“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”

I think Lenin said that, or maybe it was Elon Musk.

The cardinal rule for understanding fast-moving news is to follow events as they happen, and to ignore everything written more than 24 hours later. It’s in the live coverage that you perceive the truth that will later be hidden under a mountain of verbiage.

The ultimate example of that truism was the live reporting on 9/11, when the BBC announced the collapse of building 6 several minutes before the event. Only the BBC can make a 20 storey building fall down simply by announcing that it has already happened.   

But enough conspiracy theorising. The BBC and Guardian are both providing free on-line live coverage of Trump’s initiative to end the Ukraine war. In every line they write your can feel the strain on their collective artificial intelligences when faced with a barrage of insoluble paradoxes.

Trump bad. 

War bad.

Trump ending war bad.

Rewriting history in real time is hard work, but the BBC does its best. From today’s report

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cvg1402yyvet

 on Trump’s deal with Zelensky to rob Ukraine of its raw materials:

US aid in the Trump era comes with strings attached. Aid for aid’s sake – whether given for humanitarian or strategic reasons – is a thing of the past. That represents a fundamental reordering of American foreign policy for more than 75 years, from the days of the Marshall Plan to post-Cold War idealism and George W Bush’s “Freedom Agenda” push to promote global democracy.

It takes a certain kind of daring to utter the words “idealism” “freedom” “global democracy” and “George W. Bush” in the same sentence, but the BBC is fearless. The boldness of the attempt may lead one to overlook the key concept of US foreign policy  being promoted, which Trump is supposedly abolishing: 

Aid for aid’s sake – whether given for humanitarian or strategic reasons.

Anyone can say one thing and mean another, but it takes talent to contradict yourself within a single phrase. One week after Trump allegedly condemned millions of recipients of USAID to a lingering death, the BBC announces that what’s been on offer for the past 75 years is in fact “Aid for aid’s sake .. given for strategic reasons.”

But on to the nub of the Deal, which concerns the nature of what Zelensky is promising in exchange for peace, or victory, or a quiet retirement in Florida or Monaco, or possibly none of the above – the famous rare earth elements: 

Kyiv estimates that 5% of the world’s “critical raw materials” are in Ukraine – including:

  • 19 million tonnes of proven reserves of graphite, which is used to make batteries in electric vehicles
  • A third of all European lithium deposits, the key component in current batteries
  • Significant deposits of rare earth metals, used to produce weapons, wind turbines, electronics and other products vital in the modern world.

Dissident voices have been heard suggesting that these trillions of dollars worth of resources don’t actually exist in an exploitable form, for example the way-out alt news site Bloomberg:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2025-02-26/rare-earths-in-ukraine-that-s-utter-nonsense-video

Another such voice is an expert who has spent his life analysing fake data in the mining industry, an obscure statistician named Steve McIntyre. But who listens to experts nowadays?

https://twitter.com/ClimateAudit/status/1890591202308718870

Note also the crucial evidence adduced to support the importance of these “critical raw materials” (the quotation marks are the BBC’s, so perhaps they’ve noticed something.) They are necessary for the production of:

.. batteries in electric vehicles .. weapons, wind turbines .. and other products vital in the modern world.

While batteries in electric vehicles are certainly vital to the fortune of Trump’s key right hand man, it is precisely opposition to electric vehicles and wind turbines, and the politicians who promote them, which led in large part to Trump’s election, and which promises a similar political revolution in Europe. As Renault recalls its electric vehicles because of fire danger, and opposition to Net Zero and ruinously expensive electricity pushes fringe parties to the head of the polls in the UK and elsewhere, the long term demand for batteries for electric vehicles and wind turbines seems fragile, to say the least.  

Which leaves weapons as a use for these “critical raw materials.” There, at least, there is agreement. We’ll always need them.

(note: The title of this article is a fake quote.) 

37 Comments

  2. Knowing zilch about Ukrainian geology, and since AI has been mentioned, I asked duck.ai#GPT4o-mini.

    are there large deposits of rare earths in ukraine

    Yes, Ukraine is believed to have significant deposits of rare earth elements (REEs). The country has been identified as having potential reserves of various rare earth minerals, particularly in regions like the Kirovohrad and Zhytomyr oblasts. These deposits include elements such as yttrium, neodymium, and dysprosium, which are essential for various high-tech applications, including electronics, renewable energy technologies, and defense systems.

