I am not sure if any of you read our “Links”. They lead you to a wide range of articles from other media. These include short news articles, from mainstream media and others, to longer articles including excellent analyses such as those by Australian MMT economist Bill Mitchell. Links also give us a chance to point you towards articles that we would otherwise have posted in their entirety among our “Articles”, but are prevented by copyright. Sometimes the authors themselves, such as Ann Pettifor and Thomas Fazi request us to do so as they need the clicks for their websites, which is understandable. In short, links are in no way inferior to our articles, but a means to providing you with current events and articles that we otherwise could not offer you.
Right now events are moving so fast that most authors have great difficulty keeping up with developments. Hardly is an analysis ready, reality has left it long behind.With links we can at least provide you with some raw data for your personal use.
Two short articles however were exceptional this week. One concerned a heatwave in Southern China HERE,which is described as: “The extreme heat and drought that has been roasting a vast swath of southern China for at least 70 straight days has no parallel in modern record-keeping in China, or elsewhere around the world for that matter”. As we know, this is bringing normal life to a halt, especially as the region is expecially dependent upon hydroelectricity. Where there is no rain and high evaporation there is no water for electricity.
Then the BBC postedHERE an article concerning a study by the Global Drought Observatory, a research group of the EU Commission, that claims 47% of Europe is in "warning" conditions, meaning soil has dried up. Another 17% is on alert - meaning vegetation "shows signs of stress". Also here we are seeing energy prices soaring due to lack of hydro-electricity, but also the closure of nuclear reactors in France as they cannot be properly cooled with water taken from rivers. The chaos on European waterways that are either closed or severely disrupted transport has gone through the media, The effects on harvests will be known in autumn, but things are not looking good, especially as supply has already been effected by the Russian-Ukrainian War.
Most Europeans are not adding one and one to reach two, instead jumping on cheap subventioned flights to where it is also very hot and there is a lack of water. Europe’s political class is in complete denial. They are no longer in control of the situation. After millions of press releases concerning climate breakdown, the reality is here with a passion and they refused to see it coming and thus have no contigency plans. In consequence the cost of living crisis is approaching us like an avalanche. Tens of millions of Europeans will be faced with the question of warmth or food this winter. Politicians will try to blame this on Russia, but this is all of their won making. One can only ask where are the wonderful technical fixes they keep promising us and spending billions on? More trees are being destroyed by wildfires than are being planted, not to mention felled for energy. In Germany the Greens are offering solutions to both crises: take cold showers to save energy and wash yourself with a flannel in a basin to save water.
We are getting the first glimpses of how Liberal-Democracy will end.
