Recently the UK Government commissioned the Climate Assembly to look at policy supposedly enabling the UK to achieve “net zero” carbon emissions by 2050. As discussed previously, this form of “sortition” is being touted as a way to strengthen democracy and improve civic engagement. Politicians and corporations are fully behind the sortition movement. This suggests that sortition is designed to deliver what they want rather than meet any supposed popular demand for electoral or constitutional reform. Please read the previous post to appreciate how this offer of improved democracy is nothing of the kind.
The Climate Assembly is nominally a parliamentary project. We are told it came about thanks to the work of six parliamentary select committees. These were the Business Energy and Industrial Strategy; Environmental Audit; Housing, Communities and Local Government; Science and Technology; Transport; and Treasury select committees. So it certainly enjoys broad parliamentary support.
However the UK government provide little more than 20% of the funding for the Climate Assembly. The bulk of the money comes from the Esmeé Fairbairn Foundation (EFF) and the European Climate Foundation (ECF). The Climate Assembly refer to this as “additional funding,” misleading casual visitors to their website, and Assembly participants, into believing this is a government project. It isn’t, rather it is the the UK government who are the “additional” funders.
Beware the NPIC
What we see behind both the Climate Assembly, and the global sortition movement, is a sprawling network of government, corporations and NGO’s. These so called non governmental organisations form what Cory Morningstar accurately described as the “Non Profit Industrial Complex” (NPIC.)
Not all, but the majority, serve the political, social and economic interests of their immensely wealthy backers. Given the veneer of charity status , oligarchs like the Rockefellers, George Soros and Bill Gates can deposit vast sums of their wealth in their respective tax exempt foundations. Rather than actually fund essential services through taxation, like the rest of us, they can pretend they are philanthropists by washing the money through their foundations into their, equally tax exempt, pet NGO’s. In turn, the servile NGO’s then push the policies the oligarchs want.
The EFF are a not for profit organisation with an investment portfolio worth just over £1.05 billion on which they make a minimum (five yearly) average 4% annual profit. In 2018 more than 60% of their profits came from Global Equity and Private investments. Their history, business model and future development is very firmly rooted in the financial markets. They invest a large share of their profits in projects they hope will deliver an inclusive, creative and sustainable society and are very keen to promote “social change.”
The European Climate Foundation (ECF) was created in 2008 by a consortium of foundations and is led by French economist Laurence Tubiana, one of the architects of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Among its founding partners are the Arcadia Foundation, the UK based foundation of Anna Lisbet Kristina Rausing, heiress to the Swedish Rausing family fortune, whose Ingleby Farm and Forest Company are one of the largest food producing corporations on Earth. Recently the the UK Committee on Climate Change announced that for the UK to achieve “net zero” carbon neutrality by 2050 agricultural farmland should be reduced by 20%. Thereby increasing reliance upon imported food and pushing up agricultural product prices and profits.
The ECF funding partners include the Rockefellers, Bloombergs, John H. McCall MacBain, the Growalds and other oligarchs. These divested oil tycoons, bankers, investment capitalists and media advertising moguls are all apparently passionate about tackling climate change, pushing UK constitutional reform and new models of democracy. We are expected to believe this is all because they care and is in no way motivated by self interest. A viewpoint which seems naive to the point of wilful ignorance.
Yet point out the patently obvious and you can expect the vitriol of those who believe in the magnanimity of their masters. Cory explains it well:
“Why do people continue to believe that NGOs such as 350.org/1Sky that are initiated and funded by Rockefeller Foundation, Clinton Foundation, Ford, Gates, etc. would exist to serve the people rather than the entities that create and fund them? Since when do these powerful entities invest in ventures that will negatively impact their ability to maintain power, privilege and wealth? Indeed, the oligarchs play the “environmental movement” and its mostly well-meaning citizens like a game of cards.”
This media hyped whitewash of charitable good works allows the oligarchs to push the policies they desire. The politicians they own can then wrap themselves in social respectability as they “work with charities” to facilitate the demanded reform and social change. As the Climate Assembly convenes its sortition groups, to discuss the best way to achieve the UK governments net zero policy objectives, the nexus between corporation, state, wealthy financiers and politician couldn’t be clearer.
Both Sides of The House
There is significant establishment will to bring about a transformation in government, both in the UK and globally. This includes constitutional reform, as recently promoted by Sir Keir Starmer, who is likely to be the next leader of the opposition . During a lengthy speech to the Fabian Conference in 2019 Starmer said:
“We’ve got to bring people back into these discussions, whether it’s through citizens’ assemblies or other means”.
So it is little surprise that more recently he clearly defined his intention to press for constitutional reform. Speaking at the Labour leadership contest Westminster Q&A Starmer said:
“We do need a constitutional convention. One of the most powerful things coming out of the referendum was the sense that people want decisions to be made closer to them and by them……I also think on electoral reform, we’ve got to address the fact that millions of people vote in safe seats and they feel their voice doesn’t count. That’s got to be addressed. We will never get full participation in our electoral system until we do that at every level.”
