong, Nauru, St. Kitts, Antigua, Tortola, Switzerland, the Channel Islands, Monaco, Cyprus, Gibraltar and Liechtenstein).

Tax havens, or ‘secrecy jurisdictions’, are locations around the world where wealthy individuals, criminals and terrorists, as well as governments and government agencies (such as the CIA), banks, corporations, hedge funds, international organizations (such as the Vatican) and crime syndicates (such as the Mafia), can stash their money so that they can avoid laws, regulation and oversight and, very often, evade tax. See ‘Elite Banking at Your Expense: How Secretive Tax Havens are Used to Steal Your Money’.

‘Countries are losing over $427 billion in tax each year to international corporate tax abuse and private tax evasion.’ $245 billion is lost through corporate tax abuse and $182 billion is lost as wealthy individuals evade tax. While wealthier countries lost more tax it was only equal to 8% of their annual health budgets; for lower income countries the losses were equal to more than half their health budgets. See ‘$427bn lost to tax havens every year: landmark study reveals countries’ losses and worst offenders’.

As the latest report of the Tax Justice Network ‘The State of Tax Justice 2020’ concluded: ‘A global tax system that loses over $427 billion a year isn’t a broken system, it’s a system programmed to fail.’

Controlled by the global elite, Wall Street and other major banks manage this monstrous diversion of wealth under Government protection. (This means that any effort to contain this diversion by introducing robustly-enforced tax laws, including wealth and excess taxes, are thwarted.) ‘Their business is fraud and grand theft.’ But tax havens offer more than tax avoidance. ‘Almost anything goes on.’ It includes ‘bribery, illegal gambling, money laundering, human and sex trafficking, arms dealing, toxic waste dumping, conflict diamonds and endangered species trafficking, bootlegged software, and endless other lawless practices.’ See ‘Trillions Stashed in Offshore Tax Havens’.

Moreover, the losses noted above are just financial wealth. Additionally, a large share of the real estate, yachts, racehorses, gold bricks and many other assets that count as non-financial wealth are also owned via offshore structures that make it impossible to identify their owners. See Tax Justice Network.

9. The world’s major corporations continued to inflict enormous ongoing violence (in a myriad of ways) in their pursuit of endless profit at the expense of living beings (human and otherwise) and Earth’s biosphere by producing and marketing a wide range of life-destroying products ranging from nuclear weapons and nuclear power to fossil fuels, junk food, pharmaceutical drugs (including health-destroying and sometimes life-destroying vaccinations: see, for example, ‘Vaxxed-Unvaxxed – The Science’), synthetic poisons and genetically mutilated organisms (GMOs).

These corporations include the following: weapons manufacturers, major banks and their ‘industry groups’ like the International Monetary Conference, asset management firms, investment companies, financial services companies, fossil fuel (coal, oil and gas) corporations, technology corporations, media corporations, major marketing and public relations corporations, agrochemical (pesticides, seeds, fertilizers) giants, pharmaceutical corporations (with their handmaidens in the medical and psychiatric industries: see ‘Defeating the Violence in Our Food and Medicine’ and ‘Defeating the Violence of Psychiatry’), biotechnology (genetic mutilation) corporations, mining corporations, nuclear power corporations, food multinationals and water corporations. You can see a list of the major corporations in this article: ‘The Global Elite is Insane Revisited’.

10 .More than two billion people continued to live under military occupation (such as the people of Kashmir, Kurdistan, Palestine, Tibet, West Papua and Western Sahara), dictatorship (such as the people of Cambodia, China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar, North Korea and Saudi Arabia) or threat of genocidal assault (such as the Rohingya of Myanmar) invariably with the global elite sponsoring the oppressive local elite that exercises power. For details of just one of a great many examples, see ‘500 Years is Long Enough! Human Depravity in the Congo’.

11. 36,000,000 human beings (mainly in Africa, Asia and Central/South America) were starved to death in 2020. That is, more than one person each second died because they did not have enough eat. See ‘How Many People Die from Hunger Each Year’.

Are we serious about ending these totally unnecessary deaths? Not even remotely, as thoughtfully explained by Professor George Kent in his report as deputy editor of World Nutrition. See ‘Are We Serious About Ending Hunger?’

As Professor Kent notes: currently, around the world, ‘around 800 million people suffer from hunger’ and that ‘global efforts to end hunger have not been serious’: There has been ‘no substantial commitment of resources, no management group to control the process, no realistic timeline, and no means for mid-course corrections on the way to the goal. There [have been] no contracts with agencies that would work toward achievement of the goal…. hoping for the end of hunger won’t work. Hope is not a strategy.’ Moreover, ‘The UN system offers little more than vague aspirations.’

‘Over the decades, the stated global goal of ending hunger was not achieved, repeatedly. Instead of strengthening the effort, the response has been to reduce the aspirations. That is a clear indicator of the lack of seriousness.’

By one estimate: ‘World hunger can be eliminated with an additional $265 billion per year.’ See ‘How Many People Die from Hunger Each Year’. That is, redirecting 13.8% of official current military spending would end world hunger and starvation on Earth.

But complicated by official responses to Covid-19 (that is, the elite coup), earlier in the year World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director David Beasley warned of one outcome:

If we don’t prepare and act now to secure access, to avoid funding shortfalls and disruptions to trade, we could be facing multiple famines of biblical proportions within a short few months… our analysis shows that 300,000 people could starve to death every single day over a three-month period. See ‘WFP chief warns of “hunger pandemic” as Global Food Crises Report launched’.

Beyond this, food availability for many vulnerable people was exacerbated by locust infestations in parts of Africa, the Middle East and South Asia as yet another manifestation of ongoing climate and environmental degradation. See ‘360 Billion Locusts And Growing – A Plague Of “Biblical Proportions” Is Destroying Crops Across The Middle East And Africa’.

While this crisis was partly averted, it was done at great cost to the environment: at least 834,000 litres of pesticide and 12,675kg of bio-pesticide were procured and administered through the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) alone. See ‘Desert locust crisis’.

