Tom Nolan + 2,443 TN October 11, 2022 (edited) October 10, 2022 Monday https://archive.ph/fHX4u New Zealand to Tax Agriculture Emissions at the Farm in World First (Bloomberg) -- New Zealand farmers will start to pay a levy on agricultural emissions by 2025 -- a move Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said would be a world first. The government will adopt the main recommendation from the He Waka Eke Noa primary sector climate action partnership to price the emissions at the farm level rather than including them in the nation’s emissions trading scheme, Ardern said Tuesday in Wellington. The system will be in place by 2025, requiring farmers to start paying a regulated price for their methane, carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide emissions. “The proposal would see New Zealand farmers lead the world in reducing emissions, delivering a competitive advantage and enhancing our export brand,” she said. “No other country in the world has yet developed a system for pricing and reducing agricultural emissions, so our farmers are set to benefit from being first movers.” New Zealand is the world’s biggest dairy exporter, with agriculture playing a major role in the economy. Farming accounts for around half of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions. Ardern said the proposals will allow the South Pacific nation to meet its legislated target of reducing methane emissions to 10% below 2017 levels by 2030. But farmers are upset that the government isn’t accepting all of their recommendations, according to lobby group Federated Farmers. They fear some will walk off the land as their costs become overwhelming. Read More: New Zealand Proposes Taxing Cow Burps, Angering Farmers “Federated Farmers is deeply unimpressed with the government’s take on the He Waka Eke Noa proposal and is concerned for our members’ futures,” said National President Andrew Hoggard. The plan “will rip the guts out of small town New Zealand, putting trees where farms used to be.” The government acknowledges in the consultation document that emissions reductions are expected to come from land-use changes, as well as increased farm efficiency and emissions mitigation. Split-gas Approach The government is backing a split-gas approach where long-lived gases such as carbon dioxide have a separate price to methane. The price to be levied on farmers will be set by ministers based on advice from the Climate Commission. That’s a departure from the partnership’s idea of a sector advisory group providing guidance. Prices will be set annually although there is scope for less frequent fixing of the methane price, according to government documents. Revenue from the levy will be recycled via incentive payments designed to encourage the uptake of approved mitigation technologies such as methane inhibitors, which will reduce a farmer’s total bill. Money will also be directed to research into new ways to limit greenhouse gas emissions. In another departure from the partnership’s proposals, the government will not allow carbon sequestration from on-farm vegetation to offset a farmer’s emissions. Instead it wants the emissions trading scheme to be the sole mechanism to recognize such planting. Farmer groups who participated in the He Waka Eke Noa partnership, including DairyNZ and the Meat Industry Association, said further discussion is required on areas where the government has not adopted their recommendations. “He Waka Eke Noa’s recommendations were designed as a carefully balanced package that was as equitable as possible across all parts of the primary sector,” Program Director Kelly Forster said. “The government has proposed alternative approaches in some areas which may fundamentally alter the balance and could have significant implications for sheep, beef and deer farmers.” A consultation on the proposal will run from now until Nov. 18. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ New Zealand proposes taxing cow burps, angering farmers WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand's government on Tuesday proposed taxing the greenhouse gasses that farm animals make from burping and peeing as part of a plan to tackle climate change.... [Associated Press Article Continues....] https://archive.ph/FFM1i Edited October 11, 2022 by Tom Nolan Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tom Nolan + 2,443 TN October 11, 2022 October 10, 2022 - https://www.activistpost.com/2022/10/federal-reserve-announcement-6-large-banks-will-participate-in-pilot-climate-scenario-or-social-credit-system.html Federal Reserve Announcement: 6 Large Banks Will Participate In Pilot Climate Scenario Or Social Credit System By Mac Slavo The Federal Reserve Board has announced that six of the nation’s largest banks will participate in a pilot climate scenario analysis exercise. This is designed to enhance the ability of supervisors and firms to measure and manage “climate-related financial risks.” The pilot exercise will be launched in early 2023 and is expected to conclude around the end of the year. At the beginning of the exercise, the Board will publish details of the climate, economic, and financial variables that make up the climate scenario narratives. The banks in the pilot exercise are Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo. In the coming months, the Board will provide additional details on how the exercise will be conducted and the scenarios that will be used in the pilot, according to The Federal Reserve’s official government website. According to the Dossier on Substack, this pilot program is big for the Fed and is really about a social credit system disguised as climate economics. The Federal Reserve has taken a major step in the direction of facilitating an ESG-compliant monetary network that effectively acts as a parallel system to that of the Chinese Communist Party’s infamous social credit scoring system. In other words, The Fed is working with the big banks to monitor their ability to comply with the ruling class’s preferred enviro-statist technocratic tyranny. The unaccountable people behind the American money printer claim that this exercise is “exploratory in nature and does not have capital consequences.” What this means, is that the Fed is clearly leaning into the climate hoax narrative or the pseudoscientific idea that humans are catastrophically impacting the climate, but not because they somehow care about the environment. The climate narrative is the chief rhetorical facilitator for the ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) movement... ...a central bank digital currency and a social credit system...Once it’s all controlled by them digitally, we will literally have no say in our own lives. 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tom Nolan + 2,443 TN October 11, 2022 https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/republicans-withdraw-1-billion-blackrock-due-its-esg-policies https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Republicans-Withdraw-1-Billion-From-BlackRock-Due-To-Its-ESG-Policies.html Republicans Withdraw $1 Billion From BlackRock Due To Its ESG Policies by Tyler Durden Tuesday, Oct 11, 2022 - 06:20 AM Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com, Multiple U.S. states governed by Republicans are withdrawing state funds from BlackRock’s management, as they disapprove of the ESG investment policies of the world’s top asset manager, the Financial Times reports. n recent weeks, Louisiana, South Carolina, Utah, and Arkansas have announced they would divest funds from BlackRock totaling more than $1 billion. Last week, Louisiana State Treasurer John Schroder announced in a letter to BlackRock’s CEO Larry Fink that he would divest all Treasury funds from BlackRock. Louisiana has removed $560 million to date and will pull out a total of $794 million by year’s end, Schroder noted. “This divestment is necessary to protect Louisiana from mandates BlackRock has called for that would cripple our critical energy sector,” said Schroder. “I refuse to spend a penny of Treasury funds with a company that will take food off tables, money out of pockets and jobs away from hardworking Louisianans.” South Carolina will pull $200 million from BlackRock by the end of the year, State Treasurer Curtis Loftis told FT in an interview. For months now, Republican states have said they would not do business anymore with asset managers who have ESG-aligned investment policies, which, the states say, show that those financial firms are boycotting the oil and gas industry. Texas, the largest oil-producing state in America, is leading the campaign against this movement. The Lone Star State published in August a list of financial firms that could be banned from doing business with Texas, its state pension funds, and local governments. Texas and other Republican-led oil and gas states see the ESG investment trend as an implicit attack on fossil fuels and a boycott of conventional energy resources, the revenues from which make up a large portion of state budgets in the oil, gas, and coal country. In early August, the Attorney Generals of 19 states—including Texas, West Virginia, Louisiana, Montana, Oklahoma, Idaho, and Ohio—sent a letter to BlackRock’s CEO Larry Fink expressing concerns with the asset manager’s commitment to net-zero emissions across all its assets. “Rather than being a spectator betting on the game, BlackRock appears to have put on a quarterback jersey and actively taken the field,” the attorney generals wrote. