The CDC says up to 400,000 Americans may suffer from alpha-gal syndrome, which presents an allergic reaction to meat and is said to be caused by bites from the lone star tick.
The alpha-gal allergy may have been intentionally cooked up in a lab to combat global warming by stopping red meat consumption.
College of Global Public Health Center for Bioethics at New York University Director, Dr. Matthew Liao, speaking at the 2016 World Science Festival, openly advocated artificially inducing a red meat allergy in the entire human population, using an analog of the algha-gal molecule found in the Lone Star Tick.
Most people think of tick bites as nuisances or, at worst, vectors for Lyme disease. But imagine waking up in the middle of the night with hives, your throat closing up, all because you ate some pork hours earlier.
That was Cathy Raley’s reality, according to reports from Science News, after a single tick bite left her with a severe red meat allergy, a condition known as alpha-gal syndrome.
Alpha-gal syndrome isn’t your typical food allergy. It’s caused by a sugar molecule found in most mammalian meat, and this strange condition begins with a tick bite. The tick’s saliva introduces alpha-gal into the bloodstream, which can trigger a chain reaction in the immune system.
Weeks or even months later, eating beef, pork, lamb, or even dairy or gelatin, can provoke anything from an upset stomach to full-blown anaphylaxis. Until recently, the lone star tick was considered the only U.S. species capable of triggering alpha-gal syndrome.
However, new cases in Washington and Maine suggest otherwise. Scientists now believe that other tick species, like the blacklegged tick and the western blacklegged tick, may also be to blame. These findings could expand the map of risk far beyond the lone star tick’s southeastern stronghold, raising new concerns for hikers, campers, and even pet owners across the country.
This growing awareness is important because alpha-gal syndrome often goes undiagnosed. Its symptoms are delayed and can vary wildly from person to person. Many healthcare providers have never even heard of it, leading to frustrating misdiagnoses and prolonged suffering for patients.
There’s no cure for the condition, and while some people may eventually tolerate red meat again, the best protection remains prevention. That starts with avoiding tick bites altogether by wearing long sleeves and light-colored clothing when hiking.
Researchers also recommend that you treat your gear with permethrin, and always check yourself (and your pets) for ticks after spending any time outdoors. Even a tick that’s quickly removed can spark the syndrome, since the reaction isn’t caused by bacteria but by allergens in the tick’s saliva.
A growing number of people in Central Virginia are being diagnosed with Alpha-Gal Syndrome. It’s an allergy caused by tick bites that makes eating—or even being near—meat or dairy dangerous.
WDBJ7 spoke with a doctor and patient who say a therapy called SAAT is offering hope and changing lives.
“When we finally figured out that it was when I was eating beef or pork… she did, she ordered blood work and the next day the bloodwork came back and voila, that was it,” said Nanci Bell, diagnosed with alpha-gal.
Bell was diagnosed two years ago—after years of unexplained reactions, including severe hives.
“It was comforting because I thought I was going crazy. I couldn’t understand why I was randomly getting these awful, awful hives that were so itchy,” said Bell.
After getting the SAAT treatment—short for Soliman Auricular Allergy Treatment—Nanci says her life changed.
“It’s been life-changing, definitely. And I know that does sound strange, but take one of your favorite meals out of your diet forever and imagine what that would feel like,” said Bell.
She was able to eat steak just four days after treatment—with no reaction. That treatment was performed by Dr. Cheryl Hanly, a chiropractor and owner of Creedmoor Wellness Center, in Bracey, Virginia. Hanly was certified in SAAT after seeing more and more patients suffering.
“This training was something that came at the perfect time because so many people are suffering,” said Hanly.
SAAT uses tiny acupuncture needles placed in the ear. There’s no pain, and the needles stay in for a few weeks. Each treatment is tailored to the individual, using homeopathic filters to locate the allergy in the body.
‘Digital Twin’ Of Earth Being Created To Predict The Future, Micro-Manage Everything
AUGUST 2, 2024
You can run, but you can not hide. The humongous new AI data centers, satellite networks, ground sensors, cell phones, and all the data on earth will combine to create a “Skynet” scenario to control everything, and all life forms. Driven by a lust to get to “net-zero”, this will far exceed anything related to climate change.
This simulation of satellites has now largely been fulfilled, but plans for more launches are in the works. This blanket of surveillance will monitor every square inch of the planet as systems are layered on. As the industry graphic above depicts, the payload for Technocrats lie in the “interventions.” — Technocracy News & Trends Editor Patrick Wood
How do you know when a small-scale farmer in Africa, Latin America or Asia has sufficiently adapted to longer droughts or shifts in traditional monsoon seasons?
The complexity of this question means it is often left unanswered, with funding for such adaptation in developing countries dropping to around just a quarter of total climate finance provided by developed countries.
Delegates gathering at the Bonn Climate Change Conference to prepare for this year’s UN climate talks will be anticipating such questions, with COP29 already dubbed the “finance COP”.
In Baku, Azerbaijan, later this year, countries are expected to discuss a new climate finance deal after reaching the target of $100 billion (€93.2bn) a year in finance for developing countries two years later than agreed.
Historically low-emitting countries across much of the Global South desperately need more financial support to improve their climate defences across key sectors such as agriculture.
Less than 1% of international climate finance was spent helping smallholder farmers adapt to climate change in 2021, with many forced to spend up to 40% of their own incomes to cope with floods, droughts and crop pests.
However, in addition to more finance, countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America also need ways of measuring adaptation to direct investments more effectively.
The solution that works already exists
While efforts to transition to sustainable agriculture across Europe have sparked protests among farmers this year, adapting to the evolving impacts of climate change is already a matter of survival for those in the Global South.
One emerging solution is an adaptation index, which scores resilience to climate shocks to highlight where finance for climate adaptation is most needed. Such models can quantify levels of adaptation and preparedness, giving policymakers, development agencies, investors, and donors clear guidance on where and how to invest in adaptation finance.
Water scarcity is the most common climate risk for crop farmers in Guatemala and Honduras across the different commodities.
Adaptation indices, developed at a country or commodity level, complement other work to consolidate climate data and research, such as CGIAR’s Africa Agriculture Adaptation Atlas, which provides interactive data insights and forecasts.
This new methodology is already providing actionable insights to direct adaptation funding and have the best chance of increasing the resilience of some of the world’s most vulnerable communities.
Over the past two years, the first-if-its-kind Adaptation Equivalency Index (AEI) has been developed for Guatemala and Honduras by Heifer International, Conservation International and local partners, supported by the Global Environment Facility. Guatemala and Honduras have both ranked among the top 10 countries most affected by climate change over the past decade, with heavy rains, floods, droughts and hurricanes becoming more frequent and affecting agriculture.
The index ranks the adaptation levels of the countries’ major agricultural commodities: spices, cacao and coffee.
