Sweden – Massive Up-scaling of False-flagging to Nationwide High Crimes – Will it Make the Right-Wing Swedish Democrats to Kingmakers on 9 September 2018?
HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.
NORDFRONT MILITANTS. Sweden's right is on the march—literally. How quickly do people forget history's lessons. The fruits of US imperialist intrigues and wars reach everywhere.
The current Swedish Government, led by the Social Democrats, is governed by a coalition with the Green Party since 2014. Incumbent PM, Stefan Löfven, intends to continue his government and hopes to win on general election day, next Sunday, 9 September 2018. However, for years – ever since what they call the onslaught of undesirable immigrants, i.e. the “lesser people” from the Middle East and thereabouts – the extreme right, anti-immigration, eurosceptics ‘Sweden Democrats’ are on course to become the second-largest single party in the next parliament. On Facebook the party’s leader, Jimmie Åkesson, warned that “Sweden is on fire again”. He may have referred to the hundreds of cars set a blast this year in major Swedish cities – and the again likely refers to the same phenomenon at a lesser scale that has beleaguered Sweden already in previous years.
They, the Swedish Democrats, are building up their momentum to take over and becoming the kingmakers, this coming election. It looks like they have engaged hooligan-Nazi-type xenophobes – like those that fight the mainstream in Germany’s streets – the AFD (the Alternative for Germany) sponsored masses – to stage false flag terror attacks, mostly setting cars on fire. The cities principally affected are Stockholm, Malmö and Gothenburg. This year, the year of elections, the terror peaked with hundreds of car burnings and even a drive-by shooting in which at least three people lost their lives. When people feel in danger, are fearful, because they seem helpless against an unknown enemy – the terror – they turn to the right for protection. Its them, the right that promises fierce police and military protection – and, indeed, they carry out their promise.
Justlook at France. After a number of false flag attacks in which hundreds of people lost their lives – Macron was able to put the “State of Emergency” – akin to Martial Law – into the French Constitution. France today looks like a police and military state, in larger cities you find armed police and machine-gun touting military at every street corner. The sight has become the new normal. Are the French safer for it? Nope. Because the danger comes from within, not from outside. The danger comes from the very protectors which are complicit with those ‘hidden’ forces that want to maintain a police state that oppresses the public, so that this small all-controlling elite, can do what it wants.
Strange enough, a year before the last elections in Sweden, in 2013, there was a similar eruption of car burnings in Stockholm, at a more modest scale, but all the same. Someone must have felt this kind of terror, rather new for Europe, and that could easily be ‘pushed off’ to unhappy immigrants – of which surely there are plenty – might ignite the anti-immigrant discourse. – This time it seems to work. The Social Democrats are way down in the opinion polls and the Swedish Democrats, way up, poised to become the key player in the next government.
France is in the middle of Europe, ready to break down any potential peoples’ uprising. Is Sweden going the Nordic way of France? – The risk is there, if the extreme right wins. – Are the Swedes conscious of this risk? – I doubt it. The corporate war propaganda tells them differently. And looking beyond one’s borders to learn, is hardly a nation’s forte. Its learning the hard way and discovering when it’s too late.
Firefighters in Malmo—futile work.
[dropcap]B[/dropcap]ack to Sweden, in concrete, none of the two leading coalitions are predicted to have an absolute majority. The one led by the Social Democrats (Labor Party equivalent) is forecast to make 38.6% and the Conservative Alliance almost 40%. The right-wing, anti-immigrant and euro-sceptic Sweden Democrats have increased their adherents by about 50% since the 2014 elections and may get up to 20% at the polls - which may make them the Kingmakers. And that largely thanks to the street havoc, destruction and terror they organized. Not a good omen for Sweden.
After a number of false flag attacks in which hundreds of people lost their lives – Macron was able to put the “State of Emergency” – akin to Martial Law – into the French Constitution. France today looks like a police and military state, in larger cities you find armed police and machine-gun touting military at every street corner. The sight has become the new normal. Are the French safer for it? Nope. Because the danger comes from within, not from outside.