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads from Oilprice.com: European Energy Market Spooked By $1.5 Trillion Liquidity Crisis Russia Not Ruling Out Repair Of Nordstream Gas Pipelines Russia’s Soaring Defense Spending Is Unsustainable Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tom Nolan + 2,443 TN October 18, 2022 https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/central-bank-digital-currencies-would-let-governments-control-what-people-spend-money Central Bank Digital Currencies Would Let Governments Control What People Spend Money On: IMF Official Admits by Tyler Durden Monday, Oct 17, 2022 - 07:20 PM Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times, The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said that central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) could potentially allow a government to control what people spend their hard-earned cash on. Speaking at the IMF-World Bank annual meeting on Oct. 15, Deputy Managing Director Bo Li said that a CBDC could improve “financial inclusion” through programmability. “A CBDC can allow government agencies and private sector players to program, to create smart contracts, to allow targeted policy functions,” Li explained. “For example, welfare payments, for example, consumption coupons, for example, food stamps.” “By programming CBDC, that money can be precisely targeted for what kind of people can own [CBDC] and for what kind of use this money can be utilized, for example for food.” Li, who stepped into the role of deputy managing director at the IMF on Aug. 23, 2021, added that by allowing the government to precisely target what people need, this will enable said government to “improve financial inclusion.” However, his comments were quick to garner a reaction from experts, including Nick Anthony, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives. Anthony wrote on Twitter that the IMF executive’s comments revealed how a CBDC would “allow the government to precisely control what people can and cannot spend their money on.” Prior to joining the IMF, Li worked for many years at the People’s Bank of China, according to the IMF’s official website. A staff member counts renminbi (yuan) at a bank in Haian, Nantong city, East China’s Jiangsu Province, on May 15, 2022. (CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images) ‘I Don’t See How Americans Would Want This’ In a follow-up post on Twitter, Anthony quoted a comment made by Neel Kashkari, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, writing: “I can see how China is for this. I don’t see how Americans would want this.” Anthony also noted that “governments have a historical pattern of misusing these tools,” citing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s move to freeze the bank accounts of anti-COVID-19 vaccine mandate protesters earlier this year. A May report (pdf) from the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) found that almost 90 percent of national central banks are planning to launch their own CBDC for release to the general public. That includes the United States, where Washington is currently looking into the possibilities for issuing such a digital currency, with officials citing an array of alleged benefits, such as efficient and low-cost transactions, boosting economic growth, and improved access to the financial system. However, critics fear CBDCs will increase government control over money that could be used as a tool for financial discrimination while simultaneously tracking purchases, and restricting access to funds, thereby working against decentralization, which is one of the main advantages of adopting cryptocurrencies. Agustin Carstens, general manager of the BIS, noted in 2021 that central banks would have “absolute control over the rules and regulations that will determine the use of that expression of central bank liability, and then will also have the technology to enforce that.” Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell last month also stated that a CBDC would not be anonymous and would be identity-verified, meaning details regarding transactions of a CBDC would be public. The European Central Bank (ECB) reiterated Powell’s remarks at the same Banque de France event on Sept. 27, with ECB President Christine Lagarde stating: “There would not be complete anonymity as there is with … bank notes.” Lagarde did, though, add that “there would be a limited level of disclosure and certainly not at the central bank level.” Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tom Nolan + 2,443 TN October 22, 2022 BLOOMBERG - Friday Oct 21, 2022 https://archive.ph/ip4l6 Deutsche Bank Pledges to Cut Emissions From Loans to Oil and Gas (Bloomberg) -- Deutsche Bank AG has given its clearest indication yet of how it plans to deliver on the commitment it made last year to reach net-zero financed emissions by 2050. Germany’s biggest bank said in a statement Friday that it will “significantly” reduce its so-called Scope 3 emissions, which are also known as financed emissions, by 2030 and announced a set of emissions reductions targets for its 250 billion-euro ($244 billion) corporate loan book. The bank said it “aims to support a progressive and orderly phasing out of fossil-fuel usage, while incentivizing the financing of lower carbon-intensity technologies and clients with credible transition plans.” In the oil and gas sector, Deutsche Bank said it plans a 23% reduction in financed emissions by 2030 and a 90% decrease by 2050. The bank said in March, oil and gas loans are the biggest single component of its financed emissions, accounting for 32% of the total, or 9.7 million tons of CO2 equivalent per year.Banks that have made high-level commitments to phase out emissions are under growing pressure to provide evidence of how they plan to reach their targets. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine and a global energy crisis are leading some banks to reconsider their climate commitments. In March, the European Central Bank said it was pushing lenders to disclose more information on the climate and environmental risks they face after finding that only 15% publish data on the emissions they finance. Read more: European Banks’ Next Big Problem? The CO2 in Their Loan BooksDeutsche Bank is a founding member of the Net-Zero Banking Alliance and is thus required to detail how it will lower emissions in the most carbon-intensive industries on its balance sheet. The German bank also said Friday that in the power generation sector, it’s targeting a 69% reduction in Scope 1 physical-emissions intensity by 2030; in the automotive industry, it plans a 59% cut in tailpipe-emissions intensity by 2030; and in steel loans, the bank is aiming for a 33% decline in Scope 1 and Scope 2 physical-emissions intensity by 2030. The bank said it aims to achieve these targets by advising clients in carbon-intensive industries and financing their transition strategies and efforts on the path to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. “This is a big step forward in managing the carbon footprint of our loan portfolio actively”, Chief Sustainability Officer Jörg Eigendorf said in the statement. “We are focusing on supporting our clients on their net zero journey. This is a crucial element of our sustainability strategy.”Deutsche Bank’s target for oil and gas is based on absolute emissions, while its targets for other sectors are based on carbon intensity, which measures emissions per unit of output. Climate activists have said intensity targets are a “cheap accounting trick” because they allow banks to keep financing the expansion of fossil fuels instead of pushing to phase them out. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tom Nolan + 2,443 TN October 22, 2022 Friday Oct 21, 2022 - Activist Post - Paul Joseph Watson https://www.activistpost.com/2022/10/australian-bank-begins-linking-customer-transactions-to-carbon-footprint.html Australian Bank Begins Linking Customer Transactions to Carbon Footprint In another foretaste of potential future ‘carbon allowance’ limits, a major bank in Australia has introduced a new feature that links purchases to a customer’s carbon footprint and warns them when they are going over the average. Australia’s Commonwealth Bank (CBA) has partnered with Cogo, a “carbon management solutions” company, to launch the new feature, which is part of CBA’s online banking platform. The bank gives the customer the option to “pay a fee” to offset their carbon footprint, with the average listed as 1,280 kilograms, a long way from the ‘sustainable’ figure of 200 kilograms. A person’s carbon footprint is calculated and then an ‘equivalent’ metric is show to make the customer feel guilty about it, such as “8 trees being cut”. “By combining our rich customer data and CoGo’s industry-leading capability in measuring carbon outputs, we will be able to provide greater transparency for customers so that they can take actionable steps to reduce their environmental footprint,” CommBank Group executive Angus Sullivan said in a statement. The bank has promised to refine the calculation down to showing how much CO2 individual purchases are responsible for. While initially presented as a handy way for someone to track their consumption habits and the supposed impact they have on the environment, some fear that such schemes could one day become mandatory and place limits on purchases of customers who exceed their ‘carbon allowance.’ As we previously highlighted, allied with climate lockdowns, technocrats want to exploit hysteria over climate change to increase financial control over individuals. Such a proposal was presented in the science journal Nature by four environmental “experts” as a means of reducing global carbon emissions. Everyone would be issued with a ‘carbon allowance card’ “that would entail all adults receiving an equal tradable carbon allowance that reduces over time in line with national [carbon] targets.” The authors make it clear that the program would be a “national mandatory policy.” Carbon units would be “deducted from the personal budget with every payment of transport fuel, home-heating fuels and electricity bills,” and anyone going over the limit would be forced to purchase additional units in the personal carbon market from those with excess to sell.” Of course, the wealthy would be easily able to afford the offsets, and many of them are directly invested in the trading mechanisms that the scheme would be based on. The proposal makes clear that the means of measuring a person’s uptake of carbon units for travel would function “on the basis of the tracking the user’s movement history.” The authors note that mass compliance with COVID-19 lockdown regulations has greased the skids for further intrusive tyranny and that, “people may be more prepared to accept the tracking and limitations related to PCAs to achieve a safer climate” as a result. 