This worries me. Conspiracies used to be a form of entertainment for the sane ones and now the insane ones are calling facts conspiracies. Facts that have been proven to be facts, I mean.
“food insecurity, environmental pressures, population growth and increasing demand for protein among the middle classes.” I’m glad they are so concerned about the middle classes. We know the elites will continue to have their prime rib. But it concerns me that liberals used to be concerned about the poor. They don’t event MENTION the poor anymore. Their climate religion has replaced their concern to actually help people. It is a disturbing shift in what they emphasize.
Identifying one's self as a Conservative or Liberal, Left or Right, Democrat or Republican (In the USA) may likely be a thing of the past in the not too distant future.
Ask, "HOW LONG DOES A POLITICAL PARTY LAST?" Until they stop representing what The People are thinking.
Now, with the emergence of the multi-national conglomerates and the nature of running for office in America, politicians are in the position of not only working for their constituents but also paying particular attention to the legislation that benefits the companies that are supporting them.
As "A Failed Democrat" and "A Republican Who Knows Better", I don't think this was why this country was founded.
Right now, the ability of The People to redirect governmental priorities by becoming involved may appeal to a couple of large voting blocks that the pollsters don't generally understand.
It will be my argument that we have pivoted from one NRG ERA to another (relax Irina, I'm a realist and know we must put all forms of available energy to their highest and best use).
That simple fact may provide GenZ leaders to issue a wake-up call to other members of their generational cohort around the world.
They constitute approximate two billion of the global population of eight billion.
Government policies to shift its citizens to eating insects for protein is yet another example of why progressives are detrimental to society. By definition, a progressive can never stand still because they will then lose their reason to exist. Therefore, they must continually push the policy ball forward with no regard as to the actual need for those policies. Thus we are forced to suffer from their continual
rants whether it’s man-made climate change, ESG, DEI, etc…BTW, I’m pretty sure that Pfizer and Moderna are working on that mRNA vaccine for insect allergies.
The "Peace and Love" theme was "one brief shining moment." By 1972, Joni Mitchell was singing, "must'a been a dream we all had." She didn't know she planted seeds in a garret, but that is another story.
The campus P&L mantra was short-lived, morphing back to "Power & Profit" after Kent State. Everything has stayed pretty much the same for half a century, and will most likely continue to do so until some voting block finally say to themselves, "I've had enough. This isn't right. We can do better than this."
Once people start to discover that they are all coming to the same conclusion, the world will move more quickly than the powers of the past will expect.
The US government has done such an effective job of creating basically equal dissent between republicans and democrats, and as a result both sides become even more entrenched with their ideology, that I fear their may never be a large enough voting block to change the status quo? At least I probably won’t be around to see it…
I hope you will stick around. The respective interests of the status quo are so entangled that the system is crumbling. Still, although deeply flawed, it works and I will argue we can now afford to fill some of the more obvious gaps in lifting people to fill the measure of their creation.
Does that sound like something an idealist would say? You can bet it is. As a matter of fact, I am an idealistic patriot who advocate forgetting the past and building a better future.
This is a pivotal time. Events can unfold rapidly.
Once We the People understand the ramifications of moving into a new Energy Era, one in which having unlimited energy is a reality, the opportunities for the betterment of humanity are infinite. That might very well unite and inspire GenZ.
If that were the case, a rather interesting tug-of-war might be shaping up. The dominant mantra of the past has been "Money and Power" while the rising generation lean more to that one brief shining moment when the people of the USA and the world talked about Peace & Love. They (GenZ) seem more concerned with the issues of equality and how humanity treats the environment.
In 2015, I wrote "The next great frontier lies in the convergence of sustainability and generational awareness (i.e., balancing the need to extract resources from the environment with the equally important need to preserve a rich environment for future generations). That is the essential mandate for the 21st century."
The capitalistic system, as it is being practiced in America, does not attract their interest. It does not seem to be the way the want to live their live. I get it. I understand how they feel. The system has become flawed.
Here is just one example -- In 2013, the Edison Electric Institute, a leading DC-lobbying entity representing the interests of the utilities, published the following:
"Today, a variety of disruptive technologies are emerging that may compete with utility-provided services. Such technologies include solar photovoltaics (PV), battery storage, fuel cells, geothermal energy systems, wind, micro turbines, and electric vehicle (EV) enhanced storage. As the cost curve for these technologies improves, they could directly threaten the centralized utility model
[Source: Disruptive Challenges: Financial Implications and Strategic Responses to a Changing Retail Electric Business, published by the Edison Electric Institute, JAN 2013]
The term "public service" is now a joke; the king has no clothes.