A NATO Sweden would be bordering on other NATO Russia fiends, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia and could closely collaborate with them for possible aggression towards Russia – the northern build-up of troops could easily be channeled through a new NATO Sweden.
Are the Swedes conscious of this potentially new perspective? – The extreme-right Swedish Democrats have stolen voters from all the parties under the pretext of the immigrant curse and danger. Western paid propaganda played an important role, like everywhere when right-wing and hegemonic forces are at play.
If Sweden falls, Finland – another neutral and NATO-unaligned country – might also fall. Norway and Denmark are already part of this murderous monster-club. The northern attack route is being established.
Swedish defense minister Karin Enstrom has said her country is not in NATO partly because the EU treaty contains its own security guarantee: “Who needs NATO if you have the Lisbon Treaty?” – Right. But the Lisbon Treaty is not engaging at all. Its not a European Constitution which would be binding for all member states, and which would allow Europe to build-up her own defense strategy and defense forces – and which would allow, or even force Europe to pull on the same string – and more importantly – in the same direction.
All of this is not the case today. That’s why Europe is every time more integrated into NATO – NATO is absorbing the EU, one country and one military budget at the time. Karin Enstrom’s wise words – wise, inasmuch as we don’t want NATO – are wishful thinking, delusionary, unfortunately. It would need a massive awakening in Europe and a massive resistance buildup against NATO to come clear of this ever-growing threat on Russia that has the capacity to annihilate first Europe, then the world. Mr. Putin and Mr. Lavrov warn the west all the time – but are they listening? – At least for now, President Putin’s chess-playing excellence has avoided such a global catastrophe.
The United States of America, for whom war is economic survival, the arms race is profitable, peace would be Washington’s downfall – literally down into the pits – the US of A will not listen to such warnings. It is a fine line that President Putin and China’s President Xi Jinping, a firm and powerful defense and economic alliance, are walking.
Sweden is at the crossroads of going down the dangerous and destructive path of western aggression or stay neutral, remain a northern nation of integrity, ethics and peace. It is high time – and never too late – that the Swedes awaken to the danger that might await them this coming Sunday, 9 September. Swedes, you have proudly followed a socialist-leaning and social agenda for the last hundred years. Are you thoughtlessly risking abandoning this noble tradition – for false pretexts indoctrinated by a massive campaign of false flags? – I trust not.
About the Author
Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, RT, Sputnik, PressTV, The 4th Media (China), TeleSUR, The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.
In his zeal to prove to his antagonists in the War Party that he is as bloodthirsty as their champion, Hillary Clinton, and more manly than Barack Obama, Trump seems to have gone “play-crazy” -- acting like an unpredictable maniac in order to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon.However, the “play-crazy” gambit can only work when the leader is, in real life, a disciplined and intelligent actor, who knows precisely what actual boundaries must not be crossed. That ain’t Donald Trump -- a pitifully shallow and ill-disciplined man, emotionally handicapped by obscene privilege and cognitively crippled by white American chauvinism. By pushing Trump into a corner and demanding that he display his most bellicose self, or be ceaselessly mocked as a “puppet” and minion of Russia, a lesser power, the War Party and its media and clandestine services have created a perfect storm of mayhem that may consume us all.—Glen Ford, Editor in Chief, Black Agenda Report
“WE ARE NOT PRO-RUSSIAN, WE ARE RUSSIANS!” – BRAVE WOMAN PUTS A TAUNTING UKRAINIAN JOURNALIST IN HIS PLACE
HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.
Translated by Ollie Richardson & Angelina Siard
rusvesna.su
A taunting “journalist” received a rebuff from a female resident of the occupied Severodonetsk who was not afraid in front of the camera to say what the vast majority of the people of Donbass think.
The pseudo-journalist, most likely, asked questions about the new language law, which is directed towards a bigger suppression of Russian in Ukraine.
“We live in Severodonetsk here, this is Donbass, here 100% speak Russian. And those who pretend to that they speak in Ukrainian, it’s not a Ukrainian language, but Surzhyk. The Ukrainian language is there, beyond Kiev. And even there it doesn’t exist, there is a banderist one,” stated the fearless Severodonetsk resident.