Starmer represents the Labour side of the coin but the enthusiasm for constitutional reform and new forms of government is just as avid on the other side of the house. The Conservative party promised to consider constitutional changes in their election manifesto and have recently focused upon reform of the House of Lords. This seems antithetical to the notion of conservatism. However, sortition, as we see it emerging today, has many supporters within the Tory ranks.
During the 2019 Tory leadership and election campaigns a powerful pro EU group of more than 60 leading Conservative parliamentarians bonded together. Leading figures of the One Nation Group (ONG,) such as leadership candidate Rory Stewart, who was backed by Sir Nicholas Soames and many other fellow ONG members, called for a Citizens Assembly on the Brexit issue. Issuing their Values Declaration the group stated:
“We believe in….a framework of good legislation to…..empower citizens. We believe in….a mixed economy of public, private and third sector providers. We believe in…..supporting the local, civic and voluntary over the bureaucratic, statist and compulsory.”
Advocating ‘compassionate conservatism,’ rooted in the social responsibility pursued by Benjamin Disraeli, it seems their ideas found favour with the new Prime Minister Boris Johnson who said, “….agree with all of this. One Nation values have never been more important.” The Tories won a landslide as a result of Labour backpedaling over Brexit, but if Johnson intends to win another general election he needs to hold on to a fair proportion of the Labour votes handed to him.
In his election victory speech he repeatedly used the phrase “one nation Conservatives.” This has been interpreted by many as signifying his intention to maintain the Union. Yet his withdrawal agreement, which looks set to carve off Northern Ireland, contradicts that notion. It seems more likely his words were for the benefit of the ONG.
There is no real “grass roots” movement demanding sortition, most people have never heard of it. While the government sponsored extremists Extinction Rebellion have widely publicised Citizens Assemblies, beyond them there’s no notable clamor.
Nonetheless, the further consolidation of power, which is what sortition is, may well find fertile ground among an increasingly disenfranchised public. Something Johnson appears to have identified in compassionate conservatism as a potential vote winner. Given the fact the corporations, especially the banks, which own the Conservative Party have already decided they want sortition, it seems unavoidable. The Conservative members of the six Climate Assembly select committees are certainly happy to promote it.
So if you imagine you can vote your way off this predetermined political pathway, forget it. As with nearly every other policy decision connived in the back rooms of the think tanks and private members clubs, there is no political choice. Party politics in the UK, and elsewhere, is a meaningless charade. Your only choice is whether you believe the propaganda or not.
For example, despite the fact that Parliament refuses to acknowledge the existence of the codified British constitution, maintaining the deception that it is sovereign and that Britain doesn’t have a “written constitution,” it appears to be hellbent on writing a its own meaningless version instead. Just like all previous attempts, this won’t change the real constitution, which is inviolable, united and annexed, but it will still be lauded by unlawful government as a solution to the problem they have created.
As Caitlin Johnstone recently observed:
“The difference between the totalitarianism of dictatorships and the inverted totalitarianism of “free” societies is that in totalitarianism they allow one ideology which supports the status quo, while inverted totalitarianism allows two ideologies which support the status quo.”
It is ironic that the failures of government are now being used as reason to move government even further away from democracy and the electorate. Remarkably, there appears to be some burgeoning support for sortition among those who imagine they are fighting the corrupt state, such as the followers of Extinction Rebellion. Seemingly advocating Citizen Assemblies while entirely ignorant of the reality that this is being offered to them by the politicians and corporations who have been consistently eroding their democracy for centuries.
Not Achieving the Wisdom Of Crowds
As discussed in Sorting Sortition Citizens Assemblies are supposed to utilise the wisdom of crowds theorised by James Surowiecki. He stipulated five conditions, which must be met, if the benefits of collective intelligence were to be realised. If they aren’t, then Citizen’s Assemblies are nothing more than policy indoctrination camps. These essential elements can broadly be defined as follows:
- Each individual member must be able to trust the fairness and impartiality of the Assembly.
- Group decision making must be decentralised and based solely on individual members decisions which they must be free to make independently.
- Each member must have individual access to independent information, evidence and advice.
- There must be no coercion, no persuasion and no failure to acknowledge the independent decisions of each individual member.
- Each individual member must have access to diverse information sources, expert opinion and advice with diversity of opinion encouraged by the Assembly.
Trusting Fairness and Impartiality
This is a subjective consideration. It is far more likely that you will find the group fair and impartial if it agrees with your established opinion. So a diverse selection of Assembly members and expert advisors, with a broad range of opinions, would be necessary if the Assembly organisers were serious about meeting this criteria. We are told that a total of 30,000 people were offered an opportunity to participate and 110 were selected by sortition (civic lottery) from those who responded. So presumably those who did respond had the opportunity to give their time and held a view they wished to express on climate change.
