ER Editor: Dutch journalist Michel van der Kemp gives us the inside track on the anti-nitrogen policy in the Netherlands below, where farmers are being basically subjected to policies that are destroying their livelihoods on the basis of a ‘nitrogen problem’. It’s Agenda 21 being played out with a new culprit. Find a reason to seize land, kill farm animals and cut food production to the human population, all of which affects other sectors of the economy. Then publicly panic because there are going to be food shortages. A reminder that the Netherlands is the world’s 5th largest food exporter.
Dutch PM Mark Rutte, multiply-(s)elected, is one of the worst globalists as far as we can tell and a World Economic Forum graduate.
Check out the Twitter link for DUTCH FARMERS to get an updated idea of what’s going on ‘on the ground’.
***
Zerohedge is also covering this. See Dutch Farmers Livid Over EU’s ‘Green’ Nitrogen Rule Block Border Between Holland And Germany. Of note:
Thousands of tractor-driving Dutch protesters came out this week to continue demonstrations against the government’s radical plan to cut nitrogen emissions by 30% – 70% as part of their ‘green’ agenda.
Farmers from the world’s 5th largest exporter of food are demanding that the Hague immediately reverse course, and have blocked the border between Holland and Germany over the rule which would lead to the closure of dozens of farms and cattle ranches.
Very angry Dutch farmers block border between Holland and Germany. Harsh protests in many Dutch cities after politicians’ decision to closes dozens of farms and cattle ranches to reduce nitrogen by 30% – 70% to comply with EU regulations on nitrogen pollution. pic.twitter.com/uKYXj0gvD8
— RadioGenova (@RadioGenova) June 30, 2022
On Wednesday, dozens of tractors blocked a highway close to the German border, according to traffic authorities.
Even larger protests are scheduled for July 4, with organizers taking to Telegram to call people to action against rules they say will “flatten” the country’s agriculture industry.
According to the Epoch Times, the message calls on concerned farmers and citizens to organize their own regional actions with the goal of closing all “distribution centers for food supplies and all major polluters” until “the government changes its plans.”
One viral call for a July 4 protest came from a large truckers’ Telegram group, suggesting that some truckers in the Netherlands may find themselves in solidarity with the nation’s agriculturalists.
The farmers, who plan to protest at many of the nation’s airports, specifically mentioned Schiphol and Eindhoven. NLTimes.nl has reported that spokespersons for both airports say they are monitoring the situation but have little information at present.
Holland closes dozens of farms and cattle ranches to reduce nitrogen by 30%. Angry and hungry farmers block the nation everywhere. pic.twitter.com/VNSodhGanB
— RadioGenova (@RadioGenova) June 28, 2022
In 2021, the Netherlands’ coalition government proposed slashing livestock numbers in the country by 30 percent to meet nitrogen emissions targets.
The country has already implemented stringent restrictions on new construction with the aim of curbing nitrogen emissions.
Rabobank has argued that those new hurdles have slowed down homebuilding in the Netherlands, intensifying a housing shortage in the densely populated coastal nation.
On June 10, the government issued a national and area-specific plan for curbing nitrogen emissions. Those emissions are heavily driven by ammonia from livestock manure.
Some parts of the country would have to slash those emissions by 70 or even 95 percent.
It openly acknowledged that “there is not a future for all [Dutch] farmers within [this] approach,” as reported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agriculture Service.
“The Minister of Nature and Nitrogen Policy expects about a third of the 50,000 Dutch farms to ‘disappear’ by 2030,” the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade reported in a June 23 Market Insight Report.
The Netherlands is the world’s fifth-largest exporter of food, exceeded only by the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and China, according to World Bank statistics.
The Dutch government offers a multibillion-dollar buyout arrangement for farmers.
Christianne van der Wal, minister of nature and nitrogen policy, has left open the possibility that the government will expropriate land from farmers who do not comply, as reported by NOS Nieuws.
