Day: July 7, 2024

When Is a Mandate Not a Mandate?

I’ll keep this short, as plenty of people have had their say in the media already about the mismatch between the votes cast (or not cast) in the recent UK general election and the numbers of seats obtained by the various political parties that stood in it.

From Climate Scepticism

BY MARK HODGSON

When four out of five people didn’t vote for you

I’ll keep this short, as plenty of people have had their say in the media already about the mismatch between the votes cast (or not cast) in the recent UK general election and the numbers of seats obtained by the various political parties that stood in it.

On 1st July the Guardian reported on Ed Miliband’s claim that:

If we win the election, it will send a message round the world that the approach we are taking on clean energy, our argument on bills, independence, jobs and future generations, you can win an election on that argument…

…We are seeking a mandate in this election for that agenda, it’s a mandate for economic change and it’s a mandate to tackle climate change…

…We will make the modern, progressive, big tent case for climate action which does the right thing now. Rishi Sunak may have departed the pitch but I don’t think the British public have.

And now that the Labour Party has won the general election with a massive majority in the House of Commons our new Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, has claimed:

For the first time in 20 plus years, we have a majority in England, in Scotland and in Wales and that is a clear mandate to govern for all four corners of the United Kingdom.

At the risk of being pedantic, Sir Keir, Northern Ireland is also part of the United Kingdom, and you don’t have a majority there, due to the sectarian nature of its politics that sees the main UK parties (including the Labour Party) generally avoiding anything to do with its politics. So “all four corners” is a bit of an exaggeration.

Leaving that aside, however, there is no doubt at all that the newly elected Labour government has a constitutional mandate to implement its pre-election manifesto. Our first past the post system has delivered a stunning victory for Labour, but in no meaningful sense can it be said that the UK public voted enthusiastically in support of any part of Labour’s manifesto. As the BBC acknowledges:

A purely proportional system – where national vote share translated exactly into the number of seats – in 2024 would have given Labour about 195 seats and no majority. The Tories would have had 156 seats, Reform 91, the Liberal Democrats 78 and the Greens 45.

I acknowledge that such an analysis is subject to the caveat offered up by the BBC in its next paragraph:

However, it’s also important to recognise that voters might well vote differently if the voting system was more proportional.

That’s a fair point, but it’s also reasonable to point out that only around 59.8% of the electorate actually voted. Politicians would no doubt seek to ascribe such a low turnout to apathy, but I suspect it has much more to do with widespread disillusionment with political parties generally. Combine that low turnout with Labour’s share of the vote (generally reported as being 34%, but that’s a rounding up), and Labour has probably been elected with a landslide majority having received the votes of a smidgeon under one person in five who was entitled to vote. In no sense is that a ringing endorsement of Labour’s manifesto, and in no sense does it entitle Labour politicians to claim a popular (as opposed to a constitutional) mandate.

I don’t imagine it will stop them from trying to make such claims, and those opposed to Net Zero will probably be dismissed as anti-democrats. In that respect I have two comments:

First, I am finally persuaded (after having had increasing doubts for some time) that our first past the post system isn’t fit for purpose. This week’s election result is an affront to democracy. As the BBC observed, in the above article:

The gap between the share of total votes won by the winning party in the 2024 general election and the share of Parliamentary seats won is the largest on record.

It seems that Labour’s MPs were elected on average by roughly 28,000 votes, while Reform obtained an MP for every 800,000+ votes it received. For the sake of balance I should point out that the Green Party also received a paltry return in terms of MPs for its vote share (though it wasn’t so badly disadvantaged as Reform). Millions of voters have effectively been disenfranchised.

Second, Reform’s more than four million votes might have yielded a return of only five MPs, but at last there will be a strident and persistent anti-Net Zero voice in Parliament. I suspect that the Parliamentary authorities will offer Reform little opportunity to make the case against Net Zero, but with Nigel Farage now in Parliament, we can expect a lot of noise. I suspect that Ed Miliband and his colleagues are about to discover that his plans to accelerate Net Zero will be a lot harder to implement and a lot less popular than they currently assume. Unless they acknowledge the reality of the situation fairly quickly, I strongly suspect that for all their skewed landslide victory, Labour won’t get a second term in 2029. The mould is shattering before our eyes, and our complacent politicians are the ones who are shattering it. If Labour presses ahead with vigorous “world-leading” climate plans, I think the next five years might make the upheavals of the post-Brexit vote years look calm indeed. Interesting, but turbulent, times await.