Evidence-based investment means tangible impact
What makes this index novel is that it starts off with the farmers themselves, identifying the real-world climate threats that producers are already experiencing and anticipating, as well as their capacity to adapt.
This work has already uncovered the fact that water scarcity is the most common climate risk for crop farmers in Guatemala and Honduras across the different commodities.
There is an apochryphal phrase that, despite its disputed source, probably everyone can agree with: “Control the Food and You Control the People.”
Our grandparents and great grandparents produced much of their own food in their gardens or on their farms. Food choices in stores were limited, with little frozen food available and fewer fresh and canned foods for sale.
In 1850, 64% of American workers worked on farms.1 In 1900 there were still 6 million US farms, with an average size of 150 acres.2 By 1920, 30% of US workers still did farm work.3 But after World War 2, the US government adopted policies to reduce the number of farmers and expand the size of farms–for more efficiency, it was said.4 5 6 Today, only 1% of Americans work on farms7 and the number of farms has dropped by 2/3.
Most US farmland belongs to farms that are over 2,000 acres in size, or more than 3 square miles. But along with efficiency came worsening food quality. The so-called “Green Revolution” allowed farmers to apply chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides while ignoring the overall fertility, quality and texture of their soils. Depleted soils subsequently produced less nutritious foods, while accumulating low levels of neurotoxins and carcinogens.
Decades of consolidation of food production, processing and distribution has steadily increased the size and power of a small group of global agricultural corporations. Most of those companies are in turn members of the World Economic Forum (WEF) or its Food Action Alliance, and they are wielding unelected power to influence food production and distribution in the name of climate change, sustainability,8 health, and equity.9
For example, the WEF had this to say about food systems in 2022:
“In the face of volatile global shocks from conflicts such as the war in Ukraine, the COVID-19 pandemic, and extreme weather events, it has become more urgent than ever to transition food systems to a net-zero, nature-positive infrastructure that nourishes and feeds everyone.10
Net zero means “removing an equal amount of CO2 from the atmosphere as we release into it.”11 This has never been accomplished by any food system, and the implications could drastically reduce the food supply–yet it is said to be the reason we must change the way we produce food.
The WEF and other international entities have recently increased the intensity of this concerted push, most visibly in policies targeting the reduction or elimination of livestock and related farming activities.
Climate change as a justification to attack food production
Advocates of climate change urgency have steadily honed their concerns about agriculture. The WEF boldly proclaims:
With the food system responsible for a third of overall global CO2 emissions, attention on ‘climate-beneficial’ foods has been slowly but steadily increasing.
The US EPA disagrees with the WEF that agriculture plays such a large role in global CO2 emissions.12 Nor are the many CO2-lowering effects of regenerative agriculture (like sinking CO2 into the soil from the air) mentioned as offsets.
Organic and regenerative agriculture, in which topsoil is rebuilt through composting, “green manure” plantings that enrich the soil, and good forestry practices, can sequester more CO2 in the soil and trees than is lost through other agricultural processes. These could potentially achieve ‘net zero’– and increase the production of more nutritious foods and healthier soils, but are not being touted as solutions. One must ask then, is the goal really “net-zero” or is there another goal?
Numerous international agencies and NGOs have converged to accuse cows and farming of harming the climate. They offer technological rescues, to be provided by corporate WEF members. These include the United Nations Environment Program and AIM for Climate.
Like carbon dioxide, methane is a greenhouse gas that is said to contribute to global warming. Over 150 nations have signed the “Global Methane Pledge” to reduce methane emissions by 30% by 203013–and some are reducing dairy and beef cows because the gas produced in their intestines contains methane. (Humans also expel methane.14) Methane is released naturally from cracks in the earth, as well as from fracking and oil drilling–which were recently shown to release 5x as much methane as earlier estimates suggested.15 But it is the gas produced by cows that is the current target for methane reduction.
Issues that have not been satisfactorily addressed include:
whether our methods for measuring temperature in comparison to past decades provide accurate comparative results,
how the doomsday targets for temperature and CO2 were arrived at,
how members of the IPCC, an unaccountable body responsible for climate targets and projections were selected and retained,
since scientists worried about a coming ice age during the 1970s, doesn’t that suggest considerable changes in climate (both up and down) over relatively short periods of time,
what is the evidence that increased heat and increased CO2 are dangerous when both contribute to increased growth of plants,
while it was claimed that sea level rises would be catastrophic, what we are seeing in fact is evidence of small changes in sea level in both directions.
Health
WHO’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated that “a transformation of the world’s food systems is needed urgently, based on a One Health approach that protects and promotes the health of humans, animals and the planet.” We all want to protect animals and environment, as well as our own health, but it seems the obvious way to do that is to address the evils of factory farming and excess chemical additives used for crops and livestock, rather than a major transformation of what we eat. Consuming large amounts of insect proteins, or lab-grown ‘meat,’ for example, will have unpredictable effects on health. Do we really want to perform these experiments on billions of people at once?
“One Health” is also being used as the justification to vaccinate fur farm workers against bird flu in Finland,16 even though there have been no human cases in Finland, the disease does not spread person-to-person, and everyone in the US who has developed bird flu in the past 2 years has had an extremely mild illness: conjunctivitis +/- symptoms of a cold. None were hospitalized or died. The excuse is that vaccinating people will allow continued farming of mink and foxes, which were culled last year due to alleged bird flu infections. Here is how Finland’s health department draws from “One Health” to wordsmith the need to give experimental vaccines, never before tested in humans, to farmworkers in expectation that an outbreak of bird flu might occur:
“This issue must be evaluated within a framework which considers the intricate interplay between the environment, animals, and humans. Recognising this interconnectedness and the vast array of environmental impacts of human activity is crucial, and our protective measures should consider the overarching goal of maintaining and enhancing planetary health.”17
Equity
Equity is repeatedly embraced as the justification to change the way food is allocated. The roster of corporate players at AIM for Climate proclaims “Diversity, gender equity, and inclusion are critical to the success of the mission.” But real equity is allowing people to choose the food they eat, without interference, rather than restricting populations from accessing the foods they prefer and imposing new foods on them.
Animal Rights
The World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH) joined the plan to balance environmental demands against human needs for food through adherence to the loose “One Health” approach. At the same time, WOAH admits, “More than 75% of the billion people who live on less than $2 per day depend on subsistence farming and raising livestock to survive.”18
The world’s largest food producers, processors, and retail sellers are joined with governments and NGOs through the WHO, UN, WEF, and a plethora of interconnected organizations. Yet all these supposedly charitable organizations have become focused on reducing or eliminating livestock, despite the fact that the poorest peoples as well as the wealthiest rely on livestock for meat, dairy and for enriching the soil. The multinational organizations and food conglomerates want humans to convert to a state-specified diet comprised instead of synthetic meats, insects, and other novel food products manufactured by these companies, which have not previously been known for their concerns about our health.