Of course, spraying pesticides on ‘more than 1.3 million hectares of locust infestations… across ten countries this year’ didn’t solve the problem with the threat to ‘agricultural livelihoods and the food security of millions of people’ simply re-emerging late in the year. See ‘Desert Locust “re-invasion” threatens millions across Horn of Africa’.

This was inevitable as humans endlessly try to ‘patch up’ symptoms of damage to the environment and climate that has been inflicted over decades and now requires integrated solutions that violate the endless demand for corporate profit.

12. 18,250,000 children were killed by adults in wars, by starving them to death, by denying them clean drinking water, as a result of gun deaths, and in a large variety of other ways.

13. 8,000,000 children were trafficked into sexual slavery; executed in sacrificial killings after being kidnapped; bred to be sold as a ‘cash crop’ for sexual violation, to produce child pornography (‘kiddie porn’) and ‘snuff’ movies (in which children are killed during the filming); ritually tortured and murdered as well as raped by dogs trained for the purpose. See ‘Humanity’s “Dirty Little Secret”: Starving, Enslaving, Raping, Torturing and Killing our Children’.

14. Hundreds of thousands of individuals were kidnapped or tricked into slavery, which now denies 46,000,000 human beings (more than at any time in human history) the right to live the life of their choice, condemning many individuals – especially women and children – to lives of sexual slavery (perhaps in a forced ‘marriage’), forced labor or as child soldiers. Needless to say, the global elite continues to expand this highly profitable business while its compliant governments do no more than mouth an occasional objection to the practice while doing nothing effective to actually end it, as is patently evident following disclosures about the involvement of high-profile public figures and major industries in the slave trade.

See ‘The Global Slavery Index’. For one recent account of the life of a modern slave, see ‘My Family’s Slave’. For an account of the involvement of public figures in sex slavery, see ‘Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein: what you need to know’ and the other articles listed at the end of this one. And for an account of the fashion industry’s complicity in the slave trade (which ranks second after computers and mobile phones for industry involvement), see ‘Fashion identified as one of five key industries implicated in modern slavery’.

15. Well over 100,000 people (particularly Falun Gong practitioners) in China, where an extensive state-controlled program is conducted, were subjected to forced organ removal for the trade in human organs. Watch ‘Hard to Believe’ and ‘Fighting China’s Forced Organ Harvesting’ and see Bloody Harvest and The Slaughter.

16. 8,700,000 people were displaced by war, persecution or famine. There are now 79,500,000 people – 1% of the world population – who have been forcibly displaced worldwide and remain precariously unsettled, usually in adverse circumstances. 40% of those who are displaced are children, and more than 4,000,000 displaced people are stateless. 17 people in the world are forcibly displaced every minute. Notably, official responses to the supposed ‘pandemic’ in 2020 seriously exacerbated the adverse circumstances of displaced people further reducing their capacity to meet basic needs. See ‘Figures at a Glance’ and ‘UNHCR releases supplementary COVID-19 appeal to meet exceptional refugee needs in 2021’.

17. Millions of people were made homeless in their own country as a result of war, persecution, ‘natural’ disasters (many of which, including hurricanes/cyclones and wildfires, were actually generated by dysfunctional human behavior rather than nature), internal conflict, poverty or as a result of elite-driven national economic policies. The last time a global survey was attempted – by the United Nations back in 2005 – an estimated 100 million people were homeless worldwide. In addition, as many as 1.6 billion people lack adequate housing (living in slums, for example). See ‘Global Homelessness Statistics’.

18. Highlighting the unheralded biodiversity crisis on Earth, as a result of habitat destruction and degradation as well as a multitude of other threats, 73,000 species of life (plants, birds, animals, fish, amphibians, insects, reptiles and microbes) on Earth were driven to extinction with the worldwide loss of many of these species now at catastrophic levels. Tragically, many additional species are now trapped in a feedback loop which will inevitably precipitate their extinction as well because of the way in which ‘co-extinctions’, ‘localized extinctions’ and ‘extinction cascades’ work once initiated and as has already occurred in almost all ecosystem contexts. See the (so far) six-part series ‘Our Vanishing World’. Have you seen a flock of birds of any size recently? A butterfly?

19. Separately from species extinctions, Earth continued to experience ‘a huge episode of population declines and extirpations, which will have negative cascading consequences on ecosystem functioning and services vital to sustaining civilization. We describe this as a “biological annihilation” to highlight the current magnitude of Earth’s ongoing sixth major extinction event.’ Moreover, local population extinctions ‘are orders of magnitude more frequent than species extinctions. Population extinctions, however, are a prelude to species extinctions, so Earth’s sixth mass extinction episode has proceeded further than most assume.’ See ‘Biological annihilation via the ongoing sixth mass extinction signaled by vertebrate population losses and declines’ and ‘Our Vanishing World: Wildlife’.

20. Wildlife trafficking, worth up to $20 billion in 2020, is pushing many endangered species to the brink of extinction. Illegal wildlife products include jewelry, traditional medicine, clothing, furniture, and souvenirs, as well as some exotic pets, most of which are sold to unaware/unconcerned consumers in the West although China is heavily implicated too. For just one example: every 15 minutes an elephant is killed for its tusks. See Stop Wildlife Trafficking.

21. 6.5 million hectares of pristine forest were cut or burnt down for purposes such as the following: acquiring timbers used in construction, clearing land to establish cattle farms so that many people can eat cheap hamburgers, clearing land to establish palm oil plantations so that many people can eat processed (including junk) foods based on this oil, clearing land to establish palm oil and soybean plantations so that some people can delude themselves that they are using a ‘green biofuel’ in their car (when, in fact, these fuels generate a far greater carbon footprint than fossil fuels), mining (much of it illegal) for a variety of minerals (such as gold, silver, copper, coltan, cassiterite and diamonds), logging to produce woodchips so that some people can buy cheap paper (including cheap toilet paper), oil drilling, dam construction, tourism and clothing. Separately from this, the climate catastrophe is destroying forests, as are fires.

See ‘Our Vanishing World: Rainforests’, ‘Estimating the global conservation status of more than 15,000 Amazonian tree species’, ‘Tropical forests’ lost decade: the 2010s’, ‘How much rainforest is being destroyed?’, Global Forest Watch and ‘New data show world lost a Switzerland-size area of primary rainforest in 2019’.

