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Farrell: “They seem to come out with these hot fusion announcements every time the market is in trouble.”
Fitts: “Right. Every time the dollar is falling, they need to prove that they can increase productivity, and it’s going to come through breakthrough energy.”
~ Dr. Joseph P. Farrell and Catherine Austin Fitts, 2nd Quarter 2023 Wrap Up, News Trends & Stories, Part I

By Catherine Austin Fitts

With the help of allies like Patrick Wood, the Solari Report has sounded the alarm about technocracy for many years, explaining that one of technocracy’s core features is central management of all resources, including energy. As the centralization push accelerates, the importance of understanding energy reality (as opposed to “official reality”) has become increasingly evident.

For that reason, I invited independent energy consultant and systems engineer Charlie Stephens to give Solari subscribers an overview of energy in the 21st century. In Part I, we consider various energy sources and the important concept of “energy return on investment” as well as unanswered questions about breakthrough energy.

In Part II, we dive further into the weaponization of environmental and climate concerns—and the monetary and fiscal policies that make that weaponization go. We also talk about the enormous energy costs of the control grid. Finally, we emphasize that our ability to shift from unproductive and destructive energy policies to something more positive and intelligent depends on a shift to lawful and transparent governance and regenerative agriculture.

Energy is a critical variable that shapes our day-to-day experience in a myriad of ways. Listening to these two interviews will help you navigate the flood of confusing debate and propaganda on this topic.

Money & Markets:

This is the last week of the month, so there is no Money & Markets. The next Money & Markets will publish on September 7. Post questions at the Money & Markets commentary here.


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88 Comments

  1. Whilst I really enjoyed Part I, I’m afraid I found Part II and Part III a very difficult listen due to Charlie’s belief that human’s CO2 emissions have an impact on earth’s climate. I firmly believe that this is a racket being pushed by the banksters and which will be the core function of the control grid. Charlie’s belief that CO2 levels are historically very high is completely incorrect. For example CO2 levels during the carboniferous period were around 5,000ppm. CO2 levels of 420 ppm are actually historically very low and is presently a limiting factor to plant growth. The reality is that CO2 levels fluctuate in response to changes in the earth’s temperature with a lag of about 600-800 years. As the earth warms the oceans release CO2 and vice versa. The rise in CO2 levels today is a response to an increase in earth’s temperature during the medieval warm period and the correlation with increases in man’s CO2 emissions is not causation. Of all the CO2 emitted into the atmosphere by the planet, humans account for about 3% and the rest comes from natural processes but regardless the warming effect of CO2 in the atmosphere is very small and the reality is that there is no consensus on the science behind the theory. I would strongly urge you to discuss the theory of anthropogenic climate change with Dr Will Happer. It is so important to have your facts right with regards to this as climate change will be what they use to slam shut the gate on the corral with the “finacialisation of nature” as Iain Davis terms it. All life on earth depends on the carbon cycle and turning CO2 into the bogeyman enables the banksters to tax and control every aspect of our lives.

    What I truly believe is going on and explains all of Mr. Global’s actions over the last 70 years, is that we are going through a magnetic excursion and pole shift which will temporarily decimate the magnetosphere and the ozone and cause devastating seismic and climatic events from moderate solar activity (I actually think they are spraying the sky to try to mitigate the effects of solar storms which will cause huge amounts of damage to the elecricity grid and technology). This is being caused by the solar system passing through the galactic current sheet which it does every 12,000 years and if the catastrophists are correct will culminate in a solar micronova causing the earth’s crust to unlock from the mantel causing the weight of the polar ice sheets to move to the equator. This is an end of times scenario they are preparing for and part of that process requires reducing the population and taking complete control of whoever they don’t manage to kill. Things will gradually get worse in terms of natural disasters in the lead up to the cataclysm and people’s behaviour will also be affected as the magnetic field deteriorates (They will “lose their civility” as prophesised in Revelations). If you want to learn more about this I can recommend this conversion on Rumble between Ben Davidson from Suspicious 0bservers and Jimmy Corsetti:

    https://rumble.com/v3lvezz-suspicious-0bservers-and-bright-insight-livestream-ben-davidson-jimmy-corse.html

    1. Rick:

      Whenever Dr. Farrell and I review the Unanswered Questions, I always conclude this is one of the most likely theories to explain what is happening. Dr. Skidmore has spent quite a lot of time looking into the 12,000 year cycle. I have spent countless hours trying to find information on the magnetosphere and its deterioriation. Other than Ben’s work. So I am glad you posted.

      When I talk to Charlie, he believes that if we address the problems and solutions we discuss, the man-made problems, whatever they are, go away. To me the UAQ of geophysical risks are one of the big elephants in the room.

      1. Thanks for your reply Catherine and I will try to take a look into Dr Skidmore’s research. Something that is quite telling in my mind is how unadvanced human civilisation has been until relatively recently. If you consider how primitive society was just 2000 years ago compared to the advances that have been made in the last 100 years, this does not fit with a human evolutionary timeline of hundreds of thousands of years. I also recently read The Death Star Giza Revisited and it is abundantly clear from Farrell’s research that extremely advanced civilisations have come and gone before us and that the truth is being concealed from 99% of the population which is understandable as the powers that be would lose complete control if it became common knowledge. Their ability to inherit the next age of man relies entirely on their own secret preparations for the cataclysm, but I think God may have other plans for them…

        1. Rick:

          This is why I find the Three Body Problem so relevant in thinking about the natural disaster cycles. This coming and going of advanced civilization is baffling.

          Catherine

    2. I think Catherine explained my concerns pretty well here. I’ve never had too much of an inclination to study cosmic-scale calamities over which we have little or no control. While they’re interesting to ponder, my sense is that the current crop of psychopathic and sociopathic humans who are running the planet these last many decades have the capacity and power to obliterate human civilization long before the impacts of whatever cosmic events actually come to pass. In my current understanding, human science doesn’t even actually understand exactly where our solar system resides in our galaxy (i.e., the current dogma is incorrect), and so it would be difficult to predict how our solar system will experience the passage of time as the universe evolves, and what impacts it will have on the magnetosphere, the Earth’s mantle, or any other global physical phenomena.
      Which means I’m simply focused on actions that would extend human societies long enough to find out how all of the cosmic forces may play out. It’s my opinion that if we, collectively as a human species, don’t wrest control of our destiny from the vicious thugs who have been running things on this planet pretty much since the British East India Company geared up into full operation, none of the rest of these debates will matter much. Charlie

  2. Charlie, what’s your opinion of abiotic oil generation? Many years ago…~30yrs…While visiting a large oil refinery to quote a hydraulic system upgrade, one of the oil engineers stated very matter of factly, that “fossil oil” is BS. The earth generates oil on an ongoing basis through abiotic process.

