[Majorityrights News] Alex Navalny, born 4th June, 1976; died at Yamalo-Nenets penitentiary 16th February, 2024 Posted by Guessedworker on Friday, 16 February 2024 23:43.
[Majorityrights Central] A couple of exchanges on the nature and meaning of Christianity’s origin Posted by Guessedworker on Tuesday, 25 July 2023 22:19.
[Majorityrights News] Is the Ukrainian counter-offensive for Bakhmut the counter-offensive for Ukraine? Posted by Guessedworker on Thursday, 18 May 2023 18:55.
Planting billions of trees across the world is by far the cheapest and most efficient way to tackle the climate crisis. So states a Guardian article, citing a new analysis published in the journal Science. The author explains:
As trees grow, they absorb and store the carbon dioxide emissions that are driving global heating. New research estimates that a worldwide planting programme could remove two-thirds of all the emissions that have been pumped into the atmosphere by human activities, a figure the scientists describe as “mind-blowing”.
For skeptics who reject the global warming thesis, reforestation also addresses the critical problems of mass species extinction and environmental pollution, which are well-documented. A 2012 study from the University of Michigan found that loss of biodiversity impacts ecosystems as much as does climate change and pollution. Forests shelter plant and animal life in their diverse forms, and trees remove air pollution by the interception of particulate matter on plant surfaces and the absorption of gaseous pollutants through the leaves.
The July analytical review in Science calculated how many additional trees could be planted globally without encroaching on crop land or urban areas. It found that there are 1.7 billion hectares (4.2 billion acres) of treeless land on which 1.2 trillion native tree saplings would naturally grow. Using the most efficient methods, 1 trillion trees could be restored for as little as $300 billion—less than 2% of the lower estimates for the Green New Deal introduced by progressive Democrats in February.
The Guardian quoted Professor Tom Crowther at the Swiss university ETH Zürich, who said, “What blows my mind is the scale. I thought restoration would be in the top 10, but it is overwhelmingly more powerful than all of the other climate change solutions proposed.” He said it was also by far the cheapest solution that has ever been proposed. The chief drawback of reforestation as a solution to the climate crisis, as The Guardian piece points out, is that trees grow slowly. The projected restoration could take 50 to 100 years to reach its full carbon sequestering potential.
A Faster, More Efficient Solution
Fortunately, as of December 2018, there is now a cheaper, faster and more efficient alternative—one that was suppressed for nearly a century but was legalized on a national scale when President Trump signed the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018. This is the widespread cultivation of industrial hemp, the nonintoxicating form of cannabis grown for fiber, cloth, oil, food and other purposes. Hemp grows to 13 feet in 100 days, making it one of the fastest carbon dioxide-to-biomass conversion tools available. Industrial hemp has been proved to absorb more CO2 per hectare than any forest or commercial crop, making it the ideal carbon sink. It can be grown on a wide scale on nutrient-poor soils with very small amounts of water and no fertilizers.
“If we are to survive earth systems breakdown, then we must begin by transforming the Treasury and by removing the politicians that threaten the futures of today’s younger generations.” Ann Pettifor writes on the British Chancellor’s recent attack on ‘net zero’.
It took a child, Greta Thunberg, to alert much of the adult world to the catastrophic threat posed not just by climate breakdown, but earth systems breakdown. Sadly her voice did not reach one of the politicians responsible for defending the nation’s security: Philip Hammond. Watching the Chancellor attack the Prime Minister for wanting to invest a smidgeon of Britain’s annual income in the future survival of the nation, it’s hard to believe that it is now eighty three years since John Maynard Keynes invented the field of macroeconomics. We have had eighty three years in which to train Treasury economists to think in terms of the aggregate economy, and we still have a Chancellor that views the economy through the wrong end of a telescope – as if it were a household.
From Keynes’s macroeconomic perspective, the public sector finances are not analogous to household finances. Keynes turned Say’s Law on its head (CW XXIX, p. 81):
“For the proposition that supply creates its own demand, I shall substitute the proposition that expenditure creates its own income”
Given spare capacity, public expenditures not only are productive in their own right but also foster additional activity in the private sector, according to the multiplier. Increased employment means increased incomes, which, from the point of view of government, means higher tax revenues and lower welfare (and, later, debt interest) expenditures.
Now one can just imagine how intellectually challenging it would be for #spreadsheetPhil to accept that “expenditure creates its own income”. It does not do that for individuals, or even households, he will argue. Quite so. But the collective sum that is government expenditure, if invested in the creation of a skilled, well-paid ‘green carbon army’ would generate considerable income for government – and would help ensure the survival of life on earth.