5 minute video https://youtu.be/faztj1qvZRI Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tom Nolan + 2,443 TN October 22, 2022 https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/uk-grid-operator-offers-households-money-not-use-appliances-amid-energy-crisis K Grid Operator Offers Households Money To Stop Using Appliances Amid Energy Crisis by Tyler Durden Saturday, Oct 22, 2022 - 07:45 AM The National Grid warned Britons of winter power blackouts earlier this month if it can't import enough natural gas and electricity from other parts of Europe. According to Daily Mail, the grid operator developed a new scheme to prevent the worst-case scenario of power outages by offering households equipped with smart meters to turn off appliances during peak demand times. National Grid's scheme pays households up to £20 per day if they don't use energy-intensive appliances, such as electric ovens and stoves, washing machines, tumble dryers, televisions, microwaves, and even video game consoles, between 4 pm and 7 pm or 2 pm until 9 pm over the next five months. They will be advised to use washing machines, tumble dryers, ovens, dishwashers and other appliances outside those periods so boffins can measure how much energy is saved on the grid when it is at its busiest. If the entire proposed £3 per kwh rebate if passed on to Britons by their supplier, over five months this could mean around £240 off their bills in total. --Daily Mail The grid operator hopes the 'demand flexibility service' will save 2GW of electricity -- equivalent to powering 1 million homes -- during peak demand hours to thwart supply and demand imbalances that could result in power rationing. "But the scheme relies on users having a controversial smart meter, a device which automatically transmits your energy usage to your provider," Daily Mail said. Remember in the US, over the summer, when households in Colorado could not control their own smart thermostats after the local power company digitally seized them to prevent people from increasing cooling demand during a heatwave. There are risks when using anything smart. This winter could be reminiscent of power outages experienced in the 1970s across the UK if power generators cannot get enough NatGas to operate. Ahead of the cold season, we've pointed out that European households have returned to burning wood, coal, and even trash to heat their homes. Western sanctions against Moscow are backfiring and risk sending tens of millions of Europeans not just into energy poverty but back a couple of centuries in progress. Thank you, NATO. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tom Nolan + 2,443 TN October 24, 2022 https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/19-states-investigate-banks-esg-style-commitment-un-alliance 19 States To Investigate Banks For ESG-Style Commitment To UN Alliance by Tyler Durden Sunday, Oct 23, 2022 - 06:00 AM Authored by Nathan Worcester via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), The war between states and banks over environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing and similar practices has reached the doorstep of the U.N. A total of 19 state attorneys general have launched investigations of major financial institutions’ commitment to the U.N.-convened Net-Zero Banking Alliance. The alliance’s website states that its members control roughly 40 percent of the world’s banking assets and are “committed to aligning their lending and investment portfolios with net-zero emissions by 2050.” “The Net-Zero Banking Alliance is a massive worldwide agreement by major banking institutions, overseen by the U.N., to starve companies engaged in fossil fuel-related activities of credit on national and international markets,” Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt said in a statement regarding the investigations. A May statement from the alliance states that it “does not support the financing of fossil fuel expansion” but notes that it “believes that immediate divestment from existing fossil fuel positions will not necessarily bring about the required real economy decarbonization that the world needs.” “We are leading a coalition investigating banks for ceding authority to the U.N., which will only result in the killing of American companies that don’t subscribe to the woke climate agenda. These banks are accountable to American laws–we don’t let international bodies set the standards for our businesses,” Schmitt said. Arizona, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia are among the states now investigating the banks through a powerful tool known as a civil investigative demand. One demand encompasses the following requests: “Describe Your involvement in each Global Climate Initiative in which You participate, including the date You first began participating; any promises, pledges, or other commitments You made to the Global Climate Initiative; or any actions You made or took pursuant to, or consistent with, such commitments, or Your initial or on-going participation, and the employee(s) responsible for managing Your relationship with each Global Climate Initiative.” Schmitt’s announcement is the latest salvo in a long-running conflict between major financial institutions and individual U.S. states regarding ESG. State treasurers, such as West Virginia’s Riley Moore, have sought to move their state’s money from financial institutions that follow ESG principles. Read more here... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tom Nolan + 2,443 TN October 26, 2022 (edited) https://www.zerohedge.com/political/us-citizens-were-tracked-secret-covid-decree-violation-scores Were US Citizens Tracked Via Secret 'COVID Decree Violation' Scores? by Tyler Durden Wednesday, Oct 26, 2022 - 07:54 AM Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News, Tens of millions of US citizens were given a “COVID-19 decree violation” score as a result of a data harvesting program conducted during the first lockdown by voter analytics firm PredictWise. “These Covid-19 decree violation scores were calculated by analyzing nearly two billion global positioning system (GPS) pings to get “real-time, ultra-granular locations patterns.” People who were “on the go more often than their neighbors” were given a high Covid-19 decree violation score while those who mostly or always stayed at home were given a low Covid-19 decree violation score,” writes Reclaim the Net’s Tom Parker. The data collected was then used by PredictWise to help Democrats target over 350,000 “COVID concerned” Republicans with campaign ads relating to virus prevention measures. “PredictWise understood that there were potential pockets of voters to target with Covid-19 messaging and turned high-dimensional data covering over 100 million Americans into measures of adherence to Covid-19 restrictions during deep lockdown,” the company states in its white paper. This information was used to help identify 40,000 “persuasion targets” for Senate candidate Mark Kelly, who was subsequently elected. As we highlighted throughout the COVID lockdowns, chilling components of the surveillance grid were weaponized against ordinary people. At one point, a senior government minister in Australia refused to rule out citizens being forced to wear electronic ankle bracelets, even if they were fully vaccinated, to make sure they were complying with home quarantine orders. Conservative MP Jeremy Hunt, who was recently promoted to become Chancellor of the Exchequer, called for the government to use GPS tracking technology to ensure Brits were complying with COVID quarantine measures. “Daily contact with those asked to self-isolate – using GPS tracking to monitor compliance if necessary as happens in Taiwan and Poland,” said Hunt. Police in the UK also used surveillance drones to monitor and threaten people who dared to go out into remote countryside to walk their dogs. In Australia, tracking drones were deployed to catch people who didn’t wear masks outside and to keep track of cars that traveled further than 5km from home. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ US Citizens Were Given Secret Covid “decree violation” Scores TOPICS:GPSLockdownPrivacySmartphonesSurveillanceTom Parker October 26, 2022 Voter analytics firm PredictWise harvested location data from tens of millions of US cellphones during the initial Covid lockdown months and used this data to assign a “Covid-19 decree violation” score to the people associated with the phones. These Covid-19 decree violation scores were calculated by analyzing nearly two billion global positioning system (GPS) pings to get “real-time, ultra-granular locations patterns.” People who were “on the go more often than their neighbors” were given a high Covid-19 decree violation score while those who mostly or always stayed at home were given a low Covid-19 decree violation score. Not only did PredictWise use this highly sensitive location data to monitor millions of Americans’ compliance with Covid lockdown decrees but it also combined this data with follow-up surveys to assign “Covid concern” scores to the people who were being surveilled. PredictWise then used this data to help Democrats in several swing states to target more than 350,000 “Covid concerned” Republicans with Covid-related campaign ads. In its white paper, PredictWise claims that Democrats were able to “deploy this real-time location model to open up just over 40,000 persuasion targets that normally would have fallen off” for Mark Kelly who was running for Senate at the time and has now been elected. “PredictWise understood that there were potential pockets of voters to target with Covid-19 messaging and turned high-dimensional data covering over 100 million Americans into measures of adherence to Covid-19 restrictions during deep lockdown,” the company states in the white paper. PredictWise doesn’t provide the exact dates when this location data was collected but its white paper does note that the data was collected during Covid lockdowns and used during Senator Kelly’s 2020 election campaign. State-level US lockdowns began on March 15, 2020 and Kelly was elected on November 4, 2020 so the data appears to have been collected during the first few months of this 11-month period. Location data and survey data are just two of the many types of data PredictWise claims to have access to. According to its white paper, PredictWise also tracks “telemetry data” (which is “passively sourced cell-phone data”), media consumption data, and unregistered voter data (which contains verified data on over 50 million unregistered voters that’s updated daily and sourced from credit files and portal registration data). Additionally, PredictWise claims that “Crate&Barrel” (which seems to be a reference to the online furniture and home decor shopping portal Crate & Barrel) is one of the portal registration data sources it has access to. n total, PredictWise says its data “tracks the opinions, attitudes, and behaviors” of over 260 million Americans – a figure that represents 78% of the entire US population of 333 million. PredictWise uses the data it collects to create scores on 13 issue preference clusters and 7 value-frame, or psychometric clusters. These clusters use more than 30 million behavioral data points. PredictWise also claims to be able to use this data to predict the party of unregistered voters. Related: Many apps on your phone have pivoted to selling your location data to coronavirus researchers and others This mass surveillance of location data and lockdown compliance is just one of the many examples of the large-scale data harvesting that occurred during the pandemic. Private companies tracked the everyday activities of citizens, pushed remote learning surveillance technologies, increased surveillance in the workplace, and more. Meanwhile, governments ushered in numerous forms of surveillance such as forcing citizens to wear ankle bracelet trackers, secretly surveilling vaccine recipients via their phones, and combining vaccine passports with digital IDs. If you’re tired of censorship, cancel culture, and the erosion of civil liberties subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Source: Reclaim the Net https://www.activistpost.com/2022/10/us-citizens-were-given-secret-covid-decree-violation-scores.html Edited October 26, 2022 by Tom Nolan Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tom Nolan + 2,443 TN October 26, 2022 https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/if-you-liked-big-brother-meet-googles-big-mum If You Liked Big Brother, Meet Google's Big MUM by Tyler Durden Wednesday, Oct 26, 2022 - 04:25 PM Authored by Daniel Greenfield via The Gatestone Institute, Forget Big Brother, Big MUM is Google's new tool for suppressing conservatives... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Article continues ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19027/google-mum If You Liked Big Brother, Meet Google's Big MUM by Daniel GreenfieldOctober 25, 2022 at 4:00 am Google first unleashed MUM to fight what it considered COVID "misinformation" by making sure that everyone saw "high quality and timely information from trusted health authorities like the World Health Organization". By reducing the number of sources to only those that agree with its agenda, Google is able to deliver fast results while getting rid of different points of view. Google long ago ceased being a way to find different answers and its search results are deliberately repetitive. Search is an illusion. The user thinks that he's browsing the internet when he's actually spinning his wheels in Google's walled garden. Or as Pandu Nayak, VP of search at Google, wrote in a recent post, "By using our latest AI model, Multitask Unified Model (MUM), our systems can now understand the notion of consensus, which is when multiple high-quality sources on the web all agree on the same fact." Google disagrees with many of its users about what "reliable sources" or "high-quality sources" entail. In 2022, Google's search is hopelessly broken because the company no longer has any interest in providing the search service that made it a monopoly, giving a ranked list of diverse results, but wants everyone to speak into their phones and receive a single answer. The consensus. If you own an advanced Android phone, you may find that Google Assistant will interrupt conversations to offer its own "insights". Google is also pursuing "prebunking" of what it considers "misinformation" with preemptive propaganda campaigns. Jigsaw, the company's most explicitly political arm, is researching what it calls "prebunking" or attacking views it opposes before they can even gain traction. Prebunking is currently being experimentally tested by Google's Jigsaw to fight "misinformation" in Poland and other Eastern European countries.... Google's YouTube already has a broad set of bans covering everything from questioning global warming, contradicting medical experts, and debating 2020 election results. These are a window into the company's political agendas and how it seeks to enforce political conformity. While it seeks to narrow the sphere of acceptable information in its platforms, Google is working with the leftist Poynter Institute, one of the most notoriously biased fact check spammers.... The company claims to have spent $75 million on efforts to fight "misinformation." And who determines what misinformation is? He who controls the algorithms. As the midterm elections approach, YouTube spokeswoman, Ivy Choi, promised that the video site's recommendations are "continuously and prominently surfacing midterms-related content from authoritative news sources and limiting the spread of harmful midterms-related misinformation." The technical term for this is mass propaganda. That's what Big Tech does. The internet was revolutionary because it upended the central systems of mass propaganda which allowed a government and a handful of men to enforce their consensus on a helpless public..... Conservatives are one of the cultural barriers because their existence is a marked reminder that Big Tech does not control everything..... [Big Tech] manage systems that extend around the country and the world. When they encounter different points of view, they seek to wipe them out. MUM is yet another tool for enforcing a totalitarian conformity on the diversity of the internet. Google doesn't want you to think differently or to think for yourself. What it wants users to do is to shut up and listen to Big MUM. Forget Big Brother, Big MUM is Google's new tool for suppressing conservatives. The "Multitask Unified Model" is yet another tool for enforcing a totalitarian conformity on the diversity of the internet. Google doesn't want you to think differently or to think for yourself. What it wants users to do is to shut up and listen. (Photo by Tobias Schwartz/AFP via Getty Images) Forget Big Brother, Big MUM is Google's new tool for suppressing conservatives. MUM or Multitask Unified Model was hyped last year as the company's new machine learning algorithm. MUM had been initially described as an innovative way to allow Google's dying search service to answer natural language questions by drawing on multiple sources. While MUM's applications initially appeared to be apolitical, that quickly changed. Google first unleashed MUM to fight what it considered COVID "misinformation" by making sure that everyone saw "high quality and timely information from trusted health authorities like the World Health Organization". By reducing the number of sources to only those that agree with its agenda, Google is able to deliver fast results while getting rid of different points of view. A Forbes article described how MUM would "check information across multiple reliable sources" to allow "the system to come to a general consensus". Google had once built its search around the vast diversity of a bygone internet, but it has spent the last decade draining the diversity and depth of the pool and replacing it with the shallow manufactured consensus of its agenda. Google long ago ceased being a way to find different answers and its search results are deliberately repetitive. Search is an illusion. The user thinks that he's browsing the internet when he's actually spinning his wheels in Google's walled garden. This is most obvious in shopping and in politics: two areas where Google has strong interests and tries to manipulate users into believing that they are exploring options when they're being hand fed variations on a theme. Or as Pandu Nayak, VP of search at Google, wrote in a recent post, "By using our latest AI model, Multitask Unified Model (MUM), our systems can now understand the notion of consensus, which is when multiple high-quality sources on the web all agree on the same fact." The last thing the world needs is another centralized computer system enforcing a consensus. Google disagrees with many of its users about what "reliable sources" or "high-quality sources" entail. MUM helps the Big Tech search monopoly manufacture a consensus, on what it claims is a universal fact, and to promote snippets on its own site that promote that consensus. The monopoly doesn't see its search service as a way to rank sites. The Big Tech monopoly, like its counterparts, doesn't want users actually leaving its sites, and wants to force a "consensus" answer on them in its search engine. MUM is another tool for keeping users on its digital plantation. The underlying notion behind MUM is a continuing redefinition of search, not as browsing an array of sources, but as a way of delivering a single instantaneous answer. Googlers have long been obsessed with the idea of replicating Star Trek's fictional computer which would offer the answer to any question in a robotic female voice. MUM is the next step in this Big Sister quest. "The Star Trek computer is not just a metaphor that we use to explain to others what we're building. It is the ideal that we're aiming to build—the ideal version done realistically," Amit Singhal, then the head of Google's search rankings team, boasted. Singhal was later forced to leave the company over sexual harassment allegations. "It was the perfect search engine," he gushed about the Star Trek computer. "You could ask it a question and it would tell you exactly the right answer, one right answer—and sometimes it would tell you things you needed to know in advance, before you could ask it." In 2022, Google's search is hopelessly broken because the company no longer has any interest in providing the search service that made it a monopoly, giving a ranked list of diverse results, but wants everyone to speak into their phones and receive a single answer. The consensus. Google's snippets and knowledge panels displace links to actual sites and provide what the monopoly claims is the definitive answer. Its search assistant is similarly set up to provide a single answer. Google doesn't want you to compare answers, but to listen to MUM. And sometimes Google wants to give you the information before you ask it. If you own an advanced Android phone, you may find that Google Assistant will interrupt conversations to offer its own "insights". Google is also pursuing "prebunking" of what it considers "misinformation" with preemptive propaganda campaigns. Jigsaw, the company's most explicitly political arm, is researching what it calls "prebunking" or attacking views it opposes before they can even gain traction. Prebunking is currently being experimentally tested by Google's Jigsaw to fight "misinformation" in Poland and other Eastern European countries against Ukrainian migrants. This is only a test and Jigsaw expects there to be much wider application for the information techniques that its "researchers" are developing. Google's YouTube already has a broad set of bans covering everything from questioning global warming, contradicting medical experts, and debating 2020 election results. These are a window into the company's political agendas and how it seeks to enforce political conformity. While it seeks to narrow the sphere of acceptable information in its platforms, Google is working with the leftist Poynter Institute, one of the most notoriously biased fact check spammers, to develop "media literacy.". The company claims to have spent $75 million on efforts to fight "misinformation." And who determines what misinformation is? He who controls the algorithms. As the midterm elections approach, YouTube spokeswoman Ivy Choi, promised that the video site's recommendations are "continuously and prominently surfacing midterms-related content from authoritative news sources and limiting the spread of harmful