WEF presses new tool to control: Fitness wearables that track pollutants

OPINION:

The World Economic Forum is trying to unite fitness with environmentalism by pushing for a redesign of personal wearables that measure data associated with aerobic activities to also start collecting information on air pollution, heat levels and even geographical locations of the user.

Call it a calorie counter gone mad.

Fitness trackers could soon enough become the new tool for government to track the wearer — and to collect the type of data radical environmentalists love to assemble as a means of advancing their next regulatory control and hysterical warning and government-imposed clamp on individual freedom.

Here’s what the WEF is putting out: “Wearables could soon measure environmental factors such as air pollution, heat and noise, which all strongly influence performance, recovery and health. Research links short-term air pollution exposure to reduced heart rate variability, increased atrial fibrillation risk and slower race times. Environmental exposure-aware platforms can empower individuals, improve equity, inform city planning and enable preventative healthcare at scale.”

In other words, runners of the world, unite! The global government wants to use your runs to measure where pollution is at its worst, so as to advise city planners and local governing officials how best to offset this pollution, so as to — and here’s the selling point — help individuals reach their best fitness levels and manage their own health. It’s for the good of the people, dontcha know.

Don’t be fooled.

This is not the next cool technological advance.

This is a sly, devious, deceptive way of the most regulatory happy branches of government to turn individuals into data collection entities. And that data will then be used to justify the development of rules and regulations and policies and controls related to the environment; related to cleaning the air and land and sea; related to lowering pollution, which is Green code for limiting or prohibiting any and all items that emit certain gases, including carbon dioxide.

Make way for the carbon offset scams.

Make way for the carbon taxes.

Make way for the prohibitively expensive clean energy mandates.

Make way for more Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez screaming about 12 years ’til global destruction, and more Greta Thunberg finger-shaking in the face of genuine scientists, and more controls, more controls, more controls on movements — except for the global elites, of course, who will continue to fly their private jets to climate conferences around the world to debate how best to keep the rest of the world from using airplanes.

The WEF is calling it “wearables’ data blind spot.” And it’s rapidly working to fill that spot.

“For example, Strava Metro aggregated anonymized movement data, which can help cities understand how and where people travel, giving planners and researchers the insights they need to influence urban design. World Athletics used Strava Metro data for its Running for Clean Air campaign … In Glasgow, Metro data helped researchers identify where investment could have the biggest impact for clean, safer cycling routes,” the WEF wrote.

Sounds helpful.

But wait.

“From personal wellness to public health — this is where it scales,” the WEF wrote.

This is where governments use the data to plan developments — to stop developments; to plan transportation routes — to stop transportation in its tracks; to focus politics and policies in a way that puts public health at the forefront of considerations — perhaps even more than individual freedoms.

Think Covid crackdowns, but circa 2026.

Public health is a consideration for public officials — certainly.

But it shouldn’t come at the expense of individual responsibility and individual liberty. And it should never, ever come by way of sneaky technological creations that are billed as “for the good of the people” life enhancements.