Connect with us

Government

Bird-Flu, Censorship, & 100 Day Vaccines: 7 Predictions For “The Next Pandemic”

Bird-Flu, Censorship, & 100 Day Vaccines: 7 Predictions For "The Next Pandemic"

Authored by Kit Knightly via Off-Guardian.org,

Earlier…

Published

8 mins ago

on

Bird-Flu, Censorship, & 100 Day Vaccines: 7 Predictions For "The Next Pandemic"

Authored by Kit Knightly via Off-Guardian.org,

Earlier this month the White House published its new “Pandemic Preparedness” targets.

They are far from alone in covering this. Back in March, Sky News was asking: “Next pandemic is around the corner,’ expert warns – but would lockdown ever happen again?”

On April 3rd, the Financial Times asked something similar: “The next pandemic is coming. Will we be ready?”

Less than an hour ago, the Daily Mail invited us inside “the world’s deadliest cave that could cause the next pandemic”.

Just two days ago a professional panic spreader wrote for CNN:

The next pandemic threat demands action now!!!

OK, I added the exclamation points, but they are very much implied in the original text.

So, while Iran and Israel rattle their sabres on the front pages, I thought we should take a look at the quieter back pages to see what we can learn, and help us predict how “the next pandemic” will unfold.

WHAT IS “THE NEXT PANDEMIC”?

I mean…I feel like that’s fairly self-explanatory.

Seriously though, it’s the one they’ve been predicting from pretty much the moment Covid started. First it was going to be monkey pox – sorry MPox – but that fizzled.

Of course by “pandemic”, we really mean “psy-op”, because nothing about the next pandemic will be any more real than the last pandemic. Hell, given the leaps forward in AI technology, it could be considerably less real next time.

We don’t know any of the details yet, but there’s enough vague coverage to tease out some guesstimates.

WHAT DISEASE WILL THEY USE?

Probably the most important question. We already mentioned monkey pox, but that doesn’t look likely anymore.

Right now they are mostly talking about “disease X” – a term which caused a little panic in certain sections when it first appeared on the scene – but that isn’t some top secret gain of function super disease, it’s literally a place holder name.

And it’s a placeholder name which does its job, for the time being.

After all, they don’t really need an actual name yet, any more than they need an actual disease, they just need the idea of a disease to hold over people’s heads while they construct the legislative rules of their health-based tyranny.

Indeed, the vagueness “Disease X” provides is helpful, as it keeps the legislation vague too.

That said, they will likely want and/or need to produce an actual disease at some point.

When that time comes around, it will almost certainly be another respiratory disease, because they are easy to “fake” using pre-existing endemic diseases and their uniform symptoms.

The prime candidate is bird flu, which has been slow-boiling in the news for two years now and has recently got a big uptick in coverage due to it allegedly passing to people from cows.

The UN reports “pandemic experts” are “concerned over avian influenza spread to humans”. Just yesterday, Jeremy Farrar of the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that “[the] threat Of Bird Flu spreading to Humans is a great concern”

Prompting gleefully sensationalist headlines like this from the Daily Star:

New pandemic ‘expected’ as human-to-human bird flu of ‘great concern’ to WHO

Bird flu is a convenient pick because it enables them to push their health tyranny and their food transition at the same time. They can claim that dairy, beef, chicken and eggs have become “dangerous” as an excuse to ration them or at least force scarcity while they drive the prices up.

They will then push the idea that veganism and/or lab grown meat “prevents pandemics”. Something they’ve been claiming since at least 2021.

The Daily Mail reported just a few hours ago:

H5N1 strain of bird flu is found in MILK for first time in ‘very high concentrations,’ World Health Organization warns

The downside to bird flu is that it’s hard to work the climate change angle into the narrative, so maybe they’ll go with something else.

WHEN WILL IT HAPPEN?

Probably not until the winter, I would guess January 2025 at the earliest, for two reasons:

  1. They need it to be flu season so they can co-opt normal seasonal deaths into their “pandemic” narrative.
  2. I think they’ll want to wait until after the “big election year” is over so there are fresh governments in place.

That second point is not just a hunch, but based on the article from Sky I mentioned above. It asks “would lockdown ever happen again?”, and an “expert” answers [emphasis added]:

…if another lockdown was needed, the current Tory government would either have to minimise scandals over their own rule-breaking – or change hands completely to keep the public on board. If we had a new government, people would be far more likely to have faith in them because they would be less likely to say, ‘it’s the same bunch as before – why should we do it again?’