midterms-related misinformation." The technical term for this is mass propaganda. That's what Big Tech does. The internet was revolutionary because it upended the central systems of mass propaganda which allowed a government and a handful of men to enforce their consensus on a helpless public through the mass media of newspapers, radio stations, movie theaters and television sets. Big Tech's Web 2.0 killed the revolution and restored the oligarchy. Its monopolists see the internet as only a faster way to deliver more immersive propaganda to the masses. The Big Tech monopolies took off by taming the web, shrinking its vast promise and diversity of content into smaller walled gardens that they could dominate and monetize. Facebook inhaled most of the social interactions on the internet and locked it up in its private platform. Google is determined to do the same thing to the bewildering parade of ideas of the entire internet. When Google's senior VP Prabhakar Raghavan first introduced MUM, he suggested that the goal was to "develop not only a better understanding of information on the Web, but a better understanding of the world." What happens on the internet doesn't stay on the internet. Conservatives are one of the cultural barriers because their existence is a marked reminder that Big Tech does not control everything. While its executives and employees are socially insulated wokes operating in major urban centers, they manage systems that extend around the country and the world. When they encounter different points of view, they seek to wipe them out. MUM is yet another tool for enforcing a totalitarian conformity on the diversity of the internet. Google doesn't want you to think differently or to think for yourself. What it wants users to do is to shut up and listen to Big MUM. Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine. 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tom Nolan + 2,443 TN October 31, 2022 January 26, 2021 – Moneywise via YahooCredit scores may soon be based on your web history — is that a good thing?https://ca.news.yahoo.com/credit-score-based-history-183000645.htmlhttps://archive.ph/JwGBr – Referenced IMF Study –https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2020/08/07/Financial-Intermediation-and-Technology-Whats-Old-Whats-New-49624 EXCERPTSExperts predict that in the not-too-distant future, your internet habits could affect your credit score and help lenders determine what they offer you. We will let you in on what we know so far about how your online activity could be used to determine how much credit you can get and at what interest rate… …The credit scores of tomorrow Lenders could soon be using data from your browsing, search and purchase history — your “digital footprint” — to create a more accurate credit score, according to International Monetary Fund (IMF) researchers. The working paper shows that combining your credit score and your digital footprint “further improves loan default predictions.” And how exactly would this data be collected and used as part of your credit report? Survey says: Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. The IMF isn’t the only group to ponder such futuristic notions. A 2018 study from the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management also looked at lenders using your personal online data in tandem with traditional data from credit bureaus. So, what does your online behavior really say about you? Their findings showed “the digital footprint allows some unscorable customers to gain access to credit while customers with a low-to-medium credit score can either gain or lose access to credit depending on their digital footprint.” In theory, a lender would be able to see a credit report that uses an algorithm to show a mix of your online shopping and browsing habits as well as the traditional financial data like your income and payment history… …The IMF research acknowledges there would be an “efficiency-privacy trade-off.”… Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tom Nolan + 2,443 TN November 5, 2022 Patrick Wood Patrick Wood is a leading and critical expert on Sustainable Development, Green Economy, Agenda 21, 2030 Agenda and historic Technocracy. He is the author of Technocracy Rising: The Trojan Horse of Global Transformation (2015) and co-author of Trilaterals Over Washington, Volumes I and II (1978-1980) with the late Antony C. Sutton. https://www.technocracy.news/company-in-finland-seeks-to-regulate-us-companies-for-sdg-compliance/ Company In Finland Seeks To Regulate US Companies For SDG Compliance CNBC carried a story, It’s a ‘wild west out there’: CEO says regulation needed to keep firms in line on sustainability, suggesting that American companies need to be forcibly whipped into shape over the United Nations’ Sustainable Development goals. Sustainable Development is Technocracy, any which way you slice it. SDG Monitor is a Finland company that claims authority because they are “citizens of the world.” Their website states, We are proud members of Pledge 1% community and we give back by sharing our knowledge of how to grow your business sustainably. [ARTICLE CONTINUES] Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tom Nolan + 2,443 TN November 8, 2022 Uninformed folks may not realize how long the Digital ID Control/Monitor Agenda has been in the works. Even after 9/11/2001, corporations with government contracts were working on technology to track and monitor the behavior of the population. Those in Europe know about the Green Pass. Well prior to 2020, the agenda and plans were in place to control the population... https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/eu-vaccination-roadmap-2018-2022 EU Vaccination Roadmap, 2018-2022 In case you were skeptical about EU vaccination passport planning, here are the receipts Robert W Malone MD, MS 21 hr ago Just who are the stakeholders that are being consulted? https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F166080d5-2b6b-41e6-9468-1ef7c1446912_2736x1934.png [More images in article] The future is here. What we all should be asking is what do they have planned for 2023 and beyond or even to 2030? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Michael Sanches + 187 November 11, 2022 Remember, the nitrous oxide from decaying plant matter (leaves, crops) is 300 times as powerful as carbon dioxide. We need to cut down all the trees and stop all agriculture to save the planet. If you don't hate the planet and mankind, you will eat nothing but fish (raw), worms, larva, and insects. 1 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tom Nolan + 2,443 TN November 16, 2022 https://www.activistpost.com/2022/11/vancouver-credit-union-to-offer-carbon-footprint-tracker-for-its-visa-credit-cards.html Vancouver Credit Union to Offer Carbon Footprint Tracker for its Visa Credit Cards By Jesse Smith Vancity, a Vancouver-based credit union, is launching a program that will allow its Visa credit card holders to track the estimated carbon emissions of their purchases. The data offered will also track how their spending-linked emissions compare nationally and which purchases have the highest environmental cost. The company further announced that, The Carbon Counter will help Vancity card holders understand the carbon footprint of their purchases as well as provide advice on what they can do to reduce their emissions footprint. The carbon calculator is being offered in partnership with ecolytiq, a climate-focused, German fintech company focused on “sustainable banking”. Vancity announced it will be the first to offer a Visa-based carbon footprint calculator in Canada when the program becomes available next year. Under the guise of reducing emissions and helping to save the planet, carbon-footprint trackers are the latest ruse to get people to buy into the idea that normal human behaviors are destroying the planet. For now, they are being introduced voluntarily; however, this may not last long as the ultimate goal is to utilize them to restrict what you can eat, where you can go, and what you can do. Source: Truth Unmuted Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tom Nolan + 2,443 TN November 17, 2022 (edited) [ARTICLE EXCERPTS] In truth, the Bankman-Fried scandal shows that all do-gooder capitalism should set off red flags. Bankman-Fried claimed he was only trying to get rich in order to raise money for charity, and investors and journalists overwhelmingly took him at his word, even while visiting him at his $40 million home in the Bahamas. “You were really good at talking about ethics for someone who kind of saw it all as a game with winners and losers,” a Vox reporter said to Bankman-Fried last night, to which he responded, “ya, hehe… I feel bad for those who get fucked by it. By this dumb game we woke westerners play where we say all the right shiboleths [sic] so everyone likes us.” Defenders of do-gooder capitalism say that socially-responsible investing, which was rebranded as ESG to refer to investing that takes environmental, social, and governance issues into account, has done a lot of good. They point to ESG investments in things like renewable energy, electric vehicles, and carbon offsets as proof that capitalism and philanthropy can co-exist. But ESG has been rocked by scandal after scandal for greenwashing things that are bad for the environment, people, and democracy. Few carbon offsets actually reduce carbon emissions. Many are scams. Some pay landowners to not cut down trees they were never going to log. Others pay renewable energy developers who were already going to build wind and solar projects. Most solar panels and electric car batteries are made in Xinjiang, China by incarcerated Uyghur Muslims. Solar projects require 300-600 times more land than nuclear or natural gas plants and are devastating fragile desert environments. And there is no waste disposal solution for used solar panels, a hazardous waste, which means they will be sent to landfills or dumped on poor nations. Even Bankman-Fried acknowledges that “ESG has been perverted beyond recognition.” “Fraud” may seem like a harsh word for describing ESG, but Black’s Law defines fraud as an activity that relies on deception in order to achieve a gain, and ESG certifiers, and sellers of solar panels and solar projects, know perfectly well that their projects violate the letter and spirit of ESG. Representatives of the renewable energy industry for years claimed their products were cheaper than other energy sources even as they were lobbying Congress for $369 billion in subsidies. And many ESG funds exclude nuclear energy even though nuclear has the smallest environmental footprint of any energy source, pays higher wages than solar, and enjoys the strictest regulatory governance of any