Economy
Globalist Club of Rome urges massive ‘behavioral changes’ to address ‘climate change,’ poverty
From LifeSiteNews
The globalist Club of Rome, under its Earth4All agenda, has urged nations worldwide to reduce meat consumption, redistribute wealth, and adopt a circular economy in the name of tackling climate change and poverty.
As part of its Earth4All agenda, the Club of Rome is calling on nations to eat less meat, redistribute wealth, adopt a circular economy, raise taxes, restructure education, and charge high prices for fossil fuels.
For over 50 years the Club of Rome has been operating under the belief that there are “limits to growth” on a finite planet.
In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill […] All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then is humanity itself. — The First Global Revolution: A Report by the Council of the Club Of Rome, 1991
Without a traditional, militaristic enemy to enact their great reset-like agendas in 1991 the Club of Rome chose humanity itself as the greatest threat to planetary health, and that’s when the whole global warming and climate change narratives really began taking off – their solutions had finally found a problem.
"We see a switch to healthier, plant-based diets [..] The economic model everywhere is circular [..] Material consumption of unsustainable resources is reined-in, fossil energy phased out & we see a significant redistribution of wealth": Club of Rome co-president at EU parliament pic.twitter.com/yVCQ6KdIsT
— Tim Hinchliffe (@TimHinchliffe) May 15, 2023
All of the Club of Rome’s proposals are aimed at controlling humanity, such as telling people what they should eat, how their land should be used, what types of energy they should be allowed to consume, what they should do with their money, what type of economic system they should have, how schools should be run, and so on and so on.
They call this the Wellbeing Economy.
Now, the Club of Rome is focusing its efforts on influencing individual nation states with its Earth4All National Program.
Austria is the latest pilot country for this program.
In the Austrian modelling context, the lever ‘reduction of meat consumption’ was implemented as ‘behavioral change of consumers.’ — Club of Rome, Earth4All: Austria, July 2024
In its “Earth4All: Austria” report, the Club of Rome says that Austria must reduce its meat consumption in order to provide better nutrition to its citizens and to save the rain forests.
“People also consume almost twice as much meat per year as the global average. Reducing the consumption of animal proteins is essential in order to achieve a turnaround in nutrition,” the report reads.
And because animals in Austria are fed with grains that imported from tropical forests, the report says that raising livestock in Europe is killing the rain forests in places like South America.
According to the report, “Food consumption in Austria can also have an impact on land use in tropical forests. This applies in particular to meat, for which animal feed such as soya is imported, and all food products that use palm oil as an ingredient. Tropical forests are often cleared for this purpose, destroying important carbon sinks and biodiversity hotspots.”
State regulations that contradict familiar consumer behavior are often met with resistance. For example, many people resist ‘dietary regulations’ as soon as the importance of reducing meat consumption is emphasized. — Club of Rome, Earth4All: Austria, July 2024
Telling people what to do rarely goes over well, and the Club of Rome acknowledges this in the report while simultaneously telling governments what to do about changing their citizens’ behavior, so that they eat less meat.
In order “to change consumer behavior, reduce meat consumption or optimize and expand protein plant breeding,” the Club of Rome suggest that governments use coercive taxation measures and implement a “supply chain law for agricultural products” to make life difficult for those who do not comply.
Some of the tax measures include:
- Reduction of the reduced VAT rate for meat and sausage products and dairy products with socially acceptable compensation payments.
- Higher taxation of processed (fatty, sugary and animal-based) foods.
- Taxation of foods and food ingredients that are harmful to health, the environment and the climate.
While the proposals to limit meat consumption are geared toward Austria, they also reflect the overall strategy to incentivize, coerce, or otherwise manipulate human behavior into serving an unelected globalist agenda.
The same goes for the Club of Rome’s socialist vision for the redistribution of wealth.
Permanent wealth monitoring by the state and the public database on wealth and income based on this are an essential prerequisite for redistribution measures. — Club of Rome, Earth4All: Austria, July 2024
For the Club of Rome, the problem of wealth is that it “often goes hand in hand with influence,” so their solution is to abolish excess wealth and to redistribute it – the promise of every communist dictator.
According to the Austria report, “Increases in wealth therefore also lead to more influence – visible in politics, in institutions, even at universities.”
“It is therefore less about general redistribution than about reducing the extreme concentration of wealth among the top 0.1 percent of the population: it is about abolishing excess wealth.”
