Geo Political PR for Russia – Anglo Right Wing Media – US Propaganda Infrastructure

Article on Putin’s Russian attempt to influence US elections after the Brexit EU Referendum and the use of PR public relations agencies.

Relating to Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays who saw PR as in the same ecosystem as propaganda, but brings in the issue of ‘agents’ and foreign agent registers e.g. the US FARA Foreign Agents Registration Act. 

We have seen the outcomes of Brexit, Trump, Russian invasion of Ukraine and in Australia The indigenous Voice referendum promoted via right wing or conservative media, influencers and social media.

Further, it has had the desired effect on many of the faux anti-imperialist left who both accuse Ukraine via NATO of being an aggressor versus Russia, then many of the same support Palestine, but avert their gaze from Hamas?

Many, including the right, criticise right wing media cartels like Murdochs’ Fox News, influencers and ‘left’ media of following Kremlin talking points on Ukraine; see Fox News, GOP Republicans including the Koch Network’s ‘Freedom Caucus’, influencers like Farage and Bannon, hard right authoritarian leaders like Orban, Netanyahu etc.

It would appear that Putin’s people have been successful in adopting US Murdoch led right wing media e.g. Fox News, fossil fuel Koch Network think tanks and nativist Tanton Network agitprop, via PR agencies and ‘agents’, to negatively message against Ukraine including anti-semitism directed at Zelensky while describing Ukraine as Nazi?

Fast Company:

‘How Western PR Firms Quietly Push Putin’s Agenda

Another front in Russia’s effort to shape the hearts and minds of Americans has received little attention in mainstream U.S. media since the election.

BY SUE CURRY JANSEN

The Russian attempt to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election, using what intelligence agencies call “active measures,” has dominated U.S. headlines.

There is, however, a second front in Russia’s effort to shape the hearts and minds of U.S. citizens, and it’s received almost no attention in mainstream U.S. media outlets since the election.

As someone who studies the growth of global public relations, I’ve researched the roles PR firms play in shaping public perceptions of international affairs. For years, Russia has been involved in public relations campaigns that have been developed and deployed by prominent, U.S.-based, global PR firms–campaigns intended to influence U.S. public opinion and policy in ways that advance Russia’s strategic interests.

LEGAL PROPAGANDA?

Public relations is an industry that seeks to cultivate favorable impressions of corporations, products, individuals, or causes. A company or public figure might hire a firm to increase visibility, advance marketing agendas, promote strategic initiatives, or manage a crisis.

But things can get tricky when foreign governments get involved. When they hire PR firms to influence public opinion in other countries, they could undermine the domestic values and goals of the targeted nations.

In the 1930s, the PR firm of Ivy Lee–who, along with Edward Bernays, is regarded as a “founding father” of the public relations industry–was accused of circulating Nazi propaganda in the U.S. In response, Congress enacted the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) in 1938, which required foreign propagandists operating in the U.S. to register with the government. In 1966, FARA was amended to cover people promoting the economic and political interests of their foreign clients.

In what has become an infamous example of political PR, Kuwait hired numerous U.S. and U.K. firms to drum up support for the 1991 Persian Gulf War. As part of that effort, PR giant Hill & Knowlton audaciously created a front group to hold hearings, led by two U.S. Congressmen, on Iraq’s human rights violations. Called the “Human Rights Caucus,” the group wasn’t actually an official congressional caucus.

More routinely, foreign nations hire PR firms to attract foreign investments and promote tourism and trade. Such efforts are completely legal, and business as usual for corporate PR firms and lobbyists. All they have to do is register under FARA.

While foreign government-funded advocacy campaigns are legal, they can be far from transparent. PR strategies are generally designed to hide the persuasive effort because, as the industry saying goes, “the best PR is invisible PR.”

BURNISHING RUSSIA’S IMAGE

Russia’s domestic PR business has grown rapidly since the end of the Cold War, but Russian authorities prefer to use Western firms when targeting Western audiences. Since the U.S. is both a dominant force in PR–15 of the 20 largest global firms are American–and a prime target of Russian influence efforts, it’s not surprising that Russian president Vladimir Putin’s forces would turn to U.S. firms for PR services.

Industry publication PRWeek reports that Russia has spent $115 million on Western PR firms since 2000, with most going to the U.S. firm Ketchum, a division of Omnicom. (To put that in context: According to the Center for Public Integrity, the 50 countries with the worst human rights violation records have spent $168 million on American lobbyists and PR specialists since 2010.)

From 2006 to 2014, Ketchum had ongoing contracts with the Russian government and its state-owned energy company Gazprom.

Charged with improving Putin’s and Russia’s image abroad, Ketchum facilitated op-eds by Russian officials in publications around the world, including Putin’s 2013 New York Times article warning the U.S. on Syria.

According to ProPublica, Ketchum also placed what appeared to be independent opinion pieces praising Russia in the Huffington Post, on CNBC’s website (where links to those stories are no longer active), and in other publications without acknowledging their sources. 

The firm lobbied Time magazine to name Putin “Person of the Year,” which it did in 2007.

That same year, according to Reuters, Ketchum tried to convince the U.S. State Department to soften its assessment of Russia’s human rights abuses. The firm also contacted reporters who cover Russian human rights abuses and urged them to tone down their criticism.

Faced with intense criticism after Russia seized Crimea in 2014, Ketchum formally ended its contract with Russia in March 2015, tersely announcing that it “no longer represents the Russian Federation in the U.S. or Europe with the exception of our office in Moscow.” However, one of its partners, GPlus, continued the relationship under similar terms.