We are told these people were then chosen to broadly represent UK demographics. Further, for balance, there was a slight over representation of people who said they were not concerned about climate change. Selection came after people had completed questionnaires already expressing their opinion. This was not random selection, based purely upon demographics. Screening occurred.
The advocates of sortition liken it to the decision making of a jury. There’s no jury selection in the UK. It’s a random selection of 12 by lot from a random panel of 20 who have been randomly summoned by the court. Clearly, by asking prospective members to complete a questionnaire prior to invitation, whether bias occurred or not, this form of sortition is nothing like a jury selection. The scope for fixing the composition of the alleged decision making Assembly is obvious.
So it is impossible to tell if the members can trust the fairness and impartiality of the Assembly. However, as long as the Assembly experts provide the evidence and advice which reinforces the members existing opinions, they are far more likely to find it fair and impartial.
Independent Decision Making
During the first weekend the Assembly members listen to presentation from the experts followed by Q&A’s. In weeks 2 and 3 they receive more presentations from experts and then break into groups to discuss the various topics given to them. The 110 people will be split into 3 groups of more than 30 people per group. In week 4 the groups come back together for more lectures, feedback from the groups and to make their final decision.
In my experience of seminars and similar events, this indicates to me that individuals will have virtually no opportunity at all to make independent decisions. Peer group pressure will firmly be in play and the most vociferous and eloquent will hold sway. There are no mechanisms in the Climate Assembly methodology to ensure independent decision making. Decision making is clearly centralised.
Access To Independent Evidence and Advice
Climate Assembly members have access to an “Expert Leads” who will provide them their opinions. For example Chris Stark, who works for the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), is one such expert.
The Chair of the CCC is Lord Deben (John Gummer) who is also chair of Valpak Ltd and the Personal Investment Management and Financial Advice Association (PIMFA). Valpak ltd make money by assisting companies to meet MEEE compliance standards. It also profits from managing compliance on battery manufacturing, importation and sales. As we move towards a supposedly decarbonised economy Valpak can anticipate an exponential growth in revenue.
PIMFA is the trade association for firms that provide investment management and financial advice. Recently Mark Carney, former Goldman Sachs banker and Governor of two central banks, told global businesses that unless they transition to “sustainable” business they will, not might, fail to exist. When words like this come from the people who control the global economy the international business community needs to take heed. Once again, as businesses seek to ensure their compliance, the PIMFA board can look forward to a very profitable future as they advise investors which companies to invest in and which not.
It isn’t clear if Chris informed the Assembly members about this enormous conflict of financial interest, among many others, embedded within the CCC he represents. However, I strongly suspect he didn’t. What is clear, without knowledge of this conflict of interest, Assembly members will have no opportunity to understand the advice they receive from Chris, whether he recognises it himself or not, isn’t remotely independent.
No Coercion, Persuasion and Protection of Independent Decision Making
As we have just discussed, there is no mechanism in the Climate Assembly to ensure it meets any of these criteria. In fact, given the experts provided to the Assembly members, persuasion is fundamental to the model the six UK government committees have deployed. Coercion in large groups is a practical certainty and there is rarely any identifiable opportunity for independent decision making. It is notable that, in the final week four, the whole Assembly will give it’s decision and make recommendations, having heard from experts on energy generation and negative emissions technologies. It is not possible to see how any potential dissent will ever be heard or even acknowledged.
Diversity of Opinion
From design, member selection and evidence offered, through to the blatantly predetermined outcome, there is absolutely no diversity of opinion at all anywhere within the carefully managed machinations of the Climate Assembly. No one invited to attend was asked if they though CO2 caused climate change, not a single member was encouraged to consider if it might be the Sun and not a trace gas that controls the climate of the Earth. The question of whether or not net zero carbon emission policy is even necessary wasn’t asked and no member is encouraged to consider that question. Net zero emissions are simply assumed to be necessary, an assumption based upon highly questionable science.
None of the hundreds of scientists who disagree with the theory of anthropogenic global warming, such as Prof. Richard Lindzen, Dr. Judith Curry, Dr Ned Nikolov, Freeman Dyson, Ivar Giaever or Joseph Postma, nor any of the many sceptical environmentalists, such as Patrick Moore, Ross McKitrick or Paul Homewood were invited to contribute. They certainly weren’t chosen as experts to inform the Climate Assembly members. Regardless of whether you agree with them or not, the claim that the “science is settled” is a lie (science is never settled) and any notion that the information and ‘evidence’ provided to the members was even vaguely balanced is spurious to the point of absurdity.