Which I think is correct.

That would also explain the raft of sudden political resignations – including Covid stars Angela Merkel and Jacinda Ardern – which swept the world in Covid’s wake. They were aware then, and are still aware now, their players were spent and they needed a fresh roster before coming back for the second leg.

So, elections first – with all the nonsense that entails – then maybe the “next pandemic”.

HOW WILL IT BE DIFFERENT FROM “COVID”?

Any future pandemic psy-op will be unlikely to follow the covid pattern beat-for-beat, for one thing the Covid narrative spent itself before achieving everything it was meant to achieve.

You can bet the farm that, in the four years since, there have been working groups and researchers poring over the pandemic data to figure out what went wrong and how they can fix it next time.

There seem to be three recurring themes.

1. Vaccines not lockdowns There will be a focus on securing vaccines rather than lockdowns. Indeed, part of the whole “aw shucks lockdowns were damaging who’d have thunk it” rigmarole is about setting up the dynamic that “next time” we need to do anything we can to avoid lockdowns.

Lockdowns will become a threat rather than a fact.

“We HAVE to mandate vaccines, because the economy can’t afford another lockdown.”

“Take the vaccine, you don’t want to have another lockdown do you?”

So there will be more testing, more masks and more vaccine mandates…and/or quarantine camps for the unvaccinated. And if they DO have lockdowns, they will be entirely blamed on the “anti-vaxxers”, of course.

2. Speed speed speed The main failing of the Covid narrative was that it ran out of steam. By the time the vaccines rolled out in early 2021 the pandemic fatigue was already setting in. And by the time the third boosters and fourth waves were in the headlines nobody really cared.

The propaganda blitzkrieg of early 2020 was arguably the greatest and most wide-reaching misinformation campaign of all time – and it was almost overwhelmingly effective. But it slowed, stalled, stopped and staled.

Next time, they know now, they need to be faster. Bill Gates said as much at the 2022 Munich Security Conference. They need to get the disease out the deaths up and vaccines in before people even realise what happened.

Hence the “100 day vaccines” plan. As the ever-reliably-hysterical Devi Shridar writes for the Guardian:

most governments are working towards the 100-day challenge: that is, how to contain a virus spreading while a scientific response, such as a vaccine, diagnostic or treatment, can be approved, manufactured and delivered to the public.

The “100 Day Mission” is the brainchild of CEPI, the Gates and WHO-backed NGO. Its main aim is to make it possible to produce new vaccines for previously unknown pathogens in 100 days.

In the US, the target is 130 days from pathogen discovery to nation-wide vaccine coverage.

It should go without saying that real, reliable, “safe and effective” vaccines cannot be produced in 100 days. Whatever they make, sell and force you to inject in that time…it won’t be a vaccine

3. Free Speech is Dangerous. The slow development of the narrative post-2020 may have hindered the health tyranny agenda, but it was the independent media that really hurt it. The impromptu network of dissident experts, independent researchers and social media movements spread “misinformation” faster than the powers-that-be could fact-check it.

We have seen perpetual messaging about the dangers of “misinformaion and disinformation” since then, including prominently at the most recent DAVOS summit earlier this year, where it was labelled one of the “three greatest dangers” facing the planet.

Last week, a UK Parliamentary Committee published “recommendations” headlined:

Government should learn lessons from pandemic to improve communications and counter misinformation

Only a few days ago, Gordon Brown was quoted in the news “warning” that:

“fake news’ risks preparations for next pandemic”

Which heavily implies they will move to counter this “fake news” before the “next pandemic” begins.

WILDCARD PREDICTION: The multipolar angle. Whatever form the “next pandemic” takes, they will likely avoid the monolithic messaging of 2020, where total global conformity to “the message” was one of the real telltale signs of deception. Next time prepare for countries like India, China and Russia to forge their own pandemic strategy – focusing on some new treatment or technology that the West refuses to endorse.

There are no sources to back this one, yet. It’s just a gut feeling.

*

So what am I officially predicting for the “next pandemic”?

