The Individual Carbon Footprint Tracker - Another Step Toward A Surveillance Society

At the recent WEF groupthink (aka a gathering of the Kult of Klaus) in Davos Switzerland, Alibaba Group president J. Michael Evans boasted that his company was developing an "individual carbon footprint tracker" that is just one additional step toward the universal surveillance that we know is coming (at least those of us that are paying attention to such things).

 

For those of my readers who aren't familiar with Alibaba Group, it was established in 1999 by Jack Ma, a former English teacher from Hangzhou, China.  The company was formed to allow small- and medium-sized enterprises to grow and compete in China's economy as well as the global market.  It has grown into a massive digital ecosystem (think a Chinese version of Amazon) with businesses including cloud computing, digital media, entertainment, commerce and innovation initiatives.  In December 2021, the Alibaba Group announced a "...pledge to achieve carbon neutrality in its own operations by 2030 as well as a pioneering initiative to facilitate 1.5 gigaton of decarbonization across its business ecosystem by 2035". 

 

Here is a graphic which outlines Alibaba's culture:

 

To give you some sense of the size of Alibaba, in the quarter ended March 31, 2022, it served one billion annual active consumers in China and 1.31 billion consumers globally.  Over the fiscal year ending March 31, 2022, the company had revenues of $US 134.567 million with net income of $US 9.774 billion.

  

Now that you have some sense of the massive size (and potential influence) of Alibaba, here are the comments from the company's president regarding the carbon footprint tracker that Alibaba is being developed:

 

 

Here is a transcript of his comments:

 

'We’re developing, through technology, an ability for consumers to measure their own carbon footprint.  What does that mean? That's where they are traveling? How they are traveling? What are they eating? What they are consuming on the platform? So, individual carbon footprint tracker. Hmmm, stay tuned.  We don't have it operational yet but this is something that we're working on.”

 

Here is the news announcement of the "carbon ledger" as found on Alibaba's Alizila corporate news website dated March 21, 2022:

 

 

Here are some excerpts from the announcement:

 

"Alibaba Cloud launched the Energy Expert platform in February this year, allowing people to monitor their carbon footprint and receive credits worth money when making low-carbon choices.

 

Expect to earn 200 carbon credits when you lick your plate clean, and 554 credits if you take the subway, according to the measurement system devised by Guangzhou-based certification body CEPREI, in partnership with Alibaba Cloud.

 

“The platform is designed to encourage people to adopt low-carbon behaviors and be environmentally accountable,” Chen Lijuan, General Manager of Product and Solution at Alibaba Cloud, told Alizila.

 

The trick is to develop a model that translates individual activities into carbon credits and builds up a community that promotes a low-carbon lifestyle based on the carbon credits system."  

 

This will give you a sense of how the system will work:

 

"The neighborhood of Xinqiao Shiju, located in the southern city of Shenzhen, was one of the first to partner with Alibaba Cloud. Since piloting late last year, the community’s 589 residents have been able to save 37.77 tons of carbon emissions.

 

Every Xinqiao Shiju resident has a personal carbon account to monitor power use and carbon emissions. A household account combines the totals for everyone living in the same house.

 

The emissions are calculated based on electricity, water and gas use, which can be balanced by solar or wind energy use, with facilities available in the neighborhood.

 

After showing users their energy consumption, Energy Expert provides customized suggestions, such as installing solar panels to offset a high electricity bill or collecting rainwater to reduce water use.

 

To be sure, there is more at stake here than infrastructure upgrades. 

 

As individuals gain awareness of their environmental impact, they become more connected to the carbon neutrality cause, said Zhou Fanke, the project’s architect at Alibaba Cloud."

 

While all of this sounds just marvellous on the surface, what happens when this type of carbon footprint tracking is mandatory?  What if a similar individual carbon tracking system is used by governments to ration or cap hydrocarbon consumption, for example, limiting the amount of petrol/gasoline that you can purchase, setting limits for the use of both heating and cooling equipment in your homes and/or telling you that you can't purchase certain foods or items because the purchase is deemed too carbon intensive?

 

In closing, remember that the announcement of an individual personal carbon tracker was made at a World Economic Forum annual conference with the global ruling class in attendance, many of whom travelled to and within Switzerland (and elsewhere in the world) using private jets and limousines and who have lifestyles that are far more carbon intensive than anything that the lifestyles of the serf/useless eater class will ever emit.