    1. Well Michael, I’ve never come across any real evidence that this is true. I reckon the Earth is, in fact, producing oil continuously, but it’s a very slow process. The part of “oil” that we need to fuel the machinery it’s used in are the long-chain hydrocarbons that consist of nothing more than carbon and hydrogen – methane, ethane, propane, butane, pentane, hexane, etc. To produce those chains, you need the carbon and hydrogen building blocks, compressed tremendously, in the absence of oxygen (anaerobic). ALL of those building blocks on Earth are produced by photosynthesis, which is the only process we know of that reduces entropy. Every use of energy that humans engage in takes low-entropy fuel and creates high entropy waste, which is mostly dumped into one of our 3 major waste reservoirs – the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the land we inhabit. Plants take some of that waste (CO2) and through photosynthesis, using sunlight as input (from outside “the system”) to reduce entropy (rebuild the building blocks) and produce oxygen. This is just basic biophysics and chemistry. Even if the notion of abiotic oil production were true, what’s also true is that we’re using it far faster than it’s being produced. If that weren’t true, there’s no way we would be producing all of the incredibly low-EROEI “oil” that’s so difficult and expensive to get (tar sands, shale oil and gas, etc.) and so contaminated with toxic compounds that we certainly don’t want. And all for naught, because since the 1960s, a tiny handful of people know that we don’t really need most of the oil we’re using. But that’s another long conversation for another time. Charlie

      1. Appreciate the thorough explanation. This is what I was thinking, that we were using faster than creating. Looking forward to your next session with Katherine!

  3. Charlie it was a pleasure to listen to your two discussions with Catherine. Looking forward to more. Your commentary is enlightening on many fronts. My father who was heavily involved in the automobile industry beginning in the 1950’s including the design and development of high performance internal combustion engines, always believed that thru advanced carburetion with the proper balance of air and clean fuels, that the internal combustion engine could run more efficiently and result in a lot less air pollution. He worked with alchohol fuel but also felt methanol would be clean & efficient as well. He was somewhat well know for his carburetor systems mechanical knowledge and expertise. He also believed hydrogen cell technology should be funded and furhter explored and that it held great promise though it never seemed to get the funding to evolve.
    Personally, I was in the insurance business for over 25 years and after reviewing more than 5 or 6,000 policy contracts in my time they ALL contained exclusions for nuclear accident, thus proving your point that the general public totally, 100%, absorbed the liability for the Nuclear Industry. Be it personal, commercial, residential or business, there was NO insurance coverage for a loss related to this industry. So the industry was subsidized and exonerated of liability and was allowed to survive despite marginal profitability. The model was set, and the pharmaceutical companies moved it for ACT II of the game…you hit the nail on the head. Thanks for voicing these truths! Best to you!

    1. Aways amazes me what we learn when we look at the insurance contracts related to any issue. One of the First places to go to understand what is happening if the information is available. Often it is hard to get, so I appreciate your comment very much.

      1. An additional tip is that it’s vital to assess, within all insuance contracts, what precludes coverage. With damage resulting from nuclear accident, the coverage is unavailable due to an exclusion. Those are the most iron clad aspects of ANY insurance contract and should be read first before anything else to determine what is NOT covered. With a coverage exclusion, there is no “buy back” option for coverage via an endorsement which is the process by which a insurance contract can be augmented if allowed by the insurance company and its underwriting team to provide coverage over and above the standard policy contract coverage.

        1. To finalize, coverage exclusions are difficult to impossible to amend by endorsement, extending standard and available coverage to a piece of equipment or property is sometimes negotiable, if underwriters excluded coverage for it due to its location or prior a claim on said type of equipment…this, if approved, comes at a price!!

    2. Well thanks very much, Cathleen! It’s always great to have a professional in the field weigh in with confirming information.
      Interesting that your dad was involved so early in internal combustion engine development. The 1950s and 60s were a period of rapid evolution in that technology, and many really good designs never made it to market (GM’s 1970s rotary radial engine was one of those, as were a number of carburetor innovations). The reason that hydrogen fuel cells never went anywhere, by the way, is because of EROEI – getting pure hydrogen for the fuel is incredibly energy-intensive, no matter how you do it. Thanks so much for weighing in on the conversation! Charlie

  4. Hi Charlie,
    Perhaps you have some thoughts on the perspective that the Lahania, Maui “wild fires” and other recent fires in California and elsewhere are being started by directed energy weapons. If space based, these energy weapons are, is this evidence of zero point technology at work?
    Eric Anderson

    1. It’s timely of you to bring this up, Eric. After looking at all of the evidence, and looking at satellite images, including Lahaina and some time-lapse images that show the simultaneous ignition of dozens of the Canadian forest fires, I recently concluded that your suggestion here is highly likely true. I think zero point energy is the only energy source that could provide that much power for a compact, light-weight space-based weapons platform. Given that DoD and NASA have contracted out satellite launches to companies like Space X, we won’t be able to learn anything from a FOIA request, either. Some of my service colleagues and I were talking about these weapons when they were in development in the 1990s and some of us were less than enthusiastic about them. The potential for abuse is enormous.
      Keep your ear to the ground over the next 4-6 months – not long from now, I believe we’ll be able to learn a lot more about the technologies and weapons that the Dark Side has been developing for about 60 years. If what I believe was done to Lahaina and Canada (and California) is true, it’s difficult to contemplate the depth and scope of the evil we’re facing.

      1. Thank you Charlie. Summer last year, I was tasked by our school district superintendent with studying “green school buses”, a colleague sent me a video of an EV bus burning up in some city. Imagine the destructive capability of a DEW weapon sighted in on an EV school bus, or an electric vehicle parked in a garage. Wondering how many of the homes in Lahania had EV cars parked in their garage. If, as Catherine stated, the Lahania fire perfectly followed property lines, then the weapon is accurate and can pinpoint an “OnStar” system in a car, or your car insurance company’s beacon. By the way, I recommended to the super that we should retrofit the fluorescent lighting systems throughout the school district for the same capital spend as ten EV buses,

      2. Charlie it occurs to me today, if it is a DEW, that Mr. Global has not unleashed this weaponry against the Russian soldiers occupying parts of Ukraine in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, Mykolayiv, Zaporizhzhya and Crimea, or against Moscow herself. Such a weapon would undoubtedly turn the tide of the war in Ukraine, no doubt escalate a Russian military response against NATO and the United States as they would surely understand that the destruction came from space and was not a wildfire or other natural phenomenon. I recall that recently President Putin made a statement about Russia developing more advanced weapons, perhaps Maui and the other fires were signals to Russia (other world leaders) much like the dropping of “Little Boy” on Heroshima in 1945. A reexamination of Trump’s creation of a Space Force, in light of advanced DEWs is interesting also. I tell all my friends where the two parties agree or overlap in same way is where you can see hints of the “real” agenda. Example, Trump brings in Operation Warp Speed, Biden mandates and locks down. Trump brings creates Space Force, Biden uses space weaponry against domestic populations. Let’s not forget also that Obama was born in Hawaii, maybe he always dreamed of having an estate in Lahania!

