News Round-Up

If you have any tips for inclusion in the round-up, email us here.

Subscribe
Notify of

To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.

Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.

50 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
huxleypiggles
3 years ago

We’ve all been changed from what we were
Our broken hearts left smashed on the floor
I can’t believe you if I can’t hear you
I can’t believe you if I can’t hear you
We’ve all been changed from what we were
Our broken hearts smashed on the floor
We’ve all been changed from what we were
Our broken hearts smashed on the floor

Someone turn me around
Can I start this again?
Now someone turn us around
Can I start this again?

This has long been one of my most favourite music tracks and these lyrics summarise our situation so beautifully.

Anyway…

Good morning Guerillaz. Here We Go …

True Spirit of America Party
True Spirit of America Party
3 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Well-said

Freddy Boy
3 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

“If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next” Who would have thought ! Watch the video & see if you choke up like I did as the scam became apparent to me over two years ago 🥺

huxleypiggles
3 years ago
Reply to  Freddy Boy

Spot on Freddy.

Mogwai
3 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

“It’s the end of the world as we know it..” And I only feel fine when I don’t think about it. Sometimes it’s best to concentrate on the present or you’d drive yourself mad worrying about the future, even if the threat is always there. “Forewarned is forearmed” and all that…

huxleypiggles
3 years ago
Reply to  Mogwai

Thanks Mogs.

True Spirit of America Party
True Spirit of America Party
3 years ago

“First, do no harm” should be the FLOOR, not the ceiling, of biomedical ethics.

True Spirit of America Party
True Spirit of America Party
3 years ago

“Child-free by choice: The birth rate crisis gripping the West” – Rosa Silverman in the Telegraph says that with increasing numbers of women rejecting motherhood, governments are left scrambling to try and encourage a baby boom. Still, it’ll help with Net Zero.” Regardless of how one feels about Net Zero or climate change or any one specific endpoint, I think any sane person can agree that the Earth is in a state of severe ecological overshoot. And that overshoot is caused by, not only overconsumption, but also by….overpopulation. That’s the elephant in the room, make that the elephant in the Volkswagen, that both the right and left are too chicken to even talk about. It’s taboo on the right (especially the religious right), for obvious reasons, but even on the left (especially the woke left, ironically) it is met with knee-jerk cries of “racism” and “eugenics” wherever and whenever it is brought up. Fortunately, the two most effective ethical ways to reduce it are 1) female empowerment, and 2) poverty reduction. No coercion needed. As the childfree by choice folks clearly demonstrate. (Also, the jabs are apparently doing much of the heavy lifting as well, albeit very unethically of course, but I… Read more »

transmissionofflame
3 years ago

Well I think we’ve got a way to go yet before we’re overpopulated as a planet, but to be honest I can’t get too excited about what’s happening at a planetary level. My own country, England, seems to have a reasonable number of people in it and I think we could feed, house and heat them independently (though we have chosen not to). I’d quite like to see the population of England stop growing, not because the existing population stop having babies but because we stop importing people from elsewhere. In England, women are empowered and we don’t have poverty of the sort that makes people have tons of children. If anything we would probably need some policies to encourage family formation rather than the opposite, though at this point I am wary of any intervention in such matters by the state. What other countries do is their business. If you think there are too many of us, feel free not to have children yourself but don’t tell me how many I can have. Choosing how many children to have is about as basic a natural right as it gets, provided of course you don’t expect other people to work… Read more »

transmissionofflame
3 years ago

To put it more bluntly:
England, for it’s many faults, is a country that I think works well for its citizens (well, for me and my family anyway) and I think we should procreate enough that we are able to defend our borders, for as long as that is necessary (probably forever).

Mogwai
3 years ago

Interesting points. But how do we know for sure our planet is overpopulated? Is there some sort of threshold? And who gets to decide and declare such a thing? We know that Earth’s natural resources, fossil fuels, are finite regardless of population size. Of course people are living significantly longer now due to improved living conditions, better nutrition and the advent of modern medicine. The latter also brought us contraception and the ‘morning after pill’, and safe abortions are available when necessary ( not that this should be seen as a form of birth control obviously ) so procreation is better controlled but technology has also allowed for couples to undergo fertility treatments and IVF. So there’s all sorts of swings and roundabouts with regards to the population side of things.