energy source. In truth, societies are much more vulnerable to ESG, renewable energy, and offset frauds than to con artists like Madoff and Bankman-Fried. The latter are caught as soon as the stock market crashes and their pyramid scheme collapses. ESG, renewables, and offsets, by contrast, continue to find customers despite scandal after scandal — as do the the Clinton Foundation and World Economic Forum. The Clinton Foundation is still holding pay-to-play conferences despite having been caught accepting $10 to $25 million from Saudi Arabia and $1 million from Qatar before and while, respectively, Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State. And the World Economic Forum’s founder, Klaus Schwab, was at the G-20 meeting this week despite revelations that WEF promoted FTX. As such, the question is not why Woke frauds like Bankman-Fried do what they do, nor why they get caught, but rather why people fall for it. Why do such transparent efforts to buy public sympathy through greenwashing and woke-washing continue to work? Wokeism Is The New “Greed Is Good”.... [ARTICLE CONTINUES] https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/crypto-fraud-exposes-woke-capitalism-scam Crypto Fraud Exposes Woke Capitalism As A Scam by Tyler Durden Thursday, Nov 17, 2022 - 03:20 PM Edited November 17, 2022 by Tom Nolan Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jay McKinsey + 1,491 November 17, 2022 57 minutes ago, Tom Nolan said: [ARTICLE EXCERPTS] In truth, the Bankman-Fried scandal shows that all do-gooder capitalism should set off red flags. Bankman-Fried claimed he was only trying to get rich in order to raise money for charity, and investors and journalists overwhelmingly took him at his word, even while visiting him at his $40 million home in the Bahamas. “You were really good at talking about ethics for someone who kind of saw it all as a game with winners and losers,” a Vox reporter said to Bankman-Fried last night, to which he responded, “ya, hehe… I feel bad for those who get fucked by it. By this dumb game we woke westerners play where we say all the right shiboleths [sic] so everyone likes us.” Defenders of do-gooder capitalism say that socially-responsible investing, which was rebranded as ESG to refer to investing that takes environmental, social, and governance issues into account, has done a lot of good. They point to ESG investments in things like renewable energy, electric vehicles, and carbon offsets as proof that capitalism and philanthropy can co-exist. But ESG has been rocked by scandal after scandal for greenwashing things that are bad for the environment, people, and democracy. Few carbon offsets actually reduce carbon emissions. Many are scams. Some pay landowners to not cut down trees they were never going to log. Others pay renewable energy developers who were already going to build wind and solar projects. Most solar panels and electric car batteries are made in Xinjiang, China by incarcerated Uyghur Muslims. Solar projects require 300-600 times more land than nuclear or natural gas plants and are devastating fragile desert environments. And there is no waste disposal solution for used solar panels, a hazardous waste, which means they will be sent to landfills or dumped on poor nations. Even Bankman-Fried acknowledges that “ESG has been perverted beyond recognition.” “Fraud” may seem like a harsh word for describing ESG, but Black’s Law defines fraud as an activity that relies on deception in order to achieve a gain, and ESG certifiers, and sellers of solar panels and solar projects, know perfectly well that their projects violate the letter and spirit of ESG. Representatives of the renewable energy industry for years claimed their products were cheaper than other energy sources even as they were lobbying Congress for $369 billion in subsidies. And many ESG funds exclude nuclear energy even though nuclear has the smallest environmental footprint of any energy source, pays higher wages than solar, and enjoys the strictest regulatory governance of any energy source. In truth, societies are much more vulnerable to ESG, renewable energy, and offset frauds than to con artists like Madoff and Bankman-Fried. The latter are caught as soon as the stock market crashes and their pyramid scheme collapses. ESG, renewables, and offsets, by contrast, continue to find customers despite scandal after scandal — as do the the Clinton Foundation and World Economic Forum. The Clinton Foundation is still holding pay-to-play conferences despite having been caught accepting $10 to $25 million from Saudi Arabia and $1 million from Qatar before and while, respectively, Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State. And the World Economic Forum’s founder, Klaus Schwab, was at the G-20 meeting this week despite revelations that WEF promoted FTX. As such, the question is not why Woke frauds like Bankman-Fried do what they do, nor why they get caught, but rather why people fall for it. Why do such transparent efforts to buy public sympathy through greenwashing and woke-washing continue to work? Wokeism Is The New “Greed Is Good”.... [ARTICLE CONTINUES] https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/crypto-fraud-exposes-woke-capitalism-scam Crypto Fraud Exposes Woke Capitalism As A Scam by Tyler Durden Thursday, Nov 17, 2022 - 03:20 PM It exposes all crypto as a scam. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tom Nolan + 2,443 TN November 18, 2022 Music in a Time of ConformityFive Times August’s new album “Silent War” has just been released. https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=6z1ZpYcyku4&list=OLAK5uy_lXqEwkopQ8sDeOUGhfJda8Z343Q-0IkTU Brad Skistimas is Texas bred, and lives south of Dallas with his family. He does his own graphics and video. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Metalmania + 37 DS November 21, 2022 On 3/27/2022 at 6:09 AM, Tom Nolan said: EXCERPTS “…After segmenting each section, a value will then be assigned to each. Some areas have a heavier weight than others. For example, if you invest in green programs and also avoid eating meat, it will have a heavier weight than your use of electricity in your home daily… …Buying a gun, alcohol, or even clothing will all affect your overall ESG score. Not only will your purchases matter, but who you purchase from and how they do business. Your political affiliations also factor into your personal ESG score. Aside from the politics in governance, the party you support and even the person you vote for will make your score go up or down based on that person’s actions, policies, and voting habits. The type of car you drive, how often, and even how many people are in the car when you drive will also come into play when deciding your score. Unlike credit scores with a clear method of tabulation, cause, and effect, ESG scores depend on a wide variety of factors that most people have yet to consider. Depending on where you live, even calculating a personal ESG score can mean giving up your rights to basic privacy…” How to Calculate Your Individual ESG Score https://theimpactinvestor.com/calculate-individual-esg-score/ Table of Contents [hide] Do I Have an ESG Score? What is the Purpose of an ESG Score for Individuals? What is My ESG Score? Quick Tutorial On How to Calculate My Personal ESG Score What You Need To Determine Your Individual ESG Score Step 1 On How to Calculate ESG Score Step 2 On How to Calculate ESG Score Step 3 On How to Calculate ESG Score Step 4 On How to Calculate ESG Score A Closer Look At The Metrics In business, ESG issues have been on the docket for quite some time. Not only do stakeholders pay attention to the effect a company has on the environment, third parties and even the government is also keeping track. ESG covers a range of issues, including the overall environmental impact a company or its services imparts in addition to diversity, human rights, and other social issues. Governance plays a role as well. Every company will have an ESG rating which is considered their ESG score. Investors and other companies use this to help determine partnership, investment, and even takeover decisions. That being said, you may be wondering about an individual ESG score. People have credit scores that tell lenders and other parties if they can pay their debts. It is similar to a credit score when it comes to an individual ESG score, but instead of rating creditworthiness, it rates a person’s ESG risk. This article will cover the basics of an individual ESG score, how yours is calculated, and what it will be used for going forward. We will also teach you how to calculate your individual ESG score so that you can work towards improving your rating. Do I Have an ESG Score? You may know all about your credit score, but an individual ESG score is still rather new. Many mainstream financial institutions are creating a new platform that is centered on ESG scores. In addition to creating this platform, their lending guidelines are also getting an update that includes new rules that will tie your individual ESG score to your ability to secure lending. Being that it’s still new, there is not too much that is completely known about how it will be used and what regulations will improve or correct your score. In many cases, people are generally unaware that they even have an ESG score unless they happen to come across it in the process of doing something totally unrelated. For example, consumers who have accounts with Merrill Lynch will be able to view their score, whatever that may be. While this may sound like tales out of China, it is a system that is, in fact, being implement in the US and soon many other nations. Lenders will use this system to choose who they extend services or credit to. The main reason is that companies, including lenders, are being graded according to the ESG standards themselves. Their business and prosperity depend directly on their hiring practices, gender diversity, social and environmental impact, and other ESG factors. As they are required to prove their case, they will also need to show that their clients meet the standards they are being graded. What is the Purpose of an ESG Score for Individuals? https://cdn.theimpactinvestor.