  1. It will won’t be launched until after the major elections this year, because they want new politic faces untarnished by Covid
  2. It will likely be bird flu or some other respiratory disease, launched in the winter to hijack the real flu season again
  3. The chosen disease will fit into one or more pre-existing agenda – either impacting food or originating from some forced “climate change” connection or both
  4. They will move faster, producing “vaccines” in 100 days to stop people getting wise to the deception as they did with Covid
  5. They will try and avoid lockdowns, but use them as a threat to enforce vaccine mandates more rigorously
  6. They will clamp down harder on “mis- and dis-information” before launching the new narrative.
  7. The next pandemic will have a multipolarity angle to establish a fake binary

That’s how I see it. Feel free to bookmark this post for future reference.

Even if I’ve guessed the details wrong here, there’s no question they are planning to roll out another pandemic at some point in near future. A covid sequel that learns from past mistakes.

While, in some ways, it will likely be worse than Covid was – the good news is that this time we can be ready for it.

Tyler Durden Fri, 04/26/2024 - 23:40

Read More

Related Topics:
Continue Reading

Government

Planes Almost Collide At 2 Major Airports As Boeing Probe Advances

Planes Almost Collide At 2 Major Airports As Boeing Probe Advances

Authored by Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

As the U.S….

Published

8 hours ago

on

April 26, 2024

By

Planes Almost Collide At 2 Major Airports As Boeing Probe Advances

Authored by Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

As the U.S. Justice Department decides whether to pursue a criminal case against Boeing, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is investigating dozens of airplane incidents since January, including one in which a Swiss Air jet almost collided with four other planes on the runway at JFK International Airport in New York City.

An air traffic control tower at JFK airport in New York City, on Jan. 11, 2023. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

The FAA has more than 100 aviation accidents and incidents since the beginning of 2024. These include airplane and helicopter crashes, equipment and mechanical malfunctions, and communication breakdowns with air traffic controllers that almost caused runway collisions at several major U.S. airports.

These incidents come as public scrutiny of Boeing increases after multiple issues have been reported with their jets. After an Alaskan Airways flight experienced a mid-air blowout of a door plug on Jan. 5, the Justice Department is considering revoking a 2021 deferred prosecution agreement with the company and pursuing a criminal case.

There is also growing criticism of Air Traffic Control (ATC) and the FAA’s hiring practices after multiple near-collisions were reported, including at JFK Airport and Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Virginia.

The JFK incident occurred on April 17. Pilots on a Swiss Air flight headed to Zurich, Switzerland, were forced to hit the brakes after the plane was cleared for takeoff because air traffic controllers simultaneously opened the runway for four other planes.

The next day, a similar incident played out at Reagan Washington National Airport, which services the Washington area. ATC cleared a JetBlue flight for takeoff as a Southwest Airlines flight was told to taxi across the same runway in front of it, according to ATC audio.

A runway controller cleared the JetBlue flight, while a taxiing controller cleared the Southwest Airlines flight. The two planes came within 400 feet of a collision before each controller ordered the planes to stop.

“JetBlue 1554 stop! 1554 stop!” said the tower controller, as the ground controller said “2937 stop!” to the Southwest Airlines plane.

Since sudden runway stops can overheat airplane brakes, the JetBlue flight was inspected before it safely departed the airport.

The agency said it is investigating both incidents.

Juan Browne, a Boeing 777 first officer pilot for a major U.S. airline company, told The Epoch Times that while the number of airplane accidents has remained steady, ATC incidents are “on the rise.”

He said the “primary driver” of this phenomenon is the “huge turnover” in the industry, as controllers retired during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many retired early, creating a “big shortage of people, pilots, and air traffic controllers,” and some, including pilots and others, retired due to vaccine mandates.

However, other factors leading to ATC communication breakdowns include diversity-focused hiring practices, a bottleneck in controller training, distractions, and pilot error.

Diversity Hiring Practices

Many, including aviation expert Kyle Bailey, have called out the FAA for prioritizing “diversity” in its hiring practices, alleging that hiring pilots or controllers based on their skin instead of their merit, can lead to safety issues.

A JetBlue airplane at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Va., on March 9, 2023. (Stefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)

“Diversity really has nothing to do with safe travel,” Mr. Bailey told Fox News Digital in January.

The aviation agency’s “Diversity and Inclusion webpage, last updated on March 23, 2022, says, ”Diversity is integral to achieving the FAA’s mission of ensuring safe and efficient travel across our nation and beyond.”

In its  "Aviation Safety Workforce Plan, the agency explains this policy further.

“[Diversity] practices facilitate the organization in attracting and hiring talented applicants from diverse backgrounds and to meet future needs. A commitment to diversity and inclusion supports [aviation safety’s] strategic initiative to create a workforce with the leadership, technical, and functional skills necessary to ensure the U.S. has the world’s safest and most productive aviation sector.”