GenZ is waiting for something really new to happen. It is a big mistake to underestimate the power of the rising generation.
Properly organized, they'll flip every election in every Democracy on the planet. It could surprise the hell out of the powers that be.
I do hope strict health regulations as enforced by the EU (one of the few good things about it) are keeping this to a minimum and I'm sticking to this wishful thinking line forever.
Livestock is a significant source of nitrogen emissions (dung/urine). As we assume you're in the EcoStatist Union (EU), you have seen this issue come to a head close to home in 2022 with the Netherlands. We noted the issue (with a YouTube link to some farmers giving their "thanks" at govt. offices) in our most recent post here: https://envmental.substack.com/p/sacrificing-humanity-on-the-green-16c
Lest you think this is confined to the EU, sorry. Here's a "taste test" done with new cricket chips on Australian school children back in the fall. Adorable Adelaide doesn't seem quite ready for a lengthy dissertation about the negative consequences of parasites in one's gut.
"They are going to get us on to insects, then. For our own good and the good of the planet. I did genuinely try to come up with some other plausible interpretation of this paragraph. There simply isn’t one."
You hit the nail squarely on the head here, Irina! This is what the left calls "nudging" here in the States, or "Eating the elephant one bite at a time", if you will.
The elitists on the left want to control what and how much we eat, how far we can travel, what temperature we keep our homes, what products we buy, the list of intrusions is truly endless.
For a pop-culture/fictional view of this, spend 2 or so hours watching the 1973 American movie titled "Soylent Green", starring Charlton Heston and Edward G. Robinson. It's like "1984", but with an eco-twist on our future "Food Choices".
I think you'll (mostly) enjoy it, as it's one of these "Art Imitates Life" films that make you think, but it is also quite dark.
Here's the synopsis:
"By 2022, the cumulative effects of overpopulation, pollution and global warming have caused severe worldwide shortages of food, water and housing. New York City has a population of 40 million, and only the elite can afford spacious apartments, clean water, and natural food. The homes of the elite are fortified, with security systems and bodyguards for their tenants. Usually, they include concubines (who are referred to as "furniture"). The poor live in squalor, haul water from communal spigots, and eat highly processed wafers: Soylent Red, Soylent Yellow, and the latest product, far more flavorful and nutritious, Soylent Green."
The fact that it takes place in 2022 is also interesting, and it's germane to your "Bug Post" for sure!
They do. It must be included in the list of ingredients. How many of us read the list of ingredients on everything we buy? I do but am fully aware I'm in the minority. Worse, many people would simply not care about the new additives. It's just 1 percent, what's the big deal?
Dear Irina -- Please reconsider your mistrust of chickens. They are wonderful. We now have seven. One keeled over and died. Another was eaten by a fox. I mourned their loss - really.
Naturally, I did not drop to my knees and weep, but they were a part of the life of our home, and their presence was missed. As were their eggs! Really nice to take an egg out of a laying box and fry it up in a pan with some butter and salt and pepper. Yum!
We feed them with table scraps and chicken grains. I don't know abut the economics because I don't care. It is the right thing to do.
Insect flour? As a last resort? Yes, For baking a Christmas Stolen. No. My wife's pie shells?
I’m guessing the Italians and French aren’t going to be messing with their traditional recipes so easily... it is going to be pretty impossible to sell this to people as progress, but I’m sure there will be some “market” that will be set up...
The very introduction to insects is a form of desensitisation. Disgust to insects is deep-rooted. Don't know about the parasites.
This worries me. Conspiracies used to be a form of entertainment for the sane ones and now the insane ones are calling facts conspiracies. Facts that have been proven to be facts, I mean.
“food insecurity, environmental pressures, population growth and increasing demand for protein among the middle classes.” I’m glad they are so concerned about the middle classes. We know the elites will continue to have their prime rib. But it concerns me that liberals used to be concerned about the poor. They don’t event MENTION the poor anymore. Their climate religion has replaced their concern to actually help people. It is a disturbing shift in what they emphasize.
This is my concern as well and it is painful to watch this travesty of what many believed was the essence of the Left ideology.
Identifying one's self as a Conservative or Liberal, Left or Right, Democrat or Republican (In the USA) may likely be a thing of the past in the not too distant future.
Ask, "HOW LONG DOES A POLITICAL PARTY LAST?" Until they stop representing what The People are thinking.
