When wildfires appear to be increasing, we need to ask who’s causing them

The European Forest Fires Information System says that the number of wildfires in Europe is nearly double the 30-year average. The situation in the USA is probably worse and in Canada, not much better, Peter Koenig writes.

Wouldn’t this steady year-by-year increase of so-called “wildfires” raise the legitimate question of why and what or who causes them? he asks.

Every year, at least for the past five or six years, approximately starting with the (“UN”) Agenda 2030 – remember the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (“SDGs”)? – bush and forest fires have become more ferocious.

As of late July 2026, wildfires across the European Union (“EU”) have burned about 254,400 hectares (2,544 km²) since the start of the year, with France, Spain, Portugal and Italy among the worst-affected countries.

The European Forest Fires Information System (“EFFIS”), via the EU Joint Research Centre, reports 254,388 hectares (ha) burnt in the EU in 2026 up to 22 July 2026. This is above the 20-year average but slightly below the same period in 2025. See this for more info: Current wildfire situation in Europe, European Commission.

EFFIS maps fires bigger than 30 ha that include at least some forested area. Its figures represent roughly 95% of the total EU burned area.

In Spain and France, more than 200,000 people were evacuated or escaped by themselves, leaving their home and for many their life savings and assets (homes, farms, farm lands, cars and other amenities) behind to save their lives. Some escaped the spectacular Bordeaux peninsula, offering stunning landscapes and tourist areas, as well as oyster-farming villages and upmarket resorts.

Since the beginning of 2026, close to 1,300 fires have beendetected, though fewer than in the same period in 2025, when 1,329 were recorded. But more than double the long-term average (about 30 years) of 569 fires.

According to EFFIS, these fires emitted 8.31 million tonnes (Mt) of CO₂ since the start of 2026, slightly below the 8.48 Mt recorded in the same period in 2025, and the long-term average of 8.89 Mt. Consider, though, that the summer is not yet over. For comparison, an average European citizen emits 5.55 tonnes of CO₂ over an entire year (EDGAR 2024 recording – Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research).

The situation in the US is probably even worse. As of late July 2026, the United States is experiencing a severe and above-average wildfire season, with the National Preparedness Level raised to its maximum (Level 5) and more than 16,000 km2 burned nationwide. This is about 140% above the 10-year average. The situation in Canada is not better....<<<Read More>>>....

Green Empire Strikes Back

Recently, it has felt like we had reached a new dawn on energy and climate policy with energy Jedi winning the argument against the Net Zero by 2050 target. Reform fought the election on a policy of abandoning Net Zero. More recently, the Tories have followed suit by abandoning the 2050 target, setting out their own cheap power plan and beginning to purge the party of Net Zero zealots like Gavin Barwell.

But the green empire is striking back with a new article (no paywall version here) in the Telegraph from Tim Stanley and Greg Jackson has also weighed in, cheering on Stanley’s article. Even DV himself has weighed in to support Tim Stanley. The trouble with Tim Stanley’s argument, in common with many Net Zero supporters, is that it is based on vibes and emotion, not analysis of actual data.

Time to dive in to see what Tim Stanley and Greg Jackson got so wrong....<<<.Read More>>>..

Britons face winter of surging energy bills as Europe facing gas stockpile shortage

 Europe is hurtling toward a potential energy emergency this winter after gas stockpiles dropped to levels not seen in years, according to a report from The Telegraph.

Storage facilities across the continent stand just above 50 percent full in late July—a historically low figure for this time of year—leaving the region on course to begin the cold season with sites only about 75 percent full, well below the five-year average of 90 percent.

The shortfall stems directly from the ongoing conflict involving Iran, which has disrupted roughly one-fifth of global energy supplies and forced heavy drawdowns of reserves....<<<Read More>>>...

Gunpowder, Treason and Slop

 The BBC has branded Guy Fawkes an ‘astonishing activist’ in a Bitesize educational game for primary school children, ranking the would-be regicide alongside Nelson Mandela, Rosa Parks and Emmeline Pankhurst. The resource, apparently created in the wake of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, invites children to play as Fawkes as he evades guards beneath Parliament. The Telegraph has the story:

The BBC has called Guy Fawkes an “astonishing activist” and likened him to Nelson Mandela.

