Ryan Delarme,
May 29th, 2022
Last week the world’s most philanthropic globalists met in Davos to discuss a wide variety of issues including climate change, inflation, and the war in Ukraine. One particular topic that has caught people’s attention is an app that can track the carbon footprint of an individual.
Alibaba Holdings President and former Goldman Sachs vice-chairman J. Michael Evans lays it out for the audience of the “Strategic Outlook: Responsible Consumption” panel:
“We’re developing, through technology, an ability for consumers to measure their own carbon footprint. What does that mean? That’s where are they travelling, how are they travelling, what are they eating, what are they consuming on our platform. So: An individual carbon footprint tracker.”
To clarify, Evans is only talking about Alibaba’s own platform, but the platform is significantly large. The Chinese company is the second-largest e-commerce company in the world after Amazon, with revenues in excess of 715 billion Yuan in 2021 (that’s over 110 billion USD).
On top of that, Alibaba is not just an E-commerce platform. Through their financial and technological service companies, Alibaba runs the largest domain name market, email provider, and cloud storage services in China, not to mention the largest payment platform in the world.
To put it in understandable terms, Alibaba is the Chinese equivalent of a merger between Amazon, Google, and PayPal.
Since Alibaba bought AutoNavi in 2014, they own the biggest e-map navigation company in China. Through Alihealth they supply online pharmacy services, as well as providing computer technology to hospitals and clinics too.
Basically, if you live in China and want to pay for something on the internet, you probably use Alibaba. If you want to order something online from a small business, you probably use Alibaba. If you want to sell your stuff second-hand, you probably use Alibaba.
Alibaba’s also a market leader in AI services, becoming the first-ever payment platform to start using facial recognition technology to confirm payments in 2017. Other projects you may recognize include “CityBrain”, an AI designed to scan cities and provide “streamlined” traffic services. Warning of potential accidents as well as making public transport more efficient, a clear move toward “Smart Cities”.
This won’t be the company’s first “individual carbon footprint” app either. In 2017 their payment platform subsidiary Ant Financial Services was named 6th in Fortune’s “Change the World” list for its Ant Forest app.
And while we’ve been focusing on the individual carbon footprint tracker, something else Evans says later in the panel is just as interesting:
“The third thing, we call it “Green Travel”. So, we have within our business something called AMAP – a mapping, think Google Maps or Ways – plus travel destination business. So what we’re going to allow people to do is, first of all, calculate the best and most efficient route and also the most efficient form of transportation. And then, if they take advantage of those recommendations, we’ll give them bonus points which they can redeem elsewhere on our platform. So, they are incentivised to do the right thing, even while they are provided the opportunity to do the wrong thing.”
Let’s put these three facts together. It seems Alibaba currently has apps, either being used or in development, that:
- Monitor travel routes and methods and “reward” users for making the “correct choice” even when they are allowed to make “the wrong choice”
- Can track an individual’s “carbon footprint”, including what they eat and where.
- Have users “earn points” for “earth-friendly habits”.
Individually these functions are worrying enough, but when combined with what we already know, it starts to paint a troubling picture. Add that with what we already know of the company’s reach through its subsidiaries: Smart Cities, banking, healthcare records, emails, internet activity, and more.
How long before Alibaba decides to “reward” other “correct choices” that have nothing to do with the environment? Like vaccination, for example.
How long after that do they start punishing what the ruling class deems to be incorrect choices?
Ryan DeLarme is a disillusioned journalist navigating a labyrinth of political corruption, overreaching corporate influence, high finance, compromised media, and the planned destruction of our constitutional republic. He is also a Host and Founder at Vigilant News. His writing has been featured in American Thinker, Winter Watch, Underground Newswire, and Stillness in the Storm. He also has written scripts for television series featured on Rise.tv. Ryan enjoys gardening, creative writing, and fighting to SAVE AMERICA
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