    The development of these resources has gained attention due to the global demand for rare earth elements and the geopolitical implications of their supply chains. However, the extraction and processing of these materials can be complex and environmentally challenging.

    some people say that the occurrence of rare earth elements in Ukraine is exaggerated. What confidence can be put on the assessment you provided?

    The assessment of rare earth element (REE) deposits in Ukraine is based on geological surveys and studies conducted by various organizations, including government agencies and academic institutions. While there is evidence suggesting the presence of REEs in Ukraine, the extent and economic viability of these deposits can vary.

    Skepticism about the size and significance of these deposits may stem from several factors:

    1. Exploration Status: Many of the claims about REE deposits are based on preliminary geological surveys, and more extensive exploration and assessment are needed to confirm the size and quality of these resources.
    2. Economic Viability: Even if significant deposits exist, the economic feasibility of extracting and processing these elements can be influenced by factors such as market prices, extraction costs, and environmental regulations.
    3. Comparative Analysis: Other countries, such as China, Australia, and the United States, have more established REE mining operations, which can lead to perceptions that Ukraine’s potential is overstated in comparison.
    4. Geopolitical Context: The ongoing geopolitical situation in Ukraine may also affect perceptions and assessments of its mineral resources.

    In summary, while there is some basis for the belief that Ukraine has rare earth deposits, the confidence in these assessments can vary. Further exploration and research are necessary to provide a clearer picture of the extent and viability of these resources.

    =====

    It rather hurts to admit this: but these LLMs are actually frighteningly good now. I have taken to asking the AI the answer to something if I cannot find it easily with a web search. Two points about that: one, the web is so polluted now that finding an answer the “traditional” way is like searching a cess pit for a piece of sweetcorn; two, if the data the AI is trained on is itself polluted, it will end up spouting nonsense.

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  3. AI might think it knows, but do we really know how much of this stuff is in Ukraine? Do we know how much of it is in the bits that Russia has occupied (and presumably won’t be forced to disgorge as part of any peace deal)? Could Zelensky be playing Trump, trying to hook him into backing away from Putin and into offering some meaningful security guarantees? I just don’t know.

    Indeed, I fear western MSM reporting of the war in Ukraine has – perhaps understandably – concentrated so much on stressing the need to support Ukraine and stressing that Russia is the aggressor that we haven’t learned very much at all over the last three years.

    I do know I’m on Ukraine’s side, and however much peace is desperately needed, we shouldn’t be in so much of a hurry as Trump seems to be to allow Putin to snatch victory from what are potentially the jaws of defeat.

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  4. Jit

    “In summary, while there is some basis for the belief that x, the confidence in these assessments can vary.”

    That statement is true for any value of x that is not a proven falsity. That’s not a “frighteningly good” source of information. For real information, see the article quoted by Steve McIntyre in the tweet linked in the article above. It may be false of course, but it quotes sources, and so is verifiable.    

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  5. Mark Hodgson  

    “I fear western MSM reporting of the war in Ukraine has … concentrated so much on stressing the need to support Ukraine … that we haven’t learned very much at all over the last three years.”

    I’d go much further than that. Reporting of the war itself has been practically non-existent. The Guardian, for example, publishes a “war briefing” every day. Yesterday’s

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/25/ukraine-war-briefing-european-allies-rush-to-showcase-extra-support-for-kyiv

    lists 12 bullet points, about what the Czech PM said, what Norway said, what Rheinmetall and the Baltic states intend to do, etc. Just ONE out of 12 reports came from Ukraine, & that was about a woman injured in a rocket attack.

    Meanwhile Ukraine claims to kill about a thousand Russian troops per day, and Russia claims to be killing the same number of Ukrainians. This is a WW1 level of slaughter, and the media has NOTHING to say about it.

    I remember the reporting of the Vietnam war, when the media was, as now, firmly on the side of the US, with only the centre-left Guardian and Mirror voicing the occasional criticism of conduct of the war. But at least anti-war sentiment was acknowledged to exist; the vast peace demonstrations and the Bertrand Russell/Sartre war crimes tribunal were reported, as was the number of US casualties; John Lennon’s songs were not banned from the airwaves.

