Mexico to Ban Glyphosate, GM Corn Presidential Decree Comes Despite Intense Pressure from Industry, U.S. Authorities

 By Timothy A. Wise

Global Research, February 25, 2021

Inter Press Service 24 February 2021

Region: Latin America & Caribbean

Theme: Biotechnology and GMO

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Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador quietly rocked the agribusiness world with his New Year’s Eve decree to phase out the use of the herbicide glyphosate and the cultivation of genetically modified corn. His administration sent an even stronger aftershock two weeks later, clarifying that the government would also phase out GM corn imports in three years and the ban would include not just corn for human consumption but yellow corn destined primarily for livestock. Under NAFTA, the United States has seen a 400% increase in corn exports to Mexico, the vast majority of genetically modified yellow dent corn.

The bold policy moves fulfill a campaign promise by Mexico’s populist president, whose agricultural policies have begun to favor Mexican producers, particularly small-scale farmers, and protect consumers alarmed by the rise of obesity and chronic diseases associated with high-fat, high-sugar processed foods.

In banning glyphosate, the decree cites the precautionary principle and the growing body of scientific research showing the dangers of the chemical, the active ingredient in Bayer/Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide. The government had stopped imports of glyphosate since late 2019, citing the World Health Organization’s warning that the chemical is a “probable carcinogen.”

The prohibitions on genetically modified corn, which appear toward the end of the decree, have more profound implications. The immediate ban on permits for the cultivation of GM corn formalizes current restrictions, ordered by Mexican courts in 2013 when a citizen lawsuit challenged government permitting of experimental GM corn planting by Monsanto and other multinational seed companies on the grounds of the contamination threat they posed to Mexico’s rich store of native corn varieties. The import ban cites the same environmental threats but goes further, advancing the López Obrador administration’s goals of promoting greater food self-sufficiency in key crops. As the decree states:

“[W]ith the objective of achieving self-sufficiency and food sovereignty, our country must be oriented towards establishing sustainable and culturally adequate agricultural production, through the use of agroecological practices and inputs that are safe for human health, the country’s biocultural diversity and the environment, as well as congruent with the agricultural traditions of Mexico.”

Chronicle of a decree foretold

Such policies should come as no surprise. In his campaign, López Obrador committed to such measures. Unprecedented support from rural voters was critical to his landslide 2018 electoral victory, with his new Movement for National Renewal (Morena) claiming majorities in both houses of Congress.

Still, industry and U.S. government officials seemed shocked that their lobbying had failed to stop López Obrador from acting. The pressure campaign was intense, as Carey Gillam explained in a February 16 Guardian expose on efforts by Bayer/Monsanto, industry lobbyist CropLife, and U.S. government officials to deter the glyphosate ban. According to email correspondence obtained by the Center for Biological Diversity through Freedom of Information Act requests, officials in the Trump Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and office of the U.S. Trade Representative were in touch with Bayer representatives and warned Mexican officials that restrictions could be in violation of the revised North American Free Trade Agreement, now rebranded by the Trump Administration as the U.S. Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA).

According to the emails, CropLife president Chris Novak last March sent a letter to Robert Lighthizer, USTR’s ambassador, arguing that Mexico’s actions would be “incompatible with Mexico’s obligations under USMCA.” In May, Lighthizer followed through, writing to Graciela Márquez Colín, Mexico’s minister of economy, warning that GMO crop and glyphosate matters threatened to undermine “the strength of our bilateral relationship.” An earlier communication argued that Mexico’s actions on glyphosate, which Mexico had ceased importing, were “without a clear scientific justification.”

Nothing could be further from the truth, according to Victor Suárez, Mexico’s Undersecretary of Agriculture for Food and Competitiveness. “There is rigorous scientific evidence of the toxicity of this herbicide,” he told me, citing the WHO findings and an extensive literature review carried out by Mexico’s biosafety commission Cibiogem.

And even though most imported U.S. corn is used for animal feed, not direct human consumption, a study carried out by María Elena Álvarez-Buylla, now head of CONACYT, the government’s leading scientific body, documented the presence of GM corn sequences in many of Mexico’s most common foods. Some 90% of tortillas and 82% of other common corn-based foods contained GM corn. Mexico needs to be especially cautious, according to Suárez, because corn is so widely consumed, with Mexicans on average eating one pound of corn a day, one of the highest consumption levels in the world.