The proposals and resultant protests come amid worldwide fertilizer and food shortages.
…
********
Farmers protest nitrogen plans throughout The Netherlands
Agenda 2030 in full swing – Political pushback – Farmers are not rolling over; protests everywhere
MICHEL VAN DER KEMP
According to our leaders, the world is suffering from the effects of climate change. Climate change has major consequences for people, nature and the environment due to the increase in greenhouse gases, especially CO2. So they say.
In the Netherlands, however, the CO2 problem appears to be somewhat less pressing. Instead, the government is particularly concerned about nitrogen. The problem is so big that under Rutte IV, an actual nitrogen minister, Christianne van der Wal-Zeggelink, has been appointed to solve the problem. This is having major implications for Agriculture, Infrastructure, Industry and Construction. The minister writes:
“much of the total nitrogen precipitation comes from agriculture. This is mainly in the form of ammonia, a colorless gas. This gas is released when urine comes into contact with animal manure. Ammonia is also released when fertilizing the land.”
Three weeks ago, the minister presented plans for the agricultural sector. A color map (pdf) indicates how much emission reduction must be achieved per area. This varies from 12%, to areas where a >95% reduction must take place. The greener an area on the map, the more one needs to reduce. The high reduction areas are mainly zones near so-called Natura 2000 areas.
However, the minister is flexible. Van der Wal emphasizes that these are ‘directive emission reduction targets’. “The only thing I really aim for is that the sum of all those provinces together results in 50 percent less nitrogen emissions.” These plans need to be met by 2030.
Fierce criticism from across the political spectrum
Coalition party CDA (Christian Democrat Appeal), traditionally a party of which many farmers are members, is clearly having a tough time dealing critically with the nitrogen minister’s plans given that its leader, Wopke Hoekstra, serves as a World Economic Forum puppet. The CDA could therefore be reduced to a splinter party in the next elections. Farmers are now flocking en masse to a party like BBB (ER: the Farmer-Citizen Movement, an agrarian movement founded in 2019 by Caroline van der Plas), which is now the second largest party in the polls. For the time being, however, BBB only has one seat in the House of Representatives.
The opposition has focused mainly on the scientific report of the RIVM (ER: the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment), on which the plans of the nitrogen minister are based. Caroline van der Plas, leader of BBB, pointed to outdated graphs included in the RIVM report. She also finds it strange that the Wadden Islands (ER: very tiny islands compared to other islands ringing The Netherlands in the North Sea – see map below) are colored green on the color map, but there are hardly any farmers on the smaller islands. She points out that even if all the people and livestock were to leave the islands, the standards would not be met.
Van der Plas then came up with her own plan to tackle the nitrogen problem. The party Forum for Democracy (FvD – right-wing populist, Eurosceptic) did not find this very attractive, however, because it recognizes the nitrogen problem as a problem, which it is not by any means. FvD is calling for a complete stop to the ‘nitrogen nonsense’.
It was not only national politicians who reacted fiercely. The implementation of the plans comes mainly at the expense of local politics: many local politicians also have a farm in addition to performing their political function. They are not at all waiting for the minister’s plans.
The province of Zeeland has even indicated that they will not implement the minister’s plans.
The plans were also criticized from unexpected quarters. During the last party congress of the VVD (centre-right, probably globalist), the party of PM Mark Rutte, a motion was passed to reconsider the nitrogen plans. But Rutte only indicated that he would like to consult with the submitters of the motion while the agenda will continue as usual.
Farmer protests throughout the Netherlands
Farmers protested the plans en masse last week. According to the organization, about 60,000 farmers gathered in Stroe, in the farming heart of the Netherlands (ER: a midpoint between Amsterdam, Zwolle and Arnhem). A long procession of tractors tried to reach the resistance area, but many farmers were still stuck in traffic jams when the event was almost over.