Jen Scharf is an egomaniac promoting an attempted diversion of White interests that she calls “The Church of Entropy.”
She balks at our natural and active WN concern for a consistent genetic legacy of our kind, and proffers that White men will be made “happy” by passively accepting her hokus pokus wizardry about being reincarnated into ...well, whatever, a Mulatto, a rabbit, who knows what she has in mind. She claims to be a reincarnated Indian (that’s what whack job that she is) come to enlighten White people.
Here are my exchanges with her as I exposed her as an agent of misdirection. As a result, she does not want anything to do with me - not “in any way, shape or form” - to which, of course, I say LOL! it is quite fine with me.
Rapper films girlfriend crying-out for parents hours before overdose death, 400 meters from hospital
Daily Mail, “Rapper boyfriend of Holby City star’s daughter ‘filmed her dying and called her a drama queen after he gave her psychedelic drug at Bestival - but didn’t call 999 in case he was arrested”, 5 Feb 2019.
The Finns Party’s Olli Kotro (L) with other ethnonationalist politicians in Milan, 8th April 2019 / Credit: Olli Kotro Twitter
The Finns Party has signed up to form a pan-European alliance with other political parties, ahead of May’s European elections. The other members are Italy’s League, Denmark’s People’s Party and Germany’s opposition party AfD.
The Finns Party’s Olli Kotro joining with Salvini
The Finns Party’s Olli Kotro, a candidate in the European Parliament elections, attended Monday afternoon’s announcement in Milan.
“Constructing a better and safer Europe with patriots!” Kotro tweeted.
Their aims are to preserve Europe’s borders, culture and history according to Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini.
The four parties plan to form a distinct group within the European Parliament to challenge the power of centrist parties.
“Together we will fight for a safer Europe with well-protected external borders, less immigration and a stronger cooperation to tackle terrorism and islamisation (sic)” Danish MEP Anders Vistinen wrote on Twitter.
The group needs at least 25 MEPs from seven different EU countries to be formally recognised as an official group in the European Parliament, where they’ll be known as the European Alliance for People and Nations.
At present Europe’s ethno-nationalist political parties are members of different European Parliament groupings, but the new alliance is the first step in Salvini’s attempts to bring them all together under one umbrella.
Interview with László Bogár, economist and university professor, former MP and former State Secretary of Hungary, publicist: “Our region is once again becoming a buffer zone whose geopolitical value is growing steadily”.
At the end of November 2018, Raoul Weiss met with László Bogár in Budapest for a interview without taboos on economical topics. László Bogár is since the regime change a well-known Hungarian economist: he is one of the economists who shaped the Fidesz’ economical policy. Author of 28 books, László Bogár has been State Secretary for political questions of the Ministry of foreign trade relations from 1990 to 1994 and State Secretary at the Office of the Prime Minister under Orbán’s first mandate, from 1998 to 2002. Very critical of the current capitalistic system and of the EU’s evolution, László Bogár is a shining example of what is a Central European “illiberal” economist.
An Intermarium “buffer zone” is none too soon as V4 nations are caught between the massive pincer action of the Russian Federation and Germany. European Solidarity? Sanctions against Russia? Germany has just opened a Mercedes factory in Moscow. Cost: 250 million euro. At the opening was Merkel, Putin and Peter Altmaier, Minister of Economy of Germany - “The Prosperity of Russia is also in the interest of Germany,” declared Altmaier.
Raoul Weiss: László Bogár, what is the economic reality of the V4? Until now, the main trade routes in Central Europe have been the East-West axes. What does Central Europe lack the most in order to assert itself also in the economic field? Are Central European economies not sufficiently complementary? Or is it the lack of North-South infrastructure – be it logistical or financial – to offset the dominance of East-West infrastructures? Finally: assuming that the V4 seeks to develop such infrastructure, to what extent do you think the West will tolerate such an evolution?