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Working-Equipments.jpg.webp A few different things will determine your personal ESG score, many of which can be discovered via your regular credit report and other public records. Your purchase history and also your sales history will have a dramatic effect on your ESG rating as a person. The charities that you support will also increase or even decrease your ESG score. The platform will track your personal impact in the environment around you through various means, which will also be used to calculate your individual ESG score. The purpose behind each person being assigned an individual ESG score is to help reward actions that will help move the world towards sustainability. While there are not currently any downsides to having an ESG score, regardless of how high or how low, there will come a time where too low of a score can result in denials for loans or services similar to the way credit scores currently function. For now, ESG scores for individuals are used as a tracking tool for companies to monitor behavior. For those who have already started using ESG scores as part of their business model, some people with good scores may notice lucrative offers, easier loan terms, and even targeted packages designed to reward green or sustainable behaviors. What is My ESG Score? Now that you know a little more about the basics and principles behind an individual ESG score, you may be wondering where to find your rating. There are a few different places you can check to find your score. If you hold an account at a major financial firm such as Merrill Lynch, your personal ESG score will be listed on your account with your other personal details. You can also check any of the main ESG monitoring companies’ websites. Usually, you will need to create an account or contact them directly to get information regarding your personal score. If you are not an investor or don’t have a big financial account, it can be difficult to get your score from traditional places. However, you can calculate your score to get a better idea of how companies view you in sustainability. Quick Tutorial On How to Calculate My Personal ESG Score For companies, any score between 50 and 70 is considered to be average. It is neither good nor bad but rather neutral within that particular industry. A score over 70 is a good thing which means the company makes better ESG supportive decisions and has an ESG stable way of doing business. For individuals, the scoring is a bit different but follows the same general set of rules. If you are wondering how do I find my personal ESG score, our easy-to-understand tutorial will help. What You Need To Determine Your Individual ESG Score Finding and calculating your personal ESG score will mainly depend on your metrics’ materiality. In addition to your unique factors, you will also need to identify your personal ESG goals to determine a score. You can perform audits of your actions to help spot risks and then implement measures to correct aspects of your increasing score, or rather lowering your personal ESG score. ESG ratings are based on the measure of behaviors, investments, habits, and other actions gathered from a range of public sources. Your score may be adjusted depending on a range of factors, including the company’s policies from which your score is delivered. As such, there will be some variation between scores depending on where yours is the source in comparison with your own manual calculations. Some things you may need to calculate your personal score are: A list of your investments. A general calculation of how many miles you travel via car and public transport. The amount of energy you use each month (electricity, gas, etc.). Your cryptocurrency profile. Your food consumption numbers. Your organic and environmental effort profile. And other metrics. Step 1 On How to Calculate ESG Score You will start by amassing the data. Depending on how comprehensive you want your evaluation to be, the more data you will need. Calculate the amount of energy you use personally and as a family. You will also need to calculate the amount of waste you produce personally. Look at your purchases and tabulate the percentage of your eco-friendly purchases and those that are not. You will also need to look at your investments and separate them into ESG friendly ones and those that are not. Social ethics also play a role in your overall score. Consider how your actions, both online and in-person, help support your community and those around you. Also, you will need to calculate how your actions harm those around you. The point of these calculations is to understand how much you affect the environment and people around you, both positively and negatively. Step 2 On How to Calculate ESG Score You can then answer several questions that further relate to your life, habits, and consumption that will help create a complete picture of your interaction with the world around you. These survey questions can be downloaded online from any ESG reporting agency, or you can take an online assessment that will help guide you through the appropriate questions. Step 3 On How to Calculate ESG Score Once the calculations and questions are completed, the answers will need to be segmented. This will separate your replies and consumption into sections that can then be measured and assigned an ESG value. The criteria used to segment the information will vary slightly from one reporting agency to the next. Still, they will cover personal carbon emissions, waste production, energy usage, environmental impact, social impact, ethics insights, and sustainability efforts, among other things. Step 4 On How to Calculate ESG Score After segmenting each section, a value will then be assigned to each. Some areas have a heavier weight than others. For example, if you invest in green programs and also avoid eating meat, it will have a heavier weight than your use of electricity in your home daily. Every ESG rating agency has its own predefined scoring systems that assign weights and measures to each segment. As a result, the final, personal ESG score may vary slightly from agency to agency and agencies to your own calculations. Controversies, actual reporting, truth in reporting, and exact tabulations will also play a role in your final score. Commercial companies also have more access to public data than you may have on your own, which will further affect the actual score you are awarded. A Closer Look At The Metrics ESG scores take a lot of information into account when it comes to commercial and industrial entities. On a personal level, just as much information is used to create a picture of who you are and how your personal actions influence the world around you. Buying a gun, alcohol, or even clothing will all affect your overall ESG score. Not only will your purchases matter, but who you purchase from and how they do business. Your political affiliations also factor into your personal ESG score. Aside from the politics in governance, the party you support and even the person you vote for will make your score go up or down based on that person’s actions, policies, and voting habits. The type of car you drive, how often, and even how many people are in the car when you drive will also come into play when deciding your score. Unlike credit scores with a clear method of tabulation, cause, and effect, ESG scores depend on a wide variety of factors that most people have yet to consider. Depending on where you live, even calculating a personal ESG score can mean giving up your rights to basic privacy. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ No possibility of corruption here. What a joke! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tom Nolan + 2,443 TN November 23, 2022 Countries around the world are joining together so that they can track and monitor the behavior of citizens... https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/global-news-a-global-passport-for Global News: A Global Passport for Vaccines and Carbon Tracking They're Coming... Robert W Malone MD, MS International News: G-20 Promotes WHO-Standardized Global Vaccine Passport and ‘Digital Health’ Identity Scheme BBN, Ѕundау, Nоvеmbеr 20, 2022. Whіlе ѕоmе ѕuggеѕt thеу аrе lауіng оut thе grоundwоrk fоr thе роtеntіаl реrmаnеnt bаnіѕhmеnt оf ‘undеѕіrаblеѕ’ frоm ѕосіеtу, lеаdеrѕ оf thе Grоuр оf 20 nаtіоnѕ hаvе саllеd fоr а glоbаl ѕtаndаrd оn рrооf оf vассіnаtіоn fоr іntеrnаtіоnаl trаvеl аnd thе еѕtаblіѕhmеnt оf “glоbаl dіgіtаl hеаlth nеtwоrkѕ” thаt buіld оn ехіѕtіng dіgіtаl СОVІD-19 vассіnе раѕѕроrt ѕсhеmеѕ, ассоrdіng tо thе Еросh Тіmеѕ. “Wе асknоwlеdgе thе іmроrtаnсе оf ѕhаrеd tесhnісаl ѕtаndаrdѕ аnd vеrіfісаtіоn mеthоdѕ, undеr thе frаmеwоrk оf thе ІНR (2005), tо fасіlіtаtе ѕеаmlеѕѕ іntеrnаtіоnаl trаvеl, іntеrореrаbіlіtу, аnd rесоgnіzіng dіgіtаl ѕоlutіоnѕ аnd nоn-dіgіtаl ѕоlutіоnѕ, іnсludіng рrооf оf vассіnаtіоnѕ,” thе G20 јоіnt dесlаrаtіоn rеаdѕ. This agreement actually was first codified in the spring of 2021. This was covered in a Forbes article, written in May 2021, entitled “Vaccine Passports: World’s 20 Biggest Economies Give Go-Ahead.” This 2021 article states that: “The G20 meeting–where the world’s biggest economies meet to make decisions–took place Tuesday, and members decided to throw their weight behind vaccination passports, as a means of boosting the global travel and tourism economy.” Somehow, this decision by the G20, made over 1.5 years ago, that vaccine passports would become mandatory within a short period of time managed to escape media attention. Now - of course, it is almost a fait accompli. Of note, many countries have now pledged hundreds of millions, if not billions to the development of such a passport. G20 Promotes WHO-Standardized Global Vaccine Passport and ‘Digital Health’ Identity Scheme Epoch Health, Nov 17, 2022 ‘Digital Gulag’ Journalist Nick Corbishley, who writes about economic and political trends in Europe and Latin America, has warned that vaccine passports can lead to the implementation of a global digital identity scheme that will threaten privacy and freedom across the world. “It’s like this checkpoint society. Wherever you want to go, you have to show your mobile phone, your identity … even if it’s just to go into a supermarket or go into a shop,” he told EpochTV’s “Crossroads” program. Corbishley described the negative aspects of a global digital identification scheme as a kind of “digital gulag” in which people could be “effectively banished from society.” “That is a terrifying vision,” he said. World Leaders Agree To Implement Vaccine Passports Liberty Counsel, Nov 17, 2022 “I cannot say this forcefully enough: This is literally the end of human liberty in the West if this plan unfolds as planned… Vaccine passports sound like a fine thing if you don’t know what those platforms can do. I’m CEO of a tech company, I understand what this platform does. It’s not about the vaccine, it’s not about the virus, it’s about data. And once this rolls out you don’t have a choice about being part of the system. What people have to understand is that any other functionality can be loaded onto that platform with no problem at all” stated Naomi Wolf, an author and Rhodes Scholar, predicted that the vaccine passport would eventually track every aspect of people’s lives and would violate the U.S. Constitution, the Americans With Disabilities Act, and HIPAA. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Technology Review states, “This new social order will seem unthinkable to most people in so-called free countries. But any change can quickly become normal if people accept it. The new normal will be that we are used to the idea that in some cases being able to move around freely is dependent on us being able to show that we're healthy. There will be a greater acceptance, I think, of that kind of public health monitoring.” Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “Digital health or vaccine passports along with tracking and tracing apps present a serious threat to freedom. Vaccine passports and tracking apps are about collecting data and control. The vaccine passport is being promoted worldwide to limit a person’s ability to leave home, work, shop, dine, travel, attend a public event, or even worship. COVID is being used to advance this dangerous threat to freedom. We must never accept vaccine passports or tracking apps as the new normal. The implications for freedom are significant.” From vaccine passports to personal carbon passports: Get ready for CLIMATE-21 fossil fuel virus lockdowns Does COVID-19 justify the global carbon plans? Financial Post, Sep 08, 2021 Somewhere deep in the cranium of the climate intelligentsia a seed was planted to produce the florid idea that the global COVID-19 virus could serve as inspiration for humankind to once and for all tackle the looming climate crisis. Mark Carney, the global master of modern corporatism’s climate crusade, dedicates a whole chapter of his book Value(s) to the COVID/climate nexus. “If we come together to meet the biggest challenges in medical biology, so too can we come together to meet the challenges of climate physics and the forces driving inequality.” That message came clearly this week when 220 medical journals around the world — including the Canadian Medical Association Journal — all of which published the same “editorial” under the headline: “Call for emergency action to limit global temperature increases, restore biodiversity, and protect health.”… Given the current state of the global pandemic, the assumption that the COVID control experience shows the way forward may strike many as a little premature. It is not obvious that we need to fight the climate with big government interventions, backed by corporations, to totally reshape the global economic and power system. So here we are. From vaccine passports to digital IDs to tracking “carbon footprints,” these goals are working at “warp speed.” What is it going to take to stop this globalized version of insanity? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tom Nolan + 2,443 TN November 26, 2022 https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/appalling-major-tax-filing-services-have-been-sending-financial-information-facebook "This Is Appalling": Major Tax Filing Services Have Been Sending Financial Information To Facebook by Tyler Durden Friday, Nov 25, 2022 - 06:30 PM Major tax filing services, including H&R Block, TaxAct and TaxSlayer, have been covertly sending Facebook sensitive financial information when Americans file their taxes online, according to The Markup. The data includes names, email addresses, income, filing status, refund amounts and college scholarship information - which is sent to Facebook regardless of whether a person even has a Facebook account - or with other platforms owned by Meta. The company can then be used to fine tune advertising algorithms. It is sent through widely used code called the Meta Pixel. Of note, Intuit-owned TurboTax does use Meta Pixel, however the company did not send financial information - just usernames and the last time a device signed in. Beyond that, they have kept Pixel entirely off pages beyond sign in. Each year, the Internal Revenue Service processes about 150 million individual returns filed electronically, and some of the most widely used e-filing services employ the pixel, The Markup found. When users sign up to file their taxes with the popular service TaxAct, for example, they’re asked to provide personal information to calculate their returns, including how much money they make and their investments. A pixel on TaxAct’s website then sent some of that data to Facebook, including users’ filing status, their adjusted gross income, and the amount of their refund, according to a review by The Markup. Income was rounded to the nearest thousand and refund to the nearest hundred. The pixel also sent the names of dependents in an obfuscated, but generally reversible, format. -The Markup TaxAct, which services around three million "consumer and professional users," also sends data to Google via the company's analytics tool, however names are not included in the information. Once a tax return was filled out on taxact.com, information including an individual’s adjusted gross income, federal refund amount, and number of dependents was sent to Meta via the Meta Pixel. Data in the screenshots is not real user data. Source: taxact.com and The Markup "We take the privacy of our customers’ data very seriously," said TaxAct spokeswoman Nicole Coburn. "TaxAct, at all times, endeavors to comply with all IRS regulations." H&R Block embedded a pixel on its site that included information on filers' health savings account usage, dependents' college tuition grants and expenses. The company similarly claimed in a very boilerplate statement that they "regularly evaluate[s] our practices as part of our ongoing commitment to privacy, and will review the information." While TaxSlayer - which says it completed 10 million federal and state returns last year - provided Facebook information on filers as part of the social media giant's "advanced matching" system which attempts to link information from people browsing the web to Facebook accounts. The information sent includes phone numbers and the name of the user filling out the form, as well as the names of any dependents added to the return. Specific demographic information was also obscured, but Facebook was still able to link them to existing profiles. Another tax filing service, Ramsey Solutions, told The Markup that the company "implemented the Meta Pixel to deliver a more personalized customer experience," but that they "did NOT know and were never notified that personal tax information was being collected by Facebook from the Pixel." "As soon as we found out, we immediately informed TaxSlayer to deactivate the Pixel from Ramsey SmartTax." Harvard Law School lecturer and tax law specialist Mandi Matlock said the findings showed that taxpayers have been "providing some of the most sensitive information that they own, and it’s being exploited." "This is appalling," she added. "It truly is." Read more here... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tom Nolan + 2,443 TN November 26, 2022 https://www.zerohedge.com/political/thanksgiving-biden-stuffs-americas-401ks-esg For Thanksgiving, Biden Stuffs America's 401(k)s With ESG by Tyler Durden Friday, Nov 25, 2022 - 01:40 PM On Tuesday, the Department of Labor finalized a rule that provides regulatory cover for retirement plan sponsors who want to emphasize environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors in plan management. Since 1974, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) has rightly required that plan sponsors act "solely in the interest" of employees and beneficiaries when selecting and monitoring investments and casting shareholder votes. The Trump administration reinforced that principle by prohibiting retirement plans from considering investment attributes that aren't material to risk or performance. Trump's DOL explicitly prohibited funds with ESG principles from being used as the default investment for plan participants. With Biden's Thanksgiving week move, that's all out the window, setting up tens of millions of Americans to have their retirement potential clipped as woke corporations corral their money into ESG-tainted investments. The administration knows it's doing something that a broad swath of society would find objectionable: In choosing Tuesday of Thanksgiving week to post the rule, the White House was clearly aiming to minimize reporting and public awareness. In Orwellian fashion, Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh issued a statement declaring that "removing the prior administration’s restrictions on plan fiduciaries will help America’s workers and their families as they save for a secure retirement.” However, by its very nature, ESG reduces diversification by eliminating broad swaths of the investment universe. That means leaving money on the table. An ESG-managed 401k plan, for example, would have likely prevented employees from benefiting from the 79% year-to-date gain in Exxon Mobil. As if that weren't bad enough, the Biden ESG rule is also a handout to asset managers -- with the expense borne by employees who are just trying to save for a comfortable future. As Kenneth P. Pucker and Andrew King wrote in the Harvard Business Review in August: "ESG funds typically charge fees 40 percent higher than traditional funds, making them a timely answer to asset management margin compression." But there's more at stake than dollars and cents. This is just one more scheme by which society is being force-marched into the depths of the broad progressive agenda. While the pursuit of green energy is often used as an example of ESG principles, don't forget they also include pushing the diversity, equity and inclusion programs and mandatory "anti-racism" training sessions that stoke divisions rather than promote harmony. To appreciate how brazenly leftist the Biden administration's retirement plan move is, consider that the DOL's official introduction to the new rule justifies it by saying it's consistent with... "The policy of the Administration to listen to the science; improve public health and protect our environment; bolster resilience to the impacts of climate change; and prioritize both environmental justice and the creation of the well-paying union jobs necessary to deliver on these goals." It's one thing for a 401k to provide an ESG option for individual employees who want to invest their money that way -- hopefully after being cautioned that doing could put a dent in their nest egg. It's another thing altogether to let plan sponsors unilaterally impose ESG across the full spectrum of asset classes -- but here we go. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
RichieRich216 + 454 RK November 27, 2022 Tom: Good post, I, however, don't follow this green nonsense. 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
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