The Net Zero Agenda Threatens Your Future Clothing Purchases

Whether living in the United States or in a European country, there is a greater chance of wearing a garment made in Bangladesh than in one’s homeland. However, the south Asian country’s dominance in the manufacture of clothing is being threatened by a “green” agenda undermining the power supply.

From Watts Up With That?

By Vijay Jayaraj

Whether living in the United States or in a European country, there is a greater chance of wearing a garment made in Bangladesh than in one’s homeland. However, the south Asian country’s dominance in the manufacture of clothing is being threatened by a “green” agenda undermining the power supply.

With availability of cheap labor and plentiful raw materials, Bangladesh is the world’s second biggest garment exporter and trails only China, having surged ahead of other Asian competitors such as India, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand. A key to sustaining this manufacturing boom is maintaining supplies of electricity to run factories.

Made In Bangladesh

The “Made in Bangladesh” label has become synonymous with affordable, quality garments for much of the globe and with the economic growth of a country that achieved independence from Pakistan in 1971 and now shares borders with India and Myanmar. Bangladesh garment-making is more than just another economic sector; it is the lifeline of the national economy.

In a nation of 168 million, the industry employs more than 4 million workers, the majority of whom are women, and accounts for approximately 84% of the country’s total exports. Bringing in $47 billion to the economy, Bangladeshi clothing supplies global brands such as Walmart, H&M of Sweden and Zara of Spain.

In 2023, knitwear export earnings reached nearly $26 billion, while woven garments earned more than $21 billion. Both categories realized year-on-year growth of approximately 11% and 9% percent, respectively.

This success is built on factories that operate within tight schedules to meet international demands and deadlines. They require a steady flow of electricity to light facilities and operate machinery. Any disruption can result in significant financial losses for factory owners and hourly workers.

In a country where the minimum wage for garment workers is around $113 per month (about $4 a day), even a small reduction in working hours makes a huge difference in a person’s life.

Nonetheless, intentional disruptions in the power supply occur almost every day to manage Bangladesh’s chronic shortage of electricity. The exception to these interruptions has been winter when overall energy demand is lower.

The large gap in the supply and demand for electricity also sometimes leads to sudden, unplanned blackouts such as one in October 2022 when 80% of the country (including key industrial hubs of Dhaka, Chattogram, Sylhet, and Mymensingh) were left without electricity.

Lasting for up to eight hours, the “outage affected production in garment factories and small and medium industries” as millions suffered in sweltering heat, according to news reports.

Net Zero and Green Fantasies Present More Uncertainty

Now, the national government in Dhaka has announced plans to saddle the struggling power system with the reliability issues of the so-called green energy of wind and solar as part of a net zero scheme to be “carbon neutral” by 2050. This would be disastrous.

Relatively reliable fossil fuels provide more than 98% of Bangladesh’s electricity and still the grid has issues managing the supply-demand gap. The well-known intermittency of solar panels and wind turbines makes them available only 10% to 30% of the time and sometimes overproducing when they are. Such erratic operational features add complexity, risk of damage to equipment and more uncertainty to an already shaky gird.

Instead of wasting time and money on renewables, the country should focus on increasing its power capacity from conventional energy sources like coal and natural gas. Even analysts supporting “green” energy say the country must allocate more funds towards oil and gas exploration in order to reduce dependency on imported liquified natural gas to fuel plants that now generate 70% of the electricity.

Bangladesh should stick to its current course of giving energy security top priority and reject pseudoscientific theories about climate change that promote unreliable energy sources. The beneficiaries would be millions of Bangladeshi workers, the country’s development goals and clothing shoppers worldwide.

This commentary was first published at Real Clear Markets on June 29, 2024.

Vijay Jayaraj is a Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Virginia. He holds a master’s degree in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia, U.K.

Declare Freedom from Climate Alarms

Two hundred forty-eight years ago, America declared independence from the idea we needed to be governed by a king. Our Founding Fathers realized a freethinking people are perfectly capable of governing themselves. It was a revolutionary concept in every sense of the word.

Today, tyranny no longer emanates from the decrees of a faraway monarch suffering from a dash of mental illness. It has become a mental tyranny emanating from academics and politicians who employ doomsday tales to replace freethinking with blind acceptance of yarns that advance their agenda.