Despite the huge turnout, apparently little result was achieved. Which is why the farmers’ protests continued throughout the Netherlands last week. Highway entrances and exits were blocked by farmers with their heavy vehicles.
Although the nuisance is not small, many Dutch people seem to support the protests. “Farmers are part of the Netherlands. We must realize that without farmers we cannot eat. No farmer, no feed,” a stranded motorist noted.
Those at the political top were less enthusiastic. Justice Minister Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius called for the farmers to be fined who were blocking the road. Mark Rutte noted that the farmers’ protests are going too far.
Rutte, trained as a historian, may have forgotten the history of climate hysteria. But the lessons of the following article from the Andere Krant by journalist Peter Baeten will not have escaped the notice of the farmers. Even if climate change is a major problem for our world, farmers have been fooled for fifty years with fear mongering that never materialized.
Rutte should be familiar with that.
***
Panic stories about climate have been wrong for fifty years
Peter Baeten
Doomsday stories about climate and the environment have been dominant for more than fifty years. But the alarming predictions keep failing to come true. In the meantime, the number of victims worldwide due to hurricanes, floods and heat waves is declining spectacularly.
On April 22 it was Earth Day for the 53rd time. Earth Day has been around since 1970 and since then, it has rained gloomy predictions from science and the environmental movement about the state of the earth. What has come of that so far?
In 1970, Harvard University Nobel Prize-winning biologist George Wald stated, “Civilization will come to an end within fifteen to thirty years unless we take immediate action against what lies ahead for humanity.” That same year, renowned biologist Paul Ehrlich of the equally prestigious Stanford University noted, “Over the next decade, mortality will increase until at least 100 to 200 million people per year starve to death.”
Incidentally, the first Earth Day was mainly about overpopulation, food and environmental pollution and not about global warming. On the contrary, in 1970 climate change was an issue, but then it was still about the cooling of the earth, which had been going on for twenty years. Concerns about a possible big freeze were quite general at the time. Some scientists predicted a new ice age, such as Chief Scientist Dr. Ichtiaque Rasool of NASA and influential climate professor Stephen Schneider of Stanford, who predicted in 1971 that a temperature drop of six degrees was imminent, partly due to air pollution.
The ice age story quickly faded into oblivion and a new doomsday scenario began to take hold. In 1989, Noel Brown, director of the UN Environment Program, warned that “entire nations could be wiped out by sea level rise if we don’t reverse the trend of global warming before the year 2000.” He also said that “coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of eco-refugees” and that the changing climate would lead to a return of Dust Bowl conditions in the US and Canadian grain fields.
He might have listened to our own Queen Beatrix, who said in her Christmas speech in 1988: “Slowly the earth dies and the unimaginable – the end of life itself – becomes imaginable.” The Dalai Lama, Paul McCartney and Robert Redford also chimed in in 1991: “Humanity still has 5,000 days to save the earth. The decay of the last remnants of nature and of some exponents is happening at an exponential rate.” Prince Charles said in July 2009 that we had 96 months to save the Earth. In February 2020, he talked about the ten years left. But in November 2020, he said there was no time at all to lose.
Although the temperature on Earth has not risen half a degree since 1979, according to satellite measurements, there is no end to the doom-mongering.
Dr. David Viner, a leading scientist with the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, stated in an interview with The Independent newspaper in March 2000 that snowfall in the UK would become a very rare phenomenon within a few years and that children would no longer know what snow is. In 2006, Viner said the Mediterranean would be too hot to vacation within 20 years.
Several renowned scientists, such as Jay Zwally of NASA, Professor Peter Wadhams of Cambridge, Professor David Barber and Professor Wieslaw Maslowski, predicted around 2007 that there would be no ice in the Arctic within a few years.