Later, the agency discusses how this can impact operations.

“The projected growth in demand and diversity from conventional customers, as well as new entrants in non-traditional areas will challenge the FAA’s ability to provide responsive and consistent service to our stakeholders, the report reads.

Air traffic controllers keep watch at Miami International Airport in Fla., on March 6, 2017. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

In February, a coalition of 11 Republican attorneys general, led by Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, submitted a letter to the FAA alleging that diversity hiring practices could put passengers’ lives at risk.

“It seems that the FAA has placed ‘diversity bean counting over safety and expertise, and we worry that such misordered priorities could be catastrophic for American travelers, Mr. Kobach wrote in the letter.

“Millions of Americans place their lives and the lives of their loved ones in the hands of your agency ... Unfortunately, the Biden FAA, under your administration, appears to prioritize virtue-signaling ‘diversity efforts over aviation expertise. And this calls into question the agency’s commitment to safety, he added.

The letter accused the Obama administration of seeking out applicants with “severe intellectual” and “psychiatric” disabilities, noting that the FAA’s “Diversity and Inclusion” webpage currently has the same language on it.

Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach during a news conference outside his office in Topeka, Kan., on May 1, 2023. (John Hanna/AP Photo/ File Photo)

Mr. Browne, who has been a commercial pilot for 25 years, told The Epoch Times that there is a big drive towards on-the-job diversity in all U.S. industries, and aviation is no different.

“I can’t speak specifically to what those requirements are at the FAA ATC program, but we definitely need to ask ourselves: Are we hiring and training the correct people for the jobs?” he asked.

“How are we getting the most qualified applicants out there to fill these jobs?”

Retirements and Training ‘Bottleneck’

Another factor leading to issues with ATC is the sheer volume of retirements in the aviation industry during the pandemic, Mr. Browne said.

He explained that some pilots and air traffic controllers were close to retirement age when the pandemic started, with many deciding to retire early. This created a shortage of applicants and now a shortage of active workers, as both the FAA and ATC struggled to keep up when a waning pandemic caused airline travel demand to increase.

“So we got a lot of new folks out there on the job right now, a lot of on-the-job training going on right now. And a lot of mistakes being made up there as well,” he said.

Some also retired early because they declined to take the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine when it was briefly mandated by the FAA, Mr. Browne added.

Syringes filled with COVID-19 vaccines sit on a table at a vaccination clinic in a file image. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

With these early retirements came limited training opportunities and a “shortage of qualified controllers.”

“There was a big bottleneck in training throughout the aviation industry, whether it was for pilots or for air traffic controllers who have trained up in Oklahoma City, the home of the FAA,” Mr. Browne said.

“And so, now, the FAA is trying to do more with less.”

He explained that the agency is working its current and new controllers “much harder and longer hours than they have in the past” to “backfill” the demand after airlines quickly and unexpectedly recovered from the pandemic. This “exacerbated the shortage of both pilots and air traffic controllers,” Mr. Browne said.

In a statement to The Epoch Times, the FAA disputed the claim that there were “excessive controller retirements during the pandemic.”

Distractions, Infrastructure, Budget Issues

As a Boeing 777 pilot, Mr. Browne mostly flies overseas. When he flies into cities like London or Sydney, he says the radio channels through ATC are “a lot less chaotic” and more “organized” compared to the United States.

“Here in the States, we’re pushing so much material, so many aircraft through such a tight system and dealing with weather constantly,” he explained.

“And yet, there seems to be a lot of miscommunications between different members of the staff, for example, ground controllers versus tower controllers.”

A plane passes the air traffic control tower at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Va., on June 5, 2017. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

It was a miscommunication between ground and tower controllers that resulted in the near-collision at Reagan Washington National Airport on April 18.

Mr. Browne said he often hears a lot of background noise coming over the radio from within the control towers. Pilots are instructed to maintain a “sterile cockpit” whenever they’re below 10,000 feet, he explained. That means pilots must refrain from any conversation outside plane operations until they reach that altitude to “avoid distractions.”

“Is that not the case with the ATC?” Mr. Browne asked.

He explained that working in ATC can be a boring job, so it’s “human nature to get distracted, to do something else to break the monotony,” even if it’s critical to avoid this to prevent putting passengers’ lives at risk.