From Science Matters

By Ron Clutz

Illustration on climate hysteria by Alexander Hunter/The Washington Times

The Washington Times Editorial Board published ‘Declaring independence from hoaxes’ – ‘Let’s put the climate change fantasy to rest’ – ‘What’s being sold as science isn’t science at all’. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Two hundred forty-eight years ago, America declared independence from the idea we needed to be governed by a king. Our Founding Fathers realized a freethinking people are perfectly capable of governing themselves. It was a revolutionary concept in every sense of the word.

Today, tyranny no longer emanates from the decrees of a faraway monarch suffering from a dash of mental illness. It has become a mental tyranny emanating from academics and politicians who employ doomsday tales to replace freethinking with blind acceptance of yarns that advance their agenda.

Mankind’s use of modern conveniences has, they insist, warmed the planet to an uncomfortable degree. Unless we do something to reverse this deadly trend, we will be subjected to extreme storms, rising seas and plagues on an apocalyptic scale. Scary stuff indeed.

We are told this is the conclusion of science, and one cannot
disagree with “the science.” But perhaps we should.

Earlier this year, The Heritage Foundation released a report comparing the predictions of 36 climate models against the actual temperature patterns recorded in the U.S. Corn Belt between the 1970s and the present.

The plot shows the 50-year area-averaged temperature trend during 1973-2022 for the 12-state corn belt as observed with the official NOAA homogenized surface temperature product (blue bar) versus the same metric from 36 CMIP6 climate models (red bars, SSP245 emissions scenario, output here).

Accurate models would be able to match real-life measurements. As the great Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman explained in 1964: “If [a theory] disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science.”

All 36 climate predictions disagreed with reality — that is, each forecast temperatures much higher than what Midwesterners actually experienced. The “warming” never lived up to expectations, which means the climate models are something other than science.

Yet President Biden on Tuesday said you’re “really dumb” if you deny the climate crisis the models predict. He demands you return him to the White House so he can heap more climate regulations on the businesses he disfavors.

It’s not likely that another layer of red tape will do anything to alter global weather patterns, because the sun, not mankind, is the primary driver of climate. Whenever humans try to overcome the sun’s influence, the results inevitably fail to live up to expectations.

For instance, a study published in Nature in May found changes in the formulation of fuel used in cargo vessels four years ago “abruptly reduced the emission of sulfur dioxide from international shipping by about 80% and created an inadvertent geoengineering termination shock with global impact.”

That’s a fancy way of saying cleaner skies allowed more sunshine to reach the ocean, warming the seas dramatically. It’s a puzzler for devotees of the climate change narrative to explain how pollution can combat global warming, so they just ignore it as they do all inconvenient truths.

If climate change were rooted in honest belief, liberals would rally around nuclear energy as the cleanest and most efficient means of supplying any nation’s electricity needs. According to the Energy Department, when counting manufacturing emissions, rooftop solar panels create 40 grams of carbon dioxide for every kilowatt-hour of electricity generated. Nuclear power plants generate one-third that much.

Freethinkers ought to question the animosity toward carbon dioxide, the substance that nourishes plants and makes for bountiful harvests. We ought to liberate our minds from the influence of mountebanks who enrich themselves through the telling of climate fairy tales.

What’s being sold as science isn’t science at all.

Climate-Skeptic Reform Party Takes A Third Of The Tory Vote In The UK Election

After 14 years of net-zero nonsense from the Conservative Party, Nigel Farage’s climate-skeptic Reform Party has taken away a third of the Conservative vote. As a result of the Conservatives’ relentless exclusion of the free-market, small-government, low-tax, pro-family, anti-net-zero center-Right over the past 14 years, the Labor party – which, like all totalitarian parties, takes a radically climate-extremist view – has won the election with a record swing of 11% from the Conservatives and a record majority over all other parties.

From Watts Up With That?

By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley

After 14 years of net-zero nonsense from the Conservative Party, Nigel Farage’s climate-skeptic Reform Party has taken away a third of the Conservative vote. As a result of the Conservatives’ relentless exclusion of the free-market, small-government, low-tax, pro-family, anti-net-zero center-Right over the past 14 years, the Labor party – which, like all totalitarian parties, takes a radically climate-extremist view – has won the election with a record swing of 11% from the Conservatives and a record majority over all other parties.

The central issue for Reform is net immigration, which has increased the UK population by six million, or almost 10%, or since Margaret Thatcher left office in 1990. Last year, there were 600,000 births in the UK; 200,000 children were killed by abortion; and almost 800,000 immigrants arrived.