Redistribution will undoubtedly provoke resistance. But inequality and affluence also generate resistance among excluded and marginalized groups. — Club of Rome, Earth4All: Austria, July 2024
The unelected globalists at the Club of Rome are fully aware that their agendas are extremely unpopular.
For example, the Earth4All: Austria report says:
A particularly important point is the acceptance and perception of measures by citizens, farmers and entrepreneurs.
For example, price increases for products, the discontinuation of subsidies for fossil fuels or potentially higher energy prices – which could continue to rise due to higher infrastructure costs such as the expansion of the grid, storage facilities, etc. – may not be perceived well by people in the lower income bracket in particular based on their particular viewpoint.
In order to dupe the public into giving up their rights, their properties, their way of living, and their freedoms, the Club of Rome says that “communication of the cushioning measures will be needed,” especially with their whole Marxist approach to everything.
Redistributions are not yet considered appropriate. In future, much better, comprehensible communication of the cushioning measures will be needed here. — Club of Rome, Earth4All: Austria, July 2024
To give you an idea of the Club of Rome’s communication strategy, the Earth4All: Austria authors paint their communist views in such a way as to make them sound almost too good to be true:
By reducing structural inequality, income and wealth are distributed so fairly that there is hardly any monetary poverty anymore.
All people have a secure existence. They have access to work and a basic income so that they can afford to live well within planetary and social boundaries, which also has a positive impact on the regional economy, climate and nature.
Did you see that?
The benevolent regime will redistribute wealth so fairly that monetary poverty will be a thing of the past!
As your taxes skyrocket and your ability to drive a car or eat what you want to eat is stolen from you, they say that you’ll at least have a “basic income,” but not for buying goods of lasting value, no; not at all!
They don’t want that. They want you to rent everything from your corporate overlords, thanks to the circular economy.
More and more people are looking at new concepts for organizing the economy and measuring social wellbeing. Examples include the circular economy, the sharing economy, the ecological economy, the feminist economy, green growth, the steady state, degrowth and post-growth. — Club of Rome, Earth4All: Austria, July 2024
The Club of Rome sees the circular economy, with its Product as a Service business model, as being one of its most important agendas.
But the circular economy agenda is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Young people are not so crazy about owning things any longer; they want to share things; they want to benefit from services. — Dr. Anders Wijkman, Club of Rome Co-President, 2015
'You'll Own Nothing & Be Happy' Circular Economy is "The Most Important Agenda"
Club of Rome Co-President Dr. Anders Wijkman in 2015:
"Young people are not crazy about owning things. They want to share things. They want to benefit from services." pic.twitter.com/hMOkCaYAKs— Tim Hinchliffe (@TimHinchliffe) August 1, 2024
In the name of saving the planet for all humanity, proponents of the circular economy claim it will lead to more durable and sustainable materials, increased recycling, and lowered carbon emissions.
Sounds great, right?
However, the circular economy is the inspiration behind the infamous phrase: “You’ll own nothing. And you’ll be happy,” from the World Economic Forum.
As Royal Philips Electronics CEO Frans Van Houten explained to the WEF in 2016:
In circular economy business models, I would like products to come back to me as the original designer and manufacturer, and once you get your head around that notion, why would I actually sell you the product if you are primarily interested in the benefit of the product? Maybe I can stay the owner of the product and just sell you the benefit as a service.
'You'll own nothing & be happy' Product as a Service circular economy business model.
"Why would I actually sell you the product if you are primarily interested in the benefit? Maybe I can stay the owner & just sell you the benefit as a service”: Frans Van Houten, WEF, 2016 pic.twitter.com/EG9Kq5P2AR— Tim Hinchliffe (@TimHinchliffe) November 23, 2022
The most urgent step for sustainable growth in low-income countries is to increase funding for transformative research in the area of the circular economy in low-income countries. — Club of Rome, Earth4All: Austria, July 2024
The Club of Rome Earth4All: Austria report mentions circularity over 20 times, mostly in the context driving economic growth, reducing carbon emissions, and recycling.
The Austria report also cites the “Circularity Gap” report, which we’ve quoted here on The Sociable, which says the circular economy is about “moving away from ownership and accumulation” towards more service-based models.
And going back to 2015, Club of Rome co-president Dr. Anders Wijkman said of the circular economy:
I think this is probably the most important agenda that we have. New business models are going to happen, and we’re not going to buy a lot of stuff.
We are going to benefit from high quality services. That’s an aspect that I think will interest many, many people – not least young people who are not so crazy about owning things any longer; they want to share things; they want to benefit from services.