EXPLOITING THE LOOPHOLES

Late last year, Russia’s Minister of Communications Nikolay Nikiforov announced that the Kremlin would be seeking new contracts with Western PR firms this summer to improve its global image, with the intent of spending between $30 and $50 million a year, and possibly more. He indicated that Russia is seeking smaller, less expensive, and perhaps less visible firms than Ketchum.

PRWeek quoted a leading Russian political analyst, Stanislav Belkovsky, who told the publication, “There are a number of schemes that can be used to avoid U.S. accounting rules on lobbying and PR.” In other words, he was pointing out that there are ways to avoid registering with FARA, and thereby concealing the sources of the pro-Russian messaging.

Indeed, the Project on Government Oversight, an independent nonpartisan watchdog group, cites loopholes in FARA that make it difficult to police violations. Even when violations are discovered, prosecution is rare. Instead, lapses are usually remediated by late filing. This is what happened in the recent cases of Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort, who represented pro-Putin forces in Ukraine, and former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who represented Turkey. Though they had both been working as foreign lobbyists for an extended period of time, they only recently filed with FARA as foreign agents.

And because the U.S. regulates lobbying, and not PR, another common legal loophole involves contracting with firms that have both public relations and lobbying arms. Clients will then channel as much of their business as possible through the PR arm.

THE BLURRY LINE BETWEEN PR AND NEWS

PR as a subject is rarely covered by the mainstream media in the U.S., but nonprofits like ProPublica, the Center for Public Integrity, the Sunlight Foundation, and NPR fill some of the void.

It’s in contrast to the U.K., where publications like the Guardian extensively cover the nexus of public relations, politics, and policy. During Prime Minister Tony Blair’s tenure, PR grew rapidly in Britain as politicians and businesses adopted U.S.-style electioneering and promotional techniques. Perhaps for this reason, British media outlets are more attuned to the ramifications of public relations.

The Trump administration’s attack on mainstream media as purveyors of “fake news” and its promotion of “alternative facts” has rallied journalism to a vigorous defense of the First Amendment, and has led to calls for critical media literacy.

Yet research indicates that as much as 75% of U.S. news begins as public relations. For transparency advocates, this is a problem. By definition, PR is a biased, monetized form of communication that seeks to advance the vested interests of clients. Even some public relations industry figures have recently acknowledged their field’s role in the dissemination of “fake news.”

During the past two decades, the newspaper industry has contracted, with advertisers and readers migrating to the internet. Conversely, the PR industry has experienced growth in both employment opportunities and salaries. In the U.S., there are now nearly five PR people for every reporter. Americans are now being exposed to more public relations than ever before.

While some PR serves worthy causes–promoting health, education, charity, and disaster relief–I believe all PR deserves closer scrutiny because it bypasses the norms of democratic processes: transparency, accountability, and the right of all interested parties to have a voice in civic debates.

To Bernays, the terms “public relations” and “propaganda” were interchangeable. We should think of PR the same way, scrutinizing it with as much critical rigor as we view propaganda.

---

Sue Curry Jansen is ‌‌‌professor of media and communication at Muhlenberg College. This essay originally appeared at the Conversation.’

For more blogs and articles on Conservatives, Cultural Dimensions of Marketing Communications, EU European Union, Evangelical Christianity, Koch Network, Marketing Strategy, Media, Political Strategy, Populist Politics and Russia click through:

Putin Owns Trump’s GOP Republicans & UK Conservatives?

Posted on April 19, 2024

Observed over the past several years confusion and surprise around the success of Trump, GOP etc. and UK Conservatives’ mutual admiration for authoritarian Christian nationalists, including the likes of Vladimir Putin and Russia?

Firsts signs emerged around Brexit promoted by Murdoch led media inc BBC, along with Barclays, Legatum (now behind GB News), Atlas Koch Network think tanks at Tufton Street and nativist right wing influencers including Nigel Farage, Boris Johson etc. and leveraging ageing, low info and regional voters.

Media Misinformation and Distrust – Fox News – Rupert Murdoch – Roger Ailes – Vladimir Putin

Posted on April 16, 2024

Relevant article from the past on methods of media communication, misinformation and shared techniques between Putin’s Russia e.g. IRA Internet Research Agency troll farm, Fox News and related media outlets.

While Roger Ailes was apparently not well liked by Lachlan or James Murdoch, he was left to his own devices at Fox News by Rupert Murdoch to assist in creating narratives and talking points for the right and profits, especially amongst the GOP Republicans, developing mistrust amongst voters.

Russian Influence and Propaganda in Anglosphere – GOP Republicans, UK Conservatives, Media and Think Tanks

Posted on April 12, 2024

Analysis via Rolling Stone article on GOP Representatives being informed by and using Russian talking points e.g. to denigrate Ukraine, EU European Union, the west and liberal democracy.

However, this assumes that the same GOP representatives have always been informed well, while avoiding media, influencers, Christian groups and think tanks?

One would argue that no man or woman is an island, let alone purely objective and original as most of our knowledge is gained from media, especially in US and Anglosphere, that is informed by Atlas – Koch Network think tanks, Murdoch led right wing media e.g. Fox News and influencers, while many Christian groups have had long term links with Russia from Soviet times (and influence operations?).

