I have been waiting for this one, and it was only a matter of time; the Pope has gone full commo, calling for global wealth redistribution:
  https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2020/02/06/tax-the-rich-pope-francis-calls-for-global-wealth-redistribution/

“Tax cuts for the wealthy constitute a “structure of sin,” Pope Francis said Wednesday in a passionate address calling for international wealth redistribution. “Every year hundreds of billions of dollars, which should be paid in taxes to fund health care and education, accumulate in tax haven accounts,” the pontiff told participants in a Vatican seminar, “thus impeding the possibility of the dignified and sustained development of all social agents.”
“Today’s structures of sin include repeated tax cuts for the richest people, often justified in the name of investment and development,” Francis told the meeting organized by the Pontifical Academy for Social Sciences.
During his discourse, the pope repeated his conviction that poverty is on the rise worldwide and “the poor increase around us.” With the passage of time and the advances of civilization the number of poor people increases rather than diminishing, Francis similarly asserted last June, and “the poor are always poorer, and today they are poorer than ever.” As a Brookings Institution report noted in late 2018, however, the world is currently experiencing “the lowest prevalence of extreme poverty ever recorded in human history — less than 8 percent,” and that number falls with each passing year. According to the widely used “international poverty line,” people are considered to be in “extreme poverty” if they live on less than $1.90 per day or its equivalent.

     I have always thought that a new ice age would be coming, not based upon any science, since I know nothing about science, but because the very idea was “cool.” Oh, a pun, pardon me, we are too old for that. Anyway, apart from my ignorance, I could be right:
  https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1237178/weather-warning-ice-age-earth-sun-hibernates-solar-minimum-long-range-forecast

“Earth could be braced for a ‘mini ICE-AGE' as experts warn a solar minimum could last until the 2050s. Sunspot activity on the surface of the Sun follows a well-known but little understood 11 year cycle. Activity rises and falls creating the so-called solar maximum and then solar minimum. During a solar maximum, the Sun is more powerful and is littered with sunspots. Conversely when the Sun enters a solar minimum – which it did about two years ago - energy from our host star begins to lessen. However, one expert has warned that the Sun will enter a period of “hibernation” this year, in what as known as a Grand Solar Minimum (GSM). Prof Valentina Zharkova, from the department of mathematics, physics and electrical engineering at Northumbria University, warned this could cause global temperatures to drop by one degrees Celsius. While that sounds like an insignificant drop, it could have major ramifications for the planet, including a slowdown in agricultural production.”

     Apparently, the coronavirus can be transmitted through human faeces, and the media is having fun, like kids playing in mud for the first time, saying the word “faeces,” over, and over, and over again, with Freudian delight:
  https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/02/02/asia-pacific/science-health-asia-pacific/coronavirus-feces-risk-of-spread/#.XjzjbGgzaUk

“While doctors have focused on respiratory samples from pneumonia cases to identify coronavirus patients, they might have ignored a less apparent source of the spread: diarrhea. The novel coronavirus was detected in the loose stool of the first U.S. case — a finding that hasn’t featured among case reports from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the outbreak. However, that doesn’t surprise scientists who have studied coronaviruses, nor doctors familiar with the bug that caused SARS. Diarrhea occurred in about 10 to 20 percent of patients afflicted with severe acute respiratory syndrome about 17 years ago and was the source of an explosive SARS outbreak in the Amoy Gardens residential complex in Hong Kong. SARS and Wuhan viruses bind to the same distinctly shaped protein receptors in the body that are expressed in the lungs and intestines, making these organs the primary targets for both viruses, said Fang Li, an associate professor of veterinary and biomedical sciences at the University of Minnesota. The discovery of the Wuhan virus, dubbed 2019-nCoV, in the fecal material of the 35-year-old man treated at the Providence Regional Medical Center Everett in Washington is “interesting,” said Scott Lindquist, the state epidemiologist for infectious disease at Washington’s Department of Health. “That adds to the knowledge about this,” he told reporters on a conference call Friday. “It’s not only excreted in your respiratory secretions, it’s also secreted in your stool.”