  6. There have been some great guests and discussions on Solari Report over the years, but this one is top of the heap. I have learned more in this two part presentation than I have in any other single presentation possibly in my entire life. Thank you.

    1. That’s really, really kind of you to say, Wayne. Thank you. I hope we’ll be having more conversations about related topics. My systems-based studies have covered a lot of ground over the last 50 years so there’s lots to talk about. And a lot of good, rewarding work to do in redesigning our societal systems!

  7. Sorry, maybe i have misunderstood … this guy believes the climate change narrative? The one where too many humans are the problem?

    1. Nope. Where the current system is the problem – #1 is the rackets, etc. Need to listen to the whole thing.

      1. Excellent. I will make fresh coffee, and listen again. I figured i must have missed something.

        1. And I’ll be happy to have a conversation with you about anything you have questions about. Charlie

  8. After revisiting the research of astrophysicist, Henrik Svensmark, I urge everybody in here to see his lectures on the role of sun variability on cloud forming and global warming.
    I venture, that his research IS the missing link in an integrated climate understanding, and provides a crucial set of scholarly arguments against anthropogenic climate change:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhdsZHHNy8k

    1. Despite Svensmark’s impressive publications and findings, his research is being defunded, his professorship has been denied and he was almost fired from Danish Institute of Technology. His first findings arrived at the same time as a huge UN Climate summit, and they evoked great hostility from the UN. I also recommend this interview with Svensmark:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZBWEKCW2Fc

    2. Hi again, Martin. I watched Dr. Svensmark’s talk and enjoyed it very much. As a systems engineer, I seldom spend time learning about “the system” at the cosmic scale, and it’s always a pleasure.
      I’ll make a few observations. First, he’s talking about very large cycles that occur at a rate (based on his data) of about 8 per 500 million years. The cycles are large. Each cycle takes many millennia to evolve and then many more millennia to reverse. What most climate scientists are concerned about today is that changes that are starting to look like they’re of that magnitude are happening in a matter of decades. Something is driving the significant change in time scale.
      He suggested that CO2 had been stable at 280 ppm over many millennia. According to the Greenland data I’ve seen that’s not true. the 280 figure is the average of the range (240-320 ppm). It’s easy to discount CO2 if you believe that it’s constant while all of these cycles are going on.
      And last, all of his cloud-related data that he cited (within the last 100 years) completely ignored the millions of tons of material dumped into the atmosphere for decades now that absolutely manages the cloud cover in the northern hemisphere, and if you haven’t been read in on that, a lot of the correlations and observations one makes will have no relation to what the weather and climate situation would be in the absence of the weather engineering. I watch them manufacture a complete high altitude overcast in a matter of a couple of hours, in place of what started as a clear sunny day. The temperature impacts are notable – clouds reflect about 21% of the incoming short-wavelength solar energy and absorb about 3%. That’s a big deal on an otherwise sunny day. The cloud nuclei being used are typically aluminum nano-particles – Welsbach particles. Some of the early patents (of the few I know about) trace back to Lawrence Livermore Lab in CA, in 1991. But the weather engineering has been going on since the 1950s. I have a 1996 Air Force paper on engineering weather as a “force multiplier.” They can, and have, dissipated typhoons, intensified and directed hurricanes (like Ian recently), created incredibly localized high velocity wind patterns, caused blizzards and downpours – all of the things the racketeers claim are caused by climate change. The fact that they’re causing all of it doesn’t mean that climate change, some of it human-caused, isn’t happening. It’s just not the most immediate threat to the lives and livelihood of most of us. They’re attacking us on many fronts and most people don’t realize we’re in a war. We really need to come together and focus on that. Redesign the system. Charlie

      1. “The cycles are large.” Well yes and no, Svensmark has demonstrated the effect on several time scales – down to solar bursts. At 11:15 Svensmark shows the intimate correlation between cosmic rays and cloud cover over a 25 year period and over a at 19:40 35 day period. In both cases there are heavy correlation with delay, suggesting causation. To prove the link between cosmic rays and clouds ought to be enough to demonstrate the link to temperature, since the high contribution of clouds to temperature aren’t disputed – even by the IPCC.
        Now I don’t dispute that the military industrial complex is seeding and thus creating clouds as well, but were their contribution as large as the cosmic, there surely wouldn’t have been such a intimate pattern of correlation as is the case?
        On a weather scale, I’m sure that the military can accomplish some tricks, but on a climate scale I’m less convinced.

        1. Had the weather modification impacted the climate in the way you suggest, it would have muddled the correlation between cosmic rays and clouds, and we wouldn’t have this very impressive – almost isoform – correlation then.

      2. “It’s easy to discount CO2 if you believe that it’s constant while all of these cycles are going on.”
        Certainly, but it’s also the other way around. You might very well overestimate CO2, if you don’t factor in cosmic rays. The role of CO2 as a climate culprit would diminish quite a bit when you factor in the cosmic rays as function of solar activity and the clouds as a function of cosmic rays. You can’t have serious climate models without this as a factor. And right now, that’s what we have. And noone in the UN or the IPPC seems interested in factoring it in.

      3. About the 280 ppm level, there seems to be consensus about that level being more or less stable from 265 to 280 ppm during the holocene.
        “Over that time, CO2 levels increased to 265 ppm, which was about 1 ppm every 125 years. From 10,500 years ago to the year 1850, CO2 levels slowly increased to about 280 ppm, an increase to which early humans are thought to have contributed with the development of farming and the slow deforestation of forests over time.”
        https://climate.nasa.gov/faq/55/how-might-earths-atmosphere-land-and-ocean-systems-respond-to-changes-in-carbon-dioxide-over-time/
        So if NASA is right in their premise, the argument holds; the low variability in CO2 doesn’t fit the higher variability in temperature in the same period. And there shurely must have been a higher temperature variability, since the earth was moving from the end of an iceage through an interglacial period.The forensic evidence in glaciation supports this.

      6. A ten minute basic overview of space weather – what it is, and how it impacts us.

        Ben also focuses on cyclical catastrophe theories, and that info has a playlist on his channel. It’s a lot to absorb, but I would love to know your thoughts on this stuff.