On a personal note, shortly after I wrote that the circular economy was “a top-down agenda coming from unelected globalists looking to reshape the world in their image” in March 2022, the WEF’s former managing director Adrian Monck referred to me as a “bad faith actor” for my criticism of “the Forum’s coverage of the circular economy.”
Then, last year the WEF published a joint report with Accenture that outright admitted that the circular economy was indeed a top-down agenda!
In fact they emphasized this top-down approach several times, for example:
- “Circular economy leadership needs to come from the top and extend company-wide.”
- “Since the circular economy demands significant strategic transformation, the call to action must be sponsored at the top of the organization.”
- “This systemic transition requires companies to embed circularity at all levels and functions throughout the organization. Starting from the top, there should be clear governance, leadership and accountability.”
Hypocrites, the lot!
In the end, circular economy business models risk creating a neofeudalistic, technocratic serfdom out of the ashes of the middle class, who like peasants and serfs, wouldn’t be able to buy things like houses, cars, and appliances, but rather rent them from their futuristic lords and vassals who would digitally track and trace every product they provided as a service.
The Club of Rome and the WEF are the main drivers of this agenda to eliminate ownership.
Socially acceptable climate protection measures can also include free access to nature, which may require the communitisation of private property. — Club of Rome, Earth4All: Austria, July 2024
The Club of Rome has been pushing degrowth agendas since its inception over 50 years ago, and many of its policy recommendations are based on Marxist ideologies.
They advocate for the redistribution of wealth, communitizing private property, reducing ownership, revamping education systems, embracing critical “feminist economics,” artificially inflating fossil fuel prices, and controlling what people eat.
Some Earth4All: Austria policy levers include:
- Redistribution of wealth and progressive taxation.
- Improving participation and equal opportunities in terms of workers’ rights and citizen’s assemblies.
- Changing diets, reducing overconsumption and waste and transitioning to sustainable food.
- Restructuring the education system.
- Significantly higher prices for fossil fuels.
The WEF’s great reset agenda is almost identical to the Club of Rome’s Earth4All agenda, but they differ in approach.
Whereas the Club of Rome is overtly Marxist in its march towards neo-feudalism, the WEF prefers a more techno-totalitarian approach to enact its version of neo-feudalism – with a heavy emphasis on leveraging emerging technologies of the so-called fourth industrial revolution to drive its great reset.
The WEF and the Club of Rome have a shared history going back over 50 years (as described in the video below by HelioWave).
The Club of Rome’s Earth4All: Austria report is a guide for all developed nations.
However, it is not the only pilot country in the Club of Rome’s nation program.
To see what the Club of Rome has in store for developing nations, check out the “Earth4All: Kenya” report and see what different means they want to use to achieve the same ends.
Alberta
Ford and Trudeau are playing checkers. Trump and Smith are playing chess
By Dan McTeague
Ford’s calls for national unity – “We need to stand united as Canadians!” – in context feels like an endorsement of fellow Electric Vehicle fanatic Trudeau. And you do wonder if that issue has something to do with it. After all, the two have worked together to pump billions in taxpayer dollars into the EV industry.
There’s no doubt about it: Donald Trump’s threat of a blanket 25% tariff on Canadian goods (to be established if the Canadian government fails to take sufficient action to combat drug trafficking and illegal crossings over our southern border) would be catastrophic for our nation’s economy. More than $3 billion in goods move between the U.S. and Canada on a daily basis. If enacted, the Trump tariff would likely result in a full-blown recession.
It falls upon Canada’s leaders to prevent that from happening. That’s why Justin Trudeau flew to Florida two weeks ago to point out to the president-elect that the trade relationship between our countries is mutually beneficial.
This is true, but Trudeau isn’t the best person to make that case to Trump, since he has been trashing the once and future president, and his supporters, both in public and private, for years. He did so again at an appearance just the other day, in which he implied that American voters were sexist for once again failing to elect the nation’s first female president, and said that Trump’s election amounted to an assault on women’s rights.
Consequently, the meeting with Trump didn’t go well.
But Trudeau isn’t Canada’s only politician, and in recent days we’ve seen some contrasting approaches to this serious matter from our provincial leaders.
First up was Doug Ford, who followed up a phone call with Trudeau earlier this week by saying that Canadians have to prepare for a trade war. “Folks, this is coming, it’s not ‘if,’ it is — it’s coming… and we need to be prepared.”