     Some interesting part of our heritage may have been uncovered; the coronation place of Edgar the Peaceful:
  https://www.livescience.com/lost-monastery-discovered-england-first-king-coronation.html

“Newly unearthed remains may come from the monastery where England's first king, Edgar the Peaceful, was coronated more than 1,000 years ago, according to Wessex Archaeology, an archaeological company and charity in England. The so-called smoking gun emerged during an excavation at the famous Bath Abbey, ahead of planned renovations there. During the excavation, archaeologists were surprised to find hints of Anglo-Saxon architecture in two structures next to the abbey. These are the first known Anglo-Saxon structures in all of Bath, a city that was founded by the Roman Empire and that is known for its thermal hot springs. The two apsidal (semicircular) structures, or apses, were found below street level, underneath what once made up the cloisters of the 12th-century cathedral built over Romano-British deposits. The cathedral is just south of the abbey church. After finding the Anglo-Saxon stone structures, archaeologists used a method called radiocarbon dating on charcoal found in some of the plaster of one of these apses. Since scientists know the rate of decay of radioactive carbon, they can use that to infer how long an object has been in the ground. The charcoal dated to 780-970 and 670-770, Wessex Archaeology found. This time window suggests that the abbey was once part of the Anglo-Saxon monastery where Edgar was coronated, in 973.

     What is the point of working hard? Well, in my opinion, with the West in free fall, with everything open to existential loss for all time, probably not much point at all, for conventional work. All that is really worth doing now is making one last political stand against the criminally insane elites, facing the prospects of the dark night of oblivion:
  https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/2020-edelman-trust-barometer-shows-growing-sense-of-inequality/11883788

“A growing sense of inequality is undermining trust in both society's institutions and capitalism, according to a long-running global survey. The 2020 Edelman Trust Barometer - now in its 20th year - has found many people no longer believe working hard will give them a better life. Despite strong economic performance, a majority of respondents in every developed market do not believe they will be better off in five years' time. This means that economic growth no longer appears to drive trust, at least in developed markets - upending the conventional wisdom. "We are living in a trust paradox," said Richard Edelman, CEO of Edelman. "Since we began measuring trust 20 years ago, economic growth has fostered rising trust. This continues in Asia and the Middle East but not in developed markets, where national income inequality is now the more important factor. Fears are stifling hope, and long-held assumptions about hard work leading to upward mobility are now invalid.

     To set the scene, how about Roxy Music’s Love is the Drug (1975), with the (at the time) handsome Bryan Ferry as lead singer? No, wait, cancel that. I actually listened to the lyrics in the first time since 1975, and suddenly realised that Bryan was singing about something other than holding hands at a Sunday school picnic. Oh well, I will just have another cup of coffee instead:
  https://www.greenwichtime.com/news/article/Caffeine-has-been-a-boon-for-civilization-15031811.php

“Michael Pollan laughs and says, yes, he's on drugs while conducting this interview. Okay, he doesn't use those exact words, but he acknowledges that he has a "tall, takeout container" of half-caff coffee at his side as we discuss, via phone, his latest project, simply titled "Caffeine," available only as an audio book from Audible. Pollan, the author of "The Omnivore's Dilemma," "The Botany of Desire," "In Defense of Food" and "How to Change Your Mind" - in which he has explored our complicated relationship with food, plants, drugs and many other things we take for granted - has turned his imposing analytical skills to caffeine, the most popular mind-altering chemical on the planet. Caffeine would transform the world around us in ways large and small, magnificent and horrific. It would stimulate and focus the mind in a way that would influence the workplace, politics, social relations and "arguably even the rhythms of English prose," Pollan writes. But the cultivation of, and trade in, coffee and tea plants (and the sugar used in both) would also enslave countless people and lead to the East India Company opening an opium trade with China. The drug trade was good for British coffers, but it crippled a great empire. Once business executives discovered caffeine could improve worker production, coffee became capitalism's silent co-conspirator. Pollan delves into a Fair Labor Standards Act case from the 1950s in which a company, Los Wigman Weavers, made 15-minute coffee breaks mandatory, but refused to pay workers for the breaks.

     I don’t in general trust the FBI after its treatment of Trump, but they have probably got it right on the threat of China:
  https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/wray-addresses-china-threat-at-doj-conference-020620

“China is threatening the U.S. economy—and national security—with its relentless efforts to steal sensitive technology and proprietary information from U.S. companies, academic institutions, and other organizations, FBI Director Christopher Wray said today. Wray described the threat from China as “diverse” and “multi-layered.” He noted that the Chinese government exploits the openness of the American economy and society. “They’ve pioneered an expansive approach to stealing innovation through a wide range of actors,” Wray said during opening remarks at the half-day Department of Justice China Initiative Conference in Washington, D.C. Wray told the audience that China is targeting everything from agricultural techniques to medical devices in its efforts to get ahead economically. While this is sometimes done legally, such as through company acquisitions, China often takes illegal approaches, including cyber intrusions and corporate espionage. “They’ve shown that they’re willing to steal their way up the economic ladder at our expense,” he said. The FBI is using traditional law enforcement techniques as well as its intelligence capabilities to combat these threats. He said the FBI currently has about 1,000 investigations into Chinese technology theft. “They’ve shown that they’re willing to steal their way up the economic ladder at our expense.”