    To my knowledge, global warming was the first big story to be covered in the centre left media as a matter of absolute faith, with no scepticism allowed. Since then, we have had Trump’s 2016 election win, with Russiagate etc; Brexit, Covid and the vaccine scandal, Ukraine, Taiwan, and Gaza. All except the latter have been the subject of intense censorship of opposing views. Gaza has been reported on, of course, but there has been censorship of protests in the west, and of the harassment and arrest of independent journalists. 

    Did the global warming scare change the nature of journalism to such an extent that acceptance of the official version of events became the norm? 

    Liked by 2 people

  6. Geoff: I accept that the AI’s conclusion was non-informative. So?

    Ukraine rare earths potential relies on Soviet assessments, may not be viable

    The S&P headline is equally non-informative.

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  7. Jit

    But the article under the S&P headline IS informative. It’s not definitive proof of its claim, but it cites sources, and therefore provides matter for debate.

    My quarrel with AI in this kind of context is that it can NEVER do more than say: “Some say this, while others say that.” In a world where most of us are ignorant of most subjects, this can be useful, but discerning the truth is ultimately always a matter for individual human judgement. And on what basis are we humans to decide?

    We climate sceptics know the conventional answer to that: on the basis of the reliability of the sources, which is often taken to mean: not their track record for making correct judgements, but their authority.

    This is why I found the involvement of Steve McIntyre so interesting. After decades of being called out for his lack of expertise on climate science, Russiagate and bio-weapons in Syria, he gives his opinion on a matter in which he inexpert, and apparently gets called out again nevertheless. I’ll try and find the relevant tweet.

    Liked by 1 person

  8. It rather hurts to admit this: but these LLMs are actually frighteningly good now. 

    https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=68419

    AI is very good, but also very bad. You take a risk.

    The “rare earths” are mostly quite common. There is more Cerium in the earth’s crust than there is Copper, for example.

    The difficulty is that extracting them is quite expensive, and particularly so if you care about the toxic waste. The Chinese are the main producer because they have cheap labour and care far less about the toxic waste, rather than because they have better ores.

    Liked by 1 person

  9. Geoff: I accept that the summary is bland and trivial. I thought the numbered items in the second response were useful to someone with little to no geological knowledge. As to authorities, you know me, I prefer data. Although I might need help interpreting it. Probably by an authority.

    Chester: yes, those are frighteningly poor answers. But I’m not really sure an LLM is equipped to provide the correct answer.

    My book of data (1989) says that copper’s abundance is 3.1X10-2, and cerium 2.0X10-2, where silicon = 100. It seems my favourite book is out of date.

    Asking the AI, it tells me that cerium is more abundant than copper, and copper is more abundant than cerium.

    which is more abundant in the earth’s crust, cerium or copper?

    Copper is more abundant in the Earth’s crust than cerium.

    Copper has an average abundance of about 50 parts per million (ppm) in the Earth’s crust, while cerium, which is a rare earth element, has an average abundance of about 66 ppm. Although cerium is technically more abundant in terms of ppm, copper is more widely distributed and more commonly found in economically viable concentrations, making it more accessible for extraction and use.

    In practical terms, copper is considered more abundant due to its extensive use and availability in various geological formations.

    ====

    There do seem to be some mutually incompatible facts there. So I am probably in danger of wrongly accepting an AI’s answer as true on the basis that it is not obviously illogical.

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  10. Likely known to both Geoff Chambers and commenters here, a lot of hard geological reports on Ukraine’s RE deposits (including both Resource and Reserve analyses) have been done by a somewhat convoluted and sporadic timetrain of Soviet, Ukraine and miscellaneous others efforts. Both Resource and Reserve parameters (including mining, extractive separation and processing) are included.

    I’ve had some actual hands on experience with these databases, mostly Soviet for Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Mongolia. The Ukranian reports (translated) I’ve seen have the same inbuilt assumptions as the Soviet ones. Two issues stand out:

    1. The Soviet definitions of Resources and Reserves are quantitatively different to those regulated in the UK, US, Canada, Aus. More in tune with the relevant Chinese concepts, it is assumed within these definitions that all mined ore is economically 100% recoverable – the toil of workers cannot be wasted, Komrad. Since this is a physically impossible outcome, the estimation of economical tonnages and extracted, processed ores (ie. the combined money shots) are exaggerated and not reliable. Raw geological data alone tends to be honest.
    2. An old Soviet imposition on these reports is still in sway in most of the countries I listed in my 2nd paragraph. This may not be believable but I have experienced it first hand. The Soviet desire for control was so well ingrained that the KGB (and its’ successors) literally separated these reports into disparate segments and dispatched those segments to offices all around the countries (including across Siberia). Only select senior officers knew where all the pieces were lodged – those people are all dead now, so complete geological, engineering, laboratory, metallurgical reports on all that activity for over 100 years are difficult to source. Further, some few of those countries still have caveat on this hard information leaving the country, which includes both hard and digital copy. To my knowledge here, Ukraine does not have that imposition, as Russia also does not – Kazakhstan does.