Ford said that he’s working with Liberal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland to put together a retaliatory tariff list. Spokesmen for his government floated the idea of banning the LCBO from buying American alcohol, and restricting the export of critical minerals needed for electric vehicle batteries (I’m sure Trump is terrified about that last one).
But Ford’s most dramatic threat was his announcement that Ontario is prepared to shut down energy exports to the U.S., specifically to Michigan, New York, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, if Trump follows through with his plan. “We’re sending a message to the U.S. You come and attack Ontario, you attack the livelihoods of Ontario and Canadians, we’re going to use every tool in our toolbox to defend Ontarians and Canadians across the border,” Ford said.
Now, unfortunately, all of this chest-thumping rings hollow. Ontario does almost $500 billion per year in trade with the U.S., and the province’s supply chains are highly integrated with America’s. The idea of just cutting off the power, as if you could just flip a switch, is actually impossible. It’s a bluff, and Trump has already called him on it. When told about Ford’s threat by a reporter this week, Trump replied “That’s okay if he does that. That’s fine.”
And Ford’s calls for national unity – “We need to stand united as Canadians!” – in context feels like an endorsement of fellow Electric Vehicle fanatic Trudeau. And you do wonder if that issue has something to do with it. After all, the two have worked together to pump billions in taxpayer dollars into the EV industry. Just over the past year Ford and Trudeau have been seen side by side announcing their $5 billion commitment to Honda, or their $28.2 billion in subsidies for new Stellantis and Volkswagen electric vehicle battery plants.
Their assumption was that the U.S. would be a major market for Canadian EVs. Remember that “vehicles are the second largest Canadian export by value, at $51 billion in 2023 of which 93% was exported to the U.S.,”according to the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers Association, and “Auto is Ontario’s top export at 28.9% of all exports (2023).”
But Trump ran on abolishing the Biden administration’s de facto EV mandate. Now that he’s back in the White House, the market for those EVs that Trudeau and Ford invested in so heavily is going to be much softer. Perhaps they’d like to be able to blame Trump’s tariffs for the coming downturn rather than their own misjudgment.
In any event, Ford’s tactic stands in stark contrast to the response from Alberta, Canada’s true energy superpower. Premier Danielle Smith made it clear that her province “will not support cutting off our Alberta energy exports to the U.S., nor will we support a tariff war with our largest trading partner and closest ally.”
Smith spoke about this topic at length at an event announcing a new $29-million border patrol team charged with combatting drug trafficking, at which said that Trudeau’s criticisms of the president-elect were, “not helpful.” Her deputy premier Mike Ellis was quoted as saying, “The concerns that president-elect Trump has expressed regarding fentanyl are, quite frankly, the same concerns that I and the premier have had.” Smith and Ellis also criticized Ottawa’s progressively lenient approach to drug crimes.
(For what it’s worth, a recent Léger poll found that “Just 29 per cent of [Canadians] believe Trump’s concerns about illegal immigration and drug trafficking from Canada to the U.S. are unwarranted.” Perhaps that’s why some recent polls have found that Trudeau is currently less popular in Canada than Trump at the moment.)
Smith said that Trudeau’s criticisms of the president-elect were, “not helpful.” And on X/Twitter she said, “Now is the time to… reach out to our friends and allies in the U.S. to remind them just how much Americans and Canadians mutually benefit from our trade relationship – and what we can do to grow that partnership further,” adding, “Tariffs just hurt Americans and Canadians on both sides of the border. Let’s make sure they don’t happen.”
This is exactly the right approach. Smith knows there is a lot at stake in this fight, and is not willing to step into the ring in a fight that Canada simply can’t win, and will cause a great deal of hardship for all involved along the way.
While Trudeau indulges in virtue signaling and Ford in sabre rattling, Danielle Smith is engaging in true statesmanship. That’s something that is in short supply in our country these days.
As I’ve written before, Trump is playing chess while Justin Trudeau and Doug Ford are playing checkers. They should take note of Smith’s strategy. Honey will attract more than vinegar, and if the long history of our two countries tell us anything, it’s that diplomacy is more effective than idle threats.
Dan McTeague is President of Canadians for Affordable Energy.
Business
Canada needs to get serious about securing its border
From the Macdonald Laurier Institute
By Todd Hataley for Inside Policy
US President-elect Donald Trump has made clear his intention to call out Canada on weak enforcement on migration, money laundering, and the cross-border trafficking of narcotics, especially fentanyl.