     Well, the Minister said this, sterling it is: go home, and rebuild!
  https://breakthematrix.com/danish-minister-tells-somalis-go-home-and-rebuild-your-country/

“Denmark’s migration minister Inger Støjberg has told the country’s Somali migrants to return home and work on improving their own country after the Danish government ruled parts of Somalia safe. Since the Immigration Service began its review of refugee residency permits in early 2017, nearly 1,000 Somalis have had their Danish residency permit revoked, reports the Danish Broadcasting Corporation. Of those, 516 had been directly granted asylum while another 412 were family members who joined them as through chain migration, also known as “family reunion” or “family reunification”. “If you no longer need our protection and your life and health are no longer at risk in your home country, and specifically in Somalia, you must of course return home and rebuild the country from which you came from,” Ms Støjberg said. The automatic right to asylum from countries like Somalia was revoked in Denmark’s 2015 amendment to its Immigration Act. As a result, the Immigration Service announced in autumn 2016 that it would use the new legal basis to review about 1,200 residence permits given to Somalis because of changes to “general conditions” in parts of their country, whereby “there is no longer a basis for asylum, simply because they come from there”. Unlike neighbouring Germany and Sweden, Denmark has taken a tough line on asylum and integration since the Syrian conflict sparked Europe’s migrant crisis in 2015.”

     I hate the way most environmentalists propose that 100 percent renewable energy will solve everything. Heck, making the renewables itself is a high entropy producing act:
  https://www.msn.com/en-us/finance/markets/wind-turbine-blades-can-e2-80-99t-be-recycled-so-they-e2-80-99re-piling-up-in-landfills/ar-BBZFHsw

“A wind turbine’s blades can be longer than a Boeing 747 wing, so at the end of their lifespan they can’t just be hauled away. First, you need to saw through the lissome fiberglass using a diamond-encrusted industrial saw to create three pieces small enough to be strapped to a tractor-trailer. The municipal landfill in Casper, Wyoming, is the final resting place of 870 blades whose days making renewable energy have come to end. The severed fragments look like bleached whale bones nestled against one another. “That’s the end of it for this winter,” said waste technician Michael Bratvold, watching a bulldozer bury them forever in sand. “We’ll get the rest when the weather breaks this spring.” Tens of thousands of aging blades are coming down from steel towers around the world and most have nowhere to go but landfills. In the U.S. alone, about 8,000 will be removed in each of the next four years. Europe, which has been dealing with the problem longer, has about 3,800 coming down annually through at least 2022, according to BloombergNEF. It’s going to get worse: Most were built more than a decade ago, when installations were less than a fifth of what they are now. Built to withstand hurricane-force winds, the blades can’t easily be crushed, recycled or repurposed. That’s created an urgent search for alternatives in places that lack wide-open prairies.

     Trust mother nature to solve our radiation problem, so we can keep up our high levels of consumption in this age of plenty:
  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7966773/Fungi-EATS-radiation-used-like-sun-block-humans-protect-against-deadly-rays.html

“A strand of fungi which spawned inside the Chernobyl nuclear reactor and eats radiation could allow humans to insulate against deadly rays. In 1991, five years after the disaster which rocked Ukraine, the black fungi was found sprouting up the walls of the abandoned reactor which had been flooded with gamma. Baffled how it managed to survive the extreme conditions, scientists examined the microorganism - and were even more excited with their findings. In addition to not perishing, they discovered that the fungi actually grows towards the radiation, as if attracted to it. This is because of its large amounts of melanin - the pigment which turns skin dark - and allows the fungi to absorb normally harmful rays which it then converts into chemical energy. In the same way in which plants convert carbon dioxide and chlorophyll into oxygen and glucose via photosynthesis, the fungi sapped up deadly rays which allowed it to produce energy. This process - hailed radiosynthesis - has captured the attention of scientists because of its potentially revolutionary implications. Kasthuri Venkateswaran, a research scientist at NASA who is leading the experiments on the Cryptococcus neoformans fungi, believes that by extracting its radiation-absorbing power and manufacturing it in drug form, it could be used as a 'sun block' against toxic rays.”