Radical Libertarian Disinformation Machine – Koch Network by Nancy MacLean

Posted on October 19, 2022

Many nations, at least in the Anglosphere, have experienced disinformation whether related to climate science or fossil fuels, Covid science, education or democracy, and of late witnessed ‘Trussonomics’ in the UK, another version of Buchanan’s ‘Kochonomics’ or ‘radical right libertarian’ ideology.

However, where does this disinformation come from?

According to historian Nancy Maclean it’s a ‘deny and delay’ strategy of Koch Bros. or Koch Network which includes astroturfing, ‘Dark Money’, creating research, gerrymandering, SLAPPs, universities, Christians and conservatives.

Koch Industries – Putin – Russia – Ukraine – Koch Network – Think Tanks

Posted on April 20, 2022

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine many commentators, journalists, academic and political activists, of both left and right, who have seem to have acted in the interests of Putin’s Russia, why?

Many within or influenced by the US radical right libertarian Koch Network of think tanks and related organisations e.g. Fox News, which have promoted views that seem to support Putin e.g. claims of fake news on Ukraine civilian deaths, blaming NATO, appeasing Putin and demanding no economic sanctions.

Russia and Anglosphere – Conservatives and Oligarchs – War vs EU and Future

Posted on July 26, 2023

Very good insight into and overview of Putin’s Russia and the ‘west’ including the Anglosphere from Alexander Etkin (CEU Wien) in Russia’s War Against Modernity.

Following are significant excerpts from Etkind’s analysis from reviewer at Inside Story (Australia) Jon Richardson, on how it endeavours to explain Russia, and one would add many other nations too, mirroring the radical right or corrupt nativist authoritarians with support from fossil fuels & industry oligarchs, consolidated right wing media, think tanks and leveraging ageing electorates.

Australian Bureau of Statistics – UNPD NOM Net Overseas Migration Formula – Inflating Immigration and Population Growth

One has written previously on the wilful confusion around immigration and population data used for demographic analysis in the Anglosphere, also to dog whistle refugees, immigrants and population growth.

However, requires the misrepresenting of data and research using climate science denial techniques used by entities linked to both Tanton Network and Koch Network, deflecting from carbon or fossil fuels and promoting eugenics; in Australia and US using proxies to replicate previous race based immigration restrictions.

Following is an addition to a previous post ‘NOM Net Overseas Migration – Immigration – Population Growth’ endeavouring to explain the data that is misrepresented in the mainstream by nativist influencers and NGOs, right wing media and political parties, informing above median age and low info voters; see Brexit, Trump and indigenous Voice Referendum in Australia.

The following analysis was done by the Quixotic Quant who disagreed with related analysis presented by a right wing finance blog, partly inspired by Zero Hedge, that did more to confuse subscribers than inform them.  

Strategy to dog whistle proxy white Australia policy, put a psychological floor on house values and FOMO ‘fear of missing out’; without any insight, research or data into housing types used by international students, and their housing behaviour, but let’s blame them anyway?

From The Quixotic Quant:

The Missing Million: Is Australia’s migration rate actually high?

It’s time that someone took a proper tilt at Australia’s high migration rate. No, I don’t mean like Dick Smith, splashing millions on an advertising campaign arguing that such a high rate is unsustainable and that we should return down to previous levels. I mean taking a few hours with the data source to figure out whether Australia’s migration rate actually is any higher than it was at previous levels.

The Population Ponzi story tells us that sometime in the mid-2000s the Howard government kicked the gate-open to mass migration to feed the mining boom, then an un-holy alliance between big retailers, property developers, and budget-stressed politicians allowed the gate to stay open ever-after. The sustained influx of immigrants post-boom can then explain most things weird and worrying about our economy, including per-capita real income falling, low wage growth, and high house prices.

The alternative story is that sometime in the mid-2000s the Australian Bureau of Statistics changed the definition of an official statistic called “Net Overseas Migration”. The arbitrary definition they had at the time was malfunctioning, and the next arbitrary one they changed to has been malfunctioning even worse. A blithely ignorant press didn’t even notice the change, let alone query the disfunction that inspired it, so the entire country has been putting their faith soaring population figure that has the integrity of custard. The harder alternative figure shows that our migration rate is actually flat. The confusion probably explains even more weird things, like low nominal GDP growth, low tax revenues, not to mention wage growth and per-capita everything. House prices are worrying, but not weird. Something else simple explains them, but that’s a tilt for another day.

Read this post if you’re not sure which to believe.

Why the NOM graph matters more than most

As far as graphs go, Net Overseas Migration, (NOM) would have to be one of the rising-stars in Australian economic policy debates. The significance of NOM to housing (hence banking, hence sharemarket) is pretty obvious. It also makes a crucial contribution to ‘Estimated Resident Population’, perhaps one of the most important statistics that’s relied on for imputing, scaling and basing a host of other crucial statistics.

But this particular graph’s influence has also risen the tide of confusion swamping the world’s economists, who are floundering to explain the new low-inflation, low-growth new-normal paradigm that has beset the Western World. Everyone’s casting around for a theory. With a slightly selective date-range (say from around 1991 onwards), this graph gives some Australian pundits and commentators exactly what they want: some substantial level-shift that occurs somewhere around the GFC, and hasn’t returned to old normal levels. (Use the zoom/selector tool to cut out the pre-1991 part to soak in the less-than-full picture.)

(Notice the spike pre 2010 that signifies new and 2006 expanded NOM starting to take effect)

You can see why people are arguing that someone kicked the gate open. Apparently in the 2000s Australia suddenly started letting over 200,000 people in every year, when previously we took about half that amount.

