News Round-Up: European Commission's von der Leyen Curbing Free Speech, Argentina's Milei Defending Freedoms and the Rapid Growth of Arctic Sea Ice

Every week, the editorial team of Freedom Research compiles a round-up of news that caught our eye, or what felt like under-reported aspects of news deserving more attention.

Over the past week, the following topics attracted our attention:

• The European Commission's president promises to fight "disinformation": we introduced DSA.

• Argentina's president warns of the consequences of socialism.

• UK study: heart disease is the main cause of excess deaths in the country.

• Arctic sea ice is growing, not shrinking.

• Coal-electricity production on the rise: last year was a new record.

The European Commission's president promises to fight "disinformation": we introduced DSA

The World Economic Forum (WEF), the annual gathering of a large part of the world's political and financial elite, took place in Davos, Switzerland, this week. On Tuesday, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, gave a speech at the WEF, saying that the biggest concern over the next two years is not conflict or climate, but disinformation and misinformation, followed by the polarisation of society.

She was referring to this year's WEF Global Risks Report, which identified 'disinformation' and 'misinformation' as the biggest problems for the next two years. It is also ahead of concerns about "extreme weather events" in the near future, according to the report.

"These risks are serious because they limit our ability to tackle the big global challenges we are facing. Changes in our climate and our geopolitical climate shifts in our demography and in our technology. Spiralling regional conflicts and intensified geopolitical competition, and their impacts on supply chains,” she said. "And this makes the theme of this year's Davos meeting even more relevant. Rebuilding trust. This is not a time for conflicts or polarisation. This is a time to build trust," von der Leyen said.

The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said in Davos that ‘disinformation’ and ‘misinformation’ are the main challenges for the next 2 years to come. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

To counter the threats, von der Leyen said the private sector must also play its part – both in the fight against climate change and the spread of industrial-scale disinformation. Speaking of disinformation, von der Leyen focused in particular on the threat it poses to European democracy. "Of course, like in all democracies, our freedom comes with risks. There will always be those who try to exploit our openness, both from inside and out. There will always be attempts to put us off track. For example, with disinformation and misinformation,” she said, citing Russian propaganda on Ukraine as an example.

However, von der Leyen did not point out that in recent years, under pressure from the authorities in Europe and the United States, messages and statements have been identified as 'disinformation' or 'misinformation' which in fact were not false at all, but simply inconvenient or inappropriate from the point of view of the authorities for whatever reason. These problems were particularly acute during the Covid crisis, when, for example, renowned scientists who criticised governments' approach to limit the spread of the virus or the coercion of Covid vaccines were also censored. We have written about this e.g. here and here.

Tackling the spread of ‘disinformation’ as a problem has been at the heart of the current European Commission's concerns since the beginning of its mandate, said von der Leyen. She pointed out that the Digital Services Act (DSA) made major internet platforms responsible for removing 'disinformation', 'misinformation' and 'hate speech' – for the protection of the citizens.

We've written more about how the DSA, which came into force last August, doesn't actually protect anyone, but threatens citizens with widespread censorship, here.

Argentina's president warns of the consequences of socialism

Compared to Ursula von der Leyen, Javier Milei, who took office as President of Argentina in December last year, came out with a much more common-sense message at the WEF, warning the West of the dangers of socialism. Milei, who identifies as a libertarian, has consistently emphasised individual freedoms. In his speech, he pointed out that freedoms in today's world are also constrained, for example, by radical feminism and policies that are forced on us under the pretext of combating climate change.

"Today I'm here to tell you that the Western world is in danger. And it is in danger because those who are supposed to have to defend the values of the West are co-opted by a vision of the world that inexorably leads to socialism and thereby to poverty," Milei said. According to Milei, in recent decades, Western leaders have abandoned the model of freedom and replaced it with various versions of collectivism. "We're here to tell you that collectivist experiments are never the solution to the problems that afflict the citizens of the world," he said.

According to Milei, the historical experience of Argentinians shows the impact of socialism on the country. "Thirty five years after we adopted the model of freedom, back in 1860, we became a leading world power. And when we embraced collectivism over the course of the last 100 years, we saw how our citizens started to become systematically impoverished, and we dropped to spot number 140 globally," he said.

Leftists who talk about the redistribution of wealth as social justice do not understand, according to Milei, that the justice they propose is not really just. "Quite on the contrary, it's an intrinsically unfair idea because it's violent. It's unjust because the state is financed through tax and taxes are collected coercively. Or can any one of us say that we voluntarily pay taxes? This means that the state is financed through coercion and that the higher the tax burden, the higher the coercion and the lower the freedom," he said, adding that the wealth of the world cannot really be redistributed because that wealth has to be created first.

In addition to the economy, Milei pointed out a few other issues that hamper development and freedoms. One of them is what he calls 'radical feminism'. "All that the radical feminism agenda has led to is greater state intervention to hinder economic process, giving jobs to bureaucrats who have not contributed anything to society. Examples are ministries of women or international organisations devoted to promoting this agenda," he said.