        I’ve noticed a few other Solari folks also follow Ben’s work. I’m guessing we’d all be interested in seeing you chat with him.

        Thanks again for your work. I’m still catching up on your conversations, and perhaps i missed this part.

        https://youtu.be/UDKKhNFiXjY?si=vgSYDgujmHW4LRRR

    3. Well that’s too bad, but not surprising. The same international crime syndicate that’s poisoning us all, confiscating property all over the Western world, destroying our food supply, locking us down, imprisoning us in 15-minute cities, and setting us up (with CBDCs) to literally enslave us all has weaponized climate change to justify all of their totalitarian transitions. This doesn’t mean that climate change doesn’t exist, or that humans aren’t causing any of it – that isn’t the lie. The lies are everything thing they claim to do doing about it. Nothing they’re doing would ever address climate change. The things that would dramatically reduce our impact on the climate are things that would end their rackets, so they can’t possibly allow that. And anyone who threatens the idea of climate change, and takes away that particular stick with which they’re beating us is a target for de-funding, denigration, de-platforming, and disappearing. No big surprise.
      As I keep trying to suggest, our best strategy is go after their rackets for reasons that have nothing to do with climate change, which is what I hope to talk about in Part 3. Charlie

  10. I simply can’t take seriously the assertion of a trace gas like co2 changing the climate with correlational argument alone. Graphs I have been presented with have shown a lag in co2 concentration to temperature change – the inference being that it’s the change in temperature that’s the cause of co2 concentrations. Also the correlation is in many graphs not always there.

    1. I guess all I can say here is that not all molecules are equal, no matter the trace amounts. Your own lungs are highly sensitive to all of the trace gases we encounter, but in different measures. Even the same molecule responds differently to the incoming visible and UV radiation than it does to the outgoing infrared radiation. Water vapor is also a trace gas in the troposphere, but has a large impact on the balance of incoming and outgoing energy. Let’s face it, compared to oxygen (21%) and nitrogen (78%), every gas in the troposphere is a trace gas. Refrigerants have thousands of times the atmospheric impact of CO2 per molecule, but even they’re in the troposphere in trace amounts – less than CO2. This is just very old physics – from the 19th century, and the fossil fuel companies knew all of this in the 1960s. They’ve invested billions since then to fill the dialogue on these issues with nonsense – lies, omissions, and deceit. Most people don’t have the technical ability to sort out what’s true and what isn’t.
      Some of us, who started studying this particular part of physics in the 1970, were able to learn a lot of the science well before it became a political issue and the world was awash propaganda. For the record, there are no temperature measurements – only models – unless you restrict the analysis period to about 100 years. Prehistoric temperature numbers are inferred, and how they’re inferred depends on who’s doing the modeling, and what answers they want. You may or may not have noticed that exactly the same thing has been going on with the COVID racket for the last few years (well, actually, way before that). The answer you get depends on who’s asking (and paying), and what the goal is. Remember the UK model that said millions would die?
      So I’m focused on getting rid of the waste and destruction rather than arguing about whether or not one of the longer-term impacts exists. We’re all being poisoned, debilitated, killed, and terminally medicated in the short term, and consuming vast amounts of energy and resources for those purposes. Maybe we should stop it. Charlie

      1. Yes, I agreee, they’re inferred, they’re proxies. However they can, as I noted in another comment, be corroborated by forensic evidence, such as archeological findings, and also the temperature pattern of the last 100 years serves as an external criteria for vetting the proxies, that are used to establish the patterns before our direct measurements.

      2. Ah….yes, like not working for the companies doing it or financing them etc. Crowd and their pocketbooks can WALK AWAY!

  11. How did Charley Stevens develop energy for a living , electricity, automobile fuel, just normal daily, living necessities? My family and I which is extensive I thinking of buying land in the lower part of the mountains, foothills and building a complex were researching it now.

  12. Charlie, I’m in Austin, TX. Place based decisions questions… Regulation at United States states:
    Any best and worst and then any comment about Texas?

    FYI: Texas left a highly regulated market a while back and of course rates are up but Austin Energy is a city entity…public utility so we think that’s great. We’ve missed brown out close calls a couple of times in the last week with Texas Ercot centralization for efficiency.
    Below is for subscribers fyi. Thanks for being you Charlie!

    https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards
    Last Updated: Sep 8, 2023 16:59 CT
    Current Generation
    Solar
    11,861 MW(14.2%)
    Wind
    5,498 MW(6.6%)
    Hydro
    166 MW(0.2%)
    Power Storage
    299 MW(0.4%)
    Other
    105 MW(0.1%)
    Natural Gas
    48,716 MW(58.5%)
    Coal and Lignite
    11,686 MW(14.0%)
    Nuclear
    4,937 MW(5.9%)

  13. An excellent and fascinating perspective. Thank you both! I am interested in Charlie’s opinion on some graphs I’ve seen showing the CO2 / Temperature ratio over the last 500,000 years where the 2 factors seem to show a slightly negative correlation. One such graph is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX1z_6pvM-Q : start at minute 12 for the graph.
    In any case, I very much appreciate the elegant solution of returning to regenerative farming, as something that would tie us back to the real physical world, hollow out the ‘rackets’, and nourish us all at the same time.

