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Report: 1.5 Billion Face Masks Added To Plastic Ocean Hellscape

The masks will contribute an estimated 7,000 tons of plastic to the oceans and take 450 years to break down

Published

3 weeks ago

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Barcroft Media / Contributor / Getty Images

Approximately 1.5 billion face masks are expected to be dumped into the sea in just one year, according to an environmental group monitoring the level of pollution in the world’s oceans.

A report by OceansAsia concluded that the vast number of disposable masks will further contaminate the oceans with harmful plastic and damage vulnerable marine ecosystems.

“Single-use face masks are made from a variety of meltblown plastics and are difficult to recycle due to both composition and risk of contamination and infection,” OceansAsia’s report emphasises.

“These masks enter our oceans when they are littered or otherwise improperly discarded, when waste management systems are inadequate or non-existent, or when these systems become overwhelmed due to increased volumes of waste,” the report adds.

The report urges that evidence has already emerged of animals being killed by the masks.

Marine conservation organization, Instituto Argonauta reported that a penguin was found dead on a Brazilian beach in September with a mask tangled inside its stomach.

“The consequences of the large number of people who frequented the beaches of the North Coast of São Paulo on the extended holiday of September 7 may have cost the life of a Magellan penguin, whose cause of death is linked to a mask that was found inside his stomach,” the group reported.

The masks will contribute an estimated 7,000 tons of plastic to the oceans which are thought to already contain 5.25 trillion macro and micro pieces of plastic, and 46,000 larger pieces in every square mile of water.

The plastic in the oceans weighs up to 269,000 tonnes, and every day around 8 million pieces of plastic are added.

The figures reveal a massively horrendous environmental catastrophe on a global level.

OceansAsia estimates that the masks will take 450 years to break down completely.

“This plastic does not ‘go away,’ but rather accumulates, breaking up into smaller and smaller pieces. Annually, it is estimated that marine plastic pollution kills 100,000 marine mammals and turtles, over a million seabirds, and even greater numbers of fish, invertebrates, and other marine life,” the report urges.

“Plastic pollution also profoundly impacts coastal communities, fisheries, and economies. Conservative estimates suggest that it could cost the global economy $13 billion USD per year, and lead to a 1-5% decline in ecosystem services, at a value of between $500 to $2,500 billion USD,” the report concludes.

The report suggests that if masks must be worn, then reusable, washable cloth masks should be used.

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Orwellian Surveillance Hell Touted As ‘Future Of Tourism’

‘The new normal’

Published

5 days ago

on

14 January, 2021

Steve Watson

boonchai wedmakawand / Getty Images

A CNN report published Wednesday details how Venice, Italy has created a disturbing monolithic surveillance grid to track and trace everyone who enters and leaves the city, and claims that this could be the ‘future of tourism’ in a ‘post-COVID world.

The article begins:

They’re watching you, wherever you walk. They know exactly where you pause, when you slow down and speed up, and they count you in and out of the city. What’s more, they’re tracking your phone, so they can tell exactly how many people from your country or region are in which area, at which time. And they’re doing it in a bid to change tourism for the better. Welcome to Venice in a post-Covid world. 

The piece then explores how Venice has commandeered a huge warehouse and transformed it into a state of the art technological ‘control room’ to “track tourism” in the city.

The piece details how in the future the city limits could be controlled electronically, and visitors could be charged for access, but the most disturbing aspect is the fact that a Chi-com like surveillance mini state already exists in Venice.

Everything is being recorded at all times, and can be replayed, effectively giving officials a “time machine” that they can use to look back.

The report notes that “The system not only counts visitors in the vicinity of cameras posted around the city, but it also, in conjunction with TIM (Telecom Italia, Italy’s largest telecommunications provider), crunches who they are and where they come from.”

They know this by having access to cell phone data. Simple. But don’t worry because no ‘personal details’ can be accessed, the report claims.

Authorities know exactly which streets people are walking down, how fast they are moving, and whether they should be there or not, owing to COVID restrictions.

Venice’s creeping surveillance state started as a way of ‘protecting’ the city from damage and overcrowding. However, as the CNN piece clearly demonstrates, the architecture that already exists (and it exists across the globe) could easily be applied more aggressively with COVID justification.

Obviously, this is just the tip of the iceberg, in terms of the ‘new normal’ world.

With standardised and globally implemented vaccine passports being heavily touted as the future of travel, and other technology being developed at a rapid rate to allow the enforcement of social distancing and any other restrictions the powers that be require, it is not difficult to imagine where this is all heading.

As we highlighted back in October, Hitachi has developed similar technology, which includes cartoon fish swimming around inside the bubble. When the person violates social distancing, the fish escape.

The promo video brags that the technology “can even be deployed inside elevators” and Hitachi is “hoping to get the technology commercialized quickly.”

Given that numerous prominent people are insisting that social distancing and other coronavirus restrictions are here to say, it’s perfectly feasible to imagine a near future in which this technology is widely adopted.