I do think there can be the illusion of overpopulation given that certain parts of each country are much more densely inhabited than others, then there’s the issue of mass immigration and a lack of housing to accommodate these additions to the populace. I’m no expert on these issues but I’m of the opinion that we’re not an overpopulated planet presently.

NeilParkin
3 years ago
Reply to  Mogwai

I note with interest that the people who say the planet is overpopulated are not ‘doing their bit’ by removing their existence from it.

huxleypiggles
3 years ago
Reply to  NeilParkin

A point I repeatedly mention.

True Spirit of America Party
True Spirit of America Party
3 years ago
Reply to  NeilParkin

Note though that “doing their bit” can also include not having kids or stopping at two (i.e. the replacement number). Because we are all mortals, the real question is how many of us are ultimately replaced. And except for Ted Turner, who has almost as many kids as Elon Musk, most people who believe in overpopulation are walking the walk in that regard.

NeilParkin
3 years ago

The figure I have seen as the optimal number of humans on the planet is between 600m and 1.6bn. This requires that some 5bn humans die, or are killed, or ‘not replaced’ as you elegantly put it, by 2100. Is that something that you think is worthy of your support when the whole case for ‘climate emergency is manipulated figures being pushed into computer models that give the answer they want.? Lets be honest with each other. This is nothing to do with climate and everything to do with de-population. Worth the lives of 5 billion people..? Thats what this all adds up to. I wonder if you can see that as the greatest evil perpetrated against our species. Which side are you on..?

True Spirit of America Party
True Spirit of America Party
3 years ago
Reply to  NeilParkin

David Pimentel of Cornell University estimates an optimum world population of 2 to 3 billion, for example. And by extension, the optimum population for the USA would be 150-200 million. As a wise man once said, of course 10 billion people is better than 2 billion. Just as long as they are not all alive at the same time, that is. I am indeed aware of the oligarchs’ evil plot of the Great Reset and forced depopulation. And I oppose it 100%. But that doesn’t mean that overpopulation is a myth, or that we wouldn’t benefit from rightsizing the population voluntarily (by choosing to have fewer kids) in the long run. Again, I advocate female empowerment (including, but not limited to, full reproductive rights and freedom) and poverty reduction, which are literally the only effective ways to do it ethically. If we don’t rightsize our population, Nature will eventually do it for us, and I doubt Nature will be very kind about it either. Also, I know I will get flamed here for saying this, but I believe that anthropogenic climate change is unfortunately all too real and serious, even if the oligarchs are exploiting it to the hilt for… Read more »

transmissionofflame
3 years ago

Well, I would start with liberty and justice for fellow citizens in the country I live in. Even that seems to be a struggle. I don’t think there’s much danger of the current citizens of the UK breeding so much that we overflow. Other countries may have more of an issue, but they can sort that out, or not, as it suits them.

AethelredTheReadier
AethelredTheReadier
3 years ago

I’ve never heard that word ‘rightsize’ before. I’ve heard downsize but never rightsize. Is there an ‘upsize’ too?

You say: “If we don’t rightsize our population, Nature will eventually do it for us, and I doubt Nature will be very kind about it either.

And I think that’s absolutely right. We are, after all, nature ourselves, there is no division. If we are deemed to be overpopulated by ourselves then I can imagine that in some strange, unconscious way we will naturally rightsize ourselves. Maybe the falling birthrates are part of that – not the ones caused by the jabs I hasten to add. What I object to is unelected billionaires, technocrats, thinktank leaders and all the rest of that ghastly mob deciding that it is us ‘useless eaters’ (as Kissinger put it so kindly) who have to go. Surely, they can lead by example and top themselves first and then I’ll have a think about whether or not I will follow (I won’t).