Many question whether a group of global industrialists and politicians have either the expertise or desire to “improve the state of the world,” but there is no question that the proposed intention is to consolidate and control food production and distribution, thereby improving the state of member corporations’ profits. GMO crops and related chemical applications will be increased under the pretense of climate rescue, and synthetic meats will be favored in government food programs. Even more small farms will be shuttered.
This coordinated justification for global/government food control is presented in the name of sustainability, reducing global temperature, improving animal welfare, nurturing human health, and improving equity. However, there is no evidence it does even one of these things.
We do not intend to allow a small group of globalists to control global food production and thereby achieve control of the population.
This is why Door to Freedom will place a major focus on turning this agenda around. We will encourage government (at all levels) to support small farmers rather than industrial giants, to improve animal husbandry practices, to incentivize enhancing the soil and to achieve a much healthier food supply for all.
Our methods include education, policy development, and working for change at all levels of government. We will use the same strategy we used to stop the WHO’s agenda. Basically, once people understand what is happening and what is at stake, they refuse to go along–whether they are citizens or political leaders.
Our first large project will be a 2-day Symposium September 6-7 (online only, and I put in the wrong dates earlier) titled The Attack on Food and Agriculture, 2nd Annual. Please join us, support us, and work with us to heal our food systems and our planet.
On a wisp of land in the Indian Ocean, two hops by plane and one bumpy speedboat ride from the nearest continent, the sublime blue waves lapping at the bone-white sand are just about all that breaks the stillness of a hot, windless afternoon.
The very existence of low-slung tropical islands seems improbable, a glitch. A nearly seamless meeting of land and sea, peeking up like an illusion above the violent oceanic expanse, they are among the most marginal environments humans have ever called home.
And indeed, when the world began paying attention to global warming decades ago, these islands, which form atop coral reefs in clusters called atolls, were quickly identified as some of the first places climate change might ravage in their entirety. As the ice caps melted and the seas crept higher, these accidents of geologic history were bound to be corrected and the tiny islands returned to watery oblivion, probably in this century.
Then, not very long ago, researchers began sifting through aerial images and found something startling. They looked at a couple dozen islands first, then several hundred, and by now close to 1,000. They found that over the past few decades, the islands’ edges had wobbled this way and that, eroding here, building there. By and large, though, their area hadn’t shrunk. In some cases, it was the opposite: They grew. The seas rose, and the islands expanded with them.
Scientists have come to understand some but not all of the reasons for this. Which is why a team of them recently converged in the Maldives, on an island they’d spend weeks outfitting with instruments and sensors and cameras.
They were there to learn more about how the steady collision of blue waves and white sand does surprising and seemingly magical things to coastlines, both destroying land and extending it. Really, though, they were trying to answer a bigger question: If atoll nations aren’t facing certain and imminent erasure, then what are they facing? For having a future is not the same thing as having a secure future.
If, for instance, some of their islands become difficult to live on but others do not, then atoll governments will have to make hard choices about which places to save and which to sacrifice. In the places they save, they will have to plan for the long term about supplying fresh water, about creating jobs, about providing schools and health care and infrastructure. They will have to invent the best future they can with the limited resources they have.
In short, atolls might not be such outliers in this world after all. Look hard enough, and they start to look a lot like everywhere else…
To understand what had happened to the atolls since this acceleration began, two researchers, Arthur Webb and Paul Kench, decided to look down at them from above. The scientists collected aerial photos of 27 Pacific islands from the middle of the 20th century. Then, they compared them to recent satellite images. “I’m not sure we really knew what we would find,” Dr. Kench recalled.
Their findings caused an uproar.
The seas had risen an inch or so each decade, yet the waves had kept piling sediment on the islands’ shores, enough to mean that most of them hadn’t changed much in size. Their position on the reef might have shifted. Their shape might be different. Whatever was going on, it clearly wasn’t as simple as oceans rise, islands wash away.
Dr. Webb and Dr. Kench’s study, which came out in 2010, inspired other scientists to hunt for more old photos and conduct further analysis. The patterns they’ve uncovered in recent years are remarkably consistent across the 1,000 or so islands they’ve studied: Some shrank, others grew. Many, however, were stable. These studies have also added to the intrigue by revealing another pattern: Islands in ocean regions where sea level rise is fastest generally haven’t eroded more than those elsewhere…
Unless We the People stop them, climate fanatics like billionaire eugenicist Bill Gates are planning to inject you and your family with climate change and global warming “vaccines.”Right now, they are already injecting meat animals with climate jabs, claiming these are necessary to keep the animals “safe” from fictitious diseases. Eventually, they will proceed to start jabbing you and your family with the same “vaccines,” assuming you let them.
Technocracy.news writer Yudi Sherman warned back in January that the only way to stop these “genetic maniacs” from destroying the human race with their mystery chemical injections is to “take away their keycards and their containment suits, immediately escort them out of their laboratories, permanently ban them from any other scientific research for life, and then raze the buildings to the ground.”
If it sounds extreme, consider the fact that a company called ArkeaBio just raised $26.5 million in Series A seed funding to begin developing climate jabs for the human masses. You can be sure that once these injections are ready to go, there will be another “pandemic” or “emergency” to predicate their forced use.
“If you can’t grasp the seriousness of this, then you may be marked for depopulation,” warns the Technocracy.news editor.
(Related: Bill Gates cannot wait for “Pandemic 2” when he hopes to forcibly inject the entire planet with climate jabs.)
“Vaccines” to prevent cows from passing gas
This might sound like something from The Babylon Bee, but the reality is that ArkeaBio has already begun developing a new “vaccine” that mad scientists say will stop cows and other meat animals from releasing methane emissions, i.e., passing gas.
The claim is that the shots will alter the animals’ immune systems in such a way as to create antibodies that target methane-producing microbes.
ArkeaBio secured its first major investment in late 2022 from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, an investment fund founded by Bill Gates.
“Our vaccination-based approach allows for much-needed decarbonization of global meat and dairy products across multiple geographies, supporting greater sustainability in agriculture,” the company’s website explains.
ArkeaBio has not announced any plans to create a human version of its anti-fart injection, but another company called Gingko Bioworks has. Gingko, which is also funded by Gates, is pushing to develop mRNA (modRNA) injections that it says will help to stop the planet from warming.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) has expressed support for the plan, stating it is a “critical response to the climate crisis.”
“In the face of climate change, vaccines play a crucial but underestimated role,” wrote British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) back in December on its website.
AstraZeneca, maker of a shamed and now-pulled-from-the-market viral vector Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine, also wants in on the gravy train by manufacturing its own climate jabs as well.
Two months prior, Thomas Triomphe, executive vice president of vaccines at rival Sanofi, wrote an entire article called “Vaccine innovation is a critical response to the climate crisis” that expresses the same interest in developing climate injections.