Overseas there is plenty of credible economic commentary, particularly in the US and Europe arguing that more migration would be a very good thing for their economies. It’s fair to say that social issues dominate the case against migration, which would probably be economically beneficial if it was legitimised, and very much so if you could select well-educated foreigners who weren’t refugees. Land-borders make that a non-trivial issue in the US and Europe.

Two things set us apart. Sea-borders are one, which means we take control of migration for granted. You don’t have to sound bombastic by proposing to build a wall when you’ve already got a moat. The second is this graph, which appears to show a such a dramatic level shift to a higher level than most other Western Countries. The shift appears so clear that it has sparked something of a dalliance between some respectable economic thinkers, and the ‘Population Ponzi’ theory, which makes out that Australia’s rapid population growth could be masking, or worse even causing, some real economic problems.

The devil’s in the detail. Or maybe just the definition.

I mightn’t have ever noticed the definition shift if I hadn’t attempted to reproduce two columns in an ABS Demographics spreadsheet called ‘Arrivals’ and ‘Departures’ from numbers in two other spreadsheets called ‘Arrivals’ and ‘Departures’. That’s right, the ABS keeps these series in separate places, with different catalogue numbers (310101, 340101 & 340102), with different date ranges, and different frequencies of data entries. One would think they’re keen fend off amateur analysts attempting to check their numbers.

I couldn’t get any of the series to add up together, even after creating a little package of code in R to manage the necessary wrangling to compare the periods. I wanted to assume that some simple addition of the Permanent and Long Term Arrivals would produce the 3101 Arrivals, and same with Departures, and the net of those would produce (or at least closely follow) the hallowed NOM. Please enjoy chuckling at my naivety. In fact the net Permanent and Long Term movements give a trend that’s far higher than Net Overseas Migration. The Net Short Term movements, on the other hand, used to be trivial, but had in recent decades had become quite large and negative.

This demanded the question: how did the ABS decide just how many of those net movements that were classified in one series as ‘short-term’ to blend in with the ‘long-term’ ones to conclude what constituted ‘migration’? I expected somewhere deep inside the explanatory notes that I’d find some arbitrary rule that had to be followed. The explanatory notes had two, with the switch between them occurring just before the ‘level shift’. Here are the direct quotes:

‘22 The ABS developed and introduced an improved method, called the ‘12/16 month rule’ methodology, for estimating NOM. It has been used in calculating Australia’s official ERP since September quarter 2006. The ‘12/16 month rule’ methodology is a result of reviewing the treatment of temporary migrants (both long-term and short-term) who are away from or resident in Australia for a period of 12 months or more.

23 Estimates of NOM based on the previous methods and those based on the ‘12/16 month rule’ methodology are not comparable. The key change is the introduction of the ‘12/16 month rule’ for measuring a person’s residency in Australia, replacing the previous ‘12/12 month rule’.’

“Not comparable” is the correct (one would hope unavoidable) conclusion about such a substantial change in method. But overall I think my gratitude for the ABS spelling out the obvious is overwhelmed by my dismay at their burying this insight in paragraph 23 of the ‘Explanatory Notes’ tab, where only the most determined and tireless of data consumers are likely to encounter it.

Not the slightest mention, flag, warning, column change, name change, or label can be seen anywhere near the actual spreadsheets available for download. So with almost no exceptions users tend to string it together on one axis, in sequence, in one line, in one colour, blithely ignorant of the fact that they’re plotting two different bits of data which are “not comparable” according to the producer of the data.

It’s hard to overstate how bad that really is. It’s the kind of slop which hung-over first-year uni students cobble together on the bus on the way to a tutorial which requires attendance but doesn’t grade exercises. If they do it in assignments, they fail. Yet all of Australia’s leading economists are doing it relentlessly, if accidentally.

How one should, or should not present “not comparable” data

Let’s be geeky and consider how to properly present the data. (Feel free to borrow my code if you’ve been unwittingly guilty of the misdemeanor and would like to produce some better plots.)’

Post continues click through…..

For more related blogs and articles on Australian Politics, Demography, Immigration, International Student, Media, NOM Net Overseas Migration, Population Growth and Statistical Analysis click through:

NOM Net Overseas Migration – Immigration – Population Growth

Posted on February 26, 2018

Interesting article on immigration and NOM net overseas migration by former Australian Department of Immigration Deputy Secretary Abul Rizvi endeavouring to insert some understanding and clarity round the ‘immigration’ debate when most misunderstand, misinterpret or misrepresent immigration and population data.

Immigration Population Growth Decline NOM Net Overseas Migration

Posted on February 1, 2019

For the past 10+ years Australia, the Anglo and western worlds have been obsessing in the mainstream about ‘immigration’ and ‘population growth’ as negative factors for the environment, economy, quality of life, infrastructure, traffic congestion, ‘carrying capacity’ etc. based upon misrepresentation and/or misunderstanding of data, analysis and facts.

However, in Australia as opposed to most nations, pension reform, introduction of superannuation, skilled permanent immigration and net financial contributions from temporary resident ‘churn over’ should maintain a balance between social responsibilities of the government and financial management.

Australian Migration Review 2023 – For Immigrants and Nation or a Nativist Trap?

Posted on May 10, 2023

The Australian Migration Review Report has been published, based on narratives and submissions, but little meaningful grass roots feedback or data to support any grounded analysis for good future reforms?