Milei also referred to the issues related to climate change policies. "Another conflict presented by socialists is that of humans against nature, claiming that we human beings damage a planet which should be protected at all costs, even going as far as advocating for population control mechanisms or the abortion agenda," he said. "Neo-Marxists have managed to co-opt the common sense of the Western world, and this they have achieved by appropriating the media, culture, universities and also international organisations," Milei added.

Many of those present seemed to like Milei's outspoken statements and he earned a round of applause at the end of his speech. The Financial Times noted, for example, that the head of a major European investment firm was looking very impressed. However, it is noteworthy that Milei gave this speech at a forum whose participants are in fact largely advocates of the same large-scale experiments in collectivism of which he spoke.

UK study: heart disease is the main cause of excess deaths in the country

A recent British study shows that heart failure is the biggest driver of an alarming surge in excess deaths in the UK, Express reports. Last year, the UK had its highest excess mortality rate since the Second World War, excluding so-called pandemic years. A study by researchers at Oxford University shows that while cancer and dementia deaths have fallen, deaths from heart and circulatory problems are spiralling. This includes deaths from heart disease, heart attacks, strokes and lung clots.

The study, based on government data, shows that 595,789 deaths were recorded in the country last year, of which 53,000 were attributed to excess mortality or higher-than-expected mortality. Excess mortality is calculated by comparing the annual mortality rate with the five-year average number of deaths before the Covid crisis.

There were 82,000, 60,000 and 50,200 excess deaths in the UK in 2020, 2021 and 2022 respectively. Last year's level of 53,000 remained high in the excess mortality calculation. Compared to 2011, 100,000 more deaths were recorded in the country last year.

According to the study, only 12% of last year's excess mortality was linked to Covid or other respiratory diseases. However, heart failure as a cause of death was 16% more common than a year earlier and was associated with around 10,000 excess deaths or a fifth. Deaths due to narrowed heart arteries increased by 8.5%, accounting for around 9,000 excess deaths.

One of the study's authors, Professor Carl Heneghan, head of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at Oxford University, commented that the numbers revealed by the study were cause for concern. "These figures are a real cause for concern. These deaths cannot be explained by Covid, population growth nor an ageing population," he said.

Cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra pointed out that there are various interconnected causes of cardiovascular disease. "Eighty percent of this is linked to lifestyle and environmental factors, such as worsening diet, sedentary lifestyles and stress which we know happened during lockdowns,” he said. Adverse reactions to the Covid vaccine could also have played a part, he added.

Arctic sea ice is growing, not shrinking

Data from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) shows that Arctic sea ice was at its highest level in 21 years on January 8, writes Chris Morrison in The Daily Sceptic. Last December, NSIDC data showed that the volume of sea ice growth was the third-highest in the 45-year measurement history. As of January 8, the figures exceed the average for 1991-2000, 2001-2010 and 2011-2020.

On the one hand, this increase is significant because it is precisely the decline in Arctic sea ice that has been used by many climate catastrophe forecasters as an indication that what is happening is obvious and we will be doomed. For example, the threat of melting Arctic sea ice has been referred to in speeches made 15 years ago by prominent US political climate activists Al Gore and John Kerry – the latter the current US presidential climate envoy – who said that we should have experienced the first ice-free Arctic summer by 2014 at the latest. This has not happened and the trend of ice melting now seems to have reversed, despite last year being said to be the hottest in Earth's history.

However, Morrison also stresses that this year's data is only half a winter's worth, and care must be taken when interpreting such specific data, to avoid making similar mistakes as climate alarmists. He points out, however, that Arctic sea-ice recovery as a trend has been observed since 2007. In a recent article, Danish scientist Allan Astrup Jensen presented data showing a decrease in sea ice between 1997 and 2007, but a minimal decrease in the 45 years before and after that period.

Coal-electricity production on the rise: last year was a new record

While it may seem to us that the world is undergoing a large-scale 'green revolution', and that more and more efforts are being made to replace fossil fuels in order to reduce CO2 emissions, this perception is misleading. In fact, coal-fired power generation hit a record high in 2023, and coal exports from coal-mining countries exceeded one billion tonnes for the first time, Reuters reports.

Data shows that through October last year, 8,295 terawatt-hours of electricity were produced from coal worldwide, up 1% year-on-year. Coal exports rose to 1.004 billion tonnes, up 62.5 million tonnes, or 6.6%, from 2022.

Coal use is growing, particularly in Asia. China was the biggest importer of coal, with a total of 325 million tonnes, 109 million tonnes more than in 2022. China was followed by India (172 million tonnes), Japan (109 million tonnes), South Korea (80 million tonnes) and Taiwan (51 million tonnes). In the case of India, we wrote in last week's news round-up that the country has also plans to double its own coal extraction and to build new coal-fired power generation capacity over the next decade.

Among coal importers, coal-fired power generation increased in China, India, the Philippines, Turkey and Vietnam. Coal-fired electricity production declined in Japan and South Korea, but growth in Vietnam alone covered the decrease.

Last year's biggest coal exporters were Indonesia, Australia, Russia, South Africa and Colombia.