    1. Well, John, I’m not sure how the “temperature” numbers were generated. As it happens, we do know the atmospheric CO2 concentrations over that period, but there are no matching temperature records. Temperatures are all inferred, and how things are modeled determines what numbers you get, and how well and comprehensively you know all of the other Earth events that happened over that same period. There’s always that old saying – “all models are wrong, but some are useful.” And in our times, the meaning of “useful” has become rather fungible. One always has to ask, useful to whom? And for what purpose?
      Western societies have been awash in propaganda and marketing, including the marketing of ideas and public policies. For the benefit of whom, primarily? So I tend to put my stock in the few real numbers we have and then be careful about knowing whose model it is in the background and who is paying for the model and modeling.
      I know the fossil fuel companies modeled all of this long, long ago – in the 1960s and 70s. They knew back then that if the world burned all of the oil they knew about at the time, eventually atmospheric CO2 concentrations would rise, and eventually alarmingly so. Amory Lovins, an energy colleague of seriousness and intellect, was talking about this in his public talks in 1976. The fossil fuel industry, including Exxon Mobil and the Peabody Coal Company, by themselves, and as drivers of the Western Fuels Association, have invested hundreds of millions of dollars, first to demonize the idea that climate change was a threat, and when that didn’t work, that humans weren’t responsible for any of it. They’ve spent billions by now, and they’re still spending, and their message hasn’t changed. It’s just been picked up by others, so they’re in the background, promoting carbon capture, carbon credit, and ESG nonsense, in an attempt to monetize the problem and profit from the solutions, real or imagined.
      So in a sea of propaganda, fraudulent science, captured regulatory agencies, censorship of what’s real and true, and the power of immense wealth driving the agenda – what the public is allowed to talk about – whose studies and information and data is one to trust?
      Most of what we need to do to have an impact on the unfortunate climate trends, regardless of what you think they are or whether they’re there or not, is to not do things. Things that squander immense amounts of energy and resources, and things we shouldn’t be doing at all anyway. If we did all those things, we and all life on the planet would be healthier. This is a real problem for the rackets, because they’re making a fortune on creating the problems. Regenerative farming would eliminate industrial agriculture, along with its fertilizer (31% of industrial agriculture’s energy use); its vast array of poisons and all of the energy and resources used to produce, transport, sell and turn loose; a huge fraction of its diesel fuel use, and the management overhead of all of this on a national and international scale. Small-scale, local family farms would feed us. Our animals would be healthy so our meat supply would be healthy and humanely raised, in a healthy ecosystem. If you want to listen to how that works, listen to Joe Rogan’s interview with Will Harris, the farmer who owns and runs White Oak Pastures in Georgia. Extraordinary. It needs to be commonplace.
      We would all be healthier because our food would actually be nutritious and without poisons. So there goes the ill health business model of Big Pharma. And a lot of the healthcare industry would dry up because business would be way down. And then there are the violence rackets, who directly (in War Department operations) and indirectly (to power the arms industry) use almost 15% of our energy.
      When you start unwinding the rackets – the Dark Side’s system – I believe what climate impacts humans have been causing would solve themselves. Living in harmony with the natural world, which is the only force on Earth that reduces entropy, would automatically reduce the harms humans cause to life and its prospects on Earth. All of them, including climate change.
      So let’s talk about how to redesign the system so we don’t have to debate about climate change. Just remember that every single thing the racketeers say about climate change, and everything they say they’re doing in response, is a lie. Part of the tidal wave of propaganda and deceit and Ponzi swindles that we’re swimming in right now. We could design them out. Charlie

      1. The assertion that Exxon and their ilk are funding anti-Co2 science, is at least not what Svensmark has experienced – rather his science is being defunded all around – despite his impressive findings.

  14. Not sure of some of the assertions regarding CO2 mechanisms. First of all water vapor is a much more important greenhouse gas compared to CO2, so even if the CO2 response is linear (which can’t be proven), it may not matter much.

    Secondly, CO2 may not be acidifying the ocean because there are massive carbonaceous deposits on the ocean floor that exist in equilibrium with the dissolved CO2, so no matter how much CO2 gets dissolved in the ocean, it may just precipitate into those deposits and have a natural cap.

    Lastly I can’t imagine an intelligent discussion about climate change without mentioning the Milankovic cycles, whose effect was corroborated by the Vladivistok ice core drillings.

    1. Hi, Benjamin. I wouldn’t assert that there is very much going on in the atmosphere that’s linear, and given all of the factors involved (such as the massive increase in leaked refrigerants, each molecule of which is thousands of times more potent than CO2 and hundreds of times more potent than water as a greenhouse gas). And water exists in the atmosphere in a few forms, including ice crystals, liquid water, and H3O2. And I’m not sure all of the science is settled on that factor, either.
      As for the oceans, I don’t believe the problem of acidification would be moderated at all by any sort of carbonaceous deposits – the problem is the formation of carbonic acid in the presence of highly polar salt molecules, which dissolves the calcium in the shells of molluscs, for instance, or doesn’t even allow the shells to form in the first place.
      As I’ve tried to say, multiple times, climate change isn’t the most important reason to change how we conduct ourselves with regard to energy and other technology anyway. I believe we would be smarter to step up and look at more of the current energy system and its many other horrible impacts instead of debating endlessly about only one of the impacts. Charlie

    3. Agreed other ice core data is available which should be considered. I would expect that vegetation levels would also tend to increase as supported by elevated CO2 levels, which would be absorbed and convert into oxygen and carbon-based food sources. Another equilibrium process.

  15. Thank you very much for discussing nitrogen and carbon dioxide. The rackets have lied to us and brought death in many ways to support their profits. I am a student of the Buteyko Method. The Buteyko Method teaches that 6.5%- 7 % CO2 in the lungs is a physiological marker for homeostasis in humans. Since the air we breathe is less than 1% CO2, we don’t get the necessary CO2 for our lungs from the air. If we breathe the optimal 3-4 liters per minute (another physiological marker for homeostasis) our body converts/processes the necessary CO2 to be converted into carbonic acid and other things. Suffice to say, most of us “over breathe”. Dr. Buteyko called most illnesses “ diseases of civilization”. I’m interested in how to reconcile Charlie Stephens’ information with Dr.Buteyko’s method. For example, one student asked a senior practitioner about the effects of nuclear poisoning for students of Buteyko, and there were students living near Chernobyl when that incident happened. They did not suffer great effects. The method helps the body eliminate poison. Sadly, students who took the jab can not detox and some “died suddenly”.

    1. I’m afraid I’m not familiar with the Buteyko Method. And I’m not sure how that might relate to the 0.04% of CO2 that’s in the air we breath, on average. The troposphere is mostly made up of nitrogen (78%) and oxygen (21%), the latter being what we need to fuel our cellular ATP production – the source of our energy. The CO2 in our lungs is mostly a product of what hemoglobin carries away from our cells after it brings oxygen. Chlorophyll does this in reverse for plants and trees. In fact, the only difference between the 136 atoms of a hemoglobin molecule and the 136 atoms of a chlorophyll molecule is the one atom in the center – iron for hemoglobin and magnesium for chlorophyll. Do we think we might be related in some fashion to plants? Charlie

  16. The information about the distant past atmospheric CO2 levels compared with current day presented here differ with the presentations of Canadian scientist Dr Patrick Moore which are quite interesting. What is the reconciliation or decisive factor in Mr Stephens’ conclusion on the matter as compared with Dr Moore’s?