The only type of “climate change” these demons are trying to stop is their own change from rich to poor as their corrupt financial and war empire implodes on itself. Big Pharma will die unless it continues to churn out new injections for every made-up disease under the sun, the latest being so-called climate change.
“This madness has to end now,” one angry commenter wrote about the insanity coming from Big Pharma and the Bill Gates brigade.
“I’m immensely comforted to know the flood Gates of biotech are unleashed, to wash us in redemptive waters of climate salvation by delivering us from the ubiquitous evil of carbon,” joked another about the religious cult aspects of climate change.
Climate change is a scam designed to separate you from your assets and wealth. Learn more at GreenTyranny.news.
Cows Do NOT Cause ‘Climate Change,’ Top Study Confirms
Frank Bergman12 Comments
A bombshell new study has debunked the globalist narrative that emissions from cows are causing “climate change” while proving that cattle herds actually lower methane gas levels in the atmosphere.
Bill Gates is also pushing for cows to be genetically “modified” to advance this agenda.
The additives seek to reduce the amount of methane emissions coming out of the animal.
In Ireland, dairy farmers were looking at possibly having to kill a lot of healthy cattle in order to comply with the WEF’s “Net Zero” emission reduction targets.
Dr. Vaughn Holder, research project manager for beef nutrition at Alltech, and Dr. Betsey Boughton, director of agroecology at Archbold, studied the impacts that cattle production has on the ecosystem on a wetlands pasture at Buck Island Ranch.
The ranch is about 150 miles northwest of Miami, Florida.
The researchers found that 19%-30% of methane emissions were from the cattle.
However, the rest of the methane was from the wetland soils.
If the cows are removed, it actually increases the amount of methane the wetland ecosystems give off, the research shows.
Globalists argue that methane is more potent in terms of “greenhouse warming” than carbon dioxide.
So reducing methane can have a more immediate impact on warming than reducing carbon dioxide, according to the study.
Cattle emissions are often demonized in a similar way to fossil fuel emissions, the researchers note.
When we burn fossil fuels, the emissions go into the air. So eliminating a coal-fired power plant, for example, removes an emissions source, which produces a drop in emissions.
“There is a far more complex process in agriculture than it is in fossil fuel systems,” Holder said.
Ruminants, as they’re called, which includes cattle and sheep, have a large chamber in front of their stomach that acts as a fermentation factory.
Inside are bacteria, yeasts, fungi, and other microorganisms that help the animals digest grasses that humans can’t.
Methane is a natural waste product of that process.
In a series of videos on the Buck Island research, Holder explains that cattle take a lot of plants humans can’t eat.
The cows turn them into edible proteins humans can consume, increasing global food security.
WATCH:
The animals also consume a lot of food byproducts that can’t be used for human consumption.
For example, orange pulp used in orange juice production can be fed to livestock.
Those byproducts can be used in composting, but composting increases emissions five times more than feeding it to dairy cows, Holder said.
If byproducts are disposed of in landfills, the emissions go up 50 times over feeding it to dairy cows.
It is possible to put additives in the cows’ diet to inhibit that methane production, but at about 30% inhibition, Holder explained, you start to see negative effects.
There are some viable strategies to reduce emissions with additives, but that can only go so far.
Additionally, cattle are part of a carbon cycle.
If studies only model the emissions coming from the animal, the rest of the ecosystem is being ignored, Holder said.
The study notes that the ecosystem is absorbing carbon as a result of the animals being on the land.
The research alliance between Archbold and Alltech is increasing their understanding of this process, Dr. Holder explained.
“We weren’t looking at food production from an ecosystem standpoint before we came together with Betsey’s [Boughton] group,” Holder said.
“So it really has adjusted our perspective on how big we need to be looking at these systems in order to get this right.”
When cattle graze on land, the plants prioritize root growth over the plant matter above the surface.
The deeper the roots, the more plants sequester carbon in the soil through the photosynthesis process.
Grazing also removes grasses from a pasture, reducing the dead plant matter that falls into the soil and decomposes, which also produces greenhouse gasses.
“It’s a natural process,” Dr. Boughton said.
“We’re not saying that’s bad. Wetlands are good.
“That’s just a natural part of a wetland.”
At the Buck Island Ranch, Boughton and her team measured the amount of greenhouse gasses emitted on a pasture that had no grazing.
They compared it to pasture that had grazing.
What they found is that cattle grazing ends up as a carbon sink, meaning there’s a net reduction in the amount of emissions from that pasture compared to pastures with no cows.
“From my perspective, it’s more of a proof-of-concept type evaluation,” Holder said.
“We’re showing that we need to be looking at more than just emissions if we want to have a decent idea what’s happening in those ecosystems and what the effects are on global warming or food security or whatever it might be.”
There’s a lot of carbon locked up in the soil, he said.
The exact impact of removing grazing from those lands isn’t fully understood.
“It’s sort of an unintended consequence if we pull animals off the land and we don’t know what effect the next land use is going to have on those carbon stocks,” Holder said.
The livestock industry has long held that it’s being unfairly demonized in the effort to stop “climate change.”
The Alltech-Archbold research is showing that farmers are correct and the globalist narrative is nothing more than a hoax.
This news comes after a recent peer-reviewed study provided conclusive scientific evidence proving that carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in Earth’s atmosphere cannot cause “global warming.”
Dr. Jan Kubicki led a group of world-renowned Polish scientists to study the impact of increases in CO2 emissions on the Earth’s global temperatures.
However, not only did they find that higher levels of CO2 made no difference, but they also proved that it simply isn’t possible for increases in carbon dioxide to cause temperatures to rise.
Kubicki and his team recently published three papers which all conclude that Earth’s atmosphere is already “saturated” with carbon dioxide.
This saturation means that, even at greatly increased levels of CO2, the “greenhouse gas” will not cause temperatures to rise.
Wall Street bankers, intelligence agencies from the US, UK and Israel, tech billionaires and other powerful interests developed a scheme, GREEN+, to entangle local governments across Latin America to take control of vast swaths of public lands for use as carbon credits. The ultimate objective is to monetize air, water and other resources as commodities.
The currency in Argentina has been devalued and people are being pushed into dollar-denominated stable coins like Tether that allows the FBI to spy on users. The goal is programmable currency, whether it is issued by central banks or private companies, that allows bankers to control the money and spending over all people.
Every capital city of latin America has eagerly signed on, unaware of the strings attached to the partnerships, paving the way for a sweeping surveillance apparatus tied to American intelligence under the guise of combating climate change.
.Latin America is quietly being forced into a carbon market scheme through regional contractual obligations – enforced by the satellites of a US intelligence-linked firm – which seeks to create an inter-continental “smart grid,” erode national and local sovereignty, and link carbon-based life to the debt-based monetary system via a Bitcoin sidechain.