While the glyphosate restrictions are based on concerns about human health and the environment, the phaseout of GM corn is justified additionally on the basis of the threat of contamination of Mexico’s native corn varieties and the traditional intercropped milpa. The final article in the decree states the purpose is to contribute “to food security and sovereignty” and to offer “a special measure of protection to native corn.”

The ban on GM corn cultivation has been a longstanding demand ever since the previous administration of Enrique Peña Nieto granted permission to Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta, and a host of other multinational seed companies to begin experimental planting in northern Mexico. Such permits were halted in 2013 by a Mexico court injunction based on a claim from 53 farmer, consumer, and environmental organizations – the self-denominated Demanda Colectiva – that GM corn cultivation threatened to contaminate native varieties of corn through inadvertent cross-pollination.

“It is difficult to imagine a worse place to grow GM corn than Mexico,” said Adelita San Vicente, the lead spokesperson for the plaintiffs who are now working in López Obrador’s environment ministry, when I interviewed her in 2014 for my book, Eating Tomorrow (which includes a chapter on the GM corn issue). Such contamination was well-documented and the courts issued the injunction citing the potential for permanent damage to the environment.

As Judge Walter Arrellano Hobelsberger wrote in a 2014 decision, “The use and enjoyment of biodiversity is the right of present and future generations.”

Mexico’s self-sufficiency campaign

Mexico’s farmer and environmental organizations were quick to praise the decree, though many warned that it is only a first step and implementation will be key. “These are important steps in moving toward ecological production that preserves biodiversity and agrobiodiversity forged by small-scale farmers over millennia,” wrote Greenpeace Mexico and the coalition “Without Corn There is No Country.”

Malin Jonsson of Semillas de Vida (Seeds of Life), one of the plaintiffs in the court case, told me, “This is a first step toward eliminating glyphosate, withdrawing permits for GM maize cultivation, and eliminating the consumption of GM maize. To end consumption we have to stop importing GM maize from the United States by increasing Mexico’s maize production.”

Mexico imports about 30% of its corn each year, overwhelmingly from the United States. Almost all of that is yellow corn for animal feed and industrial uses. López Obrador’s commitment to reducing and, by 2024, eliminating such imports reflects his administration’s plan to ramp up Mexican production as part of the campaign to increase self-sufficiency in corn and other key food crops – wheat, rice, beans, and dairy. Mexican farmers have long complained that since NAFTA was enacted in 1994 ultra-cheap U.S. corn has driven down prices for Mexican farmers. The proposed import restrictions would help López Obrador’s “Mexico First” agricultural policies while bringing needed development to rural areas.

Will Biden Administration block action?

Industry organizations on both sides of the border have complained bitterly about the proposed bans. “The import of genetically modified grain from the U.S. is essential for many products in the agri-food chain,” said Laura Tamayo, spokeswoman for Mexico’s National Farm Council (CNA), who is also a regional corporate director for Bayer. Bayer’s agrochemical unit Monsanto makes weedkiller Roundup and the GMO corn designed to be used with the pesticide.

“This decree is completely divorced from reality,” said José Cacho, president of Mexico’s corn industry chamber CANAMI, the 25-company group that includes top corn millers like Gruma, cereal maker Kellogg, and commodity trader Cargill.

Juan Cortina, president of CNA, said his members might sue the government over the bans. “I think there will need to be legal challenges brought by all the people who use glyphosate and genetically-modified corn,” he told Reuters, adding that he also expects U.S. exporters to appeal to provisions of the USMCA trade pact to have the measures declared illegal.

Industry sources also warned that Mexico would never be able to meet its corn needs without U.S. exports and that U.S. farmers would be harmed by the presumed loss of the Mexican export market. Others quickly pointed out that Mexico was not banning U.S. exports, just GM corn exports. U.S. farmers are perfectly capable of producing non-GM corn at comparable prices, according to seed industry sources, so the ruling could encourage the development of a premium market in the United States for non-GMO corn, something U.S. consumers have been demanding for years.

Such pressures may present an early test for President Joe Biden and his nominee for U.S. Trade Representative, Katherine Tai, whose confirmation hearing is scheduled for February 25. Tai won high marks for helping get stricter labor and environmental provisions into the agreement that replaced NAFTA. Will she and the Biden administration respect Mexico’s sovereign right to enact policies designed to protect the Mexican public and the environment while promoting Mexican rural development?

Victor Suárez certainly hopes so.