    All of which is to say that there are obviously Ukranian deposits of interest, worth the effort of better delineation once live fire stops, but speculation is of current neon headlines.

    Of course, any Ukranian Resource/Reserve work done since, and with some luck even before, the Soviet influence was pushed out is available to examine, although the older definition of Resource/Reserve outlined above still intrudes.

    Nuances do abound here. Most people have probably stopped reading, though, so I’ll stop too.

    Liked by 1 person

  11. thanks to Jit Cheter Draws & ianl for adding some hard data. Facts are not really my thing – I’m more into musings.

    The two things that struck me most about the BBC article were:

    1. That the media, which have spent 8 years pointing out that Trump is a serial liar, accepted his claim about rare earth deposits in Ukraine without a murmur.
    2. They then seemed to suggest that the importance of the claim was not that it might lead to ending the pointless slaughter in a war that Ukraine has already lost, but that it might help in the production of electric batteries & wind turbines.

    Minds change slowly. The journalistic hive mind is slowly adapting to the idea that the west has just lost another war, but it still can’t drop the idea it’s been infected with for the past two decades, that the most important thing in the world is not furthering peace or prosperity, but building those planet polluting rare element gobbling turbines and batteries.

    Liked by 1 person

  12. I assigned the word “Ukrainian” to the F5 key when writing my comment so I wouldn’t need to keep typing it out – then promptly misspelt it on assignation anyway.

    Mea culpa for that silly typo.

    Although the history I commented on is past, the lack of reliable deposit histories increases the difficulty in deciding where to start, and within what sensible sequence, with exploration and feasibility work with limited capital.

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  13. Is Ukraine’s principal natural wealth comprised of its ‘rare earth’ mineral deposits? I think not. It is Ukraine’s ‘black earth’ (chernozem) – naturally extremely fertile soils which feed many mouths – which is the real prize. Blackrock knows it. That is Ukraine’s most valuable natural wealth, not its underground deposits of minerals to make useless AI, wind turbines, solar panels, and more high tech weapons to prosecute more fake wars. It’s odd, in that respect, that Trump can’t pronounce ‘rare earth’ properly – he calls it ‘raw earth’ several times during that ill-fated ‘peace’ press conference at the Oval Office.

    Liked by 1 person

  14. Jaime

    The fact that media commenters didn’t pick up on Trump’s “raw earth” gaffe suggests that they haven’t actually listened to the whole 50 minutes of what has been described as a meeting or negotiation, but which was in fact a simple press conference.

    It was Zelensky who tried to turn it into a public negotiation session when he bizarrely started showing Trump photos of what were apparently Ukrainian returned POWs.

    Trump typically wandered off-subject several times, but it was always clear that the purpose was to answer questions about the rare earths deal. The fact that the mainstream media have been distorting everything they report about Trump for the past eight years explains much of his bizarre behaviour. The consequence is that anyone who doesn’t follow the news on alternative media has no idea of what is going on in the world.

    Liked by 2 people

  15. Geoff,

    That might be true, but that bizarre press conference looked staged (from Trump’s side) and was absolutely disgraceful. I have read about the rants the leaders of Austria and Czechoslovakia were subjected to by Hitler, and Zelensky must have felt much as they did. An appalling scene by a bully and his henchman. This isn’t what grown-up politics looks like.

    Trump makes some good points, but he does so in a truly dreadful way. Just as I keep thinking each successive UK Prime Minister makes their hopeless predecessors look decent, the same seems to be true of the USA.

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  16. We may never know if the faux outrage was staged, or ad-libbed. The Mail claims that Trump winked at the reporter who questioned Zelensky’s sartorial situation, and uses that as evidence that he had been primed to rile Zelensky up.

    One side was upset about being “disrespected.” The other had been invaded by Russia.