Sweeping across the shores of Latin America comes a scheme from some of the most predatory figures in the venture capital ecosystem of the United States. It is a brazen attempt to assert foreign influence across Latin America and threatens to reshape the very fabric of the region and the day to day lives of its people. At its core is a serpentine set of contractual obligations, held at the municipal level, cast throughout Central and South America, upheld by an intelligence-linked satellite company, and controlled by a private sector consortium of green-washed financiers aiming to turn the region’s forests into equity and carbon credits. At the same time, it obliges local governments to spend “conservation” funds on projects that further financialize nature and aid the construction of an inter-continental “smart” grid. One of its key ambitions appears to be further entrenching the debt load of the region through the multi-lateral development banks and the dollarization of the continent from the subnational level up through carbon markets upheld by a digital ledger. What seems like a technological marvel aimed at progress and connectivity harbors a darker agenda — one that intertwines planetary surveillance, financial predation, geopolitical maneuvering, and the domination of a resource-rich continent buried in debt.
This grand design, known by the acronym GREEN+ and conceived by stalwarts of the digital dollar and debt schemes of the private sector, has quietly taken root through a web of political entanglements at the local level. Even a key figure in the Drexel Burnham Lambert junk bond scandal plays a role. Astonishingly, every capital city of Latin America has eagerly signed on, apparently unaware of the strings attached to these seemingly benign partnerships, while a majority of municipalities in the region have also made commitments with these same groups that will push them to join GREEN+, potentially in a matter of weeks. The (hopefully) well-meaning regional governments have unwittingly paved the way for a sweeping surveillance apparatus tied to American intelligence that threatens to erode privacy and civil liberties under the guise of progress and combating the climate crisis.
Upon further observation, GREEN+’s connections reveal a disturbing narrative of financial interests melding with geopolitical ambitions. The backers of the satellite company share ties with former members of the highest offices of US financial policy and regulation alongside the key architects and profiteers of private capital creation, aiming to consolidate control over monetary flows in Latin America within the redistribution of distressed government debt from the public to the private sector. As this two-part series will show, this concerted effort is not merely about surveillance – it’s a calculated move towards further dollarization, tightening the grip of corporate and technological monopolies over the economic landscape of the Americas.
The scheme’s proponents also speak of how it will significantly advance the “economic” and “regional” integration of the Americas, invoking visions of unity while obscuring the true nature of their agenda for economic domination and stronger regional governance. Their model, eerily reminiscent of the EU’s transition from a free trade union to a bureaucratic behemoth yoked to the US through the Eurodollar, sets the stage for unelected entities to enforce policies through programmable money, enabled by smart contracts on blockchains and designed to benefit the few at the expense of the many. What materializes before us is not just a technological evolution but a quiet banker coup — one that lays the groundwork for land grabs and invasive surveillance under the guise of progress and conservation. It’s a narrative that echoes throughout history, where intelligence-linked figures and predatory financial interests converge to prey upon the Global South, leaving a trail of economic exploitation and geopolitical manipulation in their wake. What masquerades as progress for individuals and the environment at large may very well be the harbinger of a new era of subjugation and control.
THE GREEN+ PROGRAM
In 2022, several groups came together to launch the GREEN+ (Government Reduction of Emissions for Environmental Net + Gain) Jurisdictional Programme, the “first program that will monitor by satellite all subnational protected areas of the planet” and – through contracts with numerous local and state governments – propel and deepen the economic integration of the Americas through the quiet imposition of a continent-wide, blockchain-based carbon market.
GREEN+ has been piloted in a handful of Latin American cities since its founding and is due to launch globally in just a few weeks time. Most of the GREEN+ agreements with “subnational” governments have remained focused on Latin America. Per the program, the subnational agreements have established the “rules and requirements to enable accounting and crediting with GREEN+ policies and measures and/or nested projects, implemented as GHG mitigation activities,” with GREEN+ being described as “the planet’s new subnational government advisory mechanism.”
Key to the program are the services provided by GREEN+ founding member Satellogic, an Argentina-founded company closely aligned with Peter Thiel’s Palantir and Elon Musk’s SpaceX that specializes in sub-meter resolution satellite surveillance. Satellogic, a contractor to the US government and whose founders were also previously contactors for the US’ DHS, NSA and DARPA, will provide surveillance data of the entire world’s “protected areas” to GREEN+’s governing coalition, composed of the NGOs CC35, the Global Footprint Network, The Energy Coalition and other “respected stakeholders.”
According to the press release that details Satellogic’s alliance with GREEN+, the satellite surveillance data “will enable individuals, organizations, and global markets to accurately monitor the compliance of signatory jurisdictions to avoid deforestation.” However, other information in the press release reveals that forests will actually be monitored for the purpose of generating “credible” carbon credits to be traded on exchanges by GREEN+ on behalf of subnational governments. The press release also states that the GREEN+ alliance with Satellogic will “advance the future measurement of energy emissions in the most populated areas of the planet,” i.e. the surveillance of carbon emissions from space. Satellogic launched some GREEN+-affiliated satellites in 2022 as part of its pilot and is due to launch the remainder this April during Miami Climate Week. Satellogic’s past and upcoming launches of GREEN+ satellites were/will be conducted in collaboration with Elon Musk’s SpaceX, also a contractor to the US military and US intelligence agencies.
Though framed as a way to develop economic incentives to mitigate climate change, the program is based on California’s controversial and grift-prone cap and trade program and has been created (and is being implemented by) individuals and companies that are seeking to covertly dollarize Latin America and/or have deep ties to US intelligence. Its ultimate ambitions go far beyond carbon markets and seek to use satellite surveillance to enforce carbon emission levels in both urban and rural areas. It also seeks to impose a new financial system centered around energy, commodity, and natural resource “credits” that are underpinned by extensive and invasive surveillance, underscored by the motto: “Earth observation is preservation.”
The alliance that created GREEN+ includes the NGOs CC35, the Global Footprint Network (GFN), Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Catalytic Finance Foundation (CFF, formerly R20) and The Energy Coalition (TEC); the Gibraltar-based law firm Isolas; the global insurance giant Lockton; the satellite company Satellogic; the “green” blockchain company EcoRegistry; the dominant carbon credit certifier in Latin America, Cercarbono; and Rootstock (RSK), the bitcoin side-chain protocol responsible for “smart BTC.” Several members of the alliance, though how many is unclear, now operate as part of a consortium linked to a company called Global Carbon Parks, which is discussed in greater detail later in this article and now manages major aspects of GREEN+. The NGOs (i.e. CC35, GFN, CFF and TEC) involved in founding GREEN+ are those who actually govern the GREEN+ program from California.