Now, with the emergence of the multi-national conglomerates and the nature of running for office in America, politicians are in the position of not only working for their constituents but also paying particular attention to the legislation that benefits the companies that are supporting them.
As "A Failed Democrat" and "A Republican Who Knows Better", I don't think this was why this country was founded.
Right now, the ability of The People to redirect governmental priorities by becoming involved may appeal to a couple of large voting blocks that the pollsters don't generally understand.
It will be my argument that we have pivoted from one NRG ERA to another (relax Irina, I'm a realist and know we must put all forms of available energy to their highest and best use).
That simple fact may provide GenZ leaders to issue a wake-up call to other members of their generational cohort around the world.
They constitute approximate two billion of the global population of eight billion.
That kind of bloc affects elections ... yes?
Government policies to shift its citizens to eating insects for protein is yet another example of why progressives are detrimental to society. By definition, a progressive can never stand still because they will then lose their reason to exist. Therefore, they must continually push the policy ball forward with no regard as to the actual need for those policies. Thus we are forced to suffer from their continual
rants whether it’s man-made climate change, ESG, DEI, etc…BTW, I’m pretty sure that Pfizer and Moderna are working on that mRNA vaccine for insect allergies.
Sad but, unfortunately, very true. A lot of good things came from progressive movements but to date, the bad is threatening to outweigh the good.
Just as 1960’s & 70’s liberals have turned into 2020’s state enforcers.
The "Peace and Love" theme was "one brief shining moment." By 1972, Joni Mitchell was singing, "must'a been a dream we all had." She didn't know she planted seeds in a garret, but that is another story.
The campus P&L mantra was short-lived, morphing back to "Power & Profit" after Kent State. Everything has stayed pretty much the same for half a century, and will most likely continue to do so until some voting block finally say to themselves, "I've had enough. This isn't right. We can do better than this."
Once people start to discover that they are all coming to the same conclusion, the world will move more quickly than the powers of the past will expect.
Yes? No?
The US government has done such an effective job of creating basically equal dissent between republicans and democrats, and as a result both sides become even more entrenched with their ideology, that I fear their may never be a large enough voting block to change the status quo? At least I probably won’t be around to see it…
Hi Mike,
I hope you will stick around. The respective interests of the status quo are so entangled that the system is crumbling. Still, although deeply flawed, it works and I will argue we can now afford to fill some of the more obvious gaps in lifting people to fill the measure of their creation.
Does that sound like something an idealist would say? You can bet it is. As a matter of fact, I am an idealistic patriot who advocate forgetting the past and building a better future.
This is a pivotal time. Events can unfold rapidly.
Once We the People understand the ramifications of moving into a new Energy Era, one in which having unlimited energy is a reality, the opportunities for the betterment of humanity are infinite. That might very well unite and inspire GenZ.
If that were the case, a rather interesting tug-of-war might be shaping up. The dominant mantra of the past has been "Money and Power" while the rising generation lean more to that one brief shining moment when the people of the USA and the world talked about Peace & Love. They (GenZ) seem more concerned with the issues of equality and how humanity treats the environment.
In 2015, I wrote "The next great frontier lies in the convergence of sustainability and generational awareness (i.e., balancing the need to extract resources from the environment with the equally important need to preserve a rich environment for future generations). That is the essential mandate for the 21st century."
The capitalistic system, as it is being practiced in America, does not attract their interest. It does not seem to be the way the want to live their live. I get it. I understand how they feel. The system has become flawed.
Here is just one example -- In 2013, the Edison Electric Institute, a leading DC-lobbying entity representing the interests of the utilities, published the following:
"Today, a variety of disruptive technologies are emerging that may compete with utility-provided services. Such technologies include solar photovoltaics (PV), battery storage, fuel cells, geothermal energy systems, wind, micro turbines, and electric vehicle (EV) enhanced storage. As the cost curve for these technologies improves, they could directly threaten the centralized utility model
[Source: Disruptive Challenges: Financial Implications and Strategic Responses to a Changing Retail Electric Business, published by the Edison Electric Institute, JAN 2013]
The term "public service" is now a joke; the king has no clothes.
GenZ is waiting for something really new to happen. It is a big mistake to underestimate the power of the rising generation.
Properly organized, they'll flip every election in every Democracy on the planet. It could surprise the hell out of the powers that be.
THE GENZ WAKE UP CALL IS COMING ON GROUNDHOG DAY
Great column. Informative and the PS was very entertaining. Also, be sure to cook your insects with electricity, not gas.
