Science

‘I $hit You Not’: Rainforest Decimated To Build Mega Road For UN Climate Change Summit

Authored by Steve Watson via modernity.news,

Tens of thousands of acres of Amazon rainforest is being cleared in order to construct a four lane highway so that global elites can drive to the COP30 Climate Summit after disembarking from their private jets.

Yes, really.

The BBC reports that the huge road is to be built connecting to the Brazilian city of Belém ahead of the UN Conference in November.

I shit you not, a new four-lane highway is being built that cuts through tens of thousands of acres of protected Amazon rainforest for the COP30 climate summit in the Brazilian city of Belém. pic.twitter.com/GTmyeONbsz
— Champagne Joshi (@JoshWalkos) March 12, 2025
The report states that the highway is being green lit in order to alleviate traffic to the city, which is set to host in excess of 50,000 people at the Summit.

The report further notes:

Along the partially built road, lush rainforest towers on either side – a reminder of what was once there. Logs are piled high in the cleared land which stretches more than 13km (8 miles) through the rainforest into Belém.

Diggers and machines carve through the forest floor, paving over wetland to surface the road which will cut through a protected area.

The report explains that highway is one of scores of projects being undertaken to “prepare” and “modernise” the city, with the state government infrastructure secretary saying it will “serve people for COP30 in the best possible way”.

It’s totally insane. Elites are destroying the environment so they can have a conference about climate change.
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) March 12, 2025
But fret not, ‘animal crossings’ will be placed on the highway, so the critters (who now have no homes) can cross it, and solar lighting will be used.

Of course, the very same world ‘leaders’ who lecture everyday people about their carbon footprints and suggest eating lab grown meat instead of the real thing will fly in on private jets and then hop in their SUVs to travel down the new highway, all in the name of saving the planet.

It’s okay, they bought some extra carbon tax credits
— Austin Grantham (@UncleNachoDog) March 12, 2025
As we’ve previously highlighted, this seems to be a running theme with this particular summit, despite the fact that everyone attending it could simply do so virtually, preventing thousands of tons of CO2 emissions that they’re always complaining about.

‘Four hundred private jets have flown into Glasgow. Four hundred.’
Colin Brazier gives his take on Cop26, saying ‘here we are looking at the people who want us to have less, having more.’ pic.twitter.com/lVhF4Mp1I9
— GB News (@GBNEWS) November 2, 2021

HYPOCRISY alert
3 separate private jets for King, Cameron & Sunak to travel to COP 28….. to tell us how to save emissions…
But 2 yrs ago, COP 26 they said two minutes to midnight and doom…
Maybe its a scam pic.twitter.com/E22k41eP3U
— Richard Tice MP (@TiceRichard) November 29, 2023

Over 1000 private jets have landed at #Cop28 to discuss how to reduce YOUR carbon footprint. If they truly…

The AI Integration Crisis: A Special Operator’s View From The Tactical Edge

Authored by Richard Byno via RealClearDefense,

The humid air of the South China Sea clung to my skin as I peered through my binoculars, scanning the horizon. Our team was tracking a vessel suspected of transporting critical technology to a hostile nation. Suddenly, our target’s signature vanished from our screens.

“Target lost,” my analyst called out, his voice tight with frustration.

In that moment, I knew we were outmatched. Our adversary’s vessels, equipped with edge-processed AI systems, could analyze and react to pattern changes in seconds. Meanwhile, our “advanced” AI capabilities required reaching back to a server farm thousands of miles away. By the time we completed our manual cross-referencing of five different intelligence feeds, the target had vanished into the cluttered maritime environment.

This wasn’t just another missed opportunity. It was a stark reminder of what I’ve witnessed repeatedly during my twenty years in special operations: America’s warfighters are falling dangerously behind in the artificial intelligence revolution. While we debate perfect solutions in comfortable conference rooms, our adversaries are rapidly fielding autonomous systems that fundamentally change the battlefield geometry.

The difference between theoretical AI capabilities and battlefield reality is measured in missed opportunities and lost American lives.

Ground Truth: The AI Capability Gap

Let me paint you a picture from my last deployment. The official briefings touted our access to innovative AI systems, but the reality was starkly different. During one critical maritime surveillance operation, our team tracked pattern-of-life changes across five domains – air, surface, subsurface, cyber, and electromagnetic. Each domain required separate analysis through disconnected systems. An integrated AI solution could have fused this data in seconds. Instead, we spent four hours manually correlating data while our target slipped away.