“Our rationale is based on the precautionary principle in the face of environmental risks as well as the right of the Mexican government to take action in favor of the public good, in important areas such as public health and the environment,” he told me.

“We are a sovereign nation with a democratic government,” he continued, “which came to power with the support of the majority of citizens, one that places compliance with our constitution and respect for human rights above all private interests.”

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Timothy A. Wise is a senior advisor with the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy and the author of Eating Tomorrow: Agribusiness, Family Farmers, and the Battle for the Future of Food.

Featured image: Tractor caravan to Mexico City farmer protest demands “Mexico Free of Transgenics”. Credit: Enrique Perez S./ANEC

EE. UU. Y SUS LABORATORIOS PARA LA MANIPULACIÓN por Delfín Xiqués Cutiño

 

por guerrasimbolica Los adversarios de la Revolución Cubana han acudido a todo su arsenal, desde la guerra de la semiótica, para destruir cada uno de los símbolos más venerables para los cubanos Desde hace mucho tiempo, los grandes medios periodísticos de EE. UU. y de sus aliados, en sus ataques contra Cuba, acuñan «palabras» muy sutiles, surgidas de verdaderos laboratorios o tanques pensantes, que han sido divulgadas y aceptadas como ciertas en todo el mundo. Por ejemplo, en los comentarios e informaciones sobre nuestro país, que casi siempre son negativos, cuando  se refieren al Gobierno cubano utilizan el vocablo «régimen», el «régimen castrista», o «dictadura», para injuriar y restarle legitimidad a la Revolución. Sucede, igualmente, con el calificativo de prensa «oficialista» o «única», cuando se aluden a nuestros medios, en tanto le endosan el sello de «independientes» a sus representantes asalariados en la Mayor de las Antillas. Incluso, cuando se trata de connotados terroristas, los señala como «activistas» o «combatientes por la libertad»; y ante cualquier violación de la legislación cubana, llegan al cinismo de llamarlos «disidentes» reprimidos por la «policía política» del «régimen totalitario». Lo más inaudito ocurrió con el connotado asesino Luis Posada Carriles, autor intelectual de la voladura de un avión de Cubana de Aviación, en pleno vuelo, y de otros atentados terroristas, como el intento de magnicidio contra el Comandante en Jefe Fidel Castro Ruz, en Panamá. Durante los años en que este personaje se paseaba con toda impunidad por las calles de Miami, fue exaltado como «el militante anticastrista» y «combatiente por la libertad». No escapa el Partido Comunista de Cuba, «el único», como si en EE. UU. el partido Demócrata o el Republicano no respondieran a una misma plataforma ideológica y política, defensores de una única línea de acción: el capitalismo. Esas fórmulas lingüísticas, cuidadosa e intencionalmente seleccionadas, también se reproducen hasta la saciedad en las redes sociales y en los autoproclamados medios alternativos, monitoreados por los servicios especiales estadounidenses, que mantienen una implacable guerra de desinformación sobre la realidad cubana. Desde hace muchos años, Fidel alertó sobre este tipo de manipulación por parte del imperialismo yanqui. Comentó que las medidas económicas que el gobierno estadounidense aplicaba contra Cuba, eran un bloqueo, y no un «embargo». En una visita del Comandante en Jefe al Distrito del  Bronx, en Nueva York, se refirió otra vez al tema, y aclaró: «Con relación a Cuba no hay solo embargo, el embargo es una palabra piadosa. Nosotros decimos bloqueo; pero lo que ha habido con relación a Cuba es realmente una guerra económica, una guerra política». Cuando la Crisis de Octubre también los yanquis fabricaron otra palabrita, «cuarentena», para referirse al bloqueo naval que establecieron, alrededor de Cuba, las naves de guerra de ee. uu. en aquel peligroso conflicto. Siempre pensé que aquella palabra era un error de traducción. Años después, cuando ellos desclasificaron algunos documentos sobre la compleja situación, salió a la luz que, en una reunión al más alto nivel militar, se descartó utilizar bloqueo naval, porque supuestamente ee. uu. no estaba en guerra contra Cuba. En cambio se ordenó emplear el término «cuarentena». El ejemplo nuevamente confirma cómo se preocupan con celo por las connotaciones de los términos y velan por el más mínimo detalle simbólico. Otro concepto que se repite a diario es el cubano «de a pie», para referirse, según el criterio de estos tanques pensantes, al pueblo que hace colas y se encuentra en la miseria, con el avieso propósito de separarlo de sus dirigentes. Y, por supuesto, no faltan los intentos de devaluar una consigna sagrada para los cubanos, la de Patria o Muerte, con las ilusiones de nuestros enemigos de debilitar a todo un pueblo. Cada palabra está calculada por el régimen que nos ha sometido a la guerra más feroz, en todas sus variantes, y no encuentra cómo explicarse nuestra resistencia. Fuente http://www.granma.cu/pensar-en-qr/2021-02-22/ee-uu-y-sus-laboratorios-para-la-manipulacion-22-02-2021-23-02-24

