A TOUCH OF EVil
It must be said that Elon Musk, now the richest man in the world, is a master marketer. Now the great defender of free speech and the emancipator of the Twitterverse, he was not so long ago the most successful and ardent purveyor of climate Armageddon propaganda. Now a self-professed Republican, he was a prominent Trump basher whose wealth, mainly vested in the stock value of an electric vehicle company known as Tesla, was built upon the back of massive $500B Obama era stimulus loans. There he was, bailing out on the Presidential climate councils to which Obama had appointed him, once President Trump had the courage and foresight to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Accord:
Even today, as he crusades for free speech and tokes up on the Joe Rogan podcast, as his Tesla factories continue to run on generators fueled by natural gas and produce cars that neither sell or run very well, he continues to sponsor a $100M prize for innovators who can conjure up ways of defeating "the greatest threat to humanity".
A couple of days before Christmas, The Daily Wire ran a story on its website entitled "Tesla Causes 8-Car Pileup On San Francisco Bridge. Driver Tells Police Self-Driving Mode Malfunctioned." The crash occurred on Thanksgiving Day and resulted in two juveniles being transported to the hospital for minor injuries. According to a police report obtained by Reuters, the Tesla Model S made an unsafe lane change and then began slowing to stop. The vehicle behind the Tesla then rammed into the back of the braking Tesla, resulting in a chain of crashes on the bridge.
Following the crash, the Tesla driver told police that he had put the car into Full Self-Driving Mode (FSD), but authorities could not determine if the FSD software had malfunctioned. Naturally, Tesla offers customers FSD mode as an a la carte item. It is a $15k option. The FSD software allows the vehicle to change lanes and park on its own while autopilot mode gives the Tesla the ability to steer, accelerate, and brake autonomously within its lane, but the company warns that these features do not enable the vehicle to drive itself.
Reports of this alleged Tesla malfunction come as the car manufacturer's stock has seen its largest decline in history, after reaching all-time highs during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021. It has plummeted by 64% ever since the leftist media assault upon Musk began after he purchased Twitter for $44B in late October. It seems financial analysts fear that Musk's purchase of Twitter has scared investors because Musk is using Tesla as his own ATM machine to keep funding Twitter. Gene Munster of Loup Ventures expressed this concern recently on the leftist virtue signaling network otherwise known as CNBC.
"Elon is Tesla's brand. He needs to pull it together. He's made these mistakes about running off on the mouth many times, and he needs to tighten up his message because he's going to cause some long-term damage if he doesn't right the ship."
Musk has himself warned that the transition away from oil and gas is not as easy as people think and that society would be devastated overnight if it tried to stop using fossil fuels:
"At this time, we actually need more oil and gas, not less...Realistically, I think that we need to use oil and gas in the short term, because otherwise civilization will crumble. One of the biggest challenges the world has ever faced is the transition to sustainable energy and to a sustainable economy. That will take some decades to complete."
Actually, Elon: the world already had a very sustainable economy until the day before yesterday, when robber barons like you set out to destroy it. Presumably, Musk thinks that we still need fossil fuels around until he can find something else as powerful and efficient as the rocket fuel he uses to power his SpaceX voyages.
But the problems with EVs run much deeper than public unrest about Elon Musk's Twitter purchase. There is something much more sinister going on here. Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda recently stated publicly that the 'silent majority' of auto manufacturers are not fully sold on Electric vehicles. The head of what is now the world's largest automaker said last week that he remains skeptical about moving to only producing electric vehicles and that most people who work in his industry agree with his analysis. While speaking to reporters recently in Thailand, Toyoda said:
"People involved in the auto industry are largely a silent majority...That silent majority is wondering whether EVs are really OK to have as a single option. But they think it's the trend so they can't speak out loudly...Because the right answer is still unclear, we shouldn't limit ourselves to just one option."
These remarks come as supply chain issues sparked by the pandemic continue to make it difficult for manufacturers to obtain raw materials necessary to build new cars, especially EVs. While some of Toyota's rivals have jumped fully on board the EV bandwagon, even setting hard deadlines after which only EVs will be produced, Toyota has diversified its future product offerings and focused on making traditional gas cars, hybrids, and hydrogen powered vehicles. Supply chain issues, aside, let us dig yet deeper on this EV issue, into the very earth core substances which power them.