I'm waiting for them to add it to the flour we bake with as enriched protein.
Please don't give them any more ideas. Home baking is easy but home milling will be a challenge.
I think there is a bit of bugs and mouse turds in ordinary flour already. They use PCR to determine the level of contamination.
I do hope strict health regulations as enforced by the EU (one of the few good things about it) are keeping this to a minimum and I'm sticking to this wishful thinking line forever.
Irina, well done and we'll add to it.
Livestock is a significant source of nitrogen emissions (dung/urine). As we assume you're in the EcoStatist Union (EU), you have seen this issue come to a head close to home in 2022 with the Netherlands. We noted the issue (with a YouTube link to some farmers giving their "thanks" at govt. offices) in our most recent post here: https://envmental.substack.com/p/sacrificing-humanity-on-the-green-16c
Lest you think this is confined to the EU, sorry. Here's a "taste test" done with new cricket chips on Australian school children back in the fall. Adorable Adelaide doesn't seem quite ready for a lengthy dissertation about the negative consequences of parasites in one's gut.
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/kids-cricket-chips-taste-test/video/1ea1a13a61230ee5bac27c955c4d737a
Yes, I saw that video. My thoughts on the matter are not fit for polite company.
The tone of voice from the “adults” in that video screams abuser.
"They are going to get us on to insects, then. For our own good and the good of the planet. I did genuinely try to come up with some other plausible interpretation of this paragraph. There simply isn’t one."
You hit the nail squarely on the head here, Irina! This is what the left calls "nudging" here in the States, or "Eating the elephant one bite at a time", if you will.
The elitists on the left want to control what and how much we eat, how far we can travel, what temperature we keep our homes, what products we buy, the list of intrusions is truly endless.
For a pop-culture/fictional view of this, spend 2 or so hours watching the 1973 American movie titled "Soylent Green", starring Charlton Heston and Edward G. Robinson. It's like "1984", but with an eco-twist on our future "Food Choices".
Okay, I have to watch Soylent Green already.
I think you'll (mostly) enjoy it, as it's one of these "Art Imitates Life" films that make you think, but it is also quite dark.
Here's the synopsis:
"By 2022, the cumulative effects of overpopulation, pollution and global warming have caused severe worldwide shortages of food, water and housing. New York City has a population of 40 million, and only the elite can afford spacious apartments, clean water, and natural food. The homes of the elite are fortified, with security systems and bodyguards for their tenants. Usually, they include concubines (who are referred to as "furniture"). The poor live in squalor, haul water from communal spigots, and eat highly processed wafers: Soylent Red, Soylent Yellow, and the latest product, far more flavorful and nutritious, Soylent Green."
The fact that it takes place in 2022 is also interesting, and it's germane to your "Bug Post" for sure!
Talk about a good imitation. Thanks, I will definitely take this dose of cinematic depression.
Hi. From what I gather, the big problem is that they don't have to disclose in the ingredient list that insect flour has been added!
They do. It must be included in the list of ingredients. How many of us read the list of ingredients on everything we buy? I do but am fully aware I'm in the minority. Worse, many people would simply not care about the new additives. It's just 1 percent, what's the big deal?
Also a good reason to stay clear of processed food.
An excellent reason.
Welcome to Dystopia. Strap in we're going for a ride...La revolution est ici!
ON BEHALF OF CHICKENS & SUSTAINABILITY
=============================
Dear Irina -- Please reconsider your mistrust of chickens. They are wonderful. We now have seven. One keeled over and died. Another was eaten by a fox. I mourned their loss - really.
Naturally, I did not drop to my knees and weep, but they were a part of the life of our home, and their presence was missed. As were their eggs! Really nice to take an egg out of a laying box and fry it up in a pan with some butter and salt and pepper. Yum!
We feed them with table scraps and chicken grains. I don't know abut the economics because I don't care. It is the right thing to do.
Insect flour? As a last resort? Yes, For baking a Christmas Stolen. No. My wife's pie shells?
One must be mad to even suggest.
I know, chickens are great. I've outgrown my mistrust since my pecking incident.
So in the EU: GMO bad, bugs good. Got it.
I’m guessing the Italians and French aren’t going to be messing with their traditional recipes so easily... it is going to be pretty impossible to sell this to people as progress, but I’m sure there will be some “market” that will be set up...
Going to need crop space to grow all that “renewable diesel” as well.
Yep!
Meanwhile in North Korea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yqa-SdJtT4