The capability gap is not just theoretical. According to the Department of Defense’s Artificial Intelligence Integration Report, China fielded 78 new AI-enabled military systems in 2022 alone. The U.S.? We managed 12. The GAO’s assessment of military AI capabilities confirms this growing disparity, highlighting critical gaps in our tactical AI deployment.

The OODA Loop Crisis

This capability gap manifests in stark operational realities. During a recent operation in the Indo-Pacific, reminiscent of my time with JSOC-TF, our team was tracking multiple small vessels showing unusual behavior patterns. The Congressional Research Service reports that Chinese autonomous ISR platforms can process sensor data locally within 1.3 seconds. Our systems require transmission to central processors, creating 15-45 second delays. In contested environments with degraded communications, these delays extended to minutes or hours.

In the world of special operations, where the OODA loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) is measured in seconds, these delays are more than an inconvenience – they’re a critical vulnerability. I’ve seen this firsthand during Counterterrorism/Counterinsurgency (CT/COIN) operations and HVT raids in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Breaking Through Bureaucratic Barriers

The Pentagon’s response to these challenges follows a familiar pattern: committees, working groups, and multi-year development cycles. But the battlefield doesn’t wait for perfect solutions. We need a paradigm shift in how we approach AI integration.

Despite efforts to integrate AI, the Department of Defense has faced significant challenges. The Chief…

China, Russia, Iran To Hold Nuclear Talks In Beijing After Tehran Snubbed Trump Offer

At a moment that Iran’s stocks of uranium are coming very close to nuclear weapons-grade, and as the Trump White House has resumed its ‘maximum pressure’ policy on Iran, China is set to host a meeting in Beijing with Russia and Iran.

Friday’s scheduled summit in Beijing will focus on the Iranian “nuclear issue” – according to a Chinese foreign ministry statement, involving both nations’ deputy foreign ministers.

China’s Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu will chair the meeting, the statement described. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baqaei confirmed that topping the agenda will be “developments related to the nuclear issue and the lifting of sanctions.”

The UN atomic watchdog IAEA has recently warned that Tehran “dramatically” accelerating enrichment of uranium to up to 60% purity. The Iranians are within reach of achieving weapons-grade level of roughly 90% – if they desire to pursue it.

“China has said it supports Iran in safeguarding its legitimate rights and calling for an early resumption of the Iranian nuclear talks,” Reuters has reported.

Late last week President Trump said he sent a formal letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader urging the restart of fresh nuclear talks, which the Iranians have scoffed at. The letter is still said to be en route via the UAE ambassador – after Iran initially said it never received such a letter.

Iranian leaders have several times since last week explained that they can’t trust any dialogue or deal with Washington after it pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal in 2018 (under the first Trump administration).

Meanwhile, China, Iran and Russia are growing more cooperative on the military front, having held the “Maritime Security Belt 2025” joint naval exercises in the Gulf of Oman near the Strait of Hormuz this week.

“For two days, the crews of the warships conducted both daytime and nighttime live-fire exercises, using heavy machine guns and small arms to engage targets simulating unmanned boats and aerial drones of a mock adversary,” a Russian statement said.

BREAKING:
After flexing military muscle near Iran. China, Russia, and Iran are now taking their alliance to the next level.
The trio is set to hold high-stakes nuclear talks in Beijing this Friday, with Iran’s nuclear program at the center of global attention. pic.twitter.com/Rkq4fOi6Y3
— Current Report (@Currentreport1) March 12, 2025
But interestingly, Trump has recently floated the idea that Russia could mediate an updated Iran nuclear deal. Moscow appears to have expressed openness, but is unlikely to ever demand that Tehran give up its program.

The Iranians have long been insistent it is only for peaceful nuclear energy purposes, however. The Ayatollah chimed in again on this point Wednesday, issuing the following on X:

If we had wanted to build nuclear weapons, the US wouldn’t have been able to stop us. The fact that we neither possess nor seek nuclear weapons is because we ourselves don’t want to.
— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) March 12, 2025
The Friday trilateral Beijing meeting will in a sense be a gathering of countries which are all sanctioned or are…