    To see anyone defending Trump is surprising. Let him pull funding if he wants. It is within his rights. The clown fiesta was not needed.

    Liked by 1 person

  17. Jit, Mark

    Did you watch the whole thing? I’d been misled until I watched the whole 50 minutes by it being called a meeting or discussion, whereas it was a perfectly normal press conference.

    The first problem came from the fact that neither Trump nor Zelensky speak English very well, and some journalists asked stupid questions that clearly irritated Trump, who repeatedly insisted he wanted just two things, peace and a deal. It was Zelensky who derailed it, first by his propaganda stunt of bizarrely bringing out his photos, that neither we nor the press could see, then by repeatedly insisting that there could be no peace without US guarantees, thus attempting to turn a simple press conference into a public negotiation between two heads of state – putting Trump into an impossible situation from which Vance tried to extricate him.

    I’m currently following the reactions of participants in the London conference on the Guardian’s live feed. Comments from our own European leaders quickly dispel any impression that Trump has a monopoly on madness.

    Liked by 1 person

  18. I watched the whole press conference. I really don’t understand how people can be saying Trump and Vance’s behaviour was ‘utterly disgraceful’. Zelensky was disrespectful. He turned up to the Oval Office in a ridiculous juvenile outfit. He made faces throughout, sneering, disparaging, contemptuous. The body language was atrocious. Horrible little man. A reporter rightly criticised him for his attire and Trump actually calmed the situation and said it was OK. Zelensky was pushy and dismissive throughout, insisting on ‘security’ before signing any peace deal, whilst Trump was insistent that any deal should be largely on the basis of mutual trust and respect – something which grown-ups negotiate, which Zelensky wouldn’t understand. NATO has prodded and poked Putin for over a decade and it is highly unlikely that Russia will agree to any peace deal if hundreds of thousands of UN, American and NATO troops are stationed on its borders. But that’s what the cocaine midget dictator wants, that’s what the European allies want, it’s what Starmer wants, it’s even what Reform wants – as Tice parrots the inane ‘peace through strength’ globalist slogan on X. It’s not what Trump wants, or Vance. Why should they commit American troops to force an uneasy peace in Ukraine? Better to negotiate a lasting peace based on mutual respect and trust. The Russians have no reason at all to trust NATO and its allies. They expanded east when they promised not to after the downfall of the USSR. Trump remarked upon Zelensky’s hatred of Putin. You can’t negotiate a peace treaty with that kind of visceral hatred on display. You can’t negotiate peace with one side threatening to punch the other side’s lights out if they don’t behave. That’s how America has previously policed the world and it hasn’t worked. Trump and Vance know that, so they’re trying a new approach, and they’re rightly sick of Europe relying upon America to be the tough guy. That’s what started the argument, some Polish reporter romanticising about when the US was the world’s policeman. Those days are over. Tell me, what was ‘utterly disgraceful’ about Trump insisting that he wanted to end the bloodshed, primarily, and secondarily, get American taxpayers off the hook for prolonging the bloodshed? It’s ‘utterly disgraceful’ that UK and European leaders’ ambitions do not prioritise these objectives in Ukraine.

    Liked by 1 person

  19. Geoff: No, I couldn’t bear to go back and watch it all. I heard some live on PM when driving. They kept it on for quite a while. Maybe ten minutes? But it was at the shouty stage.

    It is interesting that Zelensky is now meeting Charlie. This has to be an unsubtle silent rebuke for Trump.

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  21. Apologies, Jaime, I’ve been doing other stuff and have just noticed – comment duly released.

    As I have said several times, many of Trump’s instincts are fine by me. He’s absolutely correct that European politicians have taken the Mickey for decades by maintaining paltry defence budgets safe in the knowledge that the USA will bail them out if they’re attacked. Americans are entitled to be angry about that. I have always given Trump credit for being a President who hasn’t started any wars, and who doesn’t want to put American troops in harm’s way.

    It may well also be the case that Zelensky isn’t the paragon portrayed by western media. A week or two ago I had a long conversation with a Ukrainian lady – a refugee from the war living nearby – and she dislikes Zelensky intensely, and blames him for many of the woes that have befallen her country. This isn’t the place to go into that in detail, but suffice it to say that Ukrainian politics is much more complicated (and probably corrupt) than western media would have us believe.