The Pentagon released a report on climate change in 2004 with the following prediction: “In 2007 severe storms will break coastal defenses and make large parts of the Netherlands uninhabitable. Cities like The Hague should be abandoned.” The Pentagon further predicted that major granaries like the American Midwest would be hit by disastrous droughts within a decade. Bangladesh would become uninhabitable due to sea level rise. Strangely enough, in Europe it would become three degrees colder due to changing weather patterns. This report was endorsed by top scientists such as German professor and government adviser John Schellnhuber, Sir John Houghton, director of the Meteorological Office (British KNMI) and Sir Bob Watson, Chief Scientist of the World Bank and chairman of the IPCC, the well-known climate panel of the United Nations.
Sea level rise is also a popular disaster scenario among scientists and environmental activists. James Hansen of NASA – the man who like no other put ‘global warming’ on the map in the US Congress – wrote in 1988 that New York would be under water within 40 years. Islands like the Maldives in the Pacific Ocean have been clamoring for years that they will disappear into the ocean, but they continue to build airports and hotels. The United Nations predicted in 2005 that there would be 50 million climate refugees within ten years, partly due to sea level rise.
In the Netherlands, the KNMI stated at the end of 2021 that we could see a 1.2 to 2 meter rise in sea level in our country until 2100. This while measurements by the undisputed Deltares institute show that no acceleration of sea level rise has been noticeable on the Dutch coast in the last hundred years. The sea level has been rising at a constant rate of about 19 centimeters per century since at least 1890.
Most other climate indicators do not give much cause for concern either. The official reports from the UN Climate Panel IPCC offer little to no evidence of an increase in hurricanes, floods, droughts and heat waves in the world, or of an acceleration of sea level rise. Many islands in the South Pacific are getting bigger instead of smaller. It is also notable that snowfall in the Northern Hemisphere has increased rather than decreased slightly since 2000. There is reasonable agreement that global temperatures have risen about one degree since 1870.
The well-known Danish climate economist Bjørn Lomborg, who is not a climate skeptic, recently concluded in an opinion article: “For half a century, predictions have sounded that people and the earth will be doomed if rapid and drastic action is not taken. They were all wrong. Setting artificial deadlines to get attention is one of the most common environmental tactics, but the apocalyptic message is completely wrong and leads to panic.” Lomborg notes that research has now shown that many young people suffer from ‘eco-anxiety’.
According to Lomborg, we would do better to invest in research in the field of energy and also focus more on adaptation, so that we are better equipped against the (possible) consequences of climate change in the future. That means better dikes, better weather forecasts and the like.
We are already very successful with this adaptation. And that is perhaps the most powerful counter-argument to all of the climate change doomsday stories of the last fifty years. Lomborg shows (see graph) that the number of fatalities from climate-related disasters (floods, hurricanes, droughts and heat waves) worldwide has decreased by more than 95 percent in the last hundred years. The extreme decline is largely due to the fact that we have become richer and more inventive. However, this simple fact does not seem to get through to the media.
Source
************
••••
The Liberty Beacon Project is now expanding at a near exponential rate, and for this we are grateful and excited! But we must also be practical. For 7 years we have not asked for any donations, and have built this project with our own funds as we grew. We are now experiencing ever increasing growing pains due to the large number of websites and projects we represent. So we have just installed donation buttons on our websites and ask that you consider this when you visit them. Nothing is too small. We thank you for all your support and your considerations … (TLB)
••••
Comment Policy: As a privately owned web site, we reserve the right to remove comments that contain spam, advertising, vulgarity, threats of violence, racism, or personal/abusive attacks on other users. This also applies to trolling, the use of more than one alias, or just intentional mischief. Enforcement of this policy is at the discretion of this websites administrators. Repeat offenders may be blocked or permanently banned without prior warning.
••••
Disclaimer: TLB websites contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of “fair use” in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, health, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than “fair use” you must request permission from the copyright owner.
••••
Disclaimer: The information and opinions shared are for informational purposes only including, but not limited to, text, graphics, images and other material are not intended as medical advice or instruction. Nothing mentioned is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.