(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.)
Claimed Global Warming and Climate Threats
You may recall hearing this, back in 2023: This is the hottest year in 12,500 years!
So, it is hotter now than during the ice age! Who’d a thunk it?
Will you base your prepping on a media story about a politician who says “Earth is on fire”?
You can find many charts showing various time periods and temperatures recorded somewhere. Many times a “temperature increase” is measured the exact way and in the same location they did a hundred years ago, in the cities. However, the cities have grown and they retain more heat in the manmade structures. It is actually cooler outside the cities due to wind draw. There may be no net gain in heat. The truth is out there. If you are shown a thirty-year chart, try to find a hundred-year chart, etc. It is easy to pick a warming period if you start at the end of the last cooling period, if you want to show warming.
When I worked in the environmental engineering department for a major manufacturer, the hand-wringing liberals were yelling at me that we are literally heating up the planet. I would ask them, “What temperature would you like it set at?” They didn’t know. No one ever considered what a small portion of the earth’s temperature gain or loss is actually affected by mankind, compared to the solar cycle and volcanic activity. But people, who want to control what you do, see climate change as a useful tool to force compliance to their wishes. In this case, believe what you want. Study. Then follow the science.
I also had the privilege of battling the depletion of the ozone layer. Our manufacturing plant emitted more chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) than virtually anyone. We spent a ton of money replacing CFC use with other methods to clean our products. The ozone layer did restore itself eventually. But, it turned out there is a volcano near the South Pole that put out more ozone-destroying chemicals than we ever could have, and caused the temporary damage. But hey, I may have saved the planet….. With regard to the environment, I may not know everything, but I may know more than a high school kid from Sweden or an ex-bartender from New York.
Various Population control and immigration Claims
An information service ran a story on September 23, 2016 entitled, “Want to slow climate change? Stop Having Babies” and on May 19, 2019 ran a story entitled, “Only Immigration can reverse America’s baby bust.”
You can query the internet to easily find these related stories. These are not opposite of each other, but do indicate an agenda to the reporting – willingness to eliminate certain populations and replace with aliens. Again, I am not picking sides, but I would consider this outlet’s reporting history before following any of their storylines or advice.
Claim: The border is secure!
On October 22, 2022 NBC reported that “The number of undocumented immigrant crossings at the southwest border for fiscal year 2022 topped 2.76 million, breaking the previous annual record by more than 1 million, according to Customs and Border Protection data.”
Then, on November 15, 2022, the US Secretary of Homeland Security testified that the border is secure. Okay. Got it.
Perhaps it depends on the definition of the word “secure”… or the definition of the word “is”? Getting true or accurate information in this case may help you decide how to prepare for civil unrest.
Picking sides in a conflict with protests and riots. Is your position swayed by reporting? Figure out what your stake in the war is and how it could actually affect your life. Look for consistency in reporting. Don’t just look to find articles that confirm what you already think. Is only one side said to be killing puppies and bombing hospitals?
If Country A invades Country B, do you support country B? Help them fight back? But, if country C attacks country D, and country D fights back, are you are angry that country D is counter-attacking country C? Does the war include the US pouring money on arms manufacturers and foreign politicians? As an added check, research which country’s citizens would like to kill you.
Tell a lie often enough and it becomes the truth. This is a quote from Lenin or Goebbels, depending on your internet information source. (Apparently we can’t even get the truth about lies.)
Ask yourself – what is missing? Lying by omission is prevalent. Based on certain peoples’ track records of lying, if I was wondering what to do or how to react, I would fully check out what they are saying and then maybe do the opposite.
We found no evidence of… (Fill in the blank). News stories that want to refute some fact often say, “We found no evidence of….whatever.” The question then is: ”Did you look?”
If social media bans a person for an opinion about Covid, or Islamic terrorism, or gender, that may tell you that the banned person must have touched a nerve, right or wrong.
Evaluate your information, actions, and plans based on what you see, but also on what you don’t or aren’t allowed to see. Has anyone seen information that could help you know which facts are valid, honest or complete? Such as:
- Epstein Island flight logs and client list (original, complete, and un-redacted)
- Suppressed mass shooter manifestos
- Results of election ballot audits
- The 44,000 hours of January 6th camera footage
- Who is Ray Epps?