One outcome of this destruction is that 40,000 tropical tree species are now threatened with extinction. In addition, rainforest destruction is also the key driver of species extinctions globally with one million species of life on Earth threatened with extinction, as reported in the recent ‘Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services’.

Another outcome is that ‘the precious Amazon is teetering on the edge of functional destruction and, with it, so are we’. How long do we have? ‘The tipping point is here, it is now.’ Professor Thomas E. Lovejoy and his fellow researcher Carlos Nobre elaborate this point: ‘Bluntly put, the Amazon not only cannot withstand further deforestation but also now requires rebuilding as the underpinning base of the hydrological cycle if the Amazon is to continue to serve as a flywheel of continental climate for the planet and an essential part of the global carbon cycle.’ See ‘Amazon Tipping Point: Last Chance for Action’.

22. Vast quantities of soil were washed away as we destroyed the rainforests, and enormous quantities of both inorganic constituents (such as heavy metals like cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury, nickel and zinc) and organic pollutants (particularly synthetic chemicals in the form of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides) were dumped into the soil as well, thus reducing its nutrients and killing the microbes and earthworms within it. We also contaminated enormous quantities of soil with radioactive waste. See Soil-net, ‘Glyphosate effects on soil rhizosphere-associated bacterial communities’ and ‘Disposing of Nuclear Waste is a Challenge for Humanity’.

To briefly elaborate the evidence in relation to earthworms: Given ‘recent reports of critical declines of microbes, plants, insects and other invertebrates, birds and other vertebrates, the situation pertaining to neglected earthworms’ was evaluated in an extensive investigation recently undertaken by Robert J. Blakemore. His research demonstrated an 83.3 percent decline in earthworms in agrichemical farms – that is, those that use pesticides, herbicides and synthetic fertilizers – compared with farms utilizing organic methods. Why? Because ‘it is impossible to replace or artificially engineer the myriad beneficial processes and services freely provided by earthworms’ which includes extensive burrows in pastures enriched with soil organic matter that allow ingress of air & water and provide living space for other soil organisms. Moreover, given that ecological services overall have been given a median value of US$135 trillion per year, which is almost double the global economic GDP of around $75 trillion – see ‘Changes in the global value of ecosystem services’ and ‘Valuing nature and the hidden costs of biodiversity loss’ – Blakemore reaches an obvious conclusion: ‘Persistence with failing chemical agriculture makes neither ecological nor economic sense.’ See ‘Critical Decline of Earthworms from Organic Origins under Intensive, Humic SOM-Depleting Agriculture’.

Given that this multifaceted destruction of the soil fundamentally threatens the global grain supply, when the ability to grow, store and distribute grains at scale is a defining element of civilization, as Professor Guy McPherson eloquently explains it: ‘A significant decline in grain harvest will surely drive this version of civilization to the abyss and beyond.’ See ‘Seven Distinct Paths to Loss of Habitat for Humans’.

23. When nuclear power plants were first being constructed, they were envisaged to have a maximum lifespan of 40 years because the radioactive emissions made the metal parts of the plant brittle causing safety problems. However, Professor Karl Grossman explains, with the passage of time the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission ‘has extended the operating licenses of nuclear power plants from 40 years to 60 years and then 80 years, and is now considering 100 years’. Crazy? As Robert Alvarez notes: It is ‘an act of desperation in response to the collapse of the nuclear program in this country and the rest of the world’. See ‘Inviting Nuclear Disaster’.

Despite the lower cost, far greater safety and lack of radioactive waste products from renewable energy, nuclear power corporations continue their efforts to resist closure of their industry, in various ways. These range from developing ‘floating mini-nukes’, towed to and anchored off coastlines ‘for up to 24 years’ to power developing nations – see ‘Floating “mini-nukes” could power countries by 2025, says startup’ – using nuclear power as the energy source to support ‘a sustained lunar presence and allow Mars to be more easily explored’ but, of course, with resource mining planned and production of nuclear weapons a possibility – see ‘U.S. Plans to Build a Nuclear Plant on the Moon Is a Major Challenge to Other Great Powers’ – and using nuclear power to travel to Mars quickly (partly to minimize astronaut exposure to extraordinary cosmic radiation) and then using it for various purposes once there but, essentially, to ‘allow humans to live for long periods in harsh space environments’. See ‘The Thermal Nuclear Engine That Could Get Us to Mars in Just 3 Months’ and ‘US Eyes Building Nuclear Power Plants for Moon and Mars’.

Of course, the hazards (and insanity) of doing this are monumental, as Professor Grossman has documented. See ‘The Big Push for Nukes in Space’ and The Case Against Nuclear Power: The U.S. Space Force and the dangers of nuclear power and nuclear war in space. And there is more information on this and related subjects on the website of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space.

Moreover, apart from their obvious problems as mentioned above and illustrated in the next item below as well, nuclear power plants are vulnerable to cyber attack too. See ‘6 Things to Know about the 2020 Cyberattack and Nuclear Power Plants’.

24. Despite an extensive and ongoing coverup by the Japanese government and nuclear corporations, as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), vast amounts of radioactive waste were dumped into the biosphere from the TEPCO nuclear power plant at Fukushima in Japan including by discharge into the Pacific Ocean. This is killing an incalculable number of fish and other marine organisms and indefinitely contaminating expanding areas of that ocean. See ‘Fukushima: A Nuclear War without a War: The Unspoken Crisis of Worldwide Nuclear Radiation’, ‘2019 Annual Report – Fukushima 8th Anniversary’, ‘Eight years after triple nuclear meltdown, Fukushima No. 1’s water woes show no signs of ebbing’ and ‘Fukushima’s Three Nuclear Meltdowns Are “Under Control” – That’s a Lie’.

But the challenges to be overcomein safely handling and, ultimately, safely storing the radiation hazards (such as the three melted nuclear reactors and the spent fuel rods) and the radioactive waste from the Fukushima disaster are monumental, as touched on in this article outlining the 40-year plan that the Japanese government hopes will delude us into believing will deal with the many components of this perpetual radioactive nightmare. See ‘Japan revises Fukushima cleanup plan, delays key steps’.