    1. I’m afraid I’m not familiar with Dr. Moore’s work. I do know that the Earth is a participant in many sorts of cycles. The CO2 data I’ve relied on comes from the analysis 800,000 years or so of air bubbles formed in the Greenland ice mantle. Analyzing the contents of actual air from that stretch of history is one of the few direct measurements we have of the composition of the atmosphere in those times. Obviously no one was measuring actual temperatures over that same period, so temperature “data” is inferred and not measured, which means the connection between CO2 concentrations and temperatures have to be inferred, or the analysis period has to be confined to the period when both measurements were being taken – not more than a century.
      As I’ll say often here, I long ago came to understand that the impacts of how we conduct ourselves in the energy sector of human civilization have far more immediate and horrible effects than whatever we imagine about climate change. If I agreed that the notion of climate change isn’t a large enough concern for us to worry about, I would still advocate for the same changes when it comes to how we acquire and use energy. Charlie

      1. Although tempereature data is inferred it is corroborated by archeological findings; the medieval warming period is corroborated by findings showing the viking were growing corn in Greenland and the brits were growing of wine in England all the way back to the roman times.

      2. Thank you for the reply. I have no doubt that the vast opportunities to improve energy efficiency in so many ways are a feature not a bug. And that needs to change quickly and conclusively.

  17. In the book “Unsettled” author Steven Koonin presents a spectral analysis of what frequencies of radiation atmospheric CO2 blocks. The reason why twice as much CO2 does not equal twice as much warming is because the CO2 was already “opaque” for the forms of radiation it could block. Making it “more opaque” beyond a certain threshold doesn’t have much additional effect. See photo. I’m curious if Charlie Stephens was accounting for this when he commented on the potentially dire consequences of continuing to increase CO2.

    I realize also that Koonin was comparing 400 and 800 ppm, whereas I think Stephens in your interview was comparing 200 and 400 ppm, which is probably a larger contrast.

  18. The fact that the racketeers are using climate to forward their agenda caused me to initially discount the validity man having an effect on climate. Also, because climate change has been with us since the world began, I discounted any talk that man contributes to it.

    Now, after hearing Charlie describe how carbon dioxide affects climate, how the energy industry contributes to it, and that CO2 levels are higher than the period covered by ice core readings, I recognize that as man is destroying the environment in every area, why not climate as well? 

    1. But it is not man that is doing this. We have many ways of changing this. The rackets are stopping that change and prefer total control and depopulation. Utah Phillips once said, “The Earth is not dying. It is being killed. And the people killing it have names and addresses.”

      1. Good clarification: It’s not mankind doing the destruction but a subset: the self-appointed, self-exalted, and self-defied.

    2. Hi Richard. I think you’ve touched on an important point – that the system is very complex, and there are number of factors that cause any system to produce the outcomes it does. Obviously, humans, given our current numbers, consumption habits, and predilection for violence on the part of those in control, will obviously have an impact. And if we feel that those impacts are highly negative, it’s reasonable to attempt to reduce or eliminate them, especially if they are a threat to the thriving of life.
      But these impacts, along with a lot of other negative impacts, are the product of the system designed by the criminal rackets who are running it. That’s what we need to change. If we were to succeed in that, I believe most of our most serious problems would solve themselves, including our contribution to adverse climate change. Charlie

      1. If the rackets were phased out over a reasonable period, with a move to regenerative agriculture, would be quite interesting to see what all indicators would then feedback.

  19. From a Subscriber:

    How is the Economic Return on Energy metric calculated and when Charlie was speaking about the low return for nuclear, how does he account for Gen IV technology?

    For what we have spent in Ukraine we could have developed a viable Gen IV tech. To your point, new energy tech is being suppressed. Climate change being used to force in the control grid.

    SPAC deals in emerging nuclear tech are continuing. NewScale is a Gen III small modular reactor company – first deal to close. X-Energy and Oklo deals announced but have not closed. There is no other in pre-announce stage. Hopefully you can have Charlie comment on the various Gen IV tech, much of which was tested and proven out in the 1960s at Oak Ridge National Lab (TN) but was not pursued b/c the conventional pressurized water reactors helped with the weapons program. As example. Molten Salt Reactor Project at ORNL used Thorium as a fuel source and worked like a fast reactor on the thermal spectrum which allowed fuel to by burned up producing high heat 700 degrees Celsius with minimal waste.