This post will focus on NOM Net Overseas Migration and major source or factor i.e. international education and students, but for now, not the other main factors including WHV Working Holiday Visas (2nd year) and temporary workers.

Expert Analysis of Australia’s Populist Immigration and Population Growth Obsessions

Posted on July 9, 2021

Interesting article ‘Australia’s facile immigration policy debate’ by former former Immigration Department senior official Abul Rizvi in John Menadue’s Pearls and Swine, parsing through and commenting on Australia’s immigration policies, media and societal narratives that are not well supported by the literature nor demographic research. 

These positions are distilled into either for cliched ‘Big Australia’ on the side of the corporate sector or anti-immigrant through proxy issues such as ZPG like ‘population growth’ leading to environmental degradation.  However,  these are both corporate positions or tactics supported by the same and neither explain why Australia has modest permanent immigration and the more significant temporary churn over via the NOM Net Overseas Migration.

Meanwhile mainstream media and niche outlets obsess about (undefined) post 1970s ‘immigration’ always presenting as negative with few if any positives; although Australia promotes itself as an ‘immigration’ nation and the ‘world’s most successful multicultural society’.

Immigration Immigrants and Public Misconceptions

Posted on February 4, 2020

Harvard University study recently found that people in Western countries, including America, have succumbed to many restrictionist myths…… About 3 percent of the world’s population lived outside its birth country in 1900. And 3 percent does so now. By any objective metric, the modern age has experienced no historic flood of immigration.

Global Population Decline and Rebalance

Posted on January 17, 2024

The Anglosphere, especially right wing media and influencers, obsess about supposed immigrant-led population growth in the developed world, while claiming high fertility and exponential growth; not true it’s a reflection of better human health and increasing longevity.

However, these dynamics are still misrepresented or ignored in media, politics and public narratives based on the eugenics based ideology of Bob Malthus, Francis Galton, Madison Grant and John Tanton; the latter via ZPG Zero Population Growth supported by Rockefeller Bros. Fund.

There is an increasing body of research, knowledge and awareness of population and demography in nations and globally thanks to Jack Caldwell, Fred Pearce, Wolfgang Lutz, Hans Rosling, Sanjeev Sanyal, then recent years Bricker & Ibbitson (‘Empty Planet: The Shock of Global Population Decline’); outside of the UNPD, right wing and faux centrist media, think tanks, politics and influencers.

COP28 Climate Science Denial – Avoiding Transition to Renewable Energy Sources

There were recent comments by the COP28 President in UAE denying climate science around fossil fuels, hence, no need to transition from the same; but no credible support for his claims?

These talking points are very common across right wing media for ageing and less educated voters to support fossil fuel right wing policies, often with ‘Koch Network’ in the background, but simply promoting deflection and conspiracies? 

In 2022 Burn-Murdoch showed in Financial Times how following economics makes for fast transition from fossil fuels & carbon emissions to renewable sources, result? Lower emission and higher economic growth.

‘FT Opinion Data Points Economics may take us to net zero all on its own. The plummeting cost of low-carbon energy has already allowed many countries to decouple economic growth from emissions’

‘COP28 president is wrong – science clearly shows fossil fuels must go (and fast)

Steve Pye

Associate Professor in Energy Systems, UCL

According to the president of COP28, the latest round of UN climate negotiations in the United Arab Emirates, there is “no science” indicating that phasing out fossil fuels is necessary to restrict global heating to 1.5°C.

President Sultan Al Jaber is wrong. There is a wealth of scientific evidence demonstrating that a fossil fuel phase-out will be essential for reining in the greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change. I know because I have published some of it.

Back in 2021, just before the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, my colleagues and I published a paper in Nature entitled Unextractable fossil fuels in a 1.5°C world. It argued that 90% of the world’s coal and around 60% of its oil and gas needed to remain underground if humanity is to have any chance of meeting the Paris agreement’s temperature goals.

Crucially, our research also highlighted that the production of oil and gas needed to start declining immediately (from 2020), at around 3% each year until 2050.

This assessment was based on a clear understanding that the production and use of fossil fuels, as the primary cause of CO₂ emissions (90%), needs to be reduced in order to stop further heating. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that net zero CO₂ emissions will only be reached globally in the early 2050s, and warming stabilised at 1.5°C, if a shift away from fossil fuels to low-carbon energy sources begins immediately.

If global emissions and fossil fuel burning continue at their current rates, this warming level will be breached by 2030.

Since the publication of our Nature paper, scientists have modelled hundreds of scenarios to explore the world’s options for limiting warming to 1.5°C. Many feature in the latest report by the IPCC. Here is what they tell us about the necessary scale of a fossil fuel phase-out.

Fossil fuel use must fall fast

A recent paper led by atmospheric scientist Ploy Achakulwisut took a detailed look at existing scenarios for limiting warming to 1.5°C. For pathways consistent with 1.5°C, coal, oil and gas supply must decline by 95%, 62% and 42% respectively, between 2020 and 2050.

However, many of these pathways assume rates of carbon capture and storage and carbon dioxide removal that are likely to be greater than what could be feasibly achieved. Filtering out these scenarios shows that gas actually needs to be eliminated twice as fast, declining by 84% in 2050 relative to 2020 levels. Coal and oil would also see larger declines: 99% and 70% respectively.

In fact, oil and gas may need to be eliminated even quicker than that. A study by energy economist Greg Muttitt showed that many of the pathways used in the most recent IPCC report assume coal can be phased out in developing countries faster than is realistic, considering the speed of history’s most rapid energy transitions. A more feasible scenario would oblige developed countries in particular to get off oil and gas faster.