In addition, one critical legacy of the US military’s 67 secretive and lethal nuclear weapons tests on the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958 is the ‘eternally’ radioactive garbage left behind and now leaking into the Pacific Ocean. See ‘The Pentagon’s Disastrous Radioactive Waste Dump in the Drowning Marshall Islands is Leaking into the Pacific Ocean’.

Is other nuclear waste safely stored? Of course not! See, for example, ‘NRC admits San Onofre Holtec nuclear waste canisters are all damaged’, ‘USA’s Hanford nuclear site could suffer the same fate as Russia’s Mayak – or worse’ and, for a more comprehensive report, ‘The World Nuclear Waste Report 2019: Focus Europe’.

Of course, the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe in 1986 continues to inflict extensive damage on the biosphere which you can learn more about from the research by Professor Kate Brown, author of Manual for Survival: A Chernobyl Guide to the Future – see ‘Chernobyl Radiation Cover-Ups & Deadly Truth’, ‘UN and Western countries covered up the facts on the huge health toll of Chernobyl radiation’ and ‘Unreported Deaths, Child Cancer & Radioactive Meat: The Untold Story of Chernobyl’ – as well as the investigatory work of Alison Katz of Independent WHO: ‘Chernobyl Health Cover-Up, Lies by UN/WHO Exposed’.

In addition, there are up to 70 ‘still functional’ nuclear weapons as well as nine nuclear reactors lying on the ocean floor as a result of accidents involving nuclear warships and submarines. These are leaking an unknown amount of radiation into the oceans. See ‘Naval Nuclear Accidents: The Secret Story’, ‘A Nuclear Needle in a Haystack: The Cold War’s Missing Atom Bombs’ and, for one specific example (the former Soviet submarine Komsomolets), see ‘Soviet nuclear submarine emitting radiation “100,000 times normal level” into sea, scientists find’.

But not content with the existing radioactive threats to life, in 2020 the US approved the use of radioactive materials in roadbuilding! See ‘Phosphogypsum Use in Roadbuilding Previously Prohibited Due to Risks of Cancer, Genetic Damage’.

25. Despite largely successful efforts by the elite-controlled IPCC to delude people into believing that the global mean temperature has increased by only 1°C, in fact, since the pre-industrial era (prior to 1750) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have already caused the global temperature to rise by more than 2°C above this baseline (in February 2020). This occurred despite the Paris climate agreement in 2015 when politicians pledged to hold the global temperature rise to well below 2°C above the pre-industrial level and pledged to try to limit the temperature rise to 1.5°C above this level. See ‘2°C crossed’.

Among a lengthy list of adverse outcomes, this has caused the melting of Arctic permafrost and undersea methane ice clathrates resulting in an incalculable quantity of methane (CH₄) being uncontrollably released into the atmosphere, including during 2020, with the quantity being released getting ever closer to ‘exploding’. According to one study, ‘Global warming triggered by the massive release of carbon dioxide may be catastrophic, but the release of methane from hydrate may be apocalyptic.’ See ‘Methane Hydrate: Killer cause of Earth’s greatest mass extinction’ and also ‘Anomalies of methane in the atmosphere over the East Siberian shelf: Is there any sign of methane leakage from shallow shelf hydrates?’, ‘7,000 underground gas bubbles poised to “explode” in Arctic’, ‘Release of Arctic Methane “May Be Apocalyptic,” Study Warns’ and ‘Understanding the Permafrost-Hydrate System and Associated Methane Releases in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf’.

Highlighting some other manifestations in 2020 of this accelerating climate catastrophe, Dr Jeff Masters and Dana Nuccitelli noted that it was the wildest Atlantic hurricane season on record (doubling the average), an ‘apocalyptic wildfire season’ (that ran all year), that the most expensive disaster was a $US32billion flood in China, and that 2020 is likely to be the hottest year in human history. See ‘The top 10 weather and climate events of a record-setting year’.

Complicating efforts to tackle this catastrophe are factors not normally considered impacting the climate, such as the jetwash from aircraft. According to Wesley Schouw and Professor Gunter Pauli, the climate catastrophe ‘is also driven by shifts in the patterns of global atmospheric circulation which are influenced by persistent, large-scale vortices caused by the wake turbulence left by commercial air traffic. Because this traffic is highly concentrated along the most frequently traveled routes, the vortices aircraft create have transformed into semi-permanent atmospheric circulation which have widespread effects on how the atmosphere traps and releases heat. It is also possible that these changes alter the loss of water from the atmosphere. This would endanger all life on earth, not just the human population.’ See ‘Jetwash-induced vortices and climate change’.

Anyway, the combined impact of all drivers of the climate catastrophe have led to a situation in which humans in particular locations are already being increasingly forced to contend with heat and humidity beyond human tolerance. This is precipitating increasing levels of heat-induced stress, organ failure and therefore deaths, contrary to models indicating that such impacts lie decades in the future. See ‘The emergence of heat and humidity too severe for human tolerance’.

Tragically, however, as noted by Dr Andrew Glikson, with climate projections now ‘disturbingly consistent’ in indicating a ‘shift in state of the climate toward +4 degrees and even +6 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels’, climate scientists are caught in a quandary: ‘In private conversations, many scientists express far greater concern at the trend of global warming than they do in public. However, faced with social and psychological barriers, as well as threats of losing positions and jobs, in business, public service and academia, a majority keeps silent.’ This is especially tragic, given that ‘The pace of current global warming exceeds those of the last 2.6 million years by an order of magnitude, with calamitous consequences for biological systems.’ See ‘An Orwellian climate while Rome burns’.

And noting that ‘We currently occupy the warmest Earth with Homo sapiens present beyond the much-vaunted 2°C “guardrail” above the 1750 baseline’, Professor Guy McPherson reports that ‘There is no known way to stabilize or reduce the global-average temperature of Earth.’ He goes on to describe ‘a few means by which Earth could lose all habitat for Homo sapiens, a process that is already under way’. And concludes that ‘Human extinction likely was triggered when Earth exceeded 2°C above the 1750 baseline.’ For the details, see ‘Near-Term Loss of Habitat for Homo sapiens’.