In history resources for children, the plotter who tried to blow up Parliament and King James I is counted among civil rights activists “who wanted to change the world”.

The BBC Bitesize material for primary schools ranks Fawkes alongside Rosa Parks, the civil rights activist, Emmeline Pankhurst, the suffragette, and Mandela, the anti-apartheid leader.

The material takes the form of an educational game titled “Back in time with… Astonishing Activists”, which invites children into the world of the campaigners, including the would-be regicide.

The game appears to have been created in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, and the tagline of the resource on the BBC website states that children can “take a trip back in time and learn all about the people who fought racism, campaigned for women’s rights… and changed the world forever”.

The game explains Fawkes’s involvement in the failed 1605 plot to detonate gunpowder beneath Parliament during the state opening, potentially killing the king and several hundred courtiers.

The plot was intended to remove the new king, amid disappointment that concessions for Catholics did not materialise when he took the throne, and to bring about an armed rebellion that would install a sympathetic ruler.

Fawkes was caught, tortured and executed. His co-conspirators, including Robert Catesby, the plot leader, were hunted down and killed....<<<Read More>>>...

Climate Change Catastrophism is a Leftist Weapon

What we drive, how we heat our homes, what we eat, how much water we use: every modern activity increases industrial CO2 emissions in a manner not dissimilar to air conditioning. Do all such intimate, local decisions therefore necessitate governmental oversight and regulation? And if so, what freedoms can possibly remain?

The roots of such worrisome totalising can be traced in the more academic realm to the 1960s and 1970s, with the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, Paul Ehrlich’s the Population Bomb and the Club of Rome’s the Limits to Growth. More distal influences, such as Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto of 1848, also merit consideration, as we shall see.

There is another source, however, unmatched in its combination of scientific pretension, charged emotional tone, policy impact and mass appeal: former Vice President Al Gore’s 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth, which this year marks its 20th anniversary.

More than any other single work, this glossy, visually dramatic production translated the abstractions of climate modelling into a compelling, emotionally charged narrative – one that struck fear into the hearts of tens of millions. It did so by framing mankind’s industrial activity and consequent increase in CO2 production as the driver of a truly dangerous increase in global temperature. It did so by warning of severe and impending ecological devastation and economic disruption. It did so by arguing for the necessity of emergency response, while casting dissent as the most serious of modern sins....<<<Read More>>>...

AI and digital devices are causing children to become depressed and confused

Classroom devices, smartphones and, increasingly, AI chatbots are stunting children’s cognitive and emotional development and driving a youth mental-health crisis, experts warn.

The age of artificial intelligence is fuelling a generation of fragile, developmentally stunted and gender-dysphoric children, two analysts warned parents.

Classroom devices, smartphones and, increasingly, AI chatbots are stunting children’s cognitive and emotional development and driving a youth mental-health crisis, Michael Marinacio, executive director of the Centre for Responsible Technology, and Nicole Runyon, a former child psychotherapist and parent coach, said during an online event hosted by parental rights group Moms for Liberty.

“[W]e’re creating mental illness,” Runyon said. “[Children] don’t feel like they can trust themselves or that they’re capable of doing really anything.”

Runyon recalled that, as a counsellor, young people told her “they didn’t want to get married … They didn’t want to bring kids into this world … They feel like they’re this victim in a world that is falling apart.”...<<<Read More>>>...

Vigilante movement gaining massive momentum to knock out Flock surveillance cameras

An underground network of privacy activists is disabling and destroying automated license plate reader cameras manufactured by Flock Safety as the devices proliferate across the United States.

The first time the Minneapolis activist known as “NoMark” targeted a Flock camera, he waited an hour for the right moment, pacing among bushes near a pole holding the device. “I was just so nervous,” he later recalled.

NoMark, who has built a large online following for his masked vigilante actions, climbed the pole, taped over the lens, and cut the power wires before fleeing. He has since taken down more than a dozen of the cameras and says the work now takes only a few minutes.

Flock’s black cameras, paired with solar panels and mounted on poles, photograph vehicles and compare the images against vast databases. The company, based in Georgia and valued at $8.4 billion, says its systems scan license plates billions of times each month in roughly 6,000 communities across nearly every state.