Guajirita Soy #Cuba producen a gran escala dos fórmulas antiCovid-19

 

Posted: 25 Feb 2021 01:09 PM PST Miles de bulbos de las vacunas propias contra la Covid-19 se llenan hoy en laboratorios cubanos, luego del inicio de la producción de Abdala, segunda formulación rumbo a la fase III.  Con anterioridad comenzó también la producción a gran escala de Soberana 02, la propuesta antiCovid-19 del Instituto Finlay de Vacunas(IFV), el ensayo clínico más avanzado de las cuatro propuestas de la isla, que debe arrancar con su tercera fase el 1 de marzo. De esta manera el Centro de Ingeniería Genética y Biotecnología (CIGB), líder del candidato vacunal Abdala se une al escalado productivo del inyectable.  La idea, al igual que con Soberana 02, es proveer de suficientes dosis de la molécula para dar continuidad a esa próxima etapa del ensayo clínico con más número de voluntarios para comprobar eficacia, y ampliarlo después al resto de la población. Según sus desarrolladores, Abdala demostró en fase II seguridad e inmunogenicidad contra la Covid-19, mientras, dos meses antes al dar inicio la fase I, los científicos comprobaron de manera favorable su perfil de seguridad y reactogenicidad. La industria biofarmacéutica, por su parte, ya produce a gran escala la molécula y para lograrla, varias instituciones científicas unen conocimiento y experiencia en la producción de fármacos con buenas prácticas. En el caso de Abdala, los laboratorios Aica, del grupo empresarial BioCubaFarma, son los encargados de la producción. Sus directivos explicaron de manera previa que la industria presenta suficiente capacidad instalada, con tecnología para elaborar más de 100 mil bulbos diarios, con volúmenes de llenado de 12 mil por hora. Soberana 02 y Abdala no son las únicas formulaciones antiCovid-19 que lleva adelante la comunidad científica cubana. Investigan otras dos moléculas, Soberana 01( IFV) y Mambisa (CIGB), esta última la única diseñada por vía nasal. La idea es trabajar en varias formulaciones para beneficiar a personas de diferentes edades y tener la posibilidad de vacunar a toda la población, según los especialistas. Cuba podría tener inmunizada a gran parte de su población en este 2021. https://www.prensa-latina.cu/index.php?o=rn&id=432431&SEO=laboratorios-de-cuba-producen-a-gran-escala-dos-formulas-anticovid-19 https://guajiritasoy.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Texas ‘Deep Freeze’: Urgent Climate Warning but “Not What You Think”

 