China is already linking coronavirus rules to its onerous social credit score system, in addition to using AI to discipline its slave labor workforce, so the idea that people could be publicly shamed or punished for getting too close to others is a very real possibility.

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Cruz: Google Is The ‘Most Dangerous Company On The Face Of The Planet’

Describes big tech as the “single greatest threat” to “free and fair elections.”

Published

2 weeks ago

on

4 January, 2021

Steve Watson

Screenshot

Senator Ted Cruz has continued his campaign against the unregulated expansion of Big Tech by labelling Google ‘the most dangerous company’ on the planet.

Cruz made the comments to reporters Saturday at a campaign event for the Georgia Senate runoff.

“I think hands down Google is the most dangerous company on the face of the planet. Google is the most dangerous because it’s the biggest by far. It is the most powerful by far. It controls the vast majority of searches people do,” Cruz noted after describing big tech as the “single greatest threat” to “free and fair elections.” 

Cruz referred to the 2016 election where “Google, through manipulated search outcomes, shifted over 2.6 million votes in 2016 to the Democrats.”

Cruz noted that psychologist Dr. Robert Epstein, who testified before Cruz’s Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution “is not a Republican. He is a liberal Democrat who voted for Hillary Clinton but is outraged to see that kind of abuse of power. Google is clearly the most dangerous.”

Cruz added that while Google is the most dangerous, “Twitter is the most brazen.”

“We just recently had a hearing where Jack Dorsey testified with a beard that looked like he had crawled out from under a bridge,” Cruz noted.

During that hearing, Cruz asked Dorsey if he believes Twitter has the ability to influence election outcomes, to which Dorsey replied “no”… an answer Cruz described as “absurd.” 

“If you don’t think you have the power to influence elections, why do you block anything?” Cruz countered, forcing Dorsey to admit that “more accountability is needed.”

Cruz then asked Dorsey “Who the hell elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and what the American people are allowed to hear?”

Speaking Saturday, Cruz urged “Look, Twitter brazenly censored the New York Post when it ran stories about Hunter Biden and Joe Biden’s corruption concerning China, concerning Ukraine and Russia, and they just silenced it. Not only did they prevent you and I from circulating those stories, for two weeks, they banned the New York Post.”

Indeed, the company did more than that, they even blocked users from tweeting out the link to the Post story.

“The New York Post is not some fly-by-night organization. It is the newspaper with the fourth-highest circulation in the country. It was founded by Alexander freakin’ Hamilton,” Cruz urged.

Cruz added that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has “benefited because Twitter and Google are so rotten that even though Facebook’s pretty bad, just saying free speech is important makes him appear markedly better than his rivals, but all three are very serious concerns.”

The Senate voted last week to pass the National Defense Authorization Act without the repeal of Section 230 that President Trump had requested:

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Nothing To See Here, Just NYPD Deploying A Dystopian Robotic Dog

Machine was last seen enforcing social distancing in Singapore

Published

1 month ago

on

16 December, 2020

Steve Watson

Screenshot

The NYPD is set to deploy a 70 pound robotic dog made by Boston Dynamics that is capable of opening doors and moving objects out of its path.

In fact, the ‘dog’, called Digidog, has already been used to apprehend a suspect, according to a report by ABC 7 News.

“This dog is going to save lives, protect people, and protect officers and that’s our goal,” NYPD Technical Assistance Response Unit Inspector (TARU) Frank Digiacomo said.

“This robot is able to use its artificial intelligence to navigate things, very complex environments,” NYPD TARU’s Deepu John added.

Watch:

The robot dogs have been in development for years now, but we are starting to see them being embraced by law enforcement.

Indeed, this latest development will raise concerns that the machine could be used to enforce social distancing and mask wearing, as witnessed earlier this year in Singapore:

The same ‘SPOT’ dog was deployed last year by Massachusetts State Police in live action situations to provide troopers with images of suspicious devices or reveal where suspects were hiding.

Video of MA State Police testing the dogs shows one of the robots opening a door, mirroring footage released previously by Boston Dynamics.

Boston Dynamics routinely releases slick videos of the machines in action:

The AI on the dogs is open, so it can be customized, and the machines can be fitted with weapons. Along with the lease to law enforcement, that is enough for Kade Crockford, director of the technology for liberty program at the ACLU of Massachusetts to issue a warning.

“We just really don’t know enough about how the state police are using this,” Crockford said. “And the technology that can be used in concert with a robotic system like this is almost limitless in terms of what kinds of surveillance and potentially even weaponization operations may be allowed.”

“We really need some law and some regulation to establish a floor of protection to ensure that these systems can’t be misused or abused in the government’s hands,” Crockford said, adding “And no, a terms of service agreement is just insufficient.”

The robot dogs inspired an infamous episode of Black Mirror in 2017, where machines very similar looking to the SPOT, but more advanced, were depicted hunting down and killing people after the unexplained collapse of human society.

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