As previously mentioned, the program takes carbon in “effectively conserved protected areas of a sub-national jurisdiction”, i.e. a city, county, province, or state/region, and converts them into carbon credits. Per the program, “these credits are traded on the [carbon] offset market, and income is deposited in a trust fund” that is controlled by GREEN+ and is known as the GREEN+ Trust. That trust is run by unspecified individuals who work for Lockton, Isolas and Rootstock. Alejandro Guerrero, head of Lockton’s Argentina & Uruguay branch, is the only publicly acknowledged member of the trust.
Another website tied to the GREEN+ initiative describes the initial process as follows:
Public and private agreements between [a subnational] government and custodians are signed with zero upfront cost.
Custodians trade the carbon units that are produced by the subnational governments (the public sector) signing contracts with the private sector in voluntary carbon markets.
Those contracts signed by the subnational governments become smart contracts and carbon credits are then tokenized for traceability.
The GREEN+ Trust holds government funds in escrow.
Subsequently, “a partial release of trust funds is made periodically during the crediting period of the jurisdictional initiative.” From this “partial release,” “a percentage operational fee” is deducted (the percentage is undisclosed in the program’s documents) and paid to the GREEN+ program while a separate (and also undisclosed) fee is also deducted “for the operation of the GREEN+ Trust.” Disbursements of what remains are made annually over a ten year period and, per graphs produced by GREEN+, those payments remain the same, fixed value even if the value of the carbon credits of the protected areas grows.
Militaries around the world routinely disperse tiny bits of aluminum-coated fiberglass and plastic — known as “chaff” — into the air column, to shield aircraft and ships from enemy radar
Chaff has been used for decades, without clear evidence that it’s safe for humans and the environment
In response to a United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report issued in August 2021, the U.N. announced it’s considering spraying sulfate aerosols into the Earth’s stratosphere to modify climate. The tiny reflective particles would act as reflectors, bouncing sunlight back into space instead of onto the Earth’s surface
The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is using “climate science” as a vehicle to promote socialist ideology
According to Dane Wigington, founder of Geoengineeringwatch.org, the risks of geoengineering are so immense, it poses an extinction-level threat to humanity, and the window of opportunity to save ourselves is rapidly closing
In addition to the weather modification1 going on around the world, militaries around the world are also routinely dispersing tiny bits of aluminum-coated fiberglass and plastic — known as “chaff” — into the air column, to shield aircraft and ships from enemy radar.2 Not surprisingly, this has been done for decades, without clear evidence that it’s safe for humans and the environment.
According to a 1998 General Accounting Office report3 and a 1999 follow-up report4 by the Naval Research Laboratory, the environmental, human and agricultural impacts of chaff used in military training scenarios at the time were “negligible and far less than those from other man-made emissions,” but does that really mean it’s safe? As explained in a 2001 Navy Medicine paper:5
“Radiofrequency (RF) chaff is an electronic countermeasure designed to reflect radar waves and obscure planes, ships, and other assets from radar tracking sources.
Chaff consists of aluminum-coated glass fibers (also referred to as dipoles) ranging in lengths from 0.8 to 0.75 cm. Chaff is released or dispensed from military vehicles in cartridges or projectiles that contain millions of dipoles.
When deployed, a diffuse cloud of dipoles is formed that is undetectable to the human eye. Chaff is a very light material that can remain suspended in air anywhere from 10 minutes to 10 hours and can travel considerable distances from its release point, depending on prevailing atmospheric conditions.
Training for military personnel, particularly aircraft pilots, in the use of chaff is necessary to deploy this electronic countermeasure effectively. As with most acquired skills, the deployment of chaff must be maintained by practicing in-flight release during training.
It is estimated that the U.S. Armed Forces dispense about 500 tons of chaff per year, with most chaff being released during training exercises within the continental United States.”
Is Chaff Safe?
According to the Naval Medicine investigation, inhalation of whole, intact chaff fibers pose “no risk” to humans due to their larger size. “If inhaled, dipoles are predicted to deposit in the nose, mouth, or trachea and are either swallowed or expelled,” the paper states.6
Note the use of the word “predicted,” however. Predictions are not evidence. They’re basically guessing. Open questions also remain about what happens when the fibers degrade.
“Several investigations have demonstrated that Al-coated dipoles are resistant to weathering and breakdown under desert conditions,” the paper states.7
“A 1977 US Navy-sponsored a study found no evidence to indicate that chaff degrades significantly or quickly in water from the Chesapeake Bay nor did this material leach significant amounts of aluminum into the Bay.
A recent study by our group found no evidence that 25 years of chaff operations at the Naval Research Laboratory detachment at Chesapeake Beach, MD resulted in a significant increase in sediment or soil aluminum concentrations (Wilson et al 2000).
However, additional studies are needed to determine the half-life of chaff dipoles in various soils and environmental conditions and whether dipoles breakdown to respirable particles …
Although there is no definitive evidence from the epidemiological literature that chaff exposure is not harmful, there is epidemiological information available on workers involved in the glass fiber manufacturing industry. Data from these studies suggests that exposure to fibrous glass is not associated with increased risk of death from respiratory disease.”
The problem with that is that fiberglass workers are equipped with protective gear, including respirators, Tyvek suits and safety goggles8 — gear that normal people don’t wear when they’re out and about. All this tells us is that chaff is unlikely to cause harm to public health, provided people are wearing respirators, which they don’t.
Remarkably, not much beyond these three reports exist. While all admitted the need for continued research, none appears to have been published, so there’s really no telling what the real-world impact might be. That said, common sense tells us that air dispersed aluminum and fiberglass is highly likely to have some sort of impact on the environment and human health.
Geoengineering Has Been Going on for Decades
Aluminum and fiberglass are not the only toxins being sprayed across our skies. As detailed by Dane Wigington, founder of Geoengineeringwatch.org, weather modification, also known as geoengineering, in which various toxic metals and chemicals are dispersed at high altitude, has been going on for more than 70 years, and is increasing rather than declining.
In response to a United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report issued in August 2021,9,10 which called for radical measures to prevent further global warming, the Biden Administration launched a research effort in 2022 to determine the most effective way to dim the sun.11
One proposal involves injecting sulfur dioxide aerosols into the Earth’s stratosphere. The tiny reflective particles would bounce sunlight back into space instead of onto the Earth’s surface.12 According to Harvard researchers,13 this strategy is not only “technically possible” but also “remarkably inexpensive,” having a price tag that is “well within the reach of several nations.”
Earth’s climate is largely controlled by how much solar radiation reaches the Earth and how much is absorbed by its surface or reradiated to space. Cloud coverage and greenhouse gasses are examples of factors that influence the reflectance of solar radiation.14
“If geoengineering proposals are to influence global climate in any meaningful way, they must intentionally alter the relative influence of one of these controlling mechanisms,” Britannica explains.15
The U.N. report mentions solar radiation management and greenhouse gas removal as forms of geoengineering.16 Sulfate aerosols fall into the solar radiation management category. By reflecting more solar radiation back into space, the aerosols lower global temperatures but also have a serious “side effect” — they lower average precipitation.