    2. Well first let me say that you no doubt know more than I do about what you call Gen III and Gen IV nuclear technology. I see these generational technologies as part of a larger system, part of which you allude to when you mention the connection between pressurized water reactors’ ties to the nuclear weapons industry. I can offer some of my own observations and you can enlighten me about the Gen III and Gen IV technologies, if you like, in the same contexts.
      First, you ask about how the “Economic Return on Energy” is calculated. Here I need to ask if you’re raising a new metric to discuss – ROI – or if you misinterpreted the term “EROEI” as having to do with financial return. It stands for Energy Return on Energy Invested. At an EROEI of 1:1, a society is expending 100 percent of the energy it uses on getting more energy to use – there’s none left over to do anything else. Nothing.
      A huge fraction of the energy invested in nuclear generating capacity is spent on acquiring, transporting, processing (huge), and manufacturing the fuel for the reactors. The exotic materials and anti-radiation measures inherent in the system are very energy intensive as well. Relative to its output a nuclear plant tends to use a lot of its own generation to run itself, too. When you add it all up, a plant, at any scale, doesn’t produce much more than 5 times the energy it takes to fire up the system and run it.
      You suggest here, probably with good reason, that the newer generation technologies – the ones that may be suppressed – have the advantage of “using up” the fuel and producing “minimal waste.” That’s admirable, but none of the energy or financial costs of dealing with the spent fuel predicament of the current older generation technology are accounted for in the first place, so we can’t really quantify the advantage, in either energy or financial terms. By the way, 700 C (about 1,300 F) is not a particularly “high heat,” which is actually a good thing, if it’s high enough.
      I should add, though, that while EROEI is an important metric to consider (and one that most people just aren’t aware of), there are several other issues that are important to consider as well.
      First, the fuel. Radioactive fuel has to be acquired, in whatever form, and if it’s radioactive in its found state, it has to be handled differently, and more expensively, than non-radioactive fuels. As an example, the Black Hills of South Dakota are more or less a radioactive national sacrifice area. A Fukushima’s worth of radiation is spread into the environment there every year. (see http://truth-out.org/news/item/16752-americas-secret-fukushima-poisoning-the-bread-basket-of-the-world) . In an honest assessment, all of the energy and financial liabilities of the whole nuclear generation system, over the whole life cycle of the longest-lived adverse impact of the system, need to be accounted for. They’re not. Far from it. I advocate the same treatment for all of the other generation technologies, too.
      I say that because there are massive public subsidies in every part of the energy and all of the other predatory industry rackets. In fact, the nuclear business model looks a lot like the pharmaceutical business model. The public purse massively funds all of the basic research and development, and at the last minute, the private sector patents the particulars, and makes all the money. That’s how pharmaceuticals work. And the criminals who have been running our country for many generations are the chief beneficiaries.
      And then there’s the treatment of adverse impacts. Both the nuclear industry and the pharmaceutical industry have near-zero liability for the adverse impacts of their products. Big Pharma’s vaccines are liability-free, thanks to the Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (1986) and the PREP Act (2005, et seq). In the case of the nuclear industry, the public has blindly agreed, without thinking or knowing about it, to assume all of the liability for any adverse effects of nuclear power generation. If the nuclear industry had to pay for its own insurance against occurrences like 3 Mile Island or Fukushima, they would go out of business tomorrow. If they stayed in business by some miracle, the cost of their power would be completely uncompetitive. So the two rackets operate similarly and probably shouldn’t be allowed to operate at all.
      And then there’s your very valid assertion that “new energy tech is being suppressed.” Very true, and has been for quite a long time. One has to be careful, though, to distinguish between suppression and simply failing to invest. “The market,” fully rigged by the rackets as it is, can simply cause a failure to invest and the technology will die on the vine. I know of several of those.
      Then there are end-use technologies suppressed (like certain carburetor technologies for internal combustion engines, or engine technologies themselves – just look up GM’s rotary radial engine technology from the 70s). There has even been suppression of an asphalt pavement design with a 50-year+ structural life (I was personally involved in uncovering that back in the late 1990s). This latter technology had two major flaws – it lasts more than 50 years with no maintenance, and its cost – about 30 percent less than for conventional designs. This was clearly going to go nowhere, and it didn’t. I can explain how and why for anyone interested.
      There are generation technologies suppressed as well, of course. Some of Boeing’s best solar PV technology, with efficiencies in excess of 40 percent and using very little material, has been suppressed. But in the generation category, the most important of those suppressed is what Max Planck called Zero Point energy – the energy that can be easily tapped from the quantum vacuum, if you will. Without knowing exactly what it was, but certain of its existence,Tesla did this over 100 years ago. A team of physicists recently proved that it’s real and that it can be tapped. And if you want to know how much there is to be tapped, just consider the energy contained in a lightning bolt.
      The problem here is that the rackets who are profiting so handsomely from today’s several energy subsectors are the ones suppressing the alternatives, for the last 3 generations. This is in part because it would wipe out trillions in revenue from the current energy system, which they own and control, and partly because they’ve decided to use the better stuff themselves, and keep it to themselves, given its extraordinary advantages (aside from being free). If there were large sums of money to be made in something like this Gen III or Gen IV technology, they would already own it and control it, taking advantage of all the subsidies they could cause to happen in the process. I suspect they’re thinking something like, “Let the chumps invest in that inferior stuff; we already control the most important technologies.”
      In the end, the analogy I come back to for nuclear generation is that generating electricity with radioactive fuels is akin to killing flies with a howitzer. It may seem an attractive strategy when others are paying for the howitzer, its operation, and the clean-up of the collateral damage from its use. But in the end, there are smarter, much less complex ways to generate electricity, and do away with the need for batteries, for that matter. As far as I’m concerned, the era of nuclear power generation arrived with the atomic bomb and was gone not long after. Because of massive public subsidies and hidden budgets, it’s just taking an unfortunately long time to die. Charlie

  20. I was (once again) reflecting on Hope today. Hopelessness is indeed a great way for the rackets to neutralize resistance. But so is False Hope. Too many people in my opinion state lightly that this will e over in a few years. And that knowledge keeps them going. The problem is: What if it takes longer? Where will you be in that case?
    I believe (although not every day with the same strength) that we will eventually create that Simple, Harmonious, Productive Life here on Earth, but it might not happen in our lifetime. So in my opinion we need to lead a purposeful life in the spirit of Victor Frankl: Develop our talents and use them for the right things, Be kind to the people, animals and nature around us and, finally, carry our lives in good and bad times with dignity. Then, no matter what happens, we will have done the right thing.
    (source: Victor Frankl, Man’s search for meaning)

    1. Could not agree more. Very well said, Gerdt. Changing a 500 year old model can take more than a century, not to mention what happens if it goes upside down. That was the mystery of the cathedrals. The initial designers and builders would never live to see their work finished. Will be the same for me and Solari. Or what flows from your students and their families and students. Same for you. “What we do echos in eternity” That is what makes for a good life.

    2. I very much agree with you, Gerdt. False hope isn’t helpful, but real hope might be not much more than believing that each of us has agency – that how we conduct ourselves can change how things happen in the world. Imagine what might happen if the primary goal of society was the thriving of all life. I suspect many people would sign up for that, but they aren’t the people who have been determining the outcomes of our societal systems. We’ve allowed the worst of humanity to run things. I do have some hope that we can change that situation. And like you, I suspect it will take a while to get it done. The biggest challenge is in getting started. Charlie

      1. YUP. Good time for everyone to GET UP OFF THE COUCH! If we all do what we can and have the heart to do, remarkable what can happen.

    3. Gerdt:
      Can I quote you? Let me know if yes, if I should attribute to you or to a Solari Report subscriber

  21. Hi, some more thoughts on the 21st Century Energy. ….
    Before I get into the detail, I need some definitions :
    Anthropogenic Global Warming : Caused by humans, temperature changes.
    Climate change : AGW plus changes caused by Nations, including weather wars.
    Complexity : Systemic change from one stable state to another stable state.
    Complication : Systemic change at or beyond the limits of human comprehension

    I’m not convinced by Charlie Stephens argument extending by implication recent temperature and/or weather changes to cover the last 800,000 years. Maybe I missed something. I’d prefer written evidence, but I suggest the following two videos explain things a little better (apologies for linking to theirtube) :

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmmmgiPha_Y

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0Cp7DrvNLQ

    There is other stuff, more complicated, and there’s still no certainty as to causes. It’s complicated.

      1. I live in the Pacific Northwest, and when we’re not engulfed in smoke or on fire, it’s a pretty good place.

  23. Charlie posted the following in response to the question WHAT CAN I DO?

    Catherine asked me to follow up on your question here about what we all can do in the areas energy and resource use, so I’ll do my best to start in on that big question for you.

    First, there are two parts to responding to the waste in how we conduct ourselves – the direct reductions of your own household’s energy and resource use, and the indirect reductions in the energy and resource use of the economy that come from changes your daily consumption habits. The first category is pretty easy to describe, even if sometimes relatively expensive to carry out. The second category is quite comprehensive and requires a certain level of mindfulness about the impacts of what buy and how we use it.

    Let’s assume that the first category includes energy use by one’s home and by one’s transportation arrangements. Most of our building infrastructure in this country (about two-thirds) was built prior to 1990, when building energy codes in many states began to proliferate. California was the first state to enact such a code, in 1975, in response to the 1973 oil “crisis.” Until then energy was considered both plentiful and not terribly expensive. Neither of those descriptors is true anymore, if they ever were.