     The received view is that only whites are racist because of the culture of guilt as a weapon, blah, blah, Great Replacement etc. Ok, but there is a problem. What if there is discrimination within a racial group against its own members?
  https://www.capebretonpost.com/news/local/chinese-woman-says-sydney-ns-restaurant-discriminating-against-her-406361/

“A Chinese woman says a Sydney restaurant is discriminating against their own culture. Olivia Lu, a Glace Bay resident from China attending Cape Breton University, says Chinese students are being barred from entering the Fortune Star Chinese Restaurant in Sydney. “It’s discrimination, it’s ridiculous, it’s so rude,” said Lu. Lu said a couple days ago a group of her friends went to the restaurant, sat down and were asked to leave. “They told them they don’t accept Chinese students anymore,” she said. “They said they could call and place an order and call delivery man to pick it up.” Lu said a sign was posted on the door in Chinese which translated read: “Due to the recent outbreak of pneumonia in Wuhan for the safety of everyone, our store does not accept Chinese students for the time being. If necessary, you can call for deliver. Sorry for the inconvenience, please forgive me.” After students began sharing photos of the sign on social media, there was an uproar from angry students. “Then the next day they put up a new sign saying they were closing the restaurant for a month,” Lu said. Although she hears the restaurant makes really good food, Lui said she will never go there again. “The thing is, they are all Chinese, even the staff that work there are Chinese,” she said, adding that this should never happen anywhere, but the restaurant is even doing it to their own people. Although some students did go home over the holiday break, the virus didn’t start until after that and the flights are shut down anyway, she said. Many Chinese students on Facebook sites were expressing anger over the restaurant’s decision, most feeling it was discrimination. There are also some posts defending the restaurant, saying obviously the owner is taking precautions.”

     President Trump gave the State of the Union address, and Demo-rat Nancy Pelosi was seen tearing up his speech behind him, like a little spoilt child, having a temper tantrum:
  https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/02/06/watch-nancy-pelosi-busted-pre-ripping-trumps-sotu-speech/
  https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/02/06/nancy-pelosi-necessary-tear-up-trumps-manifesto-mistruths/
  https://www.zerohedge.com/political/turley-nancy-pelosi-should-resign

“The House has its share of infamies, great and small, real and symbolic, and has been the scene of personal infamies from brawls to canings. But the conduct of Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the State of the Union address this week will go down as a day of infamy for the chamber as an institution. It has long been a tradition for House speakers to remain stoic and neutral in listening to the address. However, Pelosi seemed to be intent on mocking President Trump from behind his back with sophomoric facial grimaces and head shaking, culminating in her ripping up a copy of his address. Her drop the mic moment will have a lasting impact on the House. While many will celebrate her trolling of the president, she tore up something far more important than a speech. Pelosi has shredded decades of tradition, decorum and civility that the nation could use now more than ever. The House speaker is more than a political partisan, particularly when carrying out functions such as the State of the Union address. A president appears in the House as a guest of both chambers of Congress. The House speaker represents not her party or herself but the entirety of the chamber. At that moment, she must transcend her own political ambitions and loyalties. Tensions for this address were high. The House impeachment managers sat as a group in front of the president as a reminder of the ongoing trial. That can be excused as a silent but pointed message from the Democrats.

     The photos of rows upon rows of beds looks like something out of a zombie apocalypse movie, but, it is China’s prep for the coronavirus. Just check out the beds here, frightening indeed:
  https://www.zerohedge.com/health/hospital-or-coronavirus-deathatorium
  https://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/nz-mans-eyewitness-account-of-coronavirus-outbreak-in-wuhan-people-are-fighting-for-food_02052020

“A man from New Zealand says that he has had a first-hand account of what’s been happening in Wuhan after the coronavirus’ outbreak at the end of 2019. He says people are fighting for food and reselling used facemasks. A New Zealand man living in China has described his reality of the viral outbreak that has killed almost 500 people now, saying the China we see on the internet is far from the truth.  The mainstream media is manipulating the information and with Google and The World Health Organization teaming up to “kill” or censor accounts that don’t fit the official narrative, we may not ever get the complete and honest truth of just how bad the outbreak could become. The aforementioned New Zealand man, who lives in northeast China with his wife and two children, says they are barely getting by. “It’s getting worse by the day … everything has fallen apart here,” the man, who asked for anonymity out of fear of his family’s safety, said, according to the New Zealand Herald. “Fear levels are high and there is a lot of conflicting information, but people are staying calm,” an Australian woman told the Herald, contradicting the New Zealanders’ claim of mayhem. The New Zealand man told the Herald people had been selling masks for as much as $50. “I see old ladies walking around picking face masks out of the trash and then they sell them on the street the next day laughing about it,” he said. “When China says they’ve got enough and they’re handing them out, they’re not, I can tell you that now – there’s none available anywhere.” To make them appear new, the women would iron them after plucking the masks from the bin, the man said. Additionally, according to his claims,  fights were often breaking out over things like eggs and vegetables.”