Moreover, given ill-informed elite responses to the fake pandemic, the extinction of all life on Earth (not just human life) may have already been precipitated: ‘The rapidity of change associated with loss of aerosol masking [due to the industrial shutdown] precludes retention of habitat for human animals anywhere on Earth. In addition, the catastrophic meltdown of the world’s nuclear power facilities poses an additional threat to all life on Earth.’ See ‘The Means by Which COVID-19 Could Cause Extinction of All Life on Earth’.

Of course, as Professor McPherson concedes, he may be wrong. It’s just that the evidence offered by an increasing number of scientists on different aspects of the crisis now indicates that it will be many scientists who will need to be wrong for near-term extinction not to occur. Watch ‘Edge of Extinction: Maybe I’m Wrong’.

26. Human use of fossil fuels to power aircraft, shipping and vehicles as well as for industrial production and to generate electricity (among other purposes) released 34 billion metric tons (34 gigatons) of carbon dioxide into Earth’s biosphere, a 7% decrease on 2019 due to the elite shutdown of the global economy. The biggest reductions occurred in the USA and Europe with China’s monstrous CO₂ emissions only marginally less than 2019. See ‘Global Carbon Project’.

Of course carbon dioxide was also released in response to certain ‘land-use changes’, such as rainforest destruction which led to 16 billion tonnes of CO₂ emissions, and human-caused tragedies such as extensive wildfires during the year. Taking into account CO₂ removals, primarily from vegetation regrowth due to abandonment of agricultural lands, total CO₂ emissions from human activities (from fossil CO₂ and land-use change) were about 40 billion tonnes in 2020, compared to 43 billion tonnes in 2019. Hence, the expected growth rate in atmospheric CO₂ concentration in 2020 (2.5 ppm) is near the 2019 growth rate, despite slightly lower anthropogenic emissions due to elite-driven policies slowing the global economy.

According to the observatory at Mauna Loa, the monthly average atmospheric CO₂ concentration had reached 413ppm by year’s end. See ‘Monthly Average Mauna Loa CO₂’.

So while the land and ocean sinks absorbed 54% of CO₂ emissions from the atmosphere in 2020, exacerbating ocean acidification among other problems, atmospheric CO₂ concentrations in 2020 are now 50% above the pre-industrial (1750) level of 275ppm.

As one measure of their contempt for the utterly inadequate goals of the Paris climate agreement in 2015, and with government approval, ‘437 of the 935 companies featured in the [Global Coal Exit List] are planning either new coal plants, new coal mines or new coal transport infrastructure’. Since 2015, ‘the world’s installed coal-fired capacity has increased by 137 GW, an amount equal to the operating coal plant fleets of Germany, Russia and Japan combined. And over 500 GW of new coal-fired capacity is still in the pipeline’ with more than half of that in China. See ‘NGOs Release the 2020 Global Coal Exit List: 935 Companies that Banks, Investors and Insurers Need to avoid’.

27. 72 billion land animals (mainly chickens, ducks, pigs, rabbits, geese, turkeys, sheep, goats and beef cattle) were killed for food. In addition, between 37 and 120 billion fish were killed on commercial farms with another 2.7 trillion fish caught and killed in the wild. See ‘How Many Animals Are Killed for Food Every Day?’

In addition, according to Humane Society International, about 100 million animals (particularly mink, foxes, raccoon dogs and rabbits) were bred and slaughtered in fur farms geared to supplying the fashion industry. In addition to farming, millions of wild animals were trapped and killed for fur, as were hundreds of thousands of seals. See ‘How Many Animals Do Humans Kill Each Year?’

Apart from that, more than 100 million animals were killed for laboratory purposes in the United States alone and there were other animal deaths in shelters, zoos and in blood sports. See ‘How Many Animals Are Killed Each Year?’

Obviously, the primary ‘blood sport’ is hunting. In the United States, over 100 million animals are reported killed by hunters each year. See ‘Facts – Wildlife’. ‘This figure does not include millions of animals killed illegally by poachers, animals who are injured, escape, and die later, or orphaned animals who die after their mothers are killed.’ See ‘How Many Animals Do Humans Kill Each Year?’ But, worldwide, killing of animals and birds hunted for the purpose exacts a staggering toll on wildlife. For another example, see ‘Our Vanishing World: Birds’.

But there are many other ‘blood sports’, such as cockfighting and bullfighting, often involving gambling, each of which exacts a shocking death and injury toll on the unfortunate birds and animals forced to ‘fight’.

While practiced in many countries, in the Philippines the practice is 6,000 years old and legal, with cockfighting having the status of a national sport, generating billions of dollars annually and killing 30 million roosters each year. See ‘Cockfighting in the Philippines: The billion dollar industry and national obsession’.

In relation to another ancient practice – bullfighting – ‘thousands of bulls are barbarically slaughtered in bullrings around the world’ each year. As one would expect, centuries of the practice have enabled ‘bullfighters’ to learn countless ways to rig the fight in their favor and this is done shamelessly. See ‘Bullfighting’. Particularly popular in Spain and Mexico, bullfighting is still practiced in many countries despite activist efforts inducing a declining popularity in some places.

28. Farming of animals for human consumption released 7.1 gigatons of CO₂-equivalent into Earth’s atmosphere; this represented 14.5% of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. About 44% of livestock emissions were in the form of methane (which was 44% of anthropogenic CH₄ emissions), 29% as Nitrous Oxide (which was 53% of anthropogenic N₂O emissions) and 27% as Carbon Dioxide (which was 5% of anthropogenic CO₂ emissions). See ‘GHG Emissions by Livestock’.

29. Human use of fossil fuels and farming of crops and animals released more than 3.2 million metric tons of (CO₂ equivalent) nitrous oxide (N₂O) into Earth’s atmosphere. See ‘Nitrous oxide emissions’. Each year, more than 100 million tonnes of nitrogen is spread on crops in the form of synthetic fertilizer. See ‘Fertilizers by Nutrient’. Along with an equivalent amount of livestock manure, this releases a colossal amount of N₂O into the atmosphere, accounting for almost 70% of N₂O emissions. See ‘A comprehensive quantification of global nitrous oxide sources and sinks’.