On Christmas Eve, the world's most watched podcaster revealed horrifying slave labour conditions used to mine materials needed to power EVs. Podcast giant Joe Rogan used his show last week to illuminate some of the inhumane conditions employed to mine raw materials used to make electric car batteries as well as for other devices like cell phones and laptops. Rogan had as his special guest noted activist Siddharth Kara to talk about what happens at mines in Africa, especially in the Congo:
"Throughout the whole history of slavery, I mean, going back centuries, never, never in human history, has there been more suffering that generated more profit, and was linked to the lives of more people around the world, ever, ever in history than what's happening in the Congo right now...And the reason I say that is this: the cobalt that's being mined in the Congo is in every single lithium ion rechargeable battery manufactured in the world today, every smartphone, every tablet, every laptop, and crucially, every electric vehicle."
Kara noted that mining conditions in the country are so bad that people are forced at gunpoint to dig for these materials by hand:
"Cobalt really took off about 10-12 years ago...And it's in another part of the country in the mining provinces in the southeast of the Congo. And cobalt took off because it started to be used in lithium ion batteries to maximize their charge and stability. And it just so happens that the Congo, just as it was sitting on more than half the world's reserves of coltan and of course, a lot of gold and diamonds and other things, is sitting on more cobalt than the rest of the planet combined. And it's in a small little patch of the Congo, southeastern corner-a part that used to be called Katanga, and before anybody knew what was happening, Chinese government, Chinese mining companies took control of almost all the big mines, and the local population has been displaced, is under duress, and they dig in absolutely subhuman, gut-wrenching conditions for $1 a day, feeding cobalt up the supply chain into all the phones, all the tablets, and especially electric cars."
So it is that once again, we have entered the Heart of Darkness. There are no industrialized "clean cobalt mines" using machinery instead of slave labour, child workers, and exclusively African people who live in unimaginable poverty. Instead, there are thousands of black people there on their hands and knees, clanking away for a dollar or two per day, without safety equipment, inhaling toxic cobalt without any masks, filtration systems, or even gloves. Many of them work in flip flops. One is left to ponder: where are Ibrahim X Kendi, Robin DeAnglo, Justin Trudeau, and the rest of the race baiters who are so vociferous in condemnation of systemic racism in North America? These are black people being exploited by Chinese industrialists in real time, and caught doing it on video.
Here in Canada, our federal government continues its maniacal and unscientific attack upon the very fossil fuel production which granted us entry into the G7. Without it, we are a third world country like Congo, which might in fact be the end goal of the Trudeau government. Canada will prohibit single use plastics by 2025. The Trudeau government expects that banning single use plastics, which are of course a major petroleum-based product, will eliminate a million garbage bags worth of pollution and 1.3 million tonnes of "difficult-to recycle" plastic waste. This is all, of course, rubbish, but is aimed at getting to zero-plastic waste by 2030, with the ultimate goal of achieving the idiotic zero carbon goal by then. The replacement of plastic for companies like Tim Horton's will be paper lids. Paper comes from trees, which breathe carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. Science is so very troubling for the Liberals when it interferes with their globalist political agenda.
To its credit, the Danielle Smith led Alberta government has filed notice with the Federal Court of Canada that Alberta will make submissions in a case arguing an unconstitutional decision by the federal minister of heath and the minister of the environment and climate change to list "plastic manufactured items" as "toxic substances" under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. Alberta will argue that the federal government's decision to label plastic as a "toxic substance" is an unconstitutional intrusion into provincial jurisdiction:
"I'm not talking about leaving Canada. I'm talking about saving Canada...it's absurd the federal government intervened in our area over managing our petrochemical industry which members (NDP) obviously used to support so they could do something as frivolous as imposing a ban on plastic straws creating uncertainty in our petrochemical industry."
Even as the Trudeau government labels plastics "toxic", it promotes and even mandates production of EVs and the toxic cobalt based lithium batteries which power them. Fortunately for Albertans and also for the rest of Canada, Premier Smith recently posted on Elon Musk's Twitter platform that she also has an answer for this particular brand of evil:
Premier Smith continues to be outspoken when it comes to a plan to outlaw cars that run on oil and gas in Canada. She quite correctly points out that it will cost billions of dollars in income and carbon taxes to upgrade the grid in such a short period of time, increasing electricity costs and potentially impacting grid stability.