A fair and orderly transition

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has added to evidence in favour of phasing out fossil fuels by concluding that there is no need to license and exploit new oil and gas fields, first in a 2021 report and again this year.

This latest IEA analysis also estimates that existing oil and gas fields would need to wind down their production by 2.5% a year on average to 2030, accelerating to 5% a year from 2030 (and 7.5% for gas between 2030-40).

A separate analysis of the IPCC’s scenarios for holding global warming at 1.5°C came to the same conclusion. Since no new fields need to be brought into development, global production of oil and gas should be falling.

A fair and orderly transition

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has added to evidence in favour of phasing out fossil fuels by concluding that there is no need to license and exploit new oil and gas fields, first in a 2021 report and again this year.

This latest IEA analysis also estimates that existing oil and gas fields would need to wind down their production by 2.5% a year on average to 2030, accelerating to 5% a year from 2030 (and 7.5% for gas between 2030-40).

A separate analysis of the IPCC’s scenarios for holding global warming at 1.5°C came to the same conclusion. Since no new fields need to be brought into development, global production of oil and gas should be falling.’

For more related articles and blogs on Climate Change, Economics, Environment, Fossil Fuel Pollution, Koch Network, Political Strategy and Science Literacy click through:

Environment – Fossil Fuels – Climate Science Denial – Populationism – Anti-Immigration – Far Right – Tanton Network

Jeff Sparrow in Overland rebuts a counter critique of his book ‘Crimes Against Nature’ by a faux expert Edward Smith who appears to be au faire with faux environmental and anti-immigrant arguments promoted by the US Tanton Network linked NGO Sustainable Population Australia.

One would not bother using high level analysis to rebut low level faux science nativist agitprop inspired by former ZPG Zero Population Growth types, namely deceased white nationalist John ‘passive eugenics’ Tanton whose colleague was Paul ‘Population Bomb’ Ehrlich, with support from the Rockefeller Bros., ‘limits to growth’ PR constructs promoted by Club of Rome and drawing on Malthus, Galton and Madison Grant.

Conspiracy of Denial – COVID-19 and Climate Science

Some would not be surprised with the doubts and confusion being created round the COVID-19 crisis, especially by those wanting all economic activity to continue and ignore the human costs. 

However, much of this agitprop, astro-turfing and junk science used by non experts has much in common with the information, media and political techniques used by radical right libertarian think tanks funded by the fossil fuel sector and related media, to influence society on climate science to avoid constraints and preserve income streams, with some eugenics in the background.

Nativist Conservative MPs for Fossil Fuels versus Science, Education, Research, Analysis & Society

Interesting article from a science journalist at The Guardian on comments made about ‘woke’ science by the Tories in the UK at the Conservative Conference in  ‘Science hasn’t gone ‘woke’ – the only people meddling with it are the Tories’ by Philip Ball.

However, this is neither unique to the UK Conservatives nor dissimilar elsewhere, but it is a long game strategy against grounded science, research and analysis, like Trojan horses to disrupt curricula and universities, why? 

Climate Change Science Attitudes Australia and Koch in USA

Climate science or climate change denialism have been apparent for some decades since the 1970s with Koch Industries being central along with ‘big oil’ of Exxon Mobil etc. in funding through ‘Dark Money’ academia, research, think tanks, media, politicians and PR techniques to influence society.  Now we see the results including wide-spread climate denialism, avoidance of environmental protections and negative media PR campaigns; meanwhile the roots of this strategy have become more transparent with legal action following.

Chomsky, US, Russian Propaganda and Faux Anti-Imperialist Narratives

Following is an article from the Green European Journal discussing issues of faux anti-imperialist narratives and propaganda from the west, US, left wing followers of Chomsky, conspiracy theorists and right wing libertarians.

Part of the ‘realism’ agitprop have been demands for ‘peace’ i.e. Ukraine should surrender while Russia has no responsibility for its invasion of Ukraine.  In fact Noam Chomsky is aligned with Kissinger on demands for UKraine to yield, as have Koch’s Mearsheimer and Rockefeller linked Sachs.

Article excerpts include Chomsky and ‘tankies’ (who ignored USSR invasion of Hungary), Propaganda via the ‘left’, rubbery language including contradictions and weaponising laughter (in which Ukraine is doing far better)

From Green European Journal:

‘Narratives Meet Reality

Richard Robert  22 FEBRUARY 2023

Russian propaganda has long relied on the kind of anti-imperialists always ready to cast doubt on Western narratives. Over the years, public debate has been deeply damaged by a corrosive configuration whereby doubt opened the way to lies and lies reinforced doubt. But with the war in Ukraine the machine started to spin too fast. A bunch of gifted writers helped it reach its point of implosion.

For years it has been difficult to discuss with big and small Chomskites – you know, those who, always suspicious of the imperialist aims of the West, reject mainstream media. Along with the real Noam Chomsky and other public intellectuals, one had to deal with friends and acquaintances or just trolls. They stood on a triply legitimate position: their doubts were deeper and sharper, they would throw a few unknown facts that for this very reason one found difficult to contest, and they would point out troubling similarities between what great powers did. Any discussion with them would prove long, costly and effectively futile. They would fix their opponent just like soldiers fix an enemy.