However, it’s not just distractions leading to issues with coordinating plane routes on runways. The infrastructure throughout the aviation industry struggles to keep pace with the growing demand for air travel.

Mr. Browne explained that ATC, airports, runways, plane parking access, and the number of gates were all designed for “a lot less traffic.”

“But in general, where we are, the demand is outstripping the capacity of the system. And that leads to, in the case of the FAA controllers, a lot of overtime and a lot of tired controllers on the job,” he added.

There are also budget concerns for ATC. Mr. Browne wonders if Congress is allocating enough funds to keep pace with air travel demands but said that question is up to congressional leaders to consider.

A plane passes the air traffic control tower at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Va., on June 5, 2017. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

Lastly, pilots are sometimes at fault as well for aviation incidents, he explained.

Mr. Browne said there are multiple factors worth considering in addressing these problems. Not only could Congress increase the FAA’s budget, but ATC can be more transparent when there are incidents like the ones on April 17 and 18.

When pilots make significant mistakes, a full investigation commences immediately. But for air traffic controllers, it’s not always the same approach, Mr. Browne said.

However, the most significant factor is getting the best applicants for pilot and air traffic controller positions.

“Make sure we’re hiring the right people for the job, regardless of who they are or what they are. Make sure you’re hiring the most qualified people for these very demanding jobs,” Mr. Browne added.

“If we continue to perform at this level, [these incidents] will eventually lead to a disaster.”

The FAA told The Epoch Times that it is working to address some of these issues, but did not specifically comment on the “diversity hiring” allegations.

“Hiring highly qualified air traffic controllers is a top priority at the FAA. Every FAA-certified air traffic controller has gone through months of screening and training at the FAA Academy, and that is before another 18-24 months of training to learn specific regions and airspace.

“There is a well-known national shortage of air traffic controllers and the FAA has ramped up outreach to ensure no talent is left on the table. We are accelerating the pace of recruiting, training, and hiring to meet demand while maintaining the highest qualification standards,” the agency said in a statement.

Tyler Durden Fri, 04/26/2024 - 17:00

Read More

Continue Reading

International

Ryanair CEO thinks frequent flyers should get no perks

Chief executive Michael O’Leary is known to be a bit of a loose cannon.

Published

8 hours ago

on

April 26, 2024

By

Even more so than other industries, the aviation world is structured heavily around loyalty, hierarchy and seniority.

Routes with convenient layovers and to the most coveted destinations are assigned to employees based on how long a flight attendant has been with the airline while, on the traveler end, frequent flyer status is promoted as a “reward” for spending enough with the airline to earn it as well as the airline’s response to customer loyalty. That is why, in the fall of 2023, Delta Air Lines  (DAL)  found itself in the middle of accusations of being “disloyal” after cracking down on lounge access.

Related: Airlines are cracking down on lounge crowding in a way you won't like

The CEO of Ryanair  (RYAOF) , which was launched out of Dublin in 1985 and soon grew to become the largest carrier in Europe through its low-cost model, recently went against the grain and said that “loyalty” isn’t something the airline cares to reward.

A Ryanair passenger plane lands at Cologne/Bonn Airport. Photo by Thomas Banneyer/picture alliance via Getty Images.

picture alliance/Getty Images

Ryanair CEO says it offers low fares, not ‘loyalty’

“If you want something loyal, buy a dog,” O’Leary told an interviewer from The Independent when asked why the airline does not have frequent flyer status or even a basic points program. “If you want the lowest air fares in Europe, fly Ryanair.”

More Travel:

O’Leary, and Ryanair in general, are known as loose cannons in the aviation space. The airline has taken on a unique social media strategy in which it posts videos and memes making fun of both itself and passengers — from trolling “White Lotus” star Sydney Sweeney to asking a traveler who complained about the service on social media whether she would prefer to spend “€19.99 or €136,000,000?” for a private jet.

O’Leary himself has been known to make fiery outbursts and “fight back” against critics; after getting pied in the face by protesters arguing that ultra-low fares like the kind Ryanair offers are a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions, he wiped off the cream and said “well done” to the protesters before heading off to have his meeting with the European lawmakers.

This is why Ryanair is so set against a frequent flyer program

When it comes to the question around loyalty programs, O’Leary said that he doesn’t expect it to win over customers in the way it does for mainstream airlines.