True Spirit of America Party
True Spirit of America Party
3 years ago

Indeed, I do not support the evil oligarchy and necrotechnocracy at all. And by Nature doing it for us, I was politely referring to a mass die-off as a result of chronic transgression of planetary boundaries and eventually “hitting the wall” in that regard. Nothing pro-life about that at all.

But yes, falling birthrates (even pre-jab) may not be entirely happening by choice, as per the Gaia Hypothesis. Sperm counts have been indeed plummeting for a while as a result of various forms of pollution and such. And even when ostensibly by choice, the rising cost of living and cost of raising a child in the West (even pre-covid) which discourages procreation a bit is perhaps Gaia subtly hinting to us.

AethelredTheReadier
AethelredTheReadier
3 years ago

Gaia is definitely involved in this. This is a living planet and we are, by definition, made from this planet through all we eat and drink and so we too are the living planet. There are self-regulating eco-systems all over this world and we are not an exception to the case in that regard, in my humble opinion.

huxleypiggles
3 years ago

With you on that Aethelred.

huxleypiggles
3 years ago
Reply to  Mogwai

We produce more than sufficient food to feed the world population. The problems arise from poor distribution.

True Spirit of America Party
True Spirit of America Party
3 years ago
Reply to  Mogwai

I dig what you are saying, and it is a very inexact science. But truly ecological overshoot is not a myth.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_overshoot

And ecological footprint is measurable too. If everyone in the world lived like Americans, we would need 6 or 7 Earths worth of resources. If everyone lived like Europeans, we would need 2 or 3 Earths. And even if everyone lived in an ecovillage, we would still need 1.5 to 2 Earths.

It is a combination of overpopulation and overconsumption, to be sure. But overconsumption does not explain all of it. And if we reduce our consumption but still keep growing our population, zero progress will ultimately be made towards getting out or overshoot.

And if everyone lived like Elon Musk, well, God help us!

huxleypiggles
3 years ago

Have a read of Michael Schellenberger’s ‘Apocalypse Never’ before making these statements.

True Spirit of America Party
True Spirit of America Party
3 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Michael Schellenberger is much like Alex Berenson, a centrist who notices things. I have read his Substack before. And I agree with some of what he says, but I also disagree with some of what he says as well.

I do think he has his thumb on the scale a bit about fossil fuels and nuclear power being more benign and plentiful and (in the case of nuclear) a cheap, quick, and easy solution, than they actually are, and far too pessimistic about renewables.

“Eco-modernism” is not always as “eco” as it claims to be unfortunately. It often tends too much towards EGO instead.

True Spirit of America Party
True Spirit of America Party
3 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

And I don’t think Schellenberger denies overpopulation either.

huxleypiggles
3 years ago

Indirectly he does. He points out that we produce more than enough food by tonnage and calories, but distribution is poor.

How much food does the British public throw away each year? Three million tons isn’t it?

That figure will shrink this next twelve months.

Massively.

True Spirit of America Party
True Spirit of America Party
3 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

That is indeed part of it, but not all of the issue here.

True Spirit of America Party
True Spirit of America Party
3 years ago

I KNEW what I said would hit a nerve, lol. Only a fool or an economist would think that infinite growth on a finite world is possible of even desirable. That goes for both population growth as well as economic growth, by the way. A better question perhaps for the reader is, if everyone in the world lived the way you did, how many Earths would we need in the long run? And how many Earths would we need for 8, 9, 10, 11 billion people to have anything close to a decent standard of living? (Yes, in the long run, we are all dead. But someone will still be around to take the consequences.) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_overshoot If everyone in the world lived like Americans, we would need 6 or 7 Earths. If everyone lived like Europeans, we would need 2 or 3 Earths. And even if everyone lived in an ecovillage, we would still need 1.5 to 2 Earths. And of all the realistic actions that can be taken at the individual level, the one with the great impact of all is having fewer kids. It dwarfs literally everything else that individuals can do, short of people in the Global… Read more »

transmissionofflame
3 years ago

My point is, the fears of people not having enough kids is really quite overblown “

Depends which “people” you’re talking about. I’d like my family to continue, so I won’t be “taking one for the team” or encouraging my kids to do so. Should other countries whose population is expanding rapidly, countries who seem unable to properly sustain their population, encourage people to have less kids, or take steps to arrange their affairs so that this happens naturally? Maybe, but that’s their problem, not ours (except of course we make it our problem by not protecting our borders, just other people’s).