This intellectual and political trap was particularly viscous when it came to Russia and Ukraine. First of all, old reflexes inherited from the Cold War were at play. Also, social media was flooded with content produced by Russian propaganda and set in motion by troll farms. Besides, the vague knowledge we had of Ukraine, on nationalism and the far right especially, could be confusing.

Chomsky’s moment

What is a tankie? Originally, it was a nickname given to European Stalinists who defended the intervention of Soviet tanks in Budapest in 1956 and the crushing of the Prague Spring in 1968. This political culture is not completely extinct. Some of the orphans of communism, after having placed their hopes in the Cuban citadel, found in Putin’s Russia a substitute for the USSR; not so much a paradise as a standpoint in their distrust of the corrupt, capitalist West.

Today’s tankies are not just Stalinists or sovereigntists opposed to NATO or the EU. Those targeted by Darth Putin are, whether they know it or not, disciples and followers of Noam Chomsky. This covers a wide political and intellectual spectrum ranging from literate leftists to much less literate conspiracy theorists, convinced that the truth is being hidden by several concentric powers: mass media (whose owners are billionaires!), but also, depending on political proclivities and the corner of the world where one lives, the Jews in general or the Rothschild family in particular, George Soros, the US as whole or the “Swamp,” big business and the corrupt West in its various variants: degenerate, imperialist, or both.

Chomsky himself is mostly after the US, but we owe him the formalisation, in the 1980s and 1990s, of the methodology of leftist doubt that today irrigates Reddit, Twitter and other social media. Denouncing in 1988 the “manufacture of consent“ by mass media, indignant after 2001 about the US interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq carried out under the aegis of the neo-conservatives, Chomsky came to promote a decentralised and even atomised form of information which, according to him, is a salutary response to the lies and propaganda of the Western mass media. Those who really want to learn the truth should therefore forget this capitalist nonsense and rely on a multiplicity of alternative sources and direct testimonies from ordinary citizens or independent journalists….

Propaganda 2.0

Over the years, resurrected Russian propaganda has found Chomskites quite useful. For one, they were easy to fool and showed unrestricted zeal in spreading the fake news it was manufacturing. More generally, Putinists could rely on the political and intellectual reflexes of those criticising the colonialist and imperialist West. Darth Putin’s How to Tankie is based on this premise: “The book that will teach you how to fight forces of colonialism & imperialism.” Presenting itself as a manual for those who resist the American empire, it reveals – with false naivety – all the tricks of the propaganda trade. Imperialism? American, of course. An illegitimate intervention? What about Iraq?

Before 2022, Russian propaganda was articulated with a certain logic, mixing facts with fantasy, history with present: to cut a long story short, the “Kiev fascists”, who were bombing their own citizens, were the direct heirs of the Ukrainian nationalists, some of whom were allies of the Nazis in the Second World War. The regime was therefore illegitimate, aggressive, dangerous, and corrupt. Moreover, it was a puppet of NATO. And the Maidan revolution was a CIA-orchestrated putsch. Yes, just like in Chile…..

Rubber language

As striking as the growing absurdity and incessant reversals of Russian propaganda were (not to speak of the echo chamber provided by social media), its efficiency was not altogether annihilated. Indeed, a multidirectional and contradictory propaganda is in tune with the plurality of standpoints, from doubters to true believers. Chomsky himself, against all evidence, seems more concerned by the rise of fascism in the West than the murderous kind of authoritarianism that is taking root in Moscow.

Weaponising laughter

Faced with this new blend of rubber language, with the diffraction of arguments, with the multiple poles of discourse that intervene alongside Russian propaganda, one could feel overwhelmed, or get lost. But this is when Darth Putin rises.

To this information frenzy, Darth Putin opposes on Twitter a mantra which, in the whirlwind of truth and falsity, offers a compass: “Do not believe anything until the Kremlin denies it.” Chomsky against Chomsky: the power of doubt is pushed to its limits, to the point of turning against those who have cultivated it.

Parody offers Darth Putin and his likes an extraordinary resource, for with the excesses of propagandists there is no need to push an argument very far to bring it to the point where it becomes absurd. Examples abound. Take this one, published after the collapse of a Dnipro building hit by a Russian missile, which caused the pro-Russian Twittosphere to go into overdrive:

“Russian missiles are so advanced that western systems, which we have destroyed, cannot shoot them down & that is why a western missile system, that didn’t exist cos it was already destroyed, hit [Russian] missile, that cannot be shot down, & fragments landed on a Dnipro apartment block.”…

Voltaire, Kundera, and Radio Yerevan

Darth Putin’s techniques, tactics and strategies are typical of the Twitter age, right down to the art of the double indentation to suspend sarcasm before it blows….

…Irony and culture against the idiocy of a regime bent on rewriting history: this was one of the issues of dissidence and resistance in the USSR and in Central Europe till 1989. The irony is that this culture of turning propaganda on its head is now coming to the rescue of the Western public sphere, which has been under attack (and severely damaged) by the unlikely alliance of anti-imperialist Chomskites carping imperialist Putinists.’

For related blogs and articles on Koch Network, media and Russia click through:

Libertarian Conservative Propaganda Promoted in US and Anglo Media

Anglosphere News Media – Objectivity – Political Interference – Fair & Balanced

Fake Anti-Imperialists of the Anglo Left and Right on Ukraine and Russia

Geopolitics – Horseshoe Theory – Russian Invasion of Ukraine – Anglosphere European Far Right and Left

US or UK Sanctions on Murdoch’s Fox News Support for Putin’s Russia?