By F. William Engdahl Global Research, February 26, 2021 https://www.globalresearch.ca/texas-deep-freeze-urgent-climate-warning/5738312 In the unfolding extreme winter tragedy in Texas as well as many other regions of the United States not prepared for severe winter weather, a notable point is that much of the vast windmill batteries across the state, supposed to generate 25% of the state electric power grid, have frozen and are largely useless. The recent severe winter weather across not only the continental USA but also large parts of the EU, and even the Middle East, warrants a closer look at a subject that has been too long ignored by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, as well as by a new group of academics known as Climate Scientists. That is the influence of our sun on the global climate. Cold Climate Change On February 14, 2020, a record Arctic cold front swept from Canada far south to the southernmost parts of Texas on the Mexican border. The immediate impact has been power outages for up to 15 million Texans who as of February 17 remained without heat and electricity, as almost half the wind units were frozen and inoperable from ice storms, many permanently. Texas over the past five years has doubled its share of wind generation to the grid in a rush to adopt a green energy profile. With some 25% of the state electric grid from wind sources, almost half that is out of commission, many permanently, from the storm. Tyler, Texas, once known as the “Rose Capital of America,” saw temperatures of near -20 C. Gas processing plants across Texas are shutting as liquids freeze inside pipes further reducing power just as demand for heating fuel explodes. Heating fuel prices in Oklahoma jumped 4000% in two days and are rising. Wholesale prices for delivery in Texas are trading as much as $9000 per megawatt-hour. Two days before the storm price was $30. In a summer peak demand, a price of $100 is considered high. Reduced gas supplies from Texas to Mexican power companies have led to blackouts in northern Mexico, with almost 5 million households and businesses left without power on February 15. The Green Energy Fallacy In addition, US oil production, centered in Texas, has plunged by a third, and more than 20 Gulf Coast oil refineries are blocked as are grain barge shipments along the Mississippi River. Several analysts of the deregulated Texas grid model point out that had the state maintained a “reliable emergency backup” such as is possible with nuclear or coal power, the blackout could have been averted. Recently Texas has forced six coal power plants to close since 2018, owing to state rules that force power companies to take the subsidized wind and solar power, undercutting the cost of their own coal generation. It simply forced them to shut down functioning coal plants that generated 3.9 GW. Had those still been online, sources say the blackouts could easily have been averted. Unlike current wind technology or solar, coal and nuclear plants can store up to a month or more capacity on-site for power emergencies. While in northern states like Minnesota where severe winters are common and prepared for, Texas has no such requirements for reserve capacity. For example, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission requires plants to have enough reserve capacity online to ensure the power stays on during extreme circumstances. Instead, Texas operates an “energy-only” market, where wholesale power prices are seen as an adequate incentive to bring more power plants online. The aim of the energy-only model was to make intermittent wind and solar more profitable to increase their market share over conventional alternatives like coal or nuclear. The state grid model forced Texas coal and nuclear plants to sell electricity at a loss on the market because they are unable to reduce their electricity output when high wind and solar output force prices into the red. Ultimately, it forced the unnecessary closing of the six coal plants, just what the green energy advocates wanted. The flaws in the model are glaring, as is the growing dependence on unreliable wind and solar options to get a dubious zero carbon footprint. Grand Solar Minimum? However, there is a far more alarming lesson to come out of the Texas disaster. That states like Texas and countries across the globe are mandating trillions of dollars invested in Green Energy to create the UN 2030 goal of Net Zero Carbon by 2050, by turning to manifestly unreliable solar and wind to replace oil, gas, and coal power, and even carbon-free nuclear power, is the opposite of what we need if solar cycle analysis is accurate. That flaw has roots in a several-decade campaign by the UN IPCC and political figures such as Al Gore and a lobby of scientists whose careers depend on ignoring the greatest factor affecting Earth Climate and climate change, one which is definitely real—solar cycles. Unlike the computer models of the climate scientists which project a linear rise in Earth temperature as “manmade” emissions of CO2 rise, the unproven “Greenhouse Effect,” Earth temperature and climate changes are non-linear. They have been proven, going back several thousand years, to be cyclical. And CO2 emissions do not drive the cycles. If this is so, we as a human species could well be implementing policies that will leave great parts of our world totally unprepared and vulnerable to far worse and more prolonged climate changes than the recent disaster in Texas. According to the US NASA, the planet just entered into a new solar cycle. They predict that the current 11-year solar cycle, known as Cycle 25, which began in 2020, “will be the weakest of the last 200 years.” If so that would put it in the time of what is known as the Dalton Minimum which went roughly from 1790 to 1830. Sunspots or dark spots on the solar surface that are usually accompanied by huge magnetic energy flares out of the sun have been measured daily since the process was begun at a Zurich, Switzerland observatory in 1749. It was noted that the number of sunspots or solar activity rose and fell in roughly 11-year cycles. Recent research has also identified more complex longer cycles of around 200 years period and 