Critics argue the technology enables warrantless tracking of ordinary people in public spaces. Flock maintains the devices are not mass-surveillance tools and cannot track individuals....<<<Read More>>>...

Britain’s Collision Course With Trump’s Energy Counter-Revolution

 Ed Miliband has spent his career as one of the world’s most committed climate zealots, and he now finds himself installed as Foreign Secretary in Andy Burnham’s new government, personally taking up the United Kingdom’s seat as Governor of the World Bank. 

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office announced this week that the former Energy Secretary would personally occupy the United Kingdom’s seat as Governor of the World Bank, a job normally left to a junior minister, so that the “climate crisis” and overseas development sit at the very heart of British foreign policy. “International development is not an add-on to British foreign policy – it is central to it,” Miliband declared. “By taking on the role of UK governor to the World Bank, I want to send an unambiguous signal that this Government is serious about its global leadership on development and climate.”...<<<Read More>>>...

EU’s Green Deal is pushing Europe into decline

 The great majority of mankind aspires to more prosperity, which requires abundant and cheap energy. However, the EU is using its Green Deal to do the opposite.

In the following, Samuel Furfari highlights a report that reveals the EU is clinging to the pretence of leading an “energy transition” as Europe declines under the weight of “green” climate policies.

An Energy Institute report reveals a Europe clinging to the pretence of leading an “energy transition” as the continent declines under the weight of climate policies whose quixotically utopian objectives are negated elsewhere by fossil fuel-supported economic growth.

Data from the 75th edition of the annual ‘Statistical Review of World Energy‘ will surprise only those ignoring the facts: The world continues to depend massively on fossil fuels [more correctly, hydrocarbon fuels]. Solar and wind technologies, while expanding, still lag ever-rising energy demand, which last year reached a record 600 exajoules. (That’s 600 quintillion joules, where a joule is equal to the work necessary to create one watt of power for one second.)

Of total primary energy consumption, 86% came from fossil fuels – oil at 33.5%; coal, 27.6%; and natural gas, 25.1%. Accounting for just 3% were solar and wind, which are heavily promoted by the European Commission over the much-demonised hydrocarbons.

From 2015-2025, the first decade of the Paris Agreement on climate change, global energy consumption rose more than 14%, with sharply contrasting dynamics. European Union use declined about 1% annually, while consumption in the Asia-Pacific region grew 2.6%....<<<Read More>>>...

Marxism and Shia Islam have a core feature in common

 Marx’s theory of immiseration and Twelver Shia eschatology share a common structural feature: both teach that history moves forward only through a period of necessary, progressive worsening, after which a total redemptive inversion suddenly occurs. Everything else follows from that single shared manifesto.

“Redemptive inversion” is the common core. It means the existing order is not improved by degrees; it is completely reversed. Workers’ misery and Islam-defined injustice are inverted into their opposites; that is, Islam-defined perfect justice and workers’ liberation.

In Marxism, the accumulated suffering of the working class under capitalism is inverted into the classless society. In Twelver doctrine, the earth filled with Islam-defined oppression is inverted into the earth filled with Islam-defined justice by the Mahdi. In both systems, the night must first become extremely dark – violently dark – before the dawn can break.

Marx explains the mechanism of that prior darkening in economic terms. In ‘Capital’, he analyses the rising “organic composition of capital” – the growing ratio of constant capital (machines and technology) to variable capital (living labour). As this ratio increases, relatively fewer workers are required. An industrial reserve army of the unemployed expands. That reserve army then “disciplines the working class”: it holds down wages, weakens bargaining power and keeps workers insecure and fragmented.

The result is relative immiseration. Marx’s own formulation is precise: “Accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the same time accumulation of misery, the torment of labour, slavery, ignorance, brutalisation and moral degradation at the opposite pole.”...<<<Read More>>>...

