Be very aware that green-garbed high priests of a pseudo-religious behavioral control cult known as Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) are busily weaponizing digital banking and currency to impose unilateral limits upon our spending choices, the forms and amounts of energy we use, the types of cars we drive, and countless other aspects of our lives.
Unlike other lesser cults which represent social outlier group memberships, the Church of ESG shares communion and common agendas with leaders of enormously powerful and influential global and domestic institutions: The World Economic Forum, globalist financial asset managers, the largest international banking and insurance corporations, and yes, far-left elements of our federal government.
And don’t imagine for a moment that this is merely some far-off theoretical conspiracy hyperbole. The technical tools are already being beta-tested, mass marketing programs have begun, and legislative preparations for universal implementation are underway.
In short, we are witnessing a very slippery slope to a totalitarian system very similar to a Social Credit System instituted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that monitors, rewards and punishes people according to how closely their behavior conforms to government-regulated standards.
The CCP’s Social Credit scores are based upon each individual's financial credit assessment combined with the level of “Chengxin,” loosely translated as morality or integrity blacklists. These, in turn, are determined by government sanctions or rewards based upon expansive data-mined information including facial recognition surveillance.
Consequences of poor ratings include air travel, university application and employment opportunity restrictions among countless other punishments based upon whatever empowered oligarchs determine is "best for society."
Given its central importance as the lifeblood of society, climate alarm-premised energy regulation through digital credit and banking transaction monitoring affords a monstrously draconian ESG control mechanism.
As a case in point, a little over a year ago the Biden administration Labor Department proposed a new rule that will direct pension plan and asset managers to account for politically progressive ESG scores in determining 401(k) retirement plan decisions. Assessment considerations include impacts on workforce diversity, climate change and investments in sanctioned "green" energy projects.
Then, on March 9, President Biden issued an executive order (EO) instructing the federal government and Federal Reserve to lay the groundwork for a potential new U.S central bank digital currency (CBDC), arguably the greatest expansion of federal power over economic freedoms ever seriously contemplated.
The EO directed several agencies, including the Treasury Department, to study pros and cons of developing a digital dollar within 180 days and to work together with the Attorney General and Federal Reserve to produce a “legislative proposal” with their conclusions within about seven months.
It’s particularly important to understand that CBDC isn’t the same thing as simply switching from conventional physical currency to cryptocurrencies which operate on blockchain technologies which are designed to prevent any outside group – including governments – to monitor or control individual holdings and transactions.
Quite the opposite, digital dollars issued by the Fed, Treasury, or any other agency, will be traceable, and even potentially programmable to preferentially incentive or restrict transactional uses much like ESG scores applied to penalize fossil-fuel investments.
Biden’s EO explicitly states that CBDC and other policies governing digital assets must mitigate “climate change and pollution” and promote “financial inclusion and equity.”
The Boston Fed and MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative completed the first phase of a CBDC simulation dubbed “Project Hamilton” in February.
In November the Fed launched a digital dollar proof-of-concept pilot program through its New York Innovation Center (NYIC) along with “members of the private sector,” which it states will “explore the feasibility of an interoperable network of digital central bank liabilities and commercial bank digital money.”
As predicted by FICO, a data analytics consumer credit rating company, personal ESG energy scores may soon determine a person's ability to qualify for a credit card, bank or car loan, or home mortgage.
Information technology is providing invasive tools for oppressive digital dollar ESG behavior enforcement.
Swedish fintech company Doconomy, in partnership with Mastercard, has already developed a credit card that can track the carbon footprint of all your purchases, including food and travel, and cut off your spending when you hit a certain personal emissions limit.
The monitoring of personal behavior by banks took a frighteningly big foot forward when the credit union Vancity recently announced that its carbon counter attached to Visa credit cards will be “the first financial institution in Canada to offer its individual and business members a way to estimate the CO2 emissions that come from their purchases.”
Whereas such credit card technology was ostensibly developed to fight climate change, many legitimately worry that it’s a step toward intrusively tracking other user activities.
For example, Visa, Mastercard, and American Express announced in September that they would begin tracking purchases made at gun stores.
Allowing government and financial institutions to serve as social justice arbiters sets a precariously dangerous political weaponization precedent.
Consider how — at the direction of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — Canadian banks selectively froze personal accounts of trucking COVID vaccine mandate protesters and their crowdfunding sponsors, instantly cutting them off from their own money, savings, and income.
We can’t allow such tyrannical social control tools to be applied in America.
Larry Bell is an endowed professor of space architecture at the University of Houston where he founded the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture and the graduate space architecture program. His latest of 12 books is "Architectures Beyond Boxes and Boundaries: My Life By Design" (2022). Read Larry Bell's Reports — More Here.