As a result, additional geoengineering techniques — such as thinning out cirrus clouds in the upper atmosphere — would be necessary to counteract the decrease in precipitation. What could possibly go wrong?
Supercomputers have run models to predict how solar radiation management may affect different parts of the Earth, not only in terms of temperature but also rainfall and snowfall. Report author Govindasamy Bala, from the Indian Institute of Science, said “the science is there,”17 but it’s far from an exact one.
“I think the next big question,” Bala told Reuters, “is, do you want to do it? … That involves uncertainty, moral issues, ethical issues and governance.” As Reuters reported, “That’s because every region would be affected differently. While some regions could gain in an artificially cooler world, others could suffer by, for example, no longer having conditions to grow crops.”18
‘Catastrophic Risks’
Three months after the IPCC published its panic-inciting report, Australian and British researchers published an original research article warning that stratospheric aerosol injection carries “catastrophic risks” that may well lead us into “a fate worse than [global] warming”:19
“Injecting particles into atmosphere to reflect sunlight, stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), represents a potential technological solution to the threat of climate change. But could the cure be worse than the disease? …
SAI plausibly interacts with other catastrophic calamities, most notably by potentially exacerbating the impacts of nuclear war or an extreme space weather event. SAI could contribute to systemic risk by introducing stressors into critical systems such as agriculture.
SAI’s systemic stressors, and risks of systemic cascades and synchronous failures, are highly understudied. SAI deployment more tightly couples different ecological, economic, and political systems. This creates a precarious condition of latent risk, the largest cause for concern …
A well-coordinated use of a small amount of SAI would incur negligible risks, but this is an optimistic scenario. Conversely, larger use of SAI used in an uncoordinated manner poses many potential dangers. We cannot equivocally determine whether SAI will be worse than warming. For now, a heavy reliance on SAI seems an imprudent policy response.”
In June 2023, the European Commission put out a call for “international talks on the dangers and governance of geoengineering,” warning that geoengineering schemes aimed at altering the global climate pose “unacceptable” risks. During a news conference, EU climate policy chief Frans Timmermans stated:
“Nobody should be conducting experiments alone with our shared planet. This should be discussed in the right forum, at the highest international level.”
Time will tell whether such talks ever take place. In September 2023, the Climate Overshoot Commission, chaired by Pascal Lamy, a former World Trade Organization chief, called for a worldwide moratorium on solar radiation modification experiments “that would carry risk of significant transboundary harm,” and to focus instead on strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.20,21 But, as of yet, no such moratorium has been agreed upon.
Socialist Ideology, Not Climate Science
Zuzana Janosova Den Boer experienced Communist rule in Czechoslovakia before moving to Canada. In her article, “I Survived Communism — Are You Ready for Your Turn?” she detailed the “all-too familiar signs of the same propaganda” starting to permeate her adopted country.22
In relation to geoengineering, she points out that communism has been subverting the environmentalist movement since the 1970s, when then-chairman of the Communist Party USA, Gus Hall, published a book called “Ecology,” in which he stated:23
“Human society cannot basically stop the destruction of the environment under capitalism. Socialism is the only structure that makes it possible … We must be the organizers, the leaders of these movements.”
Den Boer writes:24
“This idea was incorporated into the U.S. Green Party program in 1989 … in which the fictitious threats of ‘global warming’ and ‘climate change’ are used to scare the public into believing humanity must ‘save the planet’:
‘This urgency, along with other Green issues and themes it interrelates, makes confronting the greenhouse [effect] a powerful organizing tool … Survival is highly motivating, and may help us to build a mass movement that will lead to large-scale political and societal change in a very short time …
First of all, we [must] inform the public that the crisis is more immediate and severe than [they] are being told, [that] its implications are too great to wait for the universal scientific confirmation that only eco-catastrophe would establish.’”
The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Den Boer suggests, is promoting not climate science but socialist ideology, citing as evidence comments made by Ottmar Georg Edenhofer, former co-chair of the IPCC Working Group III, who in a 2010 interview stated that climate issues are about economics, and that:25
“We must free ourselves from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy … We must state clearly that we use climate policy de facto to redistribute the world’s wealth.”
Geoengineering Poses Extinction-Level Threat to Humanity
Even without factoring in social control, the practical risks of geoengineering are impossible to ignore. According to scientific studies, the particulates dispersed during these geoengineering events “shred” the ozone layer. They also disrupt the hydrological (rain) cycle, which leads to another host of downstream effects, and this is in addition to spreading toxins across the entire planet surface.
So, while some of the planet might benefit from these programs, other parts could be decimated by droughts, raging forest fires, flooding or storms. Moreover, while global cooling is the stated aim of most of these geoengineering programs, as the planet warms, the laws of physics state you need more precipitation to cool it, not less, because the atmosphere carries more moisture as the temperature rises.
To cool the planet, you need to create more rain, but these programs have resulted in less rain, and the reason for the reduction in rain fall is due to the particulates in the atmosphere. In addition to deflecting heat from the outside, these particles also trap heat down below, making the overall heating of the planet massively worse.
The risks are so immense, Wigington warns geoengineering already poses an extinction-level threat to humanity. The window of opportunity to save ourselves is rapidly closing.
Unfortunately, if people really understood the totality of the situation — not just that the climate is being manipulated, but that as a result, the global climate systems have deteriorated to the point that the entire Earth is in serious trouble; in short, that these programs may have created a runaway extinction event — the emotional impact might be too great to bear for many. Wigington addressed this in an interview I did with him back in 2016:
“Our situation is far more severe than most people have any understanding of,” he said. “Climate engineering is making the situation worse, not better.
So [they must] try to keep the population from panicking because of the severity and immediacy of the climate implosion, and keep the population in the dark because the climate intervention programs have helped to accelerate this process and toxified every single one of us in the process.
Every single human subject we test is packed full of aluminum, barium — all the heavy metals we know are associated with these programs. It doesn’t matter where they live.
And we know it’s coming down in the precipitation in unimaginable quantities — quantities enough to change soil pH values in the Pacific Northwest 10 to 12 times total alkaline — that’s an unimaginable amount of metal coming down in the rain.
If populations understood, truly, what’s been done to them, what’s been done to the planet … they’d be taking to the streets with pitchforks and torches all over the globe.”
California Aquatic and Terrestrial Insect Life Has Been Decimated
Geoengineeringwatch.org lists a number of lab tests that have been performed on rain water, air sample and more, and their results. You can find them under the Tests section.
“In regard to the effect in the environment, in Northern California alone … what we’ve seen in the last decade … is a 90% decline in aquatic and terrestrial insect life — a virtual crash,” Wigington told me in 2016.