The Case for EVs Has Failed

 The pantomime scene called 'CO2 Is Innocent But Let's Blame It For A Non-Existent Crisis" is in full swing but people have woken up and have seen through the deception

++++++++++++++++++++++ 

UK Net Zero policy aims at balancing the production and removal of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and nitrous oxide by 2050. The primary greenhouse gas from transport is CO2 produced by burning fuels containing carbon such as petrol and diesel in conventional internal combustion vehicles. The entire Vehicle Excise Duty regime pivots on this single metric. Current Government transport policy is aimed at reducing CO2 emissions to help meet Net Zero targets. In addition, Government documents also mention as objectives reducing local pollution from transport, improving connectivity across Britain, growing the economy by enhancing the transport network and increasing the global impact of the UK to boost influence and maximise trade. However, these other objectives are not clearly prioritised, the costs and challenges of implementation are not specified and flagrant contradictions between these different aims are simply ignored.

The scale of the challenge of ‘decarbonising’ transport is very large. Transport accounts for 26% of total UK emissions, which is 0.27% of total global emissions. As a rough guide from Government statistics, the major contributing sectors to transport emissions are road transport (70%), aviation (20%) and marine (8%). In Great Britain, there are around 42 million registered road vehicles – 34 million cars, five million vans and 0.8 million heavy goods vehicles and buses. Of these vehicles, as of March 2025 only 1.5 million were pure battery electric vehicles. Cars and vans account for about half while heavy goods vehicles and buses account for 15% of total transport CO2....<<<Read More>>>...

Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters says the ruling class is steering the ship into the rocks, and ordinary people are the ones who pay

 Roger Waters spent decades warning that the machine grinds on, that walls get built between people who have far more in common than they've been told, and that comfortable numbness is exactly what those in power count on. Now the Pink Floyd co-founder is aiming that same warning at the war in Ukraine, arguing that Western governments and arms manufacturers are steering the world toward catastrophe while the people paying the actual price, on both sides of the front line, are treated as an acceptable cost of doing business. Speaking Monday on Rick Sanchez's The Sanchez Effect, Waters called European proposals to raise NATO military spending to 5 percent of GDP "effing insane," and made clear he sees this conflict the same way he has always seen power: as a machine that runs on money and indifference, and keeps running until ordinary people refuse to feed it any longer.

His comments arrive weeks after a separate, wide-ranging conversation with Tucker Carlson, in which the musician questioned the official 9/11 narrative and described a culture of enforced silence that punished anyone who dared to ask questions....<<<Read More>>>...

DARPA’s Prometheus: When computer models, not symptoms, become the basis for quarantine

In 2016, DARPA launched the Prometheus programme to develop a test that predicts whether a person will become contagious from an infectious disease within 24 hours of exposure, even before symptoms appear.

By identifying minimal sets of biological biomarkers – such as messenger RNA and immune-response proteins – the tests would indicate contagiousness, enabling early treatment or quarantine.

Prometheus represents a broader shift in DARPA’s biotechnology portfolio toward using computer models and predictive analytics, rather than actual symptoms.

As Jon Fleetwood explains below, this raises many concerning questions.

It also raises broader questions about how governments may increasingly rely on computer models – rather than observable clinical evidence – to make drastic public health determinations.

It also raises obvious questions: What happens when a computer says you’re contagious but you have no symptoms? 

Could governments eventually quarantine or medically intervene based on that prediction?

And if the computer is wrong, how would you ever prove it?

DARPA summarised the programme’s objective in unusually direct language. According to the agency’s Prometheus webpage: “The Prometheus programme aims to improve military readiness and force health through development of a prognostic that can determine if an individual is contagious before he exhibits symptoms of illness.”

The agency further explained: “DARPA’s goal is to develop a molecular test for determining if an individual is likely to spread disease following exposure to an infectious agent and predict within 24 hours of exposure if that individual will become contagious.”

According to DARPA, the capability would allow military planners to identify potentially contagious individuals before they transmitted disease within the close quarters common in military operations...<<<Read More>>>....

Who or what are the 13 Families?

Hereditary Rex Deus Adepts [“enlightened ones”] are purposefully selected from within the dynastic inheritance (bloodlines) passed down the generations from father to son. The chosen are brainwashed from childhood to ensure full comprehension of the secret knowledge, religion and seditious objectives.

Who are the Rex Deus families from which the chosen Sangreal World Kings in waiting are selected?