To The Australian        In her promotion of a practical referendum for Aboriginal constitutional recognition ("Referendum must be practical, not symbolic", 7/2) Shirleen Morris misrepresents the nature of conservative opposition to any such recognition. It is not that there is a fear of "legal uncertainty", but that the whole idea is seen as dangerously divisive and powered by a long-term plan for total separatism involving two discrete national states on this continent. The project is clearly against the interests of the great majority of Australians. Morris also misidentifies its conservative opponents. Those she names are all supporters of constitutional change. The real conservatives are those who oppose any separatist policies, including the enacting of treaties. We need a more scrupulous as well as a more open debate to precede any referendum; and the government must ensure that the "No" case is fairly represented and funded.
  Nigel Jackson, Belgrave

To The Australian        In her promotion of a practical referendum for Aboriginal constitutional recognition ("Referendum must be practical, not symbolic", 7/2) Shirleen Morris misrepresents the nature of conservative opposition to any such recognition. It is not that there is a fear of "legal uncertainty", but that the whole idea is seen as dangerously divisive and powered by a long-term plan for total separatism involving two discrete national states on this continent. The project is clearly against the interests of the great majority of Australians. Morris also misidentifies its conservative opponents. Those she names are all supporters of constitutional change. The real conservatives are those who oppose any separatist policies, including the enacting of treaties. We need a more scrupulous as well as a more open debate to precede any referendum; and the government must ensure that the "No" case is fairly represented and funded.
  Nigel Jackson, Belgrave, Vic

     There are an increasing number of  essays on the internet, arguing against the popular trend in thought that the fall of Ancient Rome was not a catastrophe, but rather that the barbarian migrants integrated into Roman society, merely transforming it. Wow, does that view tell us something about the politics of today, or what! The most important book arguing against this happy face view of collapse is by Oxford don, Bryan Ward-Perkins, The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization (Oxford University press, 2006). Assembled there is a wealth of evidence showing that the standard of living in Rome after the fall, was that of prehistoric times. It was cultural and technological catastrophe, involving a great die off of thousands.
  https://www.amazon.com/Fall-Rome-End-Civilization/dp/0192807285
  https://www.bu.edu/historic/hs/perkins.pdf
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erHrL7UV27Y

     Thus, dark ages were really dark. This is important for us, because there is a strong case that the West is the modern Rome, and that we are heading into the same horrors, indeed, greater horrors, that will sink us. Almost all of the factors that brought Rome down, are here, right now.
  https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2020/02/01/the-new-dark-ages-in-western-europe-and-north-america-comparisons-with-the-fall-of-rome/

     It was the claim of murky Merkle that the influx of refugees, mainly men, would solve Germany’s employment problem. Sure, as if they do not age. But, regardless of that:
  https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-bamf-looks-to-southern-europe-for-skilled-labor/a-52225546

“A lack of education is making it hard for refugees from developing countries to integrate into Germany's skilled labor market. An estimated 17% of participants in German integration courses are illiterate. The head of  Germany's Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), Hans-Eckhard Sommer, said that integrating refugees into Germany's labor market will be a difficult task, and called for Germany to focus on attracting skilled labor from countries in southern Europe. In an interview with Germany's Rheinische Post newspaper published on Saturday, Sommer said that there are many jobless, well-educated young people in Southern Europe who would be "considerably easier" to integrate. On March 1, the German government will implement a skilled labor immigration law intended to make it easier for highly qualified foreigners to work in Germany. Under EU law, there are no legal barriers for EU citizens to work in other countries in the 27-member bloc. "I think we should concentrate harder on recruiting professionals from Europe," said Sommer.