Reform’s contract with the people summarizes its climate policy as follows –

“Imagine affordable, stable energy bills

“Scrap energy levies and Net Zero to slash energy bills and save each household £500 per year. Unlock Britain’s vast oil and gas reserves to beat the cost of living crisis and unleash real economic growth.”

In full, the policy reads thus –

“Net Zero is pushing up bills, damaging British industries like steel, and making us less secure. We can protect our environment with more tree-planting, more recycling and less single-use plastics. New technology will help, but we must not impoverish ourselves in pursuit of unaffordable, unachievable global CO2 targets.

“CRITICAL REFORMS NEEDED IN THE FIRST 100 DAYS:

“Scrap Net Zero and related subsidies

“Ditching Net Zero could save the public sector over £30 billion per year for the next 25 years.

“Scrap annual £10 billion of renewable energy subsidies

“Achieve this through equivalent taxes on then. Renewables are not cheaper. Our bills have increased dramatically in line with the huge increase in renewables capacity over the last 15 years.

“Cheap, secure energy for Britain

“Start fast-track licences of North Sea gas and oil. Grant shale gas licences on test sites for 2 years. Enable major production when safety is proven, with local compensation schemes.

“Thereafter:

“Cleaner energy from new technology

“Fast-track clean nuclear energy with new small modular reactors, built in Britain, increase and incentivise ethical UK lithium mining for electric batteries, combined-cycle gas turbines, clean synthetic fuel, tidal power and explore clean coal mining.”

The Labor party, by contrast, will ban all new internal-combustion vehicles in just five years’ time, and says Britain should attain net zero emissions by 2045.

One should not imagine that the Labor party any longer has anything much to do with labor. Its nut zero policy will continue the startling downtrend in energy consumption in the industrial sector. Since 1970, industrial energy consumption in the UK has fallen from two-thirds to little more than one-fifth of national energy consumption as industry after industry is driven offshore because it can no longer afford to turn the machines on.

Source: Department for Energy Security and Net Zero

The decline began in earnest after the coal-miners received pay-rises of 30% and then 35% as a result of two strikes in the early 1970s, making coal and hence electricity increasingly unaffordable. It has continued ever since, now driven by the astonishing price increases directly arising from the installation of cripplingly costly wind and solar power.

Britain’s last major steelworks, at Port Talbot in Wales, closed forever a couple of months ago because the management could no longer afford to turn on the furnaces. That closure marked the end of Britain as a first-world, industrial giant, and the beginning of its third-world status. Without an indigenous steel industry, we can no longer defend our nation in time of war. During the Battle of Britain we were making 100 Spitfires a week, to say nothing of ships, tanks and guns. We could not do that today.

A year ago I made a discreet but determined attempt to persuade a former Cabinet minister to write to the Orwellian “Energy Security and Net Zero” department to ask how much global warming would be prevented by the target year of 2050 if the UK moved in a straight line from current emissions to net zero by that year, and at what cost.

That elegant and effete but ineffectual Minister twice said he would write, but twice failed to do so. He has now lost his seat in Parliament, as I told he would unless the Conservatives began to offer their voters the conservative policies that the party had abandoned after Margaret Thatcher’s strikingly successful tenure as the longest continuously serving prime minister since 1827.

I also tried to persuade the chairman of an influential parliamentary committee to write to ask these surely pertinent questions. He did so, and received a limp, dismissive page of propaganda drivel from the Department, which took great care not to answer the questions he had asked. I persuaded him to write a second time. He did so, but received the same page of waffle, whereupon, uselessly, he gave up. Well, the electors have given up on him. He, too, has lost his seat in Parliament, and deservedly so.

The answer to the questions I had invited these two wastes of space to ask is that even if the UK achieved net zero it would reduce global temperature by less than a thousandth of a degree by 2050, at a cost exceeding $15 trillion. Thus, each $1 billion spent on attempting to attain net zero would abate global warming by less than one 20-millionth of a degree.

There is a wider lesson for skeptics in the disastrous British election result. Under Margaret Thatcher, all wings of the Conservative Party were represented both in Cabinet and in the party’s policymaking. Ever since, however, all who believed in the traditional, British values that she espoused have been ruthlessly excluded from the corridors of impotence.

The Conservatives learned nothing from the bloody nose they received at the hands of the electorate on the issue of Brexit. They continued to abandon Conservative policies, not least on the climate question. As a result, the Conservative vote in this election was split with Reform, which took almost 40% of the Conservatives’ votes.