The founding Templar families, all nine, plus the two secret families, were all Rex Deus; they all stemmed from Royal French and Flemish families.

[However,] Rex Deus records suggest eleven founding knights, not nine. They include Hughes De Payen, Geoffrey De St. Omer, Payen De Montifier [Montdidier], Archambaud De St-Amand, Andre De Montbard, Gondemare, Rosal, Geofrey Bisol, Godefroy (de Bouillon), Fulk of Anjou and Hugh of Champagne.

In addition to the above, Wayne noted that the Sinclairs, a Scottish clan, are also Rex Deus....<<<Read More>>>....

Why I'm writing this anonymously and what that says about free speech in Britain today

 I have wanted to write for the Daily Sceptic for a long time. It should be a straightforward ambition to fulfil. I have opinions, I support free speech and scepticism, and here is a publication built for exactly that. Instead, my first contribution arrives unsigned. I think the reason why is, in itself, the article.

Ann Widdecombe's murder has reopened a question that surfaces from time to time: should politicians with 'unfashionable' views get extra protection? The investigation continues, so I won't comment on that, but the fact that the question is even being asked in response to a 78 year-old woman being killed in her own home tells you something regardless of how the investigation concludes. We have been here before. Jo Cox in 2016. David Amess in 2021. A pattern is forming, whatever the final facts of this particular case turn out to be.

The debate this triggers is usually framed narrowly: what security do MPs need? I want to push it wider: what if politicians are not actually the group most exposed? They have protection officers, party machinery and a public profile that makes an attack on them a national story. I have none of that. Neither does anyone else who simply has an opinion and a job to protect.

I recently listened to Professor David Betz of King's College London's Department of War Studies, who argued that Britain may be entering a period of increasing internal conflict in which political violence becomes more likely. Whether or not one accepts his analysis, it's difficult to ignore the growing sense that our public discourse has become more hostile and less forgiving. If expressing political disagreement increasingly carries the risk of intimidation or worse, the answer cannot simply be to provide more security for an ever-expanding list of public figures. That treats the symptom rather than the disease....<<<Read More>>>...

The International Court of Justice Climate Liability Ruling Sets a Worrying Precedent for Pandemics and Public Health

 Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that the US will dismantle the International Criminal Court and restore the rights of “sovereign states over globalism”. The think tank Policy Exchange, in a new report that contradicts much of its earlier approach to climate policy, warns that a 2025 International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling requires the UK to “arrest” the “trend of abuse of the ICJ’s advisory jurisdiction”.

Unfortunately, that ruling can easily be extrapolated to the domain of global health. Yet, resources devoted to flagship green causes and to pandemic preparedness alike would save more lives if redirected to basic health, nutrition and economic development.

In response to a 2023 UN General Assembly request, the court published its Advisory Opinion a year ago. It concluded that states have legally binding duties to prevent significant environmental harm. Failure to do so leaves a country exposed to claims for restitution from those who have been harmed.

In many countries the Covid response mimicked the climate change playbook. The catastrophism of both agendas was based on models. Claims of scientific authority and existential crisis escalated the agendas into moral crusades and people were asked to bear sacrifices for the good of the collective humanity and the planet.

State power expanded under that rubric to replace people’s and business’s freedom of choice with policy diktats. The same moralism and risks were used to launch personal attacks on critics and ridicule and censor dissenting opinions, even from experts in the field, by claiming a monopoly on truth and the best policies to manage the crises. The costs of the policies, risks of collateral harms and resulting need for policy trade-offs were dismissed....<<<Read More>>>...

Bestselling historian predicts AI will create ‘useless class’ of human

 Renowned historian Yuval Noah Harari has issued a stark warning about the profound societal risks posed by advancing artificial intelligence. In his forthcoming book Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, the author of the international bestseller Sapiens argues that smarter AI systems could render vast numbers of people economically and politically irrelevant, creating what he terms a “useless class.”

Harari, a lecturer at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, paints a challenging picture of the 21st century where rapid technological progress outpaces humanity’s ability to adapt. While previous industrial shifts displaced workers from physically demanding roles, humans retained an edge through cognitive abilities. That advantage, he suggests, is now eroding as AI begins to surpass people in complex mental tasks.