World Congress Of Families WCF, Russia, The Kremlin, Christian Conservative Nationalists, Dugin, Conservatives and US Evangelicals

Anglosphere News Media – Objectivity – Political Interference – Fair & Balanced

Following are excerpts from an interesting article written by Stephen Cushion in The Conversation ‘How UK broadcasting’s key principle of impartiality has been eroded over the years’ with focus and excerpts including BBC, Fox News, US fairness principle, Ofcom, GB News, personalities and public confidence.

It is not just the U.K. or the Anglosphere, one would add further issues which include lack of journalistic standards, journalists being replaced by politicians, think tank ‘experts’, influencers and grifters presenting nativist right wing agitprop masquerading as informed analysis; especially talking points and messaging in a negative and repetitive manner to dominate media spaces and preclude advancing positive issues or policies.

Round the Lineker issue, there has been confected outrage from the above cohort on his comments regarding migration policy, Nazi Germany and eugenics based rhetoric of the 1930s, which were misrepresented as a factual allegation. However, many claim it was true anyway i.e. direct links between UK’s (US, Australia, Hungarian & Italian) migration restriction policies, and can be proven.

According to New Yorker’s Jane Mayer, a media assembly line audit by ‘Freedom Works’ of KochNetwork, looked at how their research created an ‘influence’ assembly line including media & lobbying MPs or committees, run campaigns to discredit disappear e.g. climate science or intimidate dissent e.g. refugee advocates. 

The research, PR and talking points often come from the same networks and now transnational using similar content, talking points and methods via Koch, Tanton, Murdoch et al and even Russia and Turkey use similar?

How UK broadcasting’s key principle of impartiality has been eroded over the years

March 29, 2023 12.47pm CEST

A word that was bandied about freely in the wake of the Gary Lineker-BBC affair was “impartiality”. Apparently the gold standard of UK broadcasting, it was something that certain critics judged the BBC sports presenter to have breached in his personal social media posts.

Following Lineker’s suspension and subsequent reinstatement, a review of the BBC’s guidelines over its staff members’ use of social media is underway – not for the first time in the broadcaster’s recent history.

The UK has historically required broadcasters to abide by a set of “due impartiality” guidelines set out and policed by the UK’s broadcasting watchdog, Ofcom. These are designed to prevent the kind of partisanship that has long characterised American media.

Yet there is growing evidence UK broadcasters are effectively free to pursue a style of opinionated and partisan journalism familiar to viewers of US broadcast news and current affairs.

The public deserve more serious debate and scrutiny about the impartiality of broadcasters and how they are regulated.

The Foxification of news

In the US, between 1949 and 1987, broadcasters were required to adhere to the fairness doctrine. This helped to ensure reporting of politics and public affairs was broadly balanced.

As I explored in my book, Television Journalism, more opinionated formats in radio and then television news began to slowly emerge after the fairness doctrine was abolished. This was because broadcasters were no longer obliged to reflect different political perspectives.

In 1996, Fox News was launched by media tycoon Rupert Murdoch. It pursued a highly partisan brand of journalism that favoured conservative and Republican perspectives.

Over successive decades, this “Fox effect” paved the way for more partisanship in the US, with channels such as Newsmax and One American News adopting even more right-wing perspectives and sometimes even propagating conspiracy theories. For example, while Fox News initially questioned Donald Trump’s claims the 2020 presidential election had been rigged, the new hyper-partisan channels tended to legitimise his assertions of electoral fraud.

Foxification of UK broadcast news?

At the turn of the century, concerns about a so-called “Foxification of news” spread across the Atlantic. But a systematic analysis of Sky News and BBC News between 2004 and 2007 showed broadcasters were broadly conforming to rules about “due impartiality”.

Just a decade later, however, new broadcasters such as GB News, UK News, LBC and Times Radio, have pushed the boundaries of the UK’s rules on impartiality.

The new channels tend to deliver more opinionated and partisan journalism. Critics, for example, have highlighted GB News’s late-night opinion-based programming, and drawn attention to the channel’s dubious claims and conspiracy theories.

Enhancing public confidence

Ofcom recently issued a clarification that politicians can present in “non-news” programming outside of election periods. This was defined as programming with “extensive discussion, analysis or interviews with guests – often live – and long-form video reports”.

In the case of GB News, this represents a significant part of its routine output – meaning much of the channel’s airtime is free to adopt a partisan perspective.

If the public is to remain confident in broadcast journalism, it is essential Ofcom is transparent about how it applies editorial standards of impartiality. Public support for impartiality remains high, and research also shows people expect broadcasters to be fair and balanced rather than opinionated and partisan.

Ahead of the next general election, voters need to have confidence not just in the broadcasters that inform them, but in the regulator that polices them.’

For more blogs and article about Conservatives, Koch Network, Media, Political Strategy, Populist Politics, Tanton Network and White Nationalism.

Anglosphere Nativism and Eugenics in Political  Media – Language and Social Discourse

Critical Thinking or Analysis: Importance for Education, Media and Empowered Citizens

Mainstreaming Extremism – How Public Figures and Media Incite Nativist Beliefs Leading to Violence

SLAPP Cases – Constraining Media Freedom and Freedom of Speech in Balkans, EU, UK, Australia

Anglosphere Legacy Media: White Nativist and Libertarian Propaganda for Ageing Conservative Voters – Australia, Brexit & Trump

Dumbing Down and Gaming of Anglosphere Media, Science, Society and Democracy

Research of Social Media – Fake News – Conspiracy Theories – Junk Science