A month before the election, I went to see a Cabinet Minister and suggested that the Conservatives should do a deal with the Reform party, so that they presented a united front. Had they done so, as Boris Johnson had done in 2019, the Conservative/Reform alliance would have won the election with a narrow but sufficient majority over Labor.

However, the current Conservative party is ideologically far, far closer to the totalitarian than to the libertarian viewpoint. The Minister did nothing. He too no longer sits in Parliament.

I have long thought that climate skeptics would be more successful if we agreed on a short-list of main points that we could all present and argue for. So far, however, like the now self-destroyed Conservatives, we seem to have ignored Benjamin Franklin’s warning that “we must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

Ominous appointments: Ed Miliband and Pat Vallance

Britain has a new government, and its Prime Minister has appointed new cabinet members. Of particular interest to Talkshop readers are the positions of energy and science. Here’s the news. Our new Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero is Ed Miliband. This is the guy who guided the Climate Change Act of self harm through parliament in 2008.

From Tallbloke’s Talkshop

By tallbloke 

Britain has a new government, and its Prime Minister has appointed new cabinet members. Of particular interest to Talkshop readers are the positions of energy and science. Here’s the news. Our new Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero is Ed Miliband. This is the guy who guided the Climate Change Act of self harm through parliament in 2008.

You’d hope that the new science minister would be the sort of well qualified and accountable person who’d be able to set Ed Moribund straight on some basic issues around energy policy, in the knowledge they’d need to get it right or not get elected next time round. No such luck. Your new  Minister of State for Science is the unelected, unwanted and UN-approved Pat Vallance. I say ‘new’ but Pat Vallance has been embedded with the uniparty for a long time now. He’s a medical biologist who was working for big-pharma prior to working in government.

The only glimmer of hope here is that Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party now has a bridgehead in parliament and will be putting some choice words about Net Zero onto the record in Hansard. And on social media of course.

Sadiq Khan to impose congestion charge on electric vehicles

Sadiq Khan is extending London’s congestion charge to all zero-emission vehicles from the end of next year.

The move, which will extend the £15-a-day tax on motoring to battery-powered electric vehicles from Christmas Day 2025, was widely condemned on Tuesday.

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

Sadiq Khan is extending London’s congestion charge to all zero-emission vehicles from the end of next year.

The move, which will extend the £15-a-day tax on motoring to battery-powered electric vehicles from Christmas Day 2025, was widely condemned on Tuesday.

Mark Harper, the Transport Secretary, said: “Taxing cars even if they’re zero emission shows Labour’s plan to use motorists as cash cows. If they get into government there will be worse to come, with pay-by-mile taxes and fuel duty hikes to help close their £2,000 tax black hole.”

The AA described the scrapping of the green exemption as “a turkey bone in the throat” for owners of electric cars wanting to drive them in the capital.

Confirmation on Tuesday that the zero emission vehicle exemptions will be scrapped were condemned by Quentin Willson, a former Top Gear presenter who now campaigns for a faster transition to electric vehicles.

Mr Willson told The Telegraph that the plans seemed “counter-productive” and that his FairCharge UK group would be writing to the Mayor to object to them.

“The cynic in me can’t help thinking that this is a revenue-based issue,” he said. “Why are we stopping it now? And they will say, ‘well, it’s a congestion issue’. But then surely, it’s manifestly better to have cars with zero tailpipe emissions sitting in queues rather than those that are polluting diesel and petrol?

“So to me, it just doesn’t work with his campaign to make London a much greener, cleaner air city. It seems completely counter-productive.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/02/sadiq-khan-impose-congestion-charge-electric-cars-london

Did these foolish EV supporters really think that Khan was doing this because of “clean air”? Did they not realise what the rest of us knew all along that it was always a money raising exercise?

And this will be the tip of the iceberg. As Mark Harper has the audacity to point out, EV drivers will very soon have to start paying their full share of tax one way or another.

And dolts like Quentin Willson will probably have apoplexy!

Is it ethical to recommend eating bugs?

Six years ago, the World Economic Forum reported that insects are “good grub,” citing a Meticulous Research study predicting that the global market for edible insects could grow to $1.18 billion by 2023 – triple the 2018 level.

Four years later, another WEF report listed “five reasons why eating insects could reduce climate change.” Topping the list was the argument that edible insects, particularly crickets, can produce equivalent amounts of quality protein when compared to animals.

From CFACT

By Duggan Flanakin

Six years ago, the World Economic Forum reported that insects are “good grub,” citing a Meticulous Research study predicting that the global market for edible insects could grow to $1.18 billion by 2023 – triple the 2018 level.