“And if I, for example, speak in Ukrainian?” asks the journalist in Ukrainian.
“But speak!”
“It’s normal?” repeats the “journalist” with boorish intonation to this courageous woman, who is most suitable to be his grandmother.
“Normal?! Please, do it! I understand you in every way: both in Russian and in Ukrainian. But you mustn’t impose me [to speak Ukrainian].”
“And you – can you respect Ukranian-speaking people?” said the “journalist”, who continues to provoke.
“But of course, let them speak, and not do bad things,” she said.
“And are you somehow forced to speak in Ukrainian?”
“Ah! But yes, we are already forced: 75% must speak in Ukrainian, and 25% — in whatever you want (most likely, she is referring to the new law about information broadcasting, which assumes that three quarters of TV and radio, and also the printed media must be released in Ukrainian). Ukrainian language will be in schools, the documents of enterprises will be in Ukrainian (it should be noted that the flow of documents was forcibly passed long before the coup d’etat). Write both in Russian and in Ukrainian.”
“But you live in Ukraine, and it is our state language,” said the journalist, who started to play the old song that was always a stumbling block in the language question.
“Well, and what, Do I live in Ukraine? I live in Donbass, you understand? In Donbass people speak Russian. And those who now begin to speak in Ukrainian cuddle up. And tell me, what language does Avakov speak? In Russian!” asks the woman to the journalist, who suddenly becomes speechless.
“So here there are no such frank Ukrainians, here all are pro-Russian,” commented the journalist, already with a not-so-vigorous voice.
“We are not pro-Russians, but Russians!” said the brave Donbass woman, who continues to “destroy” the pseudo-journalist. “We are Russians. We speak Russian, and we act in Russian.
While our media prostitutes, many Hollywood celebs, and politicians and opinion shapers make so much noise about the still to be demonstrated damage done by the Russkies to our nonexistent democracy, this is what the sanctimonious US government has done overseas just since the close of World War 2. And this is what we know about. Many other misdeeds are yet to be revealed or documented.
Parting shot—a word from the editors The Best Definition of Donald Trump We Have Found
In his zeal to prove to his antagonists in the War Party that he is as bloodthirsty as their champion, Hillary Clinton, and more manly than Barack Obama, Trump seems to have gone “play-crazy” — acting like an unpredictable maniac in order to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon.However, the “play-crazy” gambit can only work when the leader is, in real life, a disciplined and intelligent actor, who knows precisely what actual boundaries must not be crossed. That ain’t Donald Trump — a pitifully shallow and ill-disciplined man, emotionally handicapped by obscene privilege and cognitively crippled by white American chauvinism. By pushing Trump into a corner and demanding that he display his most bellicose self, or be ceaselessly mocked as a “puppet” and minion of Russia, a lesser power, the War Party and its media and clandestine services have created a perfect storm of mayhem that may consume us all.—Glen Ford, Editor in Chief, Black Agenda Report
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The Washington Post Wants To Revive A CIA Sponsored Culture war Against Communism
BE SURE TO PASS THESE ARTICLES TO FRIENDS AND KIN. A LOT DEPENDS ON THIS. DO YOUR PART.
By R S Ahthion
A bizarre article has appeared in the Washington Post urging for the revitalisation of an anti-communism culture war of CIA funding to “help artists struggling to break through overseas today” (1, WashingtonPost). More interestingly the author wants to use the movie Sorry To Bother You to do this.
The author (Sonny Bunch) betrays his imperial desires almost in his first sentence with “overseas today”. His first concern is not the direction his country is going in (a bleak one with a climate denier sex offender at the helm) but with combatting communism in other countries. The author, Sonny Bunch, talks about a book he’s recently read The Pied Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold war (titled to the less provocative The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters in the United States). This book he praises to the heavens though he warns you to “ignore its bias” (ie. the conclusion).
That’s very kind of him.
He also praises the likes of the Ford Foundation which was founded by Henry Ford. Henry Ford was an anti-semite who sponsoredThe Dearborn Independent newspaper that was a strongly anti-semitic newspaper that ran for 8 years.