Until just very recently, Canada has remained largely silent on these issues. Security agencies, such as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Ontario Provincial Police (OPP), Sûreté du Québec (SQ) and the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), have tried to secure the border via memorandums of understanding, framework agreements, and legislated agreements that allow them to share information and even work together.
However, resources are limited for cross-border law enforcement co-operation. CBSA remains understaffed and RCMP Integrated Border Enforcement Teams (which work with US security agencies) have limited geographic reach, leaving much of the enforcement between ports of entry left to police of jurisdiction, who already are hard pressed to provide services to the communities they serve.
The Canadian government’s apparent strategy of largely ignoring the problem is becoming more difficult to maintain. With the United States Border Patrol intercepting increasing numbers of illegal migrants crossing into that country from Canada, it’s clear the porous border is a concern. Exacerbating the situation is the recent discovery of illegal narcotic super labs in Canada – where production far outstrips the market – and Canada’s unfortunate, albeit well-deserved reputation as a haven for global money launderers.
Thanks to Trump’s 25 per cent tariff threat, the crisis is now endangering Canada’s relationship with its largest and most-important trading partner. This announcement sent all sectors of government and the private sector into a frenzy, prompting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to fly to Florida to seek out an early audience with Trump at his Mar-a-lago resort home. Trudeau’s team spun the trip as proof that the federal government is serious about working with the US to address its border security and public safety concerns.
But with political crises piling up, it will be difficult for Trudeau to also manage the political optics of kowtowing to Trump, who is widely unpopular among Canadians. Spending extra money to appease Trump during the ongoing housing, immigration, and health care crises could make the Trudeau’s popularity nosedive even further. Adding insult to injury, Trump is essentially demanding that Canada do America’s work by stopping illicit goods and people from entering the United States: customs and border security officials generally work on the principle of stopping goods from entering their country.
Trudeau faces many practical challenges, including the need to ramp up the number of border and law enforcement agents who have the skill sets and training required to police offences such as drug production, money laundering, and the cross-border smuggling of goods and humans. Purchasing helicopters and drones to conduct surveillance will do little to aid enforcement, since most goods smuggled across the border pass through legitimate border crossings. RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme even suggested putting RCMP cadets along the border – a challenging proposition since vast swathes of the border are either wilderness or water. Surveillance is one thing, but the act of enforcement takes skilled people with the capacity to investigate, gather evidence, and articulate that evidence into something that can be used by the courts for convictions. These concerns are not being addressed in this current frenzy to spend money on border security.
There is also good evidence that fortifying the border, or what has become known as forward deployment along the border, does nothing to stop the cross-border transit of contraband goods and people. One need only look as far as the United States-Mexico border to see the failure of forward deployment.
As authorities increase border enforcement activities, the costs of smuggling goods and people mounts for criminals. Eventually, it drives out amateurs, leaving only the professional, skilled, and well-equipped criminal groups. This, in turn, often leads to increasing levels of violence along the border, making interdiction and disruption far more difficult for law enforcement agencies.
Canada has several clear options to address Trump’s border concerns. It can increase the staffing of frontline CBSA officers, including border agents, inland enforcement units that actively investigate and remove individuals from Canada, international liaison officers, and customs processing staff. It can also create a plan for CBSA to take over enforcement between ports of entry. Currently, CBSA enforces entry into Canada at the ports of entry and the RCMP are responsible for the areas in between. Having a single agency manage the border builds capacity and expertise, avoiding inter-bureaucracy competition and confusion.
Canada can also work to better integrate law enforcement, intelligence units, and border services at all levels of government and across international boundaries. Cross-border crime operations are often planned and execute far from the border.
Some of this already takes place, as noted above, but it needs to go much deeper and be more supportive at both institutional and individual levels. This process must also include private sector stakeholders: companies such as FedEx, UPS, and Amazon, as well as freight forwarders, trucking companies, and customs brokers, are all involved in cross-border trade. Their participation as partners in reducing cross-border criminal activity is essential.
Finally, the government needs to designate laws specific to cross-border crime and include meaningful penalties as a means of deterrence.
Hyper-focusing on the border while ignoring other aspects of cross-border crime may be good political optics, but it is a bad strategy. What we really need is functional enforcement – including an integrated process extended vertically and horizontally across all sectors of border stakeholders, at and away from the border, supported by strong policy and legislation. This is the path forward to better cross-border crime enforcement.
Dr. Todd Hataley is a professor in the School of Justice and Community Development at Fleming College. A retired member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, he worked as an investigator in organized crime, national security, cross-border crime, and extra-territorial torture. He is a contributor to the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
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