While N₂O is ‘only’ the third most important greenhouse gas after CO₂ (which lasts up to thousands of years in the atmosphere) and CH₄, N₂O has 300 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide (CO₂) and stays in the atmosphere for an average 116 years. Atmospheric concentrations of N₂O have now exceeded 331 parts per billion, 22% above the level in 1750, before the industrial era began. See ‘United in Science 2020: A multi-organization high-level compilation of the latest climate science information’ and ‘New research: nitrous oxide emissions 300 times more powerful than CO₂ are jeopardising Earth’s future’.

30. Glaciers and mountain ice fields – whether located in Greenland or other regions of the far north, the Himalaya, at the Equator, in southern latitudes or Antarctica – are all melting at unprecedented and accelerating rates, losing billions of tonnes of ice in 2020. For a discussion of the details and the implications of this, see ‘Our Vanishing World: Glaciers’.

31. The ongoing destruction of Earth’s oceans continued unabated and accelerated in key areas.

In summary, the oceans are warming, acidifying and deoxygenating; being contaminated with nuclear radiation, by offshore oil and gas drilling as well as oil spills; being damaged by deep sea mining; being polluted by industrial (including chemical) and farming wastes which are generating ocean ‘dead zones’; being polluted by nitrogen and discharges from warships, commercial shipping and cruise ships as well as monumental amounts of plastic; being overfished and illegally fished; being subjected to destructive fishing practices such as bottom trawling, blast fishing, cyanide fishing, ghost fishing and aquaculture; being damaged by sand mining, port and harbor dredging, the increasing spread of invasive species, the live trade in fish and coral for the quarium industry, the increasing level of noise pollution, and even by wildfires.

In essence then: the oceans are under siege on a vast range of fronts and are effectively ‘dying’. They are being stripped of everything of value to humans (ranging from its many creatures, such as fish and whales, to products such as sand, oil and minerals) while having a monumental range and quantity of garbage and pollutants (ranging from household to radioactive waste) dumped into them. All these shifts taken together, however, result in a rapid and serious decline in ocean health and this, in turn, adversely impacts all species dependent on the ocean including fish, mammals and seabirds as well as ocean plant and microscopic life.

For a comprehensive 18-point summary and extensive documentation, see ‘Our Vanishing World: Oceans’.

32. Earth’s fresh water and ground water was further depleted and contaminated. And whether in streams, rivers, lakes, wetlands or aquifers, water is being ongoingly polluted as contaminants find their way into fresh water sources wherever they occur. Moreover, once contaminated, a water source may be unusable for thousands of years. See ‘Water Pollution: Everything You Need to Know’.

The depletion of fresh water is a primary outcome of the ongoing deforestation of the planet and is manifesting in several ways including as localized droughts, which are becoming increasingly common as a number of cities and regions around the world can attest. According to the World Resources Institute, half of the surface water in some countries – mainly in Central Asia and the Middle East – was depleted between 1984 and 2015, with agriculture using an average of 70% of the water. 36 countries are ‘extremely water-stressed’ and water is now a major factor in conflict in at least 45 countries. See ‘7 Graphics Explain the State of the World’s Water’.

Separately from depletion, fresh water was contaminated by bacteria, viruses and household chemicals from faulty septic systems; hazardous wastes from abandoned and uncontrolled hazardous waste sites (of which there are over 20,000 in the USA alone); leaks from landfill items such as car battery acid, paint and household cleaners; the pesticides, herbicides and other poisons used on farms and home gardens; radioactive waste from nuclear tests (some of it stored in glaciers that are now melting); and the chemical contamination caused by hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in search of shale gas, for which about 750 chemicals and components, some extremely toxic and carcinogenic like lead and benzene, have been used. See ‘Groundwater contamination’, ‘Groundwater drunk by BILLIONS of people may be contaminated by radioactive material spread across the world by nuclear testing in the 1950s’ and ‘Fracking chemicals’.

In relation to thermal and hydroelectric power generation, all versions of which are highly dependent on huge quantities of fresh water to function, 47 percent of the world’s thermal power plant capacity – mostly coal, natural gas and nuclear – and 11 percent of hydroelectric capacity are located in highly water-stressed areas. See ‘Water Stress Threatens Nearly Half the World’s Thermal Power Plant Capacity’.

The good news is that renewable energy is less water-expensive, by orders of magnitude, and constitutes another compelling reason for switching to renewables. See ‘Renewable Energy Saves Water and Creates Jobs’.

Given that less than 1% of fresh water is readily available for human consumption and must be shared with the natural environment (because most fresh water is stored in glaciers, for example), and that official estimates indicate that a person needs at least 50 to 100 liters of water per day for consumption and basic hygiene and that between 2,000 and 5,000 liters of water are needed to produce a person’s daily food – see ‘7 Graphics Explain the State of the World’s Water’ – the ongoing depletion and contamination of fresh water in the context of an expanding human population constitutes a serious threat to human well-being as well as the ecological health of Earth’s biosphere.

This is particularly the case given that the production of our consumer goods – and particularly electronic items such as computers, mobile phones, cars… – uses staggering amounts of fresh water to produce each item and so curtailing individual and global demand for electronic items particularly is a crucial part of any strategy to conserve water. For example, it takes 147,971 liters to make a car and up to 30 liters of water to make a single chip for a laptop or smartphone. See ‘Thirsty business: How the tech industry is bracing for a water-scarce future’ and ‘How Many Gallons of Water Does It Take to Make…’.

And in the latest disaster and defeat for humanity and the biosphere in relation to water, on 7 December 2020 ‘blue gold’ was traded for the first time as a commodity on the Chicago Stock Exchange. See ‘Water, “The Ultimate Commodity”, (*) Has Entered the Stock Market. Poor water!’....

....34. The incredibly destructive 5G technology, which a vast number of scientists – currently totaling more than 314,000 individuals and organizations from 214 nations and territories: see ‘International Appeal to Stop 5G on Earth and in Space’ https://www.5gspaceappeal.org/the-appeal – are warning will have catastrophic consequences for life on Earth, is now being rapidly introduced without informed public consultation and despite ongoing protests around the world. For a straightforward account of the enormity of what is at stake, see the recently revised and updated edition of The Invisible Rainbow: A History of Electricity and Life or read a review of the book: ‘Deadly Rainbow: Will 5G Precipitate the Extinction of All Life on Earth?’