    Despite all that, I think Trump’s approach to the conflict is badly flawed. Whatever provocations (real or imagined) Russia may have suffered over Ukraine at the hands of the west, it cannot be denied that Putin is the dictator, the bad guy, the aggressor, the invader. He started the war, and he has rightly been made a pariah by much of the civilised world. For Trump to bring him into the fold while bad-mouthing Zelensky and Ukraine (a process that started before Friday’s press conference) and try to stitch up a dodgy peace deal which excluded Ukraine from the negotiations, is not acceptable. Worse still is expecting Ukraine to accept it, when all Ukrainians know that Putin is in a difficult spot just now (or was until Trump decided to bail him out), but that he will use the time a peace deal gives him to go away and re-group then come back for more. That’s why security arrangements are vital to give reassurance to Ukrainians and to deter Putin. Any deal that doesn’t include a security backstop is no deal at all. Zelensky knows that and is rightly very angry at what Trump is trying to do to his country.

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  22. Jaime: “…any deal should be largely on the basis of mutual trust and respect…”

    I would not trust Putin to abide by any agreement – aside from total capitulation and installation of a puppet government a la Belarus – would you?

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  23. Jit, I wouldn’t trust Starmer, or Fond O’ Lyin or any other Western leader. I wouldn’t trust Putin either. Obviously, it can’t be 100% based on trust; there has to be some disincentive to break the agreement or some incentive to honour the agreement. I don’t know what; I’m no geopolitical analyst or deal maker. But I do know that there has to be some compromise from both sides and here has to be a significant element of mutual trust and respect for any agreement to work. That was why Trump was negotiating with the Russians. They respect him; he respects them. Not so with Biden or the rest of the awful shower of European leaders.

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  24. Jaime: I’ve just been reading a piece in the Telegraph that says the Russians are taking advantage of Trump’s person-centred approach to international diplomacy: his trust in Putin is naive. It made sense to me, but perhaps it merely reinforced my prejudices!

    “Trump is being played by Putin – Russia will never accept a peace deal”

    Telegraph link.

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  25. We’re not going to resolve the Ukraine question in comments here. My position is identical to Jaime’s, and is to be found expressed on Twitter by people as different as George Galloway of the Workers’ Party & Colonel Douglas MacGregor, ex-military advisor to Ronald Reagan. A good source of information on corruption and neo-fascism in Ukraine is the Guardian from about ten years ago.

    The Guardian recently emigrated from X to BluSky, and as “one of the top 1% of their readers” (their estimate) I naturally followed them. Under a Guardian tweet a pro-Ukrainian commenter posted some useful stats about relative military strengths of superpowers, claiming that Europe had more active troops than anyone else, and would have even more if you added 700,000 Ukrainians. I replied, asking if that figure included the dead, the press-ganged sent to the front after 3 days’ training, & those with swastika tattoos.

    He blocked me, added some insults (smelly Putin lover etc) & said my details had been scanned & would be sent to “the appropriate authorities.”

    When I went back, his original, harmless comment had disappeared without trace, together with my comments & his insults. Nothing about deletion or warnings from Bluesky. I found that rather disturbing, and a good argument for the X policy of no censorship.

    Liked by 1 person

  27. Perhaps we’re in danger of going off topic, but I think this is a pretty fair and balanced article:

    “The disgraceful humiliation of Zelensky

    The White House’s Zelensky Derangement Syndrome is a serious obstacle to a just peace.”

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/03/02/the-disgraceful-humiliation-of-zelensky/

    …The fact is, senior parts of the Trump administration don’t see Zelensky as the leader of a nation under attack from an aggressive neoimperial neighbour. They see him as an ally of the previous administration, an ungrateful grifter and perhaps even a sinister authoritarian. The White House’s Zelensky Derangement Syndrome is now impossible to ignore or downplay – and could prove to be a serious obstacle to the prospects of a just peace.…

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  28. Beth

    Jeffrey Sachs is a rare voice of sanity in US academia, along with Prof. John Mearsheimer. The colonels Ritter, MacGregor and Wilkerson also – all American. I know of no such voices in the UK or France.

    Mark

    You’re right that we’re off topic. There’s a link to the climate debate, I think, in the disturbing unanimity in the press coverage of all major topics. In fact, a major topic is practically defined nowadays as one on which dissension is not allowed. Such topics include climate, covid & vaccines, Ukraine, Trumpophobia & Putinophobia. Climate was the first, and I wonder whether the conformity demanded in the media hasn’t spilled over into everything else.