     The vegan diet, no meats, animal products etc. is promoted as healthy and increasing the life span by its supporters, if you call that living. But, what about the effects of this diet on your brain?
  https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200127-how-a-vegan-diet-could-affect-your-intelligence

“The idea that avoiding meat is bad for our brains makes some intuitive sense; anthropologists have been arguing about what our ancestors ate for decades, but many scientists think that there was a lot of bone-crunching and brain-slurping on the road to evolving these remarkable 1.4kg (3lb) organs. Some have even gone so far as to say that meat made us human. One reason is that intelligence is expensive – the brain devours about 20% of our daily calories, though it accounts for just 2% of our body weight – and what better way to find the enormous array of fats, amino acids, vitamins and minerals these fastidious organs require, than by feasting on animals which have already painstakingly collected or made them. … On the one hand, recent concern about the nutritional gaps in plant-based diets has led to a number of alarming headlines, including a warning that they can stunt brain development and cause irreversible damage to a person’s nervous system. Back in 2016, the German Society for Nutrition went so far as to categorically state that – for children, pregnant or nursing women, and adolescents – vegan diets are not recommended, which has been backed up by a 2018 review of the research. After the Royal Academy of Medicine in Belgium decided a vegan diet was “unsuitable” for children, parents who force a vegan diet on their offspring in Belgium could even one day find themselves in prison.

     Here is an interesting piece from American Dissent Right intellectual Brett Stevens, who is doing some fundamental rethinking about the future of, well, everything. In particular, he sees mainstream conservatism as dead, and the need for white folk to forge a new philosophy of life, or return to an old one, distilling conservativism down to its essence:
  http://www.amerika.org/politics/furthest-right/

“To address those many details, one needs a unifying system of thought based on a simple idea. The Left has equality, which is basically “me first” anarchy with grocery stores. The Right has the notion of preserving that which works best from any age. If you had to state those as simply as possible, the Left is the pro-human position and the Right is the pro-nature position. We believe that the order of nature is superior to that of humankind; we recognize that humankind fits within nature and not vice versa; we do not trust individualism, but prefer orders on levels above the individual like logic, fact, history, nature, culture, and the divine. The difficulty with being conservative comes from the two meanings of conservative. We know what conservatism has been in abstraction, which designates the continuity of meaning it has had throughout history, but then there is conservatism as instance, or the public mainstream conservatives that we see in the Republican Party and the type of half-Trotskyist, half-Libertarian nonsense they peddle. To be Furthest Right requires that one accept conservatism as a core idea, which is that we reject the human in favor of time, logic, and fact. That means less reliance on the symbolic, social, and emotional bubble in which most people live, and more focus on what works. Conservatism consists of two planks: realism and transcendence. This takes us away from utilitarianism, or choosing our future actions by what most humans say they think is best, and all symbolic ideologies.

     Much has been said about the ill-effects of 5G technology, but maybe the fact that sperms are going to get toasted, might make some rams of the sheeple flock, think:
  https://www.technocracy.news/scientists-5g-network-could-lower-sperm-counts-and-sterilize-young-men/

“There are fears that increased levels of radiation in the UK as 5G coverage spreads across the country could seriously impact human fertility levels. The rollout of the high-speed network, which was launched in Britain in May last year, has sparked protests from those who believe higher levels of electro-magnetic radiation (EMR) in the atmosphere are dangerous and 5G’s potential health effects need to be tested. A letter presented to Downing Street last week urged Prime Minister Boris Johnson to open an inquiry into “establishing the true impact of wireless communication systems on the health of the UK population”. “We are extremely concerned by the vulnerability of our young and very young people to the harmful effects of pulsed RF radiation,” read the letter which was handed over along with two petitions, one of which was signed by 268 physicians and scientists. “Study upon study is showing that this non-ionising radiation is causing oxidative DNA damage in cellular systems and this may be particularly harmful to the reproductive system of young boys, adolescents and young men.” Sperm counts among British men have fallen by 29% in the last decade. Multiple international studies have found a link between increased mobile phone use and a drop in both the quantity and quality of sperm. A 2016 review by the Society for Reproduction and Fertility reported that of 27 studies investigating the effects of mobile phone EMR on the male reproductive system, 21 resulted in negative consequences of exposure. In a 2018 article called ‘Wi-Fi is an important threat to human health’ which was published in the journal Environmental Research, Dr Martin Pall from Washington State University cites a 1997 experiment with chilling results. Two pairs of young mice were placed into cages with different levels of exposure to a functioning antenna, although the exposure levels at both sites were well within safety guidelines. The pair in the cage with a higher exposure level produced one litter of smaller than normal babies, a second litter with fewer than normal babies, and demonstrated infertility or very low fertility from this point on. The pair exposed to a lower level of EMR produced four litters with fewer numbers of babies each time, before they became completely infertile.