In every single regard, the Climate Assembly has utterly failed Surowiecki’s wisdom of crowds test. If the objective is not to inform the opinions of the Climate Assembly members, if it is not to encourage critical thinking and not to facilitate informed public opinion to guide policy then what is it?
Government Not Democracy
Speaking in 2015 the the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), leading architect of the Paris Climate Agreement, Chritiana Figueres, stated the following:
“This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model, for the first time in human history…….the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the industrial revolution. That will not happen overnight and it will not happen at a single conference on climate change………It is a process, because of the depth of the transformation.”
This intentional policy to fundamentally change the global economy is the driver for the Green New Deal, carbon offsetting, the creation of the Green Climate Fund and a $100 trillion Carbon Bond market. The UK governments commitment to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050 is precisely designed to achieve that global objective. A commitment signed into legislation in 2019.
Whether you believe less than half of 1% of greenhouse gases control the entire planet’s ecosystem or not, it is an indisputable fact that the most powerful financial institutions on Earth are all aligned in this global effort to radically overhaul the global economy. Those who believe CO2 causes climate change will say this is no bad thing. If so, they accept, for the first time in human history, those who rule have decided to give away power and limit their control for the benefit of humanity.
In a representative democracy the idea is that you vote for the representative whose policy agenda you find most appealing. It’s a pathetic choice between a minimal shift in emphasis. It isn’t democracy, but it is the system we have, and one venerated as if it were freedom. In theory, if the public decide they don’t like state policies they can vote for a slightly different emphasis the next time. But it never changes the underlying policy trajectory. As demonstrated by the UK governments commitment to a net zero economy. These policies are set at a global level and no amount of voting blue or red will ever change that. The notion of freedom, and representative democracy, is an illusion designed to postpone revolt. It works.
The purpose of the Climate Assembly is to lend legitimacy to the draconian system of control being created under the guise of sustainable development. In order to achieve their new global economy we, the people, need to accept some massive restrictions on our freedoms and huge impacts upon our way of life. So no expense is spared in consistently drilling home the message that we are all doomed because there too much plant food in the atmosphere. Of course, planting billions of trees would actually solve the alleged CO2 problem, if it existed, but your are definitely not supposed to know that. I wonder if it will be discussed at the Climate Assembly.
It doesn’t matter because the UK government’s net zero policy commitment is already decided, regardless of who you vote for. The Climate Assembly members opinion on how it should be implemented is a total irrelevance. However, it will allow the state to claim the public participated in the decision making. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Sortition, in the form of Citizen Assembly, is being touted by states, global corporations and their NGO lackeys, precisely because it further centralises power. If we are convinced to go blindly down this path, one replete with alleged constitutional reform, devolved government, regional assemblies, a global covenant of mayors and Citizen Assemblies then we are allowing the final, complete destruction of the westphalian sovereignty of the nation state. We do so without gaining any enhanced democratic control at all, and by moving further away from the pitiful semblance of democracy we currently endure. This has always been the objective of the so called elite and their plan for one world government.
Citizen’s assemblies will never be objective nor debate the necessity for policy. The policy will already be decided because you gave legitimacy to the corporations who write it when you voted for their representatives. In order to keep you labouring under the misconception of free choice and democracy, Citizen Assembly and sortition is being offered to you instead of a nominally democratic nation state.
It’s government not democracy.
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What the rich (our overlords who ever they may be) describe as citizens assemblies is not what the greeks described as sortition. Real sortition as practised by ancient Athens is more like if we were to select random people for each county to represent us in Government. That actually would be better than what we have at moment. (a true democracy as is the meaning of sortition) But of course it will never be done correctly. Great posts BTW, really enjoyed your rant on divide and rule (people of different colors)
Cheers Kevin. Nothing as cathartic as a good rant, glad you enjoyed it. Yep sortition, as in random selection by lot in the Hellenic Athenian tradition, has a lot to offer. Something I discuss in more detail HERE, if you’re interested. Take it easy
I spent the last 4 days reading your posts and have found it interesting. Now this post. You lost me. I have seen hints in other articles of denial the burning of fossil fuels is the major cause of climate change. In this area you suddenly skip allmost all the referenses, except the one that parrot “it is the sun”. It might well be something dodgy about xr and infiltration from “deep state”. My minds blow when you first mention Caitlin is fantastic (i agree) and then later give a referens to a nazi-site. Publishing videos celebrating the nationalsocialists 70 year. And you think this is a serious referens?
Iam not interested in being published on your site. I just want your answer on how you can support nazis.
Ann
Sweden
Hi Ann. I certainly don’t support national socialism or those who follow “nazi” ideology, but nor do I have any idea what reference you are talking about. Could you be more specific please?
As for climate change I do absolutely reject the notion that Co2 causes global warming. I don’t think I’ve merely hinted at it. I’ve written quite extensively, making that precise point.
https://iaindavis.com/?s=Climate+Change