A page from the deeply anti-semitic newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, Henry Ford sponsored for over 8 years.
“you’ll discover a fascinatingly byzantine effort to turn the world to the American way of thinking via pen and paint rather than munitions and murder.” (1)
Which of course ignores the fact that the CIA was changing the world with murder and munitions during the entire cold war. The author likely doesn’t even know (or is so blinded by ideology) that the US has been at war 225 years out of its 243 year existence.(2) That’s a whole lotta murder to ensure the world heads in the direction dictated by Washington.
When Americans talk of “Pax-Americana” (The American Peace) I’m reminded of “Pax-Romana” (The Roman Peace) and a speech by Calgacus who fought for freedom from the rule of Roman Empire.
From the death squads the CIA sponsored in Guyana, Guatemala, Peru and Dominican Republic. To understand how the CIA truly operated during the Cold War I can only recommend the chapter “Introducing the marvelous new world of death squads” in William Blum's brilliant Killing Hope book. In which William Blum expertly shows how the CIA trained torture units in Latin America and Africa as well as death squads that killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people.
The CIA seemed to work from a standpoint of, as William Blum puts it, “saving democracy from communism by getting rid of democracy”.
In a blog Sonny Bunch wrote on the 22/8/2018 for Freebeacon.com titled In Praise of Cultural Warfare (3) he confirms this in a tweet he’s made.
Just started reading a book about how the CIA helped spread western art in communist countries in order to subvert totalitarian regimes.
The book frames this as a bad thing. Me, I’m like, “DOUBLE THE CIA’S BUDGET, THIS IS ALL FANTASTIC.”
In this rambling blogpost on freebeacon he continues
Nabokov wasn’t “throwing punches at a man with his hands tied behind his back”: He was punching up at one of the few remaining world powers, an enemy state that had set its sights on bringing America to its knees. That Shostakovich was the Evil Empire’s representative at this event may have been unfortunate. But cultural warfare ain’t beanbag.
It’s interesting to see this kind of hysterical anti-communism creep back into society. At what point was the Soviet Union ever going to invade the United States? During 1917–1920 when, just after a World War it was then embroiled in a civil war then invaded by 14 countries one of which was the United States. Of the 14 countries they were some of the most powerful at the time (UK, France, United Kingdom, United States, Japan).
Czechoslovakia and Japan alone sent 120,000 troops into Russia.
U.S. troops invading Russia ( Vladivostok) August 1918
[dropcap]W[/dropcap]as the Soviet Union then going to invade the United States whilst it was fully occupied with industrialisation and bringing the living standards of the poorest of the country to a higher standard in the 2nd fastest industrialisation the world has ever seen (the first being China). Were they then going to invade the United States in the 30s whilst the Soviet Union was roiled with internal politics then focused on helping Spain from being steam rolled by fascist Italy and Germany (facilitated by the western powers who feigned neutrality whilst helping the Axis powers). Was the invasion going to happen after World war 2 in which the Soviet Union lost 27 million people, saved the world from nazism and their entire country had been bombed to smithereens? At what point in history was the Soviet Union ever going to affect the United States personally?
Of course I don’t write this article to affect Sonny Bunch or for the deluded people who buy into his bullshit but for my own entertainment. As it is amusing to see such a historically tone deaf and illiterate his piece is. We can only assume he’s too busy mid orgasm reading cointelpro briefings on assassinations in the 80s to do any thorough research.
In signing off his freebeacon.com article Sonny says (in recommendation of Saunders book The Pied Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold war):
Breathtaking really. I’ve already read Saunders book but unfortunately I did it with a cup of tea not a shot of ideology.
The icing on the cake of course is that the film he wants to promote was written by Boots Riley who identifies as a communist and who is trying to promote a communist and anti-capitalist sentiment in his new film.
And on that note, here’s one of my favourite tracks of his.