“Survey says”: Do you trust published survey results? If you read poll results that say So-and-so is the most dishonest president of all time….Ask: How big was the sample, and who was sampled? If you can, read the actual questions asked in the survey. Also check how previous questions in the survey set the stage for the answer. Beware of “push polls” that are an opinion poll designed to sway opinions using leading questions. Don’t base your prepping actions on group-think.
How are corrections handled? I often see one side say the other is inaccurate. I see both sides call the spokesmen or politicians on the other side liars. (Probably a good bet, actually.) But when they are caught in an inaccuracy, what do they do? Ignore it? Print retractions…on the same page the original inaccuracy was posted on, or page 182?
Fact-checking: If you want to learn who may be more trustworthy, an option is to go to the internet and check a story with the “fact checkers”. I won’t name the specific fact checkers, but if you query for information on a high-level politician’s wife having been killed by a drunk driver, you may get a “mixture” verdict, or a “wrong” verdict. Another brave fact-checker organization does not answer the question. The verdict is mixed on one site because “there is no evidence to say the other driver wasn’t drunk”. You can decide for yourself which sources may be more accurate. Take care not to base your decision only on your own biases though.
Are you using a reliable source of information? Use the test questions listed below.
- Who is this source aligned with? (I recently heard one of my more trusted television news sources mention their “editorial partner company”. It was a site I would never trust….so, now I treat that original source with caution.
- Who owns your news source?
- What country are they managed from?
- What side of the political spectrum appears to be supportive of your source?
- Who does your news source get for interviews? People you respect? Are they balanced?
- What does the leadership in Washington think of your news source?
- What are the political positions of the reporters? Can you tell?
- Does your news source fire people who question things?
- Who else agrees with your source? (If a news commentator or a Hollywood star agrees with a source, I may look for other sources.)
- Does your source use Artificial Intelligence (AI)?
- Does your news source have built-in bias?
Summary
Base your preparedness actions on truth. Don’t take any information at face value. Trust but verify. Don’t believe anything that is said or written without added proof. Maybe you can believe things that are recorded visually are factual. But now even photographs and videos are getting to be suspect due to manipulation and AI.
Ask yourself: What is the motivation of the “News Provider”?
My guess is that a person who only watches MSNBC will prep differently than a person who only watches NewsMax. I am not going to presume to tell which one is right for you, but I bet that no single source is right all of the time.
Are you willing to risk your life or the life of your loved ones based on what these people have written or said?
If you read your most trusted news source every day, you may be coming up with correct, but inadequate (short of your needs) knowledge. You need to get a fuller picture by obtaining information from all sides of an issue. This may also help you understand what people you normally disagree with are thinking. It may help you with decisions on who to trust once SHTF. It may be hard to read some sites you don’t trust, but it is good to know what others are ingesting.
When I read something on a topic I know about, such as environmental engineering, I find it almost always has horrible inaccuracies. When reading or watching information on a specific subject of interest, ask yourself:
- Does this make sense?
- Does it match my personal experience and knowledge?
- Can I corroborate the information?
Look for the real truth. There is an old saying, “Once you have seen the truth you can’t unsee it.” You may be miserable once you see your beliefs successfully challenged. Be prepared for your knowledge and awareness to increase into areas that you might not want to think about now.
Carefully consider the event or situation you are prepping for.
Based on what a person can find online and in the media, it could look like we are doomed:
- The earth will boil from the heat of man-made global warming. We have five years…
- The oceans will rise and flood the coast.
- An earthquake will destroy the coast.
- A tsunami will destroy the coast, too.
- Disease will take everyone out.
- Solar storms are getting worse and will destroy the grid, or an EMP will destroy the grid.
- The food supply will be devastated
- Supply chain disruptions will starve people.
- Hurricanes are getting worse.
- Civil war is on its way
- Terrorists will attack us on our home soil
- The next president will be a dictator.
- The government will turn into a dictatorship regardless of who is the figurehead.
Examine your own beliefs against several trusted sources of information. Be prepared to change or adapt your own base information and even beliefs to fit the current, honest facts. Even if it is painful.
Review those problems you actually know to be real risks to you. Verify your position. Make your plans. Or, spin the wheel to pick something from the list above, or, just as accurately, turn on the television and pick a disaster.
Prepping plans and goals must be chosen carefully to avoid wasting resources. They should be based on facts and appropriate to the area in which you live. Don’t make bad decisions based on bad information.
I know that my writing has a personal bias in it, also. So, now go and verify what I have written, for yourself.