Four years later, another WEF report listed “five reasons why eating insects could reduce climate change.” Topping the list was the argument that edible insects, particularly crickets, can produce equivalent amounts of quality protein when compared to animals.

The WEF also claimed that insects require less care and upkeep than livestock – and less feed, less water, less transport fuel, and less human labor – all with a smaller carbon footprint.

Eating insects is ever better for the environment than eating plants, said the WEF, because plants require land and machinery use, water use, manufacturing, processing, and transportation – among other activities during which carbon is emitted.

The third absurdity the WEF cited was that “we’re actually running out of protein.” The Malthusians claimed that the demand for protein for 10 billion earthlings cannot be met. This at the same time that, using artificial intelligence, scientists are creating proteins in laboratories and telling us that, before long, 3D-printed foods of all kinds will be readily available.

Before you choke on cricket legs, the WEF also states that “insects are part of a virtuous eco-cycle.” Indeed, insects that feed on decaying organic materials (spent grains from breweries, they note, along with organic material in landfills) are contributors to “circular agriculture.”

The WEF does not mention here that humans who eat insects are depriving birds, bats, spiders, amphibians, reptiles, fish, other mammals, carnivorous plants, and even centipedes and ground beetles (which we deem as cannibalistic insects) of their essential diets. Not to worry, though, because the WEF suggests we merely ease into insect consumption by feeding them to livestock.

For the record, the insects-for-dinner concept is a newcomer to the ethical and environmentalist scene. Way back in 1944, a small group of vegetarians coined the term “vegan” to describe a lifestyle (unlike regular vegetarians) to not consume dairy, eggs, or any other product of animal origin (including honey).

The Vegan Society calls veganism “a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude … all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose.” Ethical veganism is based on the belief that “all creatures have a right to life and freedom,” they say. For these and other reasons, vegans do not eat insects.

The WEF does not even consider whether it has offended vegans with its talk of eating bugs. But it was the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization that in 2009 published a time, “How to Feed the World in 2050,” that many say inspired the insect eaters toward a commercialization and widespread adoption campaign.

Four years later the FAO’s follow-up report, “Edible Insects: Future Prospects for Food and Feed Security,” advocated for the nutritional and environmental benefits of consuming insects.

Meanwhile, in 2011, The Wall Street Journal joined the fray, publishing an article, “The Six-Legged Meat of the Future,” which encouraged human consumption of these “sustainable protein alternatives” that are high in protein but with a much lower environmental footprint.

A year later, All Things Bugs, LLC, received a $100,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to “develop a method for the efficient production of nutritionally dense food using insect species.” The Grand Challenges Explorations grant authorized a global health and development research project entitled, “Good Bugs: Sustainable Food for Malnutrition in Children.”

Where was People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals when all this was going on? Where was the Vegan Society? Perhaps they were all just celebrating the arrival of Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods – cultured meat burgers made without even insect protein.

But, as Jessica Scott-Reid reports, “there is at least one important difference between bugs and cultivated meat.” Her fellow Sentient Media writer Claire Hamlett argues that “most people don’t think of insects as sentient, despite a growing body of research … testing and demonstrating insect intelligence.”

Today, says Hamlett, we know that bees (among other things) “know their own individual body dimensions, a capacity associated with consciousness in humans.” They also appear to experience both pleasure and pain. Her conclusion? “It now looks like at least some species of insects – and maybe all of them – are sentient.”

For that reason, she says, many researchers who study the intelligence of insects “warn against scaling up the bug farming industry.”

Lest anyone think the question of whether or not to “encourage” humans to eat bugs is a fringe conversation (given the WEF’s gung-ho approach), you might be surprised to learn that at least one major American university has been urging (in a diversity, equity, and inclusion curriculum) to “live like a bug” in order to understand “marginalized” groups.

That information was shared by Daily Signal investigative reporter Tony Kinnett just last month. Kinnett was reporting on a major study by Timothy Minella at the Goldwater Institute which revealed that students who enroll in an entomology course at the University of Arizona are directed to “reflect in personal writing assignments on the assumptions that inform popular attitudes towards insects.”

Are we ready as a society to conclude that eating insects is a grotesque form of cannibalism? Should we now condemn Bill Gates, the FAO, the WEF, and other insect-as-food promoters are monsters assaulting yet another group of “sentient beings”?

Or should we just walk out to the backyard grill and flip the burgers, salmon, and steaks while grabbing another beer?