True Spirit of America Party
True Spirit of America Party
3 years ago

Indeed, the high-fertility countries, mainly in parts of the Global South, should indeed reduce their birthrates. Female empowerment and poverty reduction would be the most effective ethical way to do it, as I have already noted.

As for the already over-consuming and overgrown Global North, due to our outsized impact, it is still a good thing on balance to have a TFR between 1.5 and 2.0 for a few generations or so. Thus the Elon Musk style fearmongering over low birthrates in the UK, USA, etc. is a tempest in a teapot.

transmissionofflame
3 years ago

What am I over-consuming?

While the global south is becoming more numerous, I’d be happier if the global north, or at least my country, produced enough people to adequately defend its borders (though we seem not to want to and we’re probably not worth defending, present company excepted).

I don’t want to have any part in effective and ethical ways of telling other people in other countries how to live their lives.

True Spirit of America Party
True Spirit of America Party
3 years ago

All of us in the Global North are overconsuming just about everything in terms of ecological footprint. Most notably fossil fuels, but also land, soil, water, forests, fisheries, minerals, etc. In fact, every calorie we eat requires ten calories of fossil fuels to produce it. And that’s just the energy. Our collective material footprint is truly ginormous indeed. Of course, so many of the products (and/or the raw materials used to make them) that we buy come from overseas, so we don’t see it up close. Out of sight, out of mind, I guess.

I don’t mean to sound like a wet blanket, but it’s true all the same. Google “Eating Fossil Fuels” and “The Story of Stuff”, for example.

The UK, USA, and most if not all of the rest of the countries Global North, especially the with today’s technology, has way more than enough people to simply defend their borders, and still will for the foreseeable future. Which is far less than is needed to police the whole world, by the way. So that is basically a straw man.

transmissionofflame
3 years ago

Thanks; will look into that.

True Spirit of America Party
True Spirit of America Party
3 years ago

You’re welcome 🙂

True Spirit of America Party
True Spirit of America Party
3 years ago

So it’s pretty obvious now that the virus was made in a lab. Two years ago that was a “conspiracy theory”, now it can no longer be denied.

Hugh
Hugh
3 years ago

Nah, Dr. Mike Yeadon says there is plenty of evidence to support the theory that there was no unusually dangerous virus. All the same, dangerous biological research needs sorting.

True Spirit of America Party
True Spirit of America Party
3 years ago
Reply to  Hugh

Indeed, both can be true at the same time: A bad but largely humdrum virus, a super-flu at worst, produced by reckless GOF research that could have been much, much worse.

Mogwai
3 years ago

A short interview ( 14mins ) here with the brilliant Dr McCullough, and I have to fully agree with him. He’s saying that any case of myocarditis or sudden, unexpected death should be presumed to be caused by the gene therapies until proven otherwise. He states that before these shots there were an average of 4 cases of myocarditis per million people. Now there are 25,000 cases!! 😮
The other half of the show is with a lady, totally unrelated topic but nevertheless quite interesting, who’s talking about marijuana abuse and how more lethal shootings are carried out by black people in the U.S, and how that isn’t racism or ”white supremacy” it’s just fact.

https://rumble.com/v1nnspy-the-kids-are-not-alright-with-dr.-peter-mccullough-and-heather-mac-donald.html

True Spirit of America Party
True Spirit of America Party
3 years ago
Reply to  Mogwai

Peter McCullough is great, and he makes excellent points as usual. Very chilling indeed!

Unfortunately, in the second half, Heather MacDonald ruins an otherwise good video by spouting questionable factoids about cannabis as well as eessentially advocating for, or at least excusing, the utterly disastrous War on (people who use a few particular) Drugs.