The following articles and videos will also give you a solid understanding of key issues from the viewpoint of human and planetary well-being. See ‘5G Satellites: A Threat to all Life’, ‘5G Danger: 13 Reasons 5G Wireless Technology Will Be a Catastrophe for Humanity’, ‘5G Technology is Coming – Linked to Cancer, Heart Disease, Diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and Death’, ‘20,000 Satellites for 5G to be Launched Sending Focused Beams of Intense Microwave Radiation Over Entire Earth’, ‘Will 5G Cell Phone Technology Lead To Dramatic Population Reduction As Large Numbers Of Men Become Sterile?’, ‘The 5G Revolution: Millions of “Human Guinea Pigs” in Big Telecom’s Global Experiment’ and ‘5G Apocalypse – The Extinction Event’.

35. Genetic engineering continued in 2020, with genetically mutilated organisms (GMOs) being ongoingly released into the natural environment despite extensively documented adverse impacts, such as contamination of non-GM crops by GM crops. See, for example, ‘The GM Contamination Register: a review of recorded contamination incidents associated with genetically modified organisms (GMOs), 1997–2013’.

But the social and economic costs of GM crops have been catastrophic for many, as explained years ago by Professor Vandana Shiva in relation to the ‘epidemic of farmers’ suicides in India’ resulting from the 95% control by Monsanto (since merged with Bayer) over cotton seed supply. This meant that instead of putting aside some seed from each year’s harvest for planting the following season (as had been practiced for millennia), farmers were compelled to buy a new supply of (pesticide-dependent) GM seed – the ‘intellectual property’ of Monsanto – to plant each new crop.

Of course, among the many other problems with GMO seeds, they can only be planted as monocultures rather than as part of a mixed farming regime (particularly important for small family farmers who traditionally grow their own food) and ‘GMOs are failing to control pests and weeds, and have instead led to the emergence of superpests and superweeds.’ Since the introduction of expensive GMO seeds into India, suicides by Indian farmers have become an annual ‘epidemic’ with thousands occurring each year due to accumulated debts that are impossible to repay. As Shiva evocatively puts it: ‘No GMO seeds, no debt, no suicides.’

In essence, genetic engineering is a highly profitable means ‘to control seed and the food system through patents and intellectual property rights’. See ‘The Seeds Of Suicide: How Monsanto Destroys Farming’.

But it goes well beyond that with control of nature the ultimate goal.

Notwithstanding the massive problems generated by GMOs just explained, the monstrous control exercised by the major agrochemical and biotech corporations has ensured that governments are ongoingly approving one disastrous move after another. For example, approval has recently been given to release 750 million GMO mosquitoes – created to ‘eradicate mosquito populations’ – into the wild to destroy the mosquito population in the Florida Keys in the USA. Apart from its obvious adverse impact on the food supply of insect-eating birds and amphibians, this will generate a host of other problems. See ‘More than 750 million GMO mosquitoes to be released over Florida Keys – what could go wrong?’

Of course, government approval is not difficult to obtain. In fact: ‘The GMO agritech industry’s strategy has been to first spread seeds illegally or contaminate supplies and then obtain regulatory approval.’ See ‘GM Food Crops Illegally Growing in India: The Criminal Plan to Change the Genetic Core of the Nation’s Food System’.

And if you thought that the mosquito experiment just mentioned is extreme, consider the implications of ‘gene drives’. So what are gene drives? ‘Imagine that by releasing a single fly into the wild you could genetically alter all the flies on the planet – causing them all to turn yellow, carry a toxin, or go extinct. This is the terrifyingly powerful premise behind gene drives: a new and controversial genetic engineering technology that can permanently alter an entire species by releasing one bioengineered individual.’

How effective are they? ‘Gene drives can entirely re-engineer ecosystems, create fast spreading extinctions, and intervene in living systems at a scale far beyond anything ever imagined.’ For example, if gene drives are engineered into a fast-reproducing species ‘they could alter their populations within short timeframes, from months to a few years, and rapidly cause extinction.’ This radical new technology, also called a ‘mutagenic chain reaction’, combines the extreme genetic engineering of synthetic biology and new gene editing techniques with the idea ‘that humans can and should use such powerful unlimited tools to control nature. Gene drives will change the fundamental relationship between humanity and the natural world forever.’

The implications for the environment, food security, peace, and even social stability are breathtaking, particularly given that existing ‘government regulations for the use of genetic engineering in agriculture have allowed widespread genetic contamination of the food supply and the environment.’ See ‘Reckless Driving: Gene drives and the end of nature’.

Consistent with their track records of sponsoring, promoting and using hi-tech atrocities against life, the ‘Gene Drive Files’ reveal that the US military (that is, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) – which ‘appears to be the largest single funder of gene drive research on the planet’ – and individuals such as Bill Gates have been heavily involved in financing research, development and promotion of this grotesque technology. See ‘Military Revealed as Top Funder of Gene Drives; Gates Foundation paid $1.6 million to influence UN on gene drives’ and the ‘Gene Drive Files’.

‘Why would the US military be interested?’ you might ask. Well, imagine what could be done to an ‘enemy’ race with an extinction gene drive.

36. Incalculable amounts of waste of every conceivable kind – including antibiotic waste, military waste, nuclear waste, nanowaste and genetically engineered organisms, including ‘gene drives’ (or ‘mutagenic chain reactions’) – were released into Earth’s biosphere, with an endless series of adverse consequences for life. See ‘Junk Planet: Is Earth the Largest Garbage Dump in the Universe?’

Not content to dump our junk on Earth, an incalculable amount of junk was also dumped in Space which already contains 100 trillion items of orbiting junk. See ‘Junk Planet: Is Earth the Largest Garbage Dump in the Universe?’ and ‘Space Junk: Tracking & Removing Orbital Debris’.

37. As one outcome of our dysfunctional parenting model and political systems, fascism continued to rise around the world. See ‘The Psychology of Fascism’.