“There’s so much aluminum coming down the precipitation, affecting the soil pH, and — this is very important — the UV radiation level is off the charts, and that we can link directly to climate engineering … We’re seeing UVB levels about 1,000% higher than we’re being told. It’s burning the bark off of trees. It’s killing plankton. It’s affecting insect life …
[It increases UVB radiation] because it shreds the natural protection for the planet. When you put a particle in the atmosphere, it doesn’t matter whether it’s from a back of a jet or a volcano; it causes a chemical reaction in the atmosphere that destroys ozone. Period. So the more of these particles you put in the atmosphere, the more rapid the ozone destruction is.”
With all of that in mind, it’s highly unlikely that military chaff dispersements have no negative impact. An argument could be made that chaff is too important of a defense system to get rid of, and that may be true. But the climate-specific engineering is another matter altogether.
In years past, it was kept hush-hush, and dismissed as a conspiracy theory. Since then, however, governments around the world, and international bodies like the U.N. have become quite open about the use of geoengineering for climate control, and if the global public does not push back against these efforts, we might not survive to regret it.
Geoengineeringwatch.org has a list of action items you can review if you want to get involved and get the word out. I also recommend watching Wigington’s documentary “The Dimming,” below, to learn more.
Genetically modified food has been controversial for many years. Genetically engineered salmon has been referred to as “Franken-fish”. Earlier this year, the Food and Drug Administration approved gene-edited pork for human consumption as well. Yikes! More recently, scientists announced that electronic soil (aka “franken-soil”) can be used to increase crop growth.
LINKÖPING, Sweden — Scientists have developed an innovative “electronic soil” that significantly boosts crop growth, with barley seedlings growing 50 percent more when their roots receive electrical stimulation through this “eSoil” layer. This breakthrough, spearheaded by researchers from Linköping University in Sweden, focuses on soilless cultivation, commonly known as hydroponics.
Eleni Stavrinidou, associate professor, and supervisor of the study and Alexandra Sandéhn, PhD student, one of the lead authors, connect the eSoil to a low power source for stimulating plant growth. (Credit: Thor Balkhed)
“The world population is increasing, and we also have climate change. So it’s clear that we won’t be able to cover the food demands of the planet with only the already existing agricultural methods,” says Professor Eleni Stavrinidou, leader of the Electronic Plants group at the university, in a media release. “But with hydroponics, we can grow food also in urban environments in very controlled settings.”
Her team has developed a specialized electrically conductive cultivation substrate, termed eSoil, designed for hydroponic cultivation. Their research demonstrates that barley seedlings grown in this conductive medium and electrically stimulated at the roots exhibited up to a 50-percent increase in growth over 15 days.
Hydroponic cultivation allows plants to grow without soil, relying only on water, nutrients, and a substrate for root attachment. This closed system facilitates water recycling and precise nutrient delivery, requiring minimal water and keeping all nutrients within the system, a feat not achievable in traditional farming.
A barley seedling grows within the eSoil, an artificial electronic soil that makes seedlings grow faster. (Credit: Thor Balkhed)
The team highlights that hydroponics also supports vertical farming in large towers, optimizing space use. While currently used for crops like lettuce, herbs, and some vegetables, grains have not been commonly grown hydroponically, except as fodder.
In their study, the researchers successfully cultivated barley seedlings hydroponically, enhanced by electrical stimulation.
“In this way, we can get seedlings to grow faster with less resources. We don’t yet know how it actually works, which biological mechanisms that are involved,” Prof. Stavrinidou notes. “What we have found is that seedlings process nitrogen more effectively, but it’s not clear yet how the electrical stimulation impacts this process.”
Typically, hydroponics employs mineral wool as a substrate, a non-biodegradable material produced through energy-intensive processes. However, the team’s eSoil is a blend of cellulose and a conductive polymer called PEDOT, marking its first use in plant cultivation and creating a plant interface in this way.
Unlike previous research that used high voltage for root stimulation, this new “soil” has the advantage of low energy consumption and no high voltage risks.
“We can’t say that hydroponics will solve the problem of food security. But it can definitely help particularly in areas with little arable land and with harsh environmental conditions.” Prof. Stavrinidou concludes.
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) – Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti filed a lawsuit against BlackRock Inc. Monday, claiming the investment company misled Tennessee customers about how it’s fighting climate change, violating consumer protection laws.
BlackRock joined the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative in 2021 and Climate Action 100+ in 2020. As part of joining those groups, the state said, BlackRock made promises aimed at fighting climate change and did not make that clear to customers.
Skrmetti said that BlackRock presents itself to customers as strictly profit-driven, but has also made promises to invest in fighting climate change through its memberships with the climate initiatives. This misled customers because BlackRock made business decisions based on fighting climate change, not making customers money, according to the attorney general.
“We allege that BlackRock’s inconsistent statements about its investment strategies deprived consumers of the ability to make an informed choice,” Skrmetti said in a statement. “Some public statements show a company that focuses exclusively on return on investment, others show a company that gives special consideration to environmental factors. Ultimately, I want to make certain that corporations, no matter their size, treat Tennessee consumers fairly and honestly.”
BlackRock directly contested Skrmetti’s claims in a statement given to WVLT News, instead saying that it does disclose its practices to customers.
We reject the Attorney General’s claims and will vigorously contest any accusations that BlackRock violated Tennessee’s consumer protection laws. Contrary to the Attorney General’s claims, BlackRock fully and accurately discloses our investment practices and our approach to proxy voting.
On behalf of our clients, BlackRock has invested approximately $40 billion in Tennessee, and we are helping more than 600,000 hard-working Tennesseans retire with dignity. We are proud of our contribution and committed to the future in Tennessee.
BlackRock
It’s worth noting that BlackRock’s participation in both groups was announced publicly by either the groups or the company itself when they signed two and three years ago.
In BlackRock’s Jan. 6, 2020 statement on joining Climate Action 100+, the investment agency said it would, among other things, work with companies it invests in to make sure they are disclosing the environmental impacts of their practices. In that statement, BlackRock also acknowledged that its primary duty is to shareholders and customers, saying “BlackRock owes fiduciary and contractual duties to its clients.”
Related video: TN’s Attorney General files lawsuit against Wall Street giant BlackRock (WTVF Nashville, TN)
And Tennessee is the first state in the country taking
A similar statement on BlackRock joining the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative is also publicly available.
However, the state has claimed that BlackRock’s customer disclosures don’t mention the climate goals, saying “BlackRock has told consumers elsewhere that the only consideration driving its investment decisions is return on investment.”
In the lawsuit, the state summarizes by saying BlackRock is inconsistent in how it presents itself to customers; on one hand, claiming to be only profit-driven, but on the other, making promises to help fight climate change. The state is asking for injunctive relief, civil penalties and recoupment of the state’s costs.
