Big Banker Larry Fink abandons renewables for AI

Writes Joanne Nova:

Way back in his 2021, annual CEO letter, Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, wrote: “No issue ranks higher than climate change.” It will reshape global capital flows, he said, and declared, “…anyone can see the impact of climate change in the natural disasters in California or Florida.”

Now though, never mind about global extinctions and flash floods. Fink just spoke at the Davos ski club for billionaires and declared that we need “trillions of dollars” of investment for AI. Data centres, he said, are rapidly expanding — one technology company he spoke to said that “its data centres currently use about 5 gigawatts, but by 2030 it expects to need 30 gigawatts.”

But like a true banker, he doesn’t see a backflip, he sees only investment opportunities — the world is short of power he says. (He doesn’t say that this is in large part because BlackRock leaned on companies and countries all over the world to abandon fossil fuels.) Fink helped create the energy shortage that he now calls an investment opportunity. BlackRock is the largest asset manager in the world, controlling $10 trillion dollars in assets, or five times Australia’s GDP. When that much money talks, everyone listens.

Now Larry Fink throws wind and solar under the bus.

He’s matter-of-fact, with a straight face, almost like he never pushed intermittent generators:

Fink: “At the same time, this represents a huge investment opportunity. The world is going to be short of power. And to supply these data centres, you cannot rely solely on intermittent sources like wind and solar. You need dispatchable power, because these data centres cannot simply turn on and off.”

From Science to Scientism: The Crisis of Modern Science

“In this essay on the crisis of modern science, Apostolos Efthymiadis argues that contemporary scientific culture has drifted from its philosophical foundations toward dogma and authority. Drawing on Aristotle’s epistemology, he challenges scientism, politicization, and consensus-thinking, and calls for a restoration of intellectual rigor and scientific humility.”

The Information State: Politics in the Age of Total Control

Article (book review) by Marian Halcombe.

Excerpt:

Jacob Siegel’s central claim is not subtle and does not need to be. After 2016, America’s governing class concluded that democratic outcomes could no longer be trusted. Rather than persuade the electorate, it set out to manage it. Rather than defeat its opponents, it reclassified them as security threats. What followed was not a breakdown of institutions, but their smooth and enthusiastic repurposing.

Climate Cult’s Inevitable Dissolution

Article by co2coalition.org

Article by Vijay Jayaraj.

Excerpt:

The collapse of the Paris Agreement and the unmasking of the net zero illusion were never hard to predict for anyone with a shred of intellectual honesty. It didn’t take a fancy research title or an advanced degree. The writing was carved deep into the stone of energy reality, which no press release, no activist lobby and no billionaire-backed foundation could erase.

The Heinous Nature of Headlines and Propaganda as an Experiment in Psychological Manipulation

Article by Gary D. Barnett.

He starts it off with a quote from Edward Bernays‘ 1928 book ‘Propaganda‘, in which he writes:

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society.“

(Bernays, by the way, was a nephew of Sigmund Freud.)

Then, in his own article, Barnett writes:

For most, it is a struggle to just get up and face the day, or at least that is the case for a majority of the population. Because of that, most choose to hide from reality in order to satisfy a dream-state, instead of facing the truth. It is as if the entirety of this population is in a mind-control experiment, and are being hypnotized to accept their own slavery as the best option. AI, if allowed to take over society, can accomplish that designed outcome, just as is sought by the oligarchs.

He ends his article with these words:

This reality is not accidental, it has been purposely created in order to capture the psyche of the majority. Something is greatly amiss here, as so many of this population have effectively given up on actual life in favor of a State-structured life based on fraudulent perception as a way of escaping what is real. This is terribly disturbing, as the last thing needed at this time is a country full of obedient zombies. This makes me wonder if the “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” was simply a prescient preview of things to come.

“Is there any point in public debate in a society where hardly anyone has been taught how to think, while millions have been taught what to think?”