Despite all of the concerns surrounding their production, use and implementation, the Trudeau government continues to be hell bent upon forcing every Canadian to operate EVs. Justin Trudeau recently joined Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who is now fully a Trudeau acolyte, to celebrate the launch of Canada's first ever full-scale EV manufacturing plant in Ingersoll, ON. According to Trudeau, the plant will produce 50,000 EVs per year by 2025, which will enforce the government's plant to get more of us driving EVs instead of gas powered cars. In a statement, Trudeau said that Canada recently secured "several historic manufacturing deals for electric vehicles, hybrids, and batteries", which he says will create thousands of jobs and "provide the world with clean vehicles".
Never mind that the carbon footprint of an EV is virtually identical to that of a gas powered one. Never mind that black men, women, and children are digging toxic cobalt out of mines in the Congo under slave labour conditions in order to produce lithium batteries. Never mind that the CCP, which regime Trudeau admires and with which his government maintains shockingly close ties, is profiting immensely from exploitation of Africans on that continent. Never mind that none of these "clean" jobs will be created in Alberta, which has the fourth largest fossil fuel deposits on earth. Never mind that destruction of the fossil fuel industry will devastate Alberta and destroy the very economic engine of Canada. One fifth of all passenger cars, SUVs and trucks sold in Canada in 2026 must run on electricity, according to the Liberals. By 2030, the mandate will hit 60% of all sales and by 2035, it will be impossible to buy a gas powered vehicle in Canada.
Smith plans to fight all of this idiocy via the newly passed Alberta Sovereignty Act. According to Smith, defending Alberta from Ottawa's relentless economic and constitutional attacks against Alberta is what her government is all about:
"It's not like Ottawa is a national government...The way our country works is that we are a federation of sovereign, independent jurisdictions. They are one of those signatories to the constitution and the rest of us, as signatories to the constitution, have a right to exercise our sovereign powers in our own areas of jurisdiction...electric, diesel, and gas powered vehicles are all choices Albertans should have depending on their personal needs, budgets, and circumstances...As premier, I will make sure you have a choice when it comes to the vehicle you drive-the NDP and Liberals can butt out."
Meanwhile, federal carbon taxes are increasing again. The mandatory minimum carbon tax the Trudeau government imposes on all provinces except Quebec have risen to $65 per tonne. That translates to an extra 14 cents per liter of gasoline and 17 cents per liter of diesel. It will cost $10 more to fill a family SUV with gasoline and more than $22 extra to fill a heavier duty diesel pickup which many hard working Albertans use to earn a living in the oil and gas industry. Hauling our groceries and supplies around will also be more expensive, as filling the tanks of a big rig will cost about $154 more than it does now. Those costs can only be passed on to working class Canadian families.
Adding insult to injury, the Trudeau government, with the constant support of their NDP lackeys, is also creating a second carbon tax through fuel regulations. This tax is set to appear in the Summer of 2023 and will result in another 10 cents more per liter for us at the pumps. It almost appears as though there is an orchestrated agenda to drive us away from fossil fueled vehicles and into exclusive use and production of EVs, which will profit the CCP via its unconscionable mining of cobalt in the Congo. Could our federal government possibly be so EVil?
In a bold move to save Alberta taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, Premier Smith is suspending the provincial fuel tax for at least another six months. That equates to a 13 cent per liter reduction for consumers and saves about $15 when filling a half ton pick up and about $118 when big rig truck drivers fill up their tanks to deliver our goods, which directly impacts the inflation that the Trudeau Liberals have promised to combat.
Albertans now pay the lowest fuel costs in Canada and the only taxes we pay are the ones imposed by the federal government. Lower fuel costs make it more affordable for families to live their lives in freedom and prosperity and for businesses to deliver goods and services and to employ Albertans.
Is it any wonder then that Alberta has the highest net influx of new residents from other parts of Canada? We are only ones resisting the spread of EVil- the latest Frankenstein of the despotic leftists bent upon achievement of human misery & annihilation.