370-400 years. Solar physicists have numbered the 11-year cycles beginning from 1749, giving us from mid-2020 the onset of Solar Cycle 25. In 2018 a group of solar physicists and mathematicians led by Prof. Valentina Zharkova at Northumbria University in the UK developed a complex model based on the observed role of the solar background magnetic field in defining solar activity. They could predict that the next Solar Minimum which began in 2020, would approximate the most extreme recent period of solar minimum, the so-called Maunder Minimum, which went from 1645 to 1710. That was termed a Grand Solar Minimum, a prolonged period of extremely low solar activity, and began about 370 years ago. Zharkova’s group has linked the present minima to a drastic falloff in the sun’s internal magnetic field, a roughly 70% downswing in magnetic field intensity from its average value, arising from regular variations in the behavior of the very hot plasma powering our sun. In other words, we could be at the early phase of drastic changes in Earth's climate lasting several decades. Zharkova’s research predicts that this Grand Solar Minimum period started in 2020, and expects it to last until about 2053. During the Maunder Minimum volcanic eruptions sending tons of ash high into the atmosphere created dense grey clouds that further blocked solar radiation. Volcanic activity and solar minimum phases are well correlated, believed to come from intensified penetration of cosmic rays on the Earth atmosphere that force greater eruptions. During the Maunder Minimum, known in the Northern Hemisphere as the “Little Ice Age,” the temperatures across much of the northern hemisphere plunged. According to Zharkova, this likely occurred because the total solar irradiance was greatly reduced, leading to severe winters. A far milder Grand Solar Minimum, called the Dalton Minimum, from about 1790 to 1830, while less extreme than the Maunder period, led to a series of huge volcanic eruptions between 1812-1815 culminating on the record eruption in Indonesia of Mount Tambora, the world’s largest volcanic eruption during historic times. It in turn created so much cloud density from ash that 1816 was known in Europe as The Year Without a Summer. The cold temperatures saw snow in New York in the summer of 1816. Crops across North America and Europe failed in what has been called, “the last great subsistence crisis in the Western world.” In China, in 1816 there was a massive famine. Floods destroyed crops. The monsoon season was disrupted, resulting in overwhelming floods in the Yangtze Valley. In India, the delayed summer monsoon caused late torrential rains that aggravated the spread of cholera from a region near the Ganges in Bengal to as far as Moscow. Volcanic eruptions are in a recent uptick since the eruption of two huge volcanoes in November 2020 in Indonesia at Lewotolo and Semeru, as the present Grand Solar Minimum began, tied to the solar-related drop in the magnetosphere, and the stronger influx of solar cosmic radiation penetrating silica-rich magma of the volcanoes. As Sacha Dobler author of Solar Behavior notes, “As far as temperature is concerned, what is crucial is not the energy that leaves the sun, but how much of this energy is blocked by clouds and how much reaches the Earth’s surface, and how much is reflected back into space by ice and snow.” Higher cosmic ray penetration of the atmosphere during solar minima adds to cloud nucleation as do volcanic eruptions. Dobler adds, “In a Grand Solar Minimum, cosmic rays trigger larger flash floods, hailstorms and – due to jet stream disturbance and mixing of atmospheric layers – local long-duration precipitation events… Due to the shifting jet streams and changing wind patterns, singular heatwaves and more wildfires are expected.” In short, we can expect unstable, irregular weather events over the coming decade to three decades if solar physicists such as Zharkova are right. Changing Jet Stream A significant effect of a major or Grand Solar Minimum we are now entering is changes in the position of our Jet Stream. In periods of high solar activity, the jet stream forms a relatively stable belt around the Northern Hemisphere on the level of southern Canada and Siberia, keeping severe winter cold contained. In solar minima such as now, the Jet Stream, instead of forming a stable ring, becomes highly irregular or wavy. That is what allowed the unprecedented Arctic cold as far south as Texas. This irregular and weak Jet Stream allows severe cold and snowfall in some areas and unusual warm pockets in places like Siberia, as well as unusually warm and dry or wet periods. As we advance deeper into the present Grand Solar Minimum by 2030 or so, physicists expect this “extreme” weather change to intensify. The sun is by orders of magnitude the most influential force affecting Earth's climate and its climate changes. Unfortunately for mankind, the prevailing group of climate scientists endorsing the narrow untested CO2 manmade global warming hypothesis do not model any effect of changing solar radiation on our climate. The IPCC dismisses the sun as an irrelevant factor, something that is proving extremely dangerous. Are the “Powers That Be” e.g. associated with the WEF, aware of the coming solar minimum and the fact that this one is likely to be as bad or worse than the 1790-1830 Dalton Minimum? Does this explain their selection of the period 2030 to 2050 in the target for UN Agenda 2030? If the world is spending trillions and diverting precious resources to prepare for “zero-carbon,” while the worst solar effects of the past 200 years or more unfold in events such as Texas and other parts of the world experience, the world would be caught unprepared for severe crop failure and mass famine. F. William Engdahl is a strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published.  He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. The featured image is from NEO Disclaimer: The contents of this article are of sole responsibility of the author(s). The Centre for Research on Globalization will not be responsible for any inaccurate or incorrect statement in this article. Copyright © F. William Engdahl, Global Research, 2021