Parting shot—a word from the editors The Best Definition of Donald Trump We Have Found
In his zeal to prove to his antagonists in the War Party that he is as bloodthirsty as their champion, Hillary Clinton, and more manly than Barack Obama, Trump seems to have gone “play-crazy” — acting like an unpredictable maniac in order to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon.However, the “play-crazy” gambit can only work when the leader is, in real life, a disciplined and intelligent actor, who knows precisely what actual boundaries must not be crossed. That ain’t Donald Trump — a pitifully shallow and ill-disciplined man, emotionally handicapped by obscene privilege and cognitively crippled by white American chauvinism. By pushing Trump into a corner and demanding that he display his most bellicose self, or be ceaselessly mocked as a “puppet” and minion of Russia, a lesser power, the War Party and its media and clandestine services have created a perfect storm of mayhem that may consume us all.—Glen Ford, Editor in Chief, Black Agenda Report
Exclusive: Shell Took 16 Years To Warn Shareholders of Climate Risks, Despite Knowing in Private All Along
HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.
Fossil fuels, animal agriculture and an amoral industrialism have created the current ecocide Understand your place in the collapsing web of life and what you must do.
CLEARING THE PR POLLUTION THAT CLOUDS CLIMATE SCIENCE
It took oil company Shell more than 16 years to directly warn its shareholders that climate policy posed a financial risk to the company's business model despite knowing — in private and for decades — about the relationship between its products and climate change.
Shell started commissioning confidential work about the impact of burning fossil fuels on the global climate as early as 1981. However, analysis by DeSmog UK and DeSmog found that Shell did not start mentioning the possibility of climate change to shareholders in annual reports before 1991 — 10 years after the company started a research stream to study climate change.
Analysis of Shell’s annual reports and financial records at the time show the company did not give a clear warning to its shareholders about the financial risks “related to the impact of climate change” and attached to their investments until 2004.
DeSmog UK and DeSmog have worked through Shell companies’ annual reports submitted to the UK’s Companies House and 10-K’s and 20-F forms filed under the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) throughout the 1990s and early 2000s to compare what the company knew in private at the end of the 1980s and what it told its shareholders about the environmental and financial risks attached to their investment during the following decade.
Early Days
What Shell knew about climate change at the end of the 1980s is well-established and revealed in a confidential report commissioned by and for Shell called “The Greenhouse Effect”.
The report was dated 1988 and made public for the first time this year after being uncovered by Jelmer Mommers ofDe Correspondent and published on Climate Files. It reveals the company’s examination of climate change had already been ongoing for at least seven years.
The 87-page report warned Shell that its own products were responsible for global warming and that “there is reasonable scientific agreement that increased levels of greenhouse gases would cause a global warming”.
Source: 'The Greenhouse Effect' 1988 report
By 1988, Shell knew that its fossil fuel products were contributing to climate change and that dangerous levels of warming could cause parts of the Earth to become uninhabitable. Yet, it took the company another decade, until 1997, to suggest that “environmental risks” could affect some of the statements the group made about its business operations.
Until 2005, Shell was registered as two different companies, Royal Dutch Petroleum Company in the Netherlands and the Shell Transport and Trading company in the UK, although both companies operated as a single-unit. The Shell Group also included a U.S.-based subsidiary, Shell Oil.
This analysis includes information provided to shareholders through Royal Dutch Petroleum annual reports from 1982-1997, Shell Transport and Trading’s annual reports from 1989 to 2004, filings from Shell Oil from 1993-1998, and Shell’s corporate responsibility reports starting in 1997.
Early 1990s: Controlling the Climate Change Narrative
Despite knowing about the consequences of burning fossil fuels in the early 1980s, Shell made no direct mention of carbon dioxide emissions, global warming, or climate change until 1991.
That year, a Royal Dutch Petroleum annual report recognised “the concern expressed by a number of experts that higher carbon dioxide emissions might increase the possibility of climate change.”
Source: Royal Dutch Petroleum Company's 1991 annual report
The UK-based Shell Transport and Trading company first hinted at the impact of burning fossil fuels without using the term “climate change” in its 1992 report — the year of the first United Nations (UN) climate talks in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Shell group chairman Peter Holmes wrote that the Rio de Janeiro conference had “set the environmental agenda for the coming years” and that environmental and development problems “can only be solved by true international cooperation” and “governments’ willingness to consult business and industry in drawing up laws and putting the emphasis on self-regulation”.