“I don’t understand why, if you’re already getting the lowest fares in Europe and therefore you’re already benefiting, saving money every time you fly with us, why do we need loyalty scheme?” he said.

Another airline that does not have a loyalty program is fellow European low-cost competitor EasyJet  (EJTTF) . EasyJet did briefly experiment with a semi-private, invitation-only “Flight Club” immediately after the pandemic but ended up scrapping it because any rewards it could offer did not impact how much customers flew.

Related: Delta Air Lines makes a baggage change that travelers will like

Many other low-cost airlines have some type of loyalty program but the perks are significantly smaller than traditional ones since they cannot offer things like lounge access and significant discounts.

“The only low-cost carrier that has a loyalty program in the true sense is the Spanish budget carrier Vueling, which offers Avios based on the price you paid for your ticket,” Mark Findlay wrote for Simple Flying in September 2023. “Avios can then be used for upgrades and flights with Vueling or Spanish national flag carrier Iberia.”

Related: Veteran fund manager picks favorite stocks for 2024

Read More

Continue Reading

Spread & Containment

Food insecurity is significant among inhabitants of the region affected by the Belo Monte dam in Brazil

The social and environmental impact of the Belo Monte dam and hydroelectric power plant in Pará state, Brazil, has been called a “disaster” by researchers,…

Published

9 hours ago

on

April 26, 2024

By

The social and environmental impact of the Belo Monte dam and hydroelectric power plant in Pará state, Brazil, has been called a “disaster” by researchers, environmentalists and several media outlets. The damage has again been highlighted recently in an inspection report issued by the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA), an agency of the Ministry for the Environment and Climate Change. The inspectors detected silting and erosion of the Xingu River, obstacles to river navigation, a significant increase in tree mortality, and the impossibility of reproduction for several fish species, as well as disruptions to the way of life of Indigenous and river-dwelling communities.

Credit: Igor Cavallini Johansen

The social and environmental impact of the Belo Monte dam and hydroelectric power plant in Pará state, Brazil, has been called a “disaster” by researchers, environmentalists and several media outlets. The damage has again been highlighted recently in an inspection report issued by the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA), an agency of the Ministry for the Environment and Climate Change. The inspectors detected silting and erosion of the Xingu River, obstacles to river navigation, a significant increase in tree mortality, and the impossibility of reproduction for several fish species, as well as disruptions to the way of life of Indigenous and river-dwelling communities.

A new study conducted with FAPESP’s support focuses specifically on food insecurity in Altamira, which is the city with the largest population in the region and has been dramatically affected by the construction of Belo Monte. Because of the megaproject, Altamira became a hub for the distribution of goods, services and the logistics essential to the construction process, with a significant impact on its population. 

Construction took place between 2011 and 2015, causing the city’s population to grow without adequate planning to assure the provision of services to residents and migrants looking for work. The shock made Altamira one of Brazil’s most violent cities. Although its population has declined since the dam was completed, the 2022 census recorded 126,279 inhabitants, 27.46% more than in 2010, when the previous census was conducted. This growth rate compares with 6.46% for Brazil’s total population growth in the same period.

The study, published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, shows that 61% of Altamira’s households experienced some level of food insecurity and malnutrition in 2022, when the data was collected. 

“We conducted the survey in July 2022, seven years after construction ended, visiting 500 households selected as representative of the city’s socioeconomic strata and geographic areas. The scale used to measure household food insecurity is divided into three categories. We found the worst food insecurity in the poorest group, where heads of household had low levels of educational attainment and unemployment was high. In addition, the households with severe food insecurity had more members. Families displaced by the dam and resettled elsewhere also experienced severe food insecurity,” said Igor Cavallini Johansen, first author of the article. Johansen is a demographer and a postdoctoral researcher affiliated with the State University of Campinas’s Center for Environmental Studies (NEPAM-UNICAMP) in São Paulo state.

Unlike other studies of food insecurity in the context of hydroelectric developments in Brazil, this one used the Brazilian Household Food Insecurity Scale, known by the Portuguese-language acronym EBIA, Johansen said, explaining that the scale is based on a scientifically validated methodology for measuring access to sufficient food of adequate quality. 

“The survey included a questionnaire with eight standardized items. The responses were scored using the EBIA scale to arrive at a classification of food insecurity for each household in the sample,” he said.

The households were classified into the following categories: (1) food security (adequate food quantity and quality); (2) mild food insecurity (food quality impaired and uncertainty regarding future food availability; (3) moderate food insecurity (inadequate diet, food becoming scarce within the household, children prioritized over adults); (4) severe food insecurity (insufficient food for all household members).