AethelredTheReadier
AethelredTheReadier
3 years ago

‘Farming Needs to Stop, That’s the Single Biggest Driver of Climate Change‘”
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha…no…please…stop…hahahahahahahahaha……hahahahahahaha…..oh yes, of course, how foolish of me, why didn’t I see it before, farming absolutely must stop. Just Stop Eating is the next big eco-nut movement. Stop farming all that food, you stupid farmers, and providing all those basic necessities of life because if you don’t, we’re all going to die of weather! Honestly, the craziness just keeps getting crazier. I really do think it’s a quasi-religious death-cult. Yes there are things we can definitely do like stopping the spraying of herbicides and pesticides and polluting our land and waters and air but to stop farming? Farming that defined human civilisation and took us out of our caves and allowed us to settle and create villages, towns, cities…that farming?

Mogwai
3 years ago

Yes it’s appalling and I’m sick to death of this rubbish. Apparently the Dutch government are not content with forcibly buying out 600 livestock farmers but they now intend to target 7X as many of these terrible “nitrogen polluters” as previously announced. These farmers are in for the fight of their lives aren’t they?

https://nltimes.nl/2022/10/22/nitrogen-polluters-targeted-farmers-claim-negative-influence-environment

True Spirit of America Party
True Spirit of America Party
3 years ago

Farming needs to stop, they say? Well, I hope they enjoy starving then. No farms = no food. Sri Lanka currently is learning the hard way what happens when one tries to go cold turkey on synthetic fertilizers, let alone farming in general. (Facepalm)

And the specious claim that “We don’t need farms, we can just go to the supermarket” is actually what some ignorant people have said over the years. That kind of ignorance is scary!

Mogwai
3 years ago

This is an interesting presentation about the architects of this situation we find ourselves in, the Rockefellers and Kissinger ( who mentored Schwab for 50 years ), and how the many globalists have been engineering and implementing these plans in plain sight, with quite the horrifying and dystopian vision for the near future. I didn’t know the details or history of this so I found it very enlightening but what they have in store for us is just appalling tbh.

https://odysee.com/@IvorCummins:f/Why-Covid-and-Climate-Ruined-our-World—History-of-WEF:7

Mogwai
3 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

TY. Ooh it’s a biggie! I’ve read some and will read the rest later. 🤓

AethelredTheReadier
AethelredTheReadier
3 years ago

“We set out to give the vaccine injured a voice which I hope is what we’ve done” Interesting segment on Neil Oliver’s GB News show. What I picked up from this brief chat was that the ‘dark’ forces are still very much in lock-step as if their lives depended on it, not even acknowledging the ‘vaccine’ damaged story whatsoever. If anything, their shrill condemnation of anyone who breaks ranks and starts questioning the jabs shows us the complete farce that it is. A doctor tries to malign Dr Aseem Malhotra’s observations by saying he is dragging the profession’s reputation through the mud whereas the opposite is true. The way that Neil and his guests have to be very careful about what they say and how they say it otherwise Mother Ofcom will do an Aunt Lydia and poke out one of your eyes. We all know it’s a farce, TPTB know that we know it’s a farce and they know it’s a farce too. One day, this log-jam of unexpressed truth will burst under the sheer weight of all the mounting evidence but until then we play this game. Who knows how the Online Harms Bill, or whatever the nonsense… Read more »

huxleypiggles
3 years ago
AethelredTheReadier
AethelredTheReadier
3 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Who on earth do they think reads this crap? Honestly. I tried reading it, I really did, HP. I read for about 30 seconds before my eyes glazed over and my mind struggled to take in the well-worn meaningless phrases of the same tired old words, rearranged like deck chairs on a sinking ship for passengers who had long since taken to the lifeboats. Blair thinks he is still relevant with his long hair and his snappy suits and tie and tries so hard to sound important but whoever is reading this nonsense and taking it seriously will only be his minions. It’s like a Poison Palace made of glittering lies and glowing with deception and delusion…where the mad Wizard Blair stirs his pot…..zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

huxleypiggles
3 years ago

I agree Aethelred but this farquhar unfortunately still has some clout not least because he’s a Billy Boy poodle.