It’s all of that at once. There is an analyst of Russian origin on Bloomberg, a guy called Bershidsky, for whom I sometimes go out of my way: he’s a pure liberal, perfectly cynical, but he’s very sharp, he goes straight to the essential; he is the one who coined the phrase “foreign owned countries” to describe such countries. What he’s trying to say is obviously something along the line of:“Dear populists, what kind of game is this? We – the global capital –are your master”. Now, let’s face it: there is a lot of truth in what he says – especially in the case of Hungary. The most cautious were the Czechs. The least prudent, the Slovaks, since after all, Slovakia does not exist: it is a warehouse, partly German, partly French. The very moment these global giants collapse, countries like Slovakia, which are totally at their mercy, could disappear in a few minutes. In concrete terms, Slovakia exports all of its GDP. Of course, this is also the case of Singapore – but not under the same conditions…
In reality, all these countries are in the chains of the same plantation; in each of them, however, an awareness has arisen: they are beginning to understand the problem. Hungary is the country where the resistance is most marked, [for a good reason:] after Slovakia, we Hungarians are the most dependent in the group.
Raoul Weiss: From this point of view, the most independent country would be Poland.
László Bogár: It is indeed Poland. The first reason for that is that everyone was well aware that Poland should have emerged as a clear winner of the Second World War; however, of all the countries in this situation, it is the only one to have been totally treated as a losing country. This is partly true also of Czechoslovakia, but above all of Poland, whose suffering has been appalling, but never received the astronomical compensations to which it was entitled. But, as this implies a huge potential for revolt, we understand better that the Polish church and Poland’s rural society have been treated with more respect than elsewhere …
Raoul Weiss: Then how is it that, even though Poland has a head start in this area, the locomotive of this emancipation movement is rather Hungary…
László Bogár: It’s an intellectual difference, and it’s also about Viktor Orbán’s personality. It is linked to the fact that – even if the same could partly be said about the Poles and Czechs – the Hungarians, during the last three centuries, have been particularly forced to an optimal spiritual production. Not because they would in any case be more inclined than others to turn to things of the spirit, but because they were subjected to shocks, constraints and revolutions of such brutality, that their intellectual sensitivity must have come out of the process increased– I say this without underestimating that of the Czechs, or of the Poles, who have also been confronted with major existential challenges, bearing similar psychological consequences.
This document has been updated! The most recent version of this document (v4) was posted on 2011 August 15. View the most recent version doi:10.1038/npre.2010.5003.3; IPBS, UMR 5089, Toulouse, France, PDF (2.7 MB); Document Type: Manuscript. Date: Received 25 November 2010 14:31 UTC; Posted 29 November 2010
Tags: speciation mechanisms inbreeding group level selection extinction mutation load
Abstract:
Whilst the principle of adaptive evolution is unanimously recognised as being caused by the process of natural selection favouring the survival and/or reproduction of individuals having acquired new advantageous traits, a consensus has proven much harder to find regarding the actual origin of species. Indeed, since speciation corresponds to the establishment of reproductive barriers, it is difficult to see how it could bring a selective advantage because it amounts to a restriction in the opportunities to breed with as many and/or as diverse partners as possible. In this regard, Darwin himself did not believe that reproductive barriers could be selected for, and today most evolutionary biologists still believe that speciation can only occur through a process of separation allowing two populations to diverge sufficiently to become infertile with one another. I do, however, take the view that, if so much speciation has occurred, and still occurs around us, it cannot be a consequence of passive drift but must result from a selection process, whereby it is advantageous for groups of individuals to reproduce preferentially with one another and reduce their breeding with the rest of the population.
In this essay, I propose a model whereby new species arise by “budding” from an ancestral stock, via a process of inbreeding among small numbers of individuals, driven by the occurrence of advantageous recessive mutations. Since the phenotypes associated to such mutations can only be retained in the context of inbreeding, it is the pressure of the ancestral stock which will promote additional reproductive barriers, and ultimately result in complete separation of a new species. I thus contend that the phenomenon of speciation would be driven by mutations resulting in the advantageous loss of certain functions, whilst adaptive evolution would correspond to gains of function that would, most of the time be dominant.
A very important further advantage of inbreeding is that it reduces the accumulation of recessive mutations in genomes. A consequence of the model proposed is that the existence of species would correspond to a metastable equilibrium between inbreeding and outbreeding, with excessive inbreeding promoting speciation, and excessive outbreeding resulting in irreversible accumulation of recessive mutations that could ultimately only lead to the species extinction.
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Philip Steffon CC2.0
The Finns Party’s Olli Kotro joining with Salvini
An Intermarium “buffer zone” is none too soon as V4 nations are caught between the massive pincer action of the Russian Federation and Germany. European Solidarity? Sanctions against Russia? Germany has just opened a Mercedes factory in Moscow. Cost: 250 million euro. At the opening was Merkel, Putin and Peter Altmaier, Minister of Economy of Germany - “The Prosperity of Russia is also in the interest of Germany,” declared Altmaier.