The historian draws parallels to long-standing fears of automation but insists this time the outcome may differ. “I’m aware that these kinds of forecasts have been around for at least 200 years, from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and they never came true so far. It’s basically the boy who cried wolf,” Harari told The Guardian. “But in the original story of the boy who cried wolf, in the end, the wolf actually comes, and I think that is true this time.”....<<<Read More>>>...

The Far-Right Terror ‘Plot’ That Didn’t Exist – Until the Government and Media Just Said it Did

 Did you see that huge Muslim gathering held in Suffolk recently, which had to be called off early due to a major far-Right terror plot being hatched against it? You may well have done, as the news was all over the media and referenced in alarmist tones by leading politicians, up to and including the Prime Minister (both the ones we’ve had this week).

But did you also see that the ‘plot’ didn’t even exist? Quite possibly not, because the subsequent release of everyone concerned (bar one aberrant and misleading exception, who we’ll come to later) didn’t get anything like as much space in the media, and no mention at all from any of the politicians who had so eagerly jumped the imaginary gun to condemn it.

Bodies like the Muslim Council of Britain expressly want to use such purely imagined ‘events’ as a basis for implementing concrete polices. As the MCB said in its post-Barham statement, “The MCB calls on ministers to match the language of condemnation with actual action and policy, not another round of statements that change nothing.” If you want “actual action”, rather than mere abstract words, isn’t that a kind of eventism in itself?...<<<Read More>>>... 

Burnham’s Net Zero Secretary Wants to Raise Tax to Stop People Flying

 Miatta Fahnbulleh advocated frequent-flyer levies that would add hundreds of pounds to the annual costs of regular travellers.

Now the Energy Secretary, she called for the taxes while chief executive of the New Economics Foundation think tank between 2017 and 2023.

During her time there, the think tank proposed in 2021 adding an escalating levy to tickets which would increase for every subsequent flight taken within a year, replacing the current Air Passenger Duty system.

Her appointment on Monday is likely to raise concerns that some of her previous policy proposals may be taken forward.

The think tank’s work has been incorporated into Labour policymaking in the past, including work on green industrial strategy and energy.

Richard Holden MP, the Shadow Transport Secretary, said families were already paying some of the highest flight taxes in the world “just to get away for a well-earned break”. “But Andy Burnham’s pick as Labour’s Energy Secretary wants to pile another tax on top,” he said.

He added British families were already being “taxed through the roof” and claimed the new taxes on air travel represented a punishment for “anyone who dares to fly for a holiday”.

Under the frequent-flyer tax proposal, the first flight taken by any individual in a given year would be exempt. The proposal was designed in part to keep costs neutral for lower-earners, who typically travel less, and to also protect family holidays. However, costs would then ratchet up in increments.

Under one model, for example, the tax on the first flight would be £0, the second flight £25, and each additional increment would increase by £10 thereafter (£35, £45, £55) for each subsequent flight. By the 10th flight the total green tax bill would come to £585.

The costs would be even higher for those travelling for business, representing a significant cost to companies.

It would be felt most by higher earners, who fly more, with models suggesting the highest 20% of earners would cut flying by around 30%, while the lowest 20% would be unaffected....<<<Read More>>>...

The applause for Burnham scrapping Starmer’s digital ID arrived before anyone checked what survived it

The new UK Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, is in Downing Street, and he has spent twenty years telling you exactly what he wants to do to the internet. He won the Makerfield by-election on 18 June 2026. He then collected the backing of roughly 349 Labour MPs, more than 85 per cent of the parliamentary party. By the time he walked through the black door, the job had been settled for weeks.

His first big announcement was the one privacy campaigners had been hoping for. Starmer’s digital ID scheme for all adults is dead, scrapped before Burnham had finished unpacking, the money moved to the cost of living. The applause came quickly. Perhaps it should not have.

This is a read on a government barely a day old. On speech and privacy, the early signals point one way, and it is not the way that loosens the state’s grip. He is not about to tear up the settlement he inherits from Keir Starmer. The open question is how much further he carries it.

Burnham arrives with a long record on all this. He is one of the few senior British politicians with a documented, two-decade appetite for putting the government closer to what you can see, say and read online....<<<Read More>>>...