“We formulated three hypotheses: (1) households were affected by a range of factors that together produced food insecurity; (2) poverty played a key role, and the most affected groups were those who had been forced to leave their homes and had been resettled in purpose-built housing projects, known as RUCs; and (3) besides the impact of the dam, the problem was made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic,” Johansen said.

The survey also took into account several socioeconomic variables as correlates of food insecurity, such as a wealth index (poorest, intermediate, least poor) considering the characteristics of the home, ownership of vehicles and appliances, etc.; whether respondents were monthly handouts from the Bolsa Família conditional cash transfer program; whether they had officially declared themselves affected by the dam; whether they lived in an RUC; the number of household members and over-sixties; and the head of household’s gender, skin color, age, marital status, educational attainment and employment status. 

“All three hypotheses were confirmed. Predictably, the various factors correlated with each other: the impact of the dam’s construction significantly increased the probability that household members lived in an RUC, and this increased the likelihood that a family was poor, which in turn entailed a risk of food insecurity,” Johansen said. “Access to food of the desired quantity and quality became more difficult for 69.7% of the households after construction of the dam was completed in 2015.” About half of these households (52.5%) said it had already been difficult before the pandemic, and the rest blamed the pandemic for the worsening of food insecurity since then.

“We also found that households with one or more members aged 60 and over experienced less food insecurity. This can be attributed to the contribution of old-age pensions to the household income, potentially reducing their exposure to poverty and hence to food insecurity,” he noted.

The lack of a survey conducted before the dam’s construction and based on the EBIA scale was unfortunate, Johansen added, as this could have been compared with the results obtained after its construction. “In any event, it was a shock to find that 61% of the households experienced food insecurity when the consortium that built the dam claimed to have invested BRL 6.5 billion, or about USD 1.3 billion, in social, environmental and sustainability-related measures in the region between 2016 and 2022. What was all that money used for?” he said.

The negative impact of Belo Monte is not an isolated case. Several other megaprojects implemented in the Amazon have also had significant social and environmental side effects. Another study conducted by the same research group and led by Caroline Arantes, a professor at West Virginia University in the United States showed that fishing communities lost production and income after construction of the Santo Antônio and Jirau hydroelectric projects in Porto Velho, Rondônia state. The communities were forced to adapt their fishing strategies and find other ways to earn a living in response to the impact of the dams. Household consumption of fish diminished significantly as a result. “These communities had always had fish meals every day, but after the dams were built they were able to do so only once or twice a week, if not less often,” Johansen said. The study in question is published in the Journal of Environmental Management.

Another prior study, in this case focusing on a fishing community on the Xingu River after construction of Belo Monte, showed that fish became scarce and food in general became more expensive in the region. An article on this study is published in the journal Human Ecology.

All these studies involved contributions by Professor Emilio F. Moran, principal investigator for the project “After hydropower dams: social and environmental processes that occur after the construction of Belo Monte, Jirau and Santo Antônio in Brazilian Amazon”, and supported by FAPESP via the São Paulo Excellence Chair program (SPEC). 

In addition to this grant, the study was supported by a postdoctoral scholarship awarded to Johansen, and a postdoctoral scholarship awarded to Vanessa Cristine e Souza Reis, also a member of the research group.

About São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP)

The São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) is a public institution with the mission of supporting scientific research in all fields of knowledge by awarding scholarships, fellowships and grants to investigators linked with higher education and research institutions in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. FAPESP is aware that the very best research can only be done by working with the best researchers internationally. Therefore, it has established partnerships with funding agencies, higher education, private companies, and research organizations in other countries known for the quality of their research and has been encouraging scientists funded by its grants to further develop their international collaboration. You can learn more about FAPESP at www.fapesp.br/en and visit FAPESP news agency at www.agencia.fapesp.br/en to keep updated with the latest scientific breakthroughs FAPESP helps achieve through its many programs, awards and research centers. You may also subscribe to FAPESP news agency at http://agencia.fapesp.br/subscribe.

 

Journal

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

DOI

10.3390/ijerph21020155

Article Title

Poverty–Food Insecurity Nexus in the Post-Construction Context of a Large Hydropower Dam in the Brazilian Amazon

Article Publication Date

30-Jan-2024

Read More

Continue Reading

Trending