    In my case, when I bought a home a little bit ago, I made sure it was one that was very energy efficient, which it has turned out to be. If you don’t live in such a home, but would like to, there are things you can do, but most of the changes that are needed in most homes are fairly expensive. There are four distinct areas to address: insulation levels in the floor, walls, and ceilings; windows; air leakage; and the heating/cooling and water heating systems. Air-sealing is usually addressed when insulation levels are upgraded. To a great extent, insulation levels are limited by the the way the home’s structure was built – a 2×4 wall holds 2 inches less insulation than a 2×6 wall, which means the only option for more insulation is adding it on over the outside of the home’s sheathing – an expensive but very effective proposition. Usually adding more insulation in an attic is pretty easy, and air-sealing of the attic floor before doing that is an important step. Last I knew, adding insulation to the existing floor, wall or ceiling structure (the ceiling insulation often blown in) cost $1-$2/sq ft, installed.

    If you have single-pane windows or what are called “double clear” windows (double-pane, but with no low-emissivity coating, which most new windows have had since 1992 or so), then replacing those windows with new low-e windows is a big step to save quite a lot of energy and improves indoor comfort pretty dramatically in both the winter and summer. Air-sealing around the window rough openings occurs with replacement, too. The significant amount of air that leaves a home through the attic often comes in around the windows and doors. This weatherization measure, again, is pretty expensive. The cost of new windows depends mostly on the frame type (in order of cost – vinyl, fiberglass, or wood), but also on operator type (single-hung, double-hung, slider, casement, fixed, etc.) and ranges from $20 to $75 per sq ft, installed. Pretty much all new windows have a good low-e coating. That coating prevents radiant energy from leaving the home and prevents radiant energy from entering the home during the summer – hence the improvement in comfort.

    Air-sealing can be relatively inexpensive, especially if you have a few big sources of air leakage. Removing and replacing the trim around windows and doors can allow sealing those sources of leakage, and attics usually have a lot of sources of leakage that can be fairly easily fixed (around electrical wiring, lighting fixtures, plumbing piping, etc.). Pretty much everything that comes up into the attic from below has a hole that’s a lot bigger than what goes through the hole, which can be sealed up with a spray foam product. The stack effect – the rising of warm air at the top of the structure and replacement of that air with cold air from around the bottom of the structure is a strong and continuous driving force in the winter, and just capping the exit points in the attic can prevent a lot of air from coming in around the bottom.

    The last area to address is the water heating and space conditioning systems. Heat pumps are by far the best and most efficient technology for those end uses, but they’re not cheap. And the less expensive your electricity, the harder it is to justify the cost economically. And things seem to have gotten worse (a good bit more expensive) since the plandemic arrived. In many homes, depending on where your water heater is located, a heat pump water heater (HPWH) is pretty easy to retrofit, but the installed cost these days can exceed $2,000, with half of that being the cost of the water heater itself. The best heat pump space conditioning systems are variable speed heat pumps, many of which are called mini-splits – split-system heat pumps with capacities ranging from 3/4 of a ton to 5 tons. The furnace you have, of whatever sort, can usually be replaced with the indoor unit (air handler) of the heat pump system, fed by the outdoor unit. Heat pumps are just air conditioning systems that are reversible. The best of the these systems can hold their full capacity down to 5 degrees F, and so don’t need any electric resistance back-up. You can find a specification that points to the best systems here: https://neep.org/sites/default/files/media-files/cold_climate_air_source_heat_pump_specification_- _version_4.0_final_1.pdf . Tennessee is in Region IV. You can access the products that meet the high performance specs here: https://ashp.neep.org/#!/ 

    All of these weatherization and equipment measures have utility incentives in many parts of the country. I don’t know about Tennesee specifically, but installers usually know about the incentives available, and you can check on your utility’s web site to see about the various incentives they offer for efficiency work. Occasionally there are also tax incentives for some things, and installers will often know about those, too.

    The second area – indirect energy and resource use is more challenging to address. I tend to put these considerations into a few categories: waste generation, which includes the huge category of packaging waste; transportation; chemistry; and product lifetime.

    I’m pretty picky about what I buy, and who I buy it from, and have been for most of my life. I try never to buy anything on line, especially from companies like Amazon (I started boycotting them when all they sold was books), partly because the packaging and transportation waste associated with such companies is huge and partly because I always buy from local merchants. Another huge source of waste in buying from such behemoths is that you don’t get to actually see or fit what you’re buying until you receive it, and a huge fraction of what people receive is sent back – another huge source of waste. In addition, if you stuff from a place like Home Despot or Loew’s, and you take it back for any reason, it often just ends up in a dumpster rather than being put back on the shelf. In fact, Home Despot employees at one point were in the habit of mining what went into the dumpsters and selling it on line to supplement their income. I don’t know if that’s still happening, but that sort of waste tends not to happen so much with small, locally owned businesses, who can’t afford that kind of wasteful behavior, and will take the trouble to put returns back on the shelf. Also, the transportation energy waste associated with companies like UPS or Fed Ex is just huge, but that’s a topic to address all by itself. In addition, you can pay cash at local merchants, which I’ve been doing for all purchases under $300 (which is almost all of my purchases) for about 30 years now.

    I also try to buy high-quality stuff that lasts a long time, or that can be repaired or upgraded by myself or a local person. That means i shop at garage and estate sales a lot when I decide I need something important. In fact, the biggest single factor causing the immense waste, of both energy and resources, is the short lifetime of what we buy, especially in the case of “technology.”

    For transportation, I just try to drive as little as possible and fly as little as possible (a much easier decision of late). I drive cars and trucks until they’re no longer repairable (typically until they’re more than 20 years old and have more than 300,000 miles on them. I maintain my stuff really well, to make it last longer with fewer repairs. Maintenance is important. I combine trips when I do errands and buy some things in larger quantities so as not to have to make multiple trips to keep stocked up when it comes to things you just can’t be out of (like toilet paper or basic cleaning supplies).

    As you can see, this is a pretty big set of questions you raised, and I hope this at least gives you a start on some answers. The watchwords I apply to everything I do are LESS and FEWER. In the case of pharmaceuticals, since the 1980s, the word I apply is NONE, so I save a lot of money there. Let me know if you have specific questions that I failed to answer and I’ll get right back to you. Charlie

  24. very different view to what most have on these forums (including myself). That the CO2 levels are not anthropogenic

    1. sorry, I meant are anthropogenic! Certainly makes it easier to justify a depopulation agenda.

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