    Liked by 1 person

  29. Geoff,

    There’s a link to the climate debate, I think, in the disturbing unanimity in the press coverage of all major topics.

    You’re right there. If that Spiked article had been written by the Guardian, not about Ukraine, but about climate change, it would have read:

    “The disgraceful humiliation of Mann:

    The White House’s Climate Denialism is a serious obstacle to a just transition.”

    And in that case, we here at Climate Scepticism would be unanimous in our condemnation of the article, but the Ukraine issue, just like Covid in fact, divides us right down the middle. Which is fascinating, but ultimately regrettable I feel, because as you say, these issues are in fact linked, and I think connected rather more deeply than just the startling conformity of their portrayal in the main stream media.

    Liked by 1 person

  30. Ben on X. Something to think about.

    If you don’t believe anything in this thread, answer me this…

    When did you last see a UK Prime Minister spring into such action to defend, let alone serve your interests?

    Within hours of the Oval Office car crash, Starmer had the venue booked, slogans printed on signs, a double date with Z and the King booked, and all his pals were on their way. Almost as if *he* knew that the meeting with Trump would be a disaster.

    But when did he pull out all the stops for you?

    When did his predecessors?

    https://x.com/clim8resistance/status/1896487781800497577

    This suggests that the press conference was staged, or it was deliberately derailed.

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  31. Unfortunately for this particular conspiracy theory, the summit was announced before the Oval Office debacle.

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  32. If it was announced beforehand Jit, then it could only have been a few hours beforehand – which does not preclude the possibility that the summit was planned in order to double down on the ‘peace through strength’/security guarantee nonsense, in the knowledge that Zelensky would turn his nose up at Trump’s peace negotiation, coming as it did without the firm offer of US and European boots on the ground in Ukraine. It looks like Zelensky and his European allies were never going to entertain a ‘peace’ deal without effectively stationing an army on the border with Russia – something Putin would never accept anyway – so their uncompromising and provocative ‘peace’ deal in fact amounts to a declaration of war against Russia.

    Press release

    Prime Minister Keir Starmer to host leaders summit on Ukraine

    The Prime Minister will intensify his efforts in pursuit of a just and lasting peace in Ukraine by convening international leaders at a summit in London today [2 March 2025].

    From: Prime Minister’s Office, 10 Downing Street

    Published1 March 2025

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/prime-minister-keir-starmer-to-host-leaders-summit-on-ukraine

    There’s that ‘just peace’ nonsense again – which tells me that the people behind its implementation are as disingenuous as those behind the ‘just’ energy transition. There’s no such thing as a ‘just’ peace deal, it’s just a peace deal, plain and simple, warts and all, with uncomfortable compromises from both sides. There’s no justice involved, it’s utilitarian, with the sole objective of stopping people from getting turned into pink mist, plus saving taxpayers from coughing up more money to pay for people getting turned into pink mist.

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  33. This Feb 25th Politico piece refers to the London summit. I don’t doubt for a moment that its importance was ramped up, & that the meeting with Charlie was suddenly added for dramatic effect. My supposition is that it was planned to respond to the visits of Macron, Starmer & Zelensky to Washington.

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  34. The other link to the climate topic here is the question:

    Can Europe and UK afford luxury policies like Net Zero in a world where they have to provide their own defence?

    In Denierland, I argued that when a real problem came along, climate change would suddenly sink down the list of political priorities. I think I was wrong – Covid caused little more than a speedbump for the green juggernaut. Will the churning up of the old world order be any different?

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  35. A corollary of Andy West’s claim that all ideologies are irrational but universal, is that we need irrational beliefs to survive as societies. Could to be that your causality is reversed? It’s not that climate change is sinking down the list of priorities because a real problem has come along, but that the loss of the ideology of climate change, wrecked on the reefs of reality, leads us to seek out a real life & death problem?

    And what could be more life & death than a war?

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  37. The problem is, The War War religion is about to go tits up, so they’ll probably once again seek refuge in the irrational belief that we are destroying the planet, or maybe that Bird Flu is about to wipe us all out, or maybe both. As Pete North points out:

    All this clamour for more defence spending and reindustrialisation will last about five minutes once a ceasefire is declared.

    https://x.com/FUDdaily/status/1897230743350473075

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