“Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.”
In a video recently posted on his YouTube channel, Mark Moss highlighted why he thinks history is about to repeat itself just like it’s bound to do and has done many times. He starts off by talking about ESG which stands for Environmental, Social, and Governance. Over time different governments have supported strong ESG performance, as it boosts investment competitiveness —and procurement competitiveness—among businesses in that jurisdiction. But at its core he believes ESG is really just central planning.
Using Sri Lanka as a case study he shows the first historical example. In 2018 the World Economic Forum planned to get Sri Lanka to net zero nitrogen emissions by 2050. One of the first steps the country took to achieve this was in 2021 when it banned farmers from using chemical fertilizers to grow their crops.
The effect of this was disastrous as the country experienced a ‘man-made’ food crisis, there was a 35 percent drop in fruit and vegetables, a 40 percent drop in paddy and a 50 percent drop in tea production. The people of Sri Lanka were furious and they overran the prime minister’s palace in protest.
One would think that other countries would see how bad things become when these sorts of policies are implemented and steer clear, but instead these bad ideas that have failed over and over again just keep spreading.
In Holland, with the aim to reduce nitrogen emissions by 50 percent in 2030, the Dutch government has mandated reductions in intensive farming and the conversion to sustainable “green farms”. Cuts are as high as 70 percent in many places with some others even reaching 95 percent in a bid to protect nature. Very recently Dutch farmers have generated global headlines with protests as they fear their livelihoods will be obliterated.
Last month Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau proposed to cut emissions from fertilizers 30% by 2030 as part of the government’s plan to get to net zero in the next three decades.
But farmers are not happy and point out that this would significantly reduce crop production. They stand to lose C$10.4 billion ($8.08 billion) from reduced output. Moss finds it ludicrous that many nations, in an attempt to reduce nitrogen emissions, are putting food supply in harm’s way when according to the World Health Organization 821 million people are starving. That’s almost one out of every eight people.
Taking a look back in history he shows the end results when similar policies were enforced. In the Soviet Union, Stalin deployed a five year Industrialization Plan in 1927. This plan involved nationalization of the nation’s farmlands, having them owned and run by the government instead of private individuals.
This imposed socialism, as you would expect, led to violence, grains were confiscated at gunpoint and over three hundred thousand farmers who protested were deported.
As a result of this plan between 1932 and 1933 five percent of the population starved. Instead of putting a stop to his plan, Stalin doubled down on his efforts and that resulted in more deaths with another twenty five million people starving between 1946 and 1947. The Great Leap Forward, a similar plan led by Mao Zedong to industrialize China in five years, saw forty five million of its citizens starve between 1958 and 1962.
The Biden administration announced The Build Back Better Framework, which sets the United States on course to meet its climate goals, create millions of good-paying jobs, enable more Americans to join and remain in the labor force, and grow the economy from the bottom up and the middle out. With the intent to achieve this plan by central planning, one cannot help but ask, is history about to repeat itself? Again?