38. Despite the belief that we have ‘the right to privacy’, privacy (in any sense of the word) was ongoingly eroded in 2020 and, as reported last year, is now effectively non-existent, particularly thanks to Alphabet (owner of Google). Taken together, ‘Uber, Amazon, Facebook, eBay, Tinder, Apple, Lyft, Foursquare, Airbnb, Spotify, Instagram, Twitter, Angry Birds… have turned our computers and phones into bugs that are plugged in to a vast corporate-owned surveillance network. Where we go, what we do, what we talk about, who we talk to, and who we see – everything is recorded and, at some point, leveraged for value.’

Moreover, given Google’s integrated relationship with the US government, the US military, the CIA, and major US weapons manufacturers, there isn’t really anything you can do that isn’t known by those who want to know it. In essence, Google is ‘a powerful global corporation with its own political agenda and a mission to maximise profits for shareholders’ and it partly achieves this by expanding the surveillance programs of the national security state at the direction of the global elite. But Google isn’t alone and it isn’t just happening in the USA. See ‘Everybody’s Watching You: The Intercept’s 2019 Technology Coverage’, ‘Google’s Earth: How the Tech Giant Is Helping the State Spy on Us’, the articles by John W. Whitehead on ‘Surveillance’ and the documentary ‘The Modern Surveillance State’.

39. The right to free speech, accurate information and conscience-based nonviolent activism was dramatically eroded in 2020 as agents of the global elite (such as national governments, the medical industry and major corporations such as those in the pharmaceutical, tech and media industries), under ‘cover’ of the non-existent Covid-19 pandemic, routinely censored efforts to publish the truth, dramatically expanded official output of propaganda (particularly in relation to the non-existent SARS-CoV-2) and clamped down on political action.

Moreover, both in direct response to and separately from the elite coup, ‘governments around the world have been taking a wave of measures to close down the space for peaceful protest’: censorship, restrictions on access or violent acts directed against those whose views or actions were seen as dangerous or wrong in many contexts continued. Global Witness, Human Rights Watch and other organizations documented an endless series of setbacks for free speech and political activity in a wide variety of countries around the world with individuals suffering smear campaigns or being subjected to spurious criminal charges to silence them, activists and journalists being imprisoned for telling the truth, nonviolent activists being assaulted and killed, critics being silenced by defamation laws or ‘disappearance’, and the closure of newspapers, television stations and the internet to prevent rapid promulgation of information, among other infringements. See, for example, ‘Free Speech’, ‘The supply chain of violence’ and ‘Defending Tomorrow’.

In addition, according to Global Witness, a record number of people (40% of whom were indigenous) were killed last year, averaging four each week, for defending their land and environment particularly against extractive industries. Predictably: ‘The COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown have intensified the problems land and environmental defenders face. Governments around the world – from the US to Brazil and Colombia to the Philippines – have used the crisis to strengthen draconian measures to control citizens and roll back hard-fought environmental regulations.’ See ‘Defending Tomorrow’. There is also ‘growing evidence of opportunistic killings during the Covid-19 lockdown in which activists were left as “sitting ducks” in their own homes’. See ‘Record Land and Environmental Activists Killed Last Year’.

Of course, the most public evisceration of human rights in 2020 was that inflicted on Julian Assange whose only ‘crime’ was to expose the truth about elite atrocities and war crimes inflicted by US military forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, among other truths. See Wikileaks, ‘Assange wins. The cost: Press freedom is crushed, and dissent labelled mental illness’ and ‘The US and UK may not will Assange’s death, but everything they are doing makes it more likely’.

40. Ongoing ‘visible’, ‘invisible’ and ‘utterly invisible’ violence against children – see ‘Why Violence?’ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’ – ensured that more people will grow up accepting (and quite powerless to challenge) our dysfunctional and violent world, as described above.

41. The global elite’s corporate media, schooling and film/television industries continued to distract vast numbers of people from reality with an endless barrage of propaganda respectively labeled, depending on the context, ‘news’, ‘education’ and ‘entertainment’ ensuring that most people remain oblivious to our predicament, devoid of the capacities to investigate, comprehend and analyze this predicament as well as their own role in it, and to respond to this predicament powerfully. See, for example, ‘Media’s Deafening Silence on Latest from WikiLeaks about the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Fake Douma Report Blaming Syria’, ‘Do We Want School or Education?’ and ‘Why Do Most People Believe Propaganda and False Flag Attacks?’

42. Finally, as a direct outcome of these last two points but most tragically of all, virtually all of the individuals who self-identify as ‘activists’ continued to waste their time begging the global elite (or their government agents) to fix one or other of our crises, despite the overwhelming evidence that the global elite will not take action to ‘fix’ any of these crises. See ‘Why Activists Fail’. And, for more detail in two key contexts, see ‘The Global Climate Movement is Failing: Why?’ and ‘The War to End War 100 Years On: An Evaluation and Reorientation of our Resistance to War’.

Moreover, even if it was inclined, the elite is now powerless to avert extinction....

....Conclusion

To summarize the evidence presented above: as a result of the elite coup being conducted against humanity, human beings stand on the verge of becoming ‘techno-slaves’ devoid of their unique identity, stripped of the human rights to privacy as well as freedom of speech, assembly and movement (among others), and minus the free will to act out their own volition and conscience.

Moreover, cumulative actions by the global elite over past centuries combined with the submissive complicity of most of the human population, have enabled a vast list of violent atrocities in many forms (but touched on above) to destroy or impair the lives of most human beings and largely destroy Earth’s biosphere.

In addition, key actions taken by the global elite in 2020 have accelerated the four primary paths to human extinction.

Hence, very soon now, the overwhelming evidence is that Homo sapiens will join other species that only exist as part of the fossil record.

Our chance of escaping this fate is now remote, essentially for two reasons. Most people have been terrorized into not seeking out the evidence for themselves (and into simply believing what elite agents, such as governments and the corporate media, tell them) and most of those struggling to resist our fate (in one context or another) do not act to strategically undermine elite power (both now and in the future).

Therefore, the global elite continues to exercise enormous power to determine our fate and only a strategic response, encompassing the various components noted above, has any genuine prospect of defeating the elite coup to defend our identity, freedom and volition, while averting each of the primary paths to human extinction.

‘Never send to know for whom the bell tolls.’