While Holmes chose not to mention the term “climate change” when addressing shareholders about the company’s financial situation, the same year, Shell was keen to show the public what it knew about the possible catastrophic consequences of global warming.
Footage of a 1991 public film about climate change released by Shell’s film and video unit was rediscovered last year. The half-hour documentary called “Climate of Concern” shows that the company had a deep understanding of global warming 27 years ago.
The film warned that burning fossil fuels was warming the world and would cause extreme weather, floods, famines, and climate refugees.
There is no indication of how many people might have seen the film at the time of its release but the short documentary shows how Shell tried to shape its narrative around climate science and its impacts.
DeSmog UK and DeSmog found no evidence of Shell mentioning the film to its shareholders in its 1991 annual reports. A picture of the film’s DVD case was however included on page 32 of Shell’s 1997 sustainability report under a section titled “living up to our principles”.
In this section, Shell said it was making efforts to encourage “open communication” and recognised that its “traditional corporate culture has not necessarily encouraged openness”.
Source: The Shell Report/Shell sustainability report 1997
The cover of the film “Climate of Concern” was included as an example of the company’s “award-winning film and video unit which produces documentaries that contribute to world debates on such issues as deforestation, water, soil erosion, and poverty”. Climate change was not mentioned as a theme for the film and video unit’s work.
1993: ‘Possibility’ of Climate Change but Business as Usual
The confidential report “The Greenhouse Effect” shows that Shell had a clear grasp of global warming and its causes by the late 1980s.
Yet, throughout the 1990s, the company continued to push mixed messages, acknowledging the “possibility of climate change” while emphasising the “scientific uncertainties” over the impact of increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Shell justified its business-as-usual approach by arguing that the world will continue to depend on fossil fuels “for years to come” to meet growing energy demand and ensure “sustainable development”.
In its 1993 accounts, the Shell Group acknowledged the “possibility of climate change” as “probably the greatest environmental dilemma facing all of us” while emphasizing that “scientific uncertainty still surrounds the world’s understanding of climate behaviour”.
For the first time, Shell also recognised that “there is sufficient indication of potential risk for governments and industry to take prudent precautionary measures which are based on sound science and take account of the economic and social needs and aspirations of developing and developed countries”.
Source: Royal Dutch Petroleum and The Shell Transport and Trading's 1993 annual reports
But despite knowing about the impact of burning fossil fuels on the climate, Shell told its shareholders it had to “continue to invest and provide for the future energy needs of society in ways which are environmentally acceptable” while ensuring “the economic viability of the industry”.
Shell knew of the huge environmental risks attached to its own products. In the 1988 report “The Greenhouse Effect”, Shell mentions “a second generation of studies” to answer questions about the future accessibility and costs of fossil fuels.
Yet, in 1993, Shell suggested to its shareholders that investments in the fossil fuel industry will continue to be profitable for years to come.
That year’s Shell Transport and Trading annual report filed at the UK’s Companies House stated that environmental expenditures and the carbon cost of new projects were “comparable to those faced by companies in other similar business” and that impact on the group’s future earnings would depend on “the ability to recover the higher costs on consumers and/or through fiscal incentives offered by governments”.
The company concluded that “over time there will be no material impact on the total of [the] Group companies’ earnings”.
A passage from Shell Oil’s 1993 10-K form filed under SEC in the U.S. told shareholders that Shell “can comply fully [with existing environmental laws] without material adverse impact on its financial position”.
Source: Shell Oil's 1993 10-K form
Shell’s interpretation of environmental regulation and a growing cost of carbon as an “adverse” factor on its business interests contradicts its own findings in the “The Greenhouse Effect”.
The 1988 report concluded that climate change’s “potential implications for the world” were “so large that policy options would need to be considered much earlier” than the end of the century — or within seven years of 1993.
Instead, in 1993, Shell Transport and Trading Company argued that to meet growing energy demand “society will have no option but to use all available energy sources”, citing “plentiful” coal, the “vast potential” of natural gas”, and oil reserves “that have never been higher”.
Source: The Shell Transport and Trading's 1993 annual report
The following year, in 1994, the Shell Group accounts stated that its companies “firmly intend to build on their significant strength in upstream and downstream oil, natural gas, and chemicals and their much smaller, but nevertheless significant, position in coal”.
Shell’s commitment to coal overlooked confidential warning in “The Greenhouse Effect” report that burning coal was causing more carbon dioxide emissions than other fossil fuels. At the time, the report recommended “a swing from coal towards gas”.
1996: Precautionary Measures to Tackle Climate Change
Three years on, the Shell group was still emphasising “uncertainties” about climate science but told its shareholders in its companies’ annual reports that it would take “prudent precautionary action” to tackle the issue.
Source: Royal Dutch Petroleum and The Shell Transport and Trading Company's 1996 annual reports
That year, Shell also cemented its commitment to “sustainable development” which the company defined as “meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” through economic development, environmental protection, and social responsibility.
1997: ‘Possibility of Human Climate Change’ and Cautionary Statement
In 1997, Shell’s language when referring to climate change remained much unchanged.
The group companies’ reports continued to describe the issue as “the possibility that human activities are causing damaging climate change”. The same year, a majority of countries signed the Kyoto Protocol, the first international agreement on climate change which committed countries to set internationally binding emission reduction targets.
Source: Royal Dutch Petroleum and The Shell Transport and Trading's 1997 annual reports
The UK-listed Shell Transport and Trading Company added a cautionary statement to its annual report which identified “environmental risks, fiscal and regulatory developments” as variables which could affect the risk factors associated with “the oil, gas, chemicals, renewable resources, and coal businesses”.
This was the first time the Shell Group mentioned the potential impact environmental risk could have on shareholders’ investment in the company’s fossil fuel products, according to DeSmog's analysis.
Source: The Shell Transort and Trading Company's 1997 annual report
The same year, Shell’s sustainability report made the case for the intensification of the companies’ oil and gas operations, blaming coal for being a “much larger carbon intensive resource”.
Shell claimed that “all the world’s estimated resources of conventional oil and gas could be consumed without raising atmospheric carbon concentration above the limits suggested by even the most pessimistic observers”.
Source: The Shell Report/Shell sustainability report 1997
This is in direct contradiction with Shell’s own findings more than a decade earlier in the 1988 “The Greenhouse Effect” report which identified the carbon dioxide emission share of each of the company’s fossil fuel products.
At the time, the report concluded that of “the total emission of 5.3 GtC, 44 percent came from oil, 38 percent from coal, and 17 percent from gas” — correctly suggesting that burning oil and gas would generate fewer carbon dioxide emissions than coal but would still contribute to the global warming effect.
Source: 'The Greenhouse Effect' 1988 report
Between 1993 and 1998, Shell Oil filed 10-K annual reports, available through the SEC’s public records archives in the U.S. DeSmog found no evidence that any of the filings mentioned the terms “climate change”, “global warming”, or “greenhouse gas”.
During the same period, the Shell group annual reports filed at Companies’ House in the UK all included references to “climate change” and set out the company’s response to environmental and development challenges.
Late 1990s and Early 2000s: Corporate Spin and Peddling Back Climate Science
In 1999, the Shell Group strengthened its language and told its shareholders about opportunities in the clean energy sector linked to “the need to respond to the threat of global warming”.
It added that Shell companies were cutting their greenhouse gas emissions and considering the potential carbon costs of its products.
Shell Transport and Trading also announced that a decision was taken in August 1999 for the company to divest its coal business.
But over the following years, the company appeared to back-peddle over how much it was ready to tell shareholders about the risks attached to their investments.
In 2000, the Shell Transport and Trading Company annual report stated that the Shell Group’s commitment to sustainable development justified the company supplying China with “coal gasification technology”, which it described as using “coal more efficiently and cleanly”.
Coal gasification is a technology that involves chemically transforming the coal into synthetic natural gas rather than burning it directly.
Laszlo Varro, former head of gas, coal, and power markets at the International Energy Agency (IEA) and now its chief economist, previously told the BBC that coal gasification is actually more carbon intensive than coal mining and is “not attractive at all from a climate point of view”.
In 2001, Shell labelled the issue “the perceived threat of global warming” and added that the “world’s dependency on hydrocarbons will remain for decades to come”.
In 2003, neither Royal Dutch Petroleum's nor Shell Transport and Trading Company’s annual report explicitly mentioned “climate change”, “global warming”, or “greenhouse gases”. Instead, the companies shunted discussion of the topic to that year’s sustainability report called The Shell Report, a supplement that focuses on environmental and social issues, sent to investors alongside the annual report.
In that year’s Shell Report, the company stated its concern about man-made climate change and added “action is needed now”. That strong language was yet absent from the company’s financial statement.
Source: The Shell Report/ Shell sustainability report 2003
2004: Climate Change Identified as a Financial Risk for Investment
In 2004, the Shell Group made a significant shift in the way it talked about climate change to its shareholders.
For the first time, Shell included a clear statement in its companies’ annual report about the financial risk attached to investments in the companies’ operations.
It warned shareholders that “government action” to reduce carbon dioxide emissions was leading to challenges to future oil and gas developments. Shell acknowledged that the risks attached to the delivery of new fossil fuel projects “could have an adverse impact on the group’s operational performance and financial position”.
Source: The Shell Transport and Trading Company's 2004 annual report
This was the first time Shell issued a clear warning to it shareholders about the financial risks attached to their investments — 16 years after it was first warned in detail about the role its own products played in contributing to dangerous global warming.
Responding to the findings, a Shell spokesperson told DeSmog:
“Shell has long acknowledged the climate challenge, an issue that has been part of public discourse for many decades, and our position on climate change has been publicly documented for more than two decades through publications such as our annual report and sustainability report.”
“We take seriously our responsibility to report clearly and transparently on financial risks, which includes complying with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regulations. “
DeSmog's anlysis shows Shell’s financial statements and corporate documents filed between the early 1990s and 2004 give an insight into how the company shaped and controlled its own narrative around global warming and its impact over the decades.
While Shell was comfortable using The Shell Report, sustainability reports, and its film and video unit to promote its clear understanding of climate science in the 1990s and early 2000s, it took the company much longer to overtly tell its shareholders of the financial risk climate policy and the impacts of global warming posed to their investments.
Main image: A black and white picture of the Shell Group's managing directors published in The Shell Transport and Trading Company's 1997 annual report.
Swedish defense minister Karin Enstrom has said her country is not in NATO partly because the EU treaty contains its own security guarantee: “Who needs NATO if you have the Lisbon Treaty?” – Right. But the Lisbon Treaty is not engaging at all. Its not a European Constitution which would be binding for all member states, and which would allow Europe to build-up her own defense strategy and defense forces – and which would allow, or even force Europe to pull on the same string – and more importantly – in the same direction.
Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, RT, Sputnik, PressTV, The 4th Media (China), TeleSUR, The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance. 
In his zeal to prove to his antagonists in the War Party that he is as bloodthirsty as their champion, Hillary Clinton, and more manly than Barack Obama, Trump seems to have gone “play-crazy” -- acting like an unpredictable maniac in order to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon.However, the “play-crazy” gambit can only work when the leader is, in real life, a disciplined and intelligent actor, who knows precisely what actual boundaries must not be crossed. That ain’t Donald Trump -- a pitifully shallow and ill-disciplined man, emotionally handicapped by obscene privilege and cognitively crippled by white American chauvinism. By pushing Trump into a corner and demanding that he display his most bellicose self, or be ceaselessly mocked as a “puppet” and minion of Russia, a lesser power, the War Party and its media and clandestine services have created a perfect storm of mayhem that may consume us all.— Glen Ford, Editor in Chief, Black Agenda Report 
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The Russian Peace Threat examines Russophobia, American Exceptionalism and other urgent topics
CLEARING THE PR POLLUTION